Chapter 14 #2
Feeling self-conscious, Sophie walked up one flight of stairs.
First, she strolled through the gallery, her heels clicking and echoing down the long room.
She ran a hand over the hobbyhorse. Studied the old family portraits.
And stood at the window overlooking the gardens and beyond, Miss Blake’s home, Windmere, which she could see quite clearly from there.
She glimpsed Captain Overtree talking to a man in brown coat and flat cap beside a low stone wall.
A female in green cloak and bonnet came by—Miss Blake, she guessed, though she could not make out her features.
The man in brown tipped his hat and returned to his work on the wall, but the woman remained to talk with Stephen.
Sophie wondered what the two had to talk about, and reminded herself they were childhood friends.
Gathering her courage, Sophie walked out into the corridor and paused at the door to Wesley’s studio.
Venturing in there would be easier to explain than being found in his bedchamber, she decided, though she was curious to see that as well.
Listening for anyone nearby and hearing no one, Sophie inched open the door and slipped inside, closing it quietly behind her.
For a moment she simply took it all in. Dust motes floated in shafts of sunlight from tall windows. A shrouded easel. Jumbled supplies, scattered papers and rags. The faint smell of paint and turpentine.
Then she saw a crate in the corner.
Heart thumping, she crossed to it on tiptoe, not sure whose room was below this one and not wanting to announce her presence.
She scanned the direction and recognized Maurice’s handwriting.
Here, after all, were the paintings she and the captain had packed away.
Then what was in the crate she had seen Stephen and Edgar carrying up to the attic?
She bent to look closer and noticed with relief that this crate was still nailed shut. She assumed—hoped—Wesley’s parents wouldn’t open it without him present.
Sophie moved on and fingered through his brushes, remembering the long, capable fingers that had held them.
Held her . . . Then she looked through the canvases propped against the walls.
She recognized several Lynmouth landscapes—the harbor, the Valley of Rocks, the village itself.
But nothing of her. She was relieved, yet still wondered what became of that large portrait.
She stepped to the easel to assure herself the canvas it held was not the one of her.
She lifted the cloth and recognized the painting with a little jolt, though she was not its subject.
Now she understood why the hall in this house had seemed familiar when she first arrived.
She had seen this colorful scene before, during Wesley’s first winter in Lynmouth. . . .
One day Sophie had stopped by the hillside cottage, bringing Mr. Overtree a batch of almond biscuits.
While he painted, she looked through the canvases propped against the wall, stopping to admire his painting of a masquerade ball—masked and costumed figures milling and dancing by the glow of a hundred candles.
“This is unusual for you,” Sophie observed. “So many people. You usually paint single subjects.”
“True. But it’s an image I’ve wanted to re-create for years.”
“I have never attended a masquerade ball,” Sophie confessed, moving on to the next canvas.
“Nor have I,” he said.
Sophie turned to him in surprise. “But . . . how did you paint this, then? You told me you prefer realism to mere fancy.”
“Right again. I have never attended a masquerade, but I did witness one. When I was a boy, my parents hosted a ball at Overtree Hall. I was supposed to be in bed. Instead, I sneaked behind the musicians’ gallery and looked down into the great hall from the squint there.
Our old nurse caught me and whacked my backside.
There went my biscuits for a week.” He popped one of her biscuits into his mouth with a grin.
Sophie chuckled to imagine the mischievous boy he had been, then looked at the painting again. “It was worth it, I assure you. Though how challenging this must have been. All these figures . . .”
“Yes, though at least most of the faces were covered in masks, so I didn’t have to paint every pair of eyes.”
“The hardest part, according to my father.”
His gaze shifted from the canvas before him to her face. “Your eyes are definitely challenging. Comprised of a dozen shades of blue, as well as green and grey and yellow. And don’t get me started on your gorgeous hair!”
She bit back a smile and felt her face heat.
He studied her closely. “Nor can I adequately capture the elegant turn of your head, the long curve of your neck, or the sweet blush that blooms on those high cheekbones of yours whenever I tell you how beautiful you are. . . . Ah, you see? There it is again.”
Sophie returned to the present, remembering with a little ache what it felt like to be admired. To be in love. Then she stepped to the open, adjoining door and looked into Wesley’s bedchamber—masculine and tidy, under the housemaids’ care in his absence.
No portrait of her hung on his wall. No miniature on his side table. She considered going in to look closer but remained in the threshold. She didn’t want to cross the line into his bedchamber. She knew from experience the trouble that could cause.
She looked back over her shoulder at the disorderly supplies and scattered papers.
The studio was clearly off limits to the housemaids.
Crossing the cluttered room again, she idly bent to pick up a crumbled wad of paper in the corner—probably tossed at the hearth but had missed its mark.
Hoping it wasn’t a discarded sketch of her, she flattened it, and instead found a cryptic note.
We have to talk.—J.B.
Who was J.B.?
Behind her the door creaked open, and Sophie whirled in alarm. There stood Mrs. Overtree.
“Oh!” Sophie pressed a hand to her chest. “You startled me.”
Her mother-in-law’s eyes widened to see her there, then abruptly narrowed. “Sophie . . . ? I thought I heard someone skulking about in here. My boudoir is directly below this room.”
Sophie winced. Of course it is.
“I thought one of the housemaids was trespassing.”
“No. Just me. I was . . . only curious. Don’t worry, I haven’t touched anything.” She guiltily curled her fingers around the wadded paper.
Mrs. Overtree’s gaze swept the room, hesitating on the crate in the corner. Sophie’s pulse quickened. Did Mrs. Overtree know about the crate? Would she suggest opening it then and there?
Sophie swallowed and walked toward the door, hoping her swaying skirts blocked the woman’s view of the crate. “Your son is really quite talented, but I shouldn’t have intruded. I suppose he would not like . . . anyone . . . looking at his work without him?”
“Quite right. This room is off limits.”
“To the housemaids, or to family as well?” Sophie didn’t like having to remind the woman she was a relative now, but neither did she like being lumped in with the staff.
Mrs. Overtree glanced around the studio once more, then backed from the doorway. “Well, I don’t think he likes anyone in here. He’s very particular.” She held the door open. “After you.”
Sophie complied and forced a smile, hoping to chase away the suspicion lingering in the woman’s eyes.