Chapter 3
The Cost of Scandal
Clara fidgeted, watching as Eustacia Foxworthy stood motionless, with a little frown between her dark eyebrows, regarding the portrait she had spent months painting. Benny, who was sleeping in Clara’s lap, lifted his head, grumbled, and settled himself back to sleep.
“Well?” Clara hated the slightly plaintive note to the demand, but her nerves were all on end.
Eustacia had promised her at each of the last four sittings that the portrait was complete and she could see it, only to change her mind.
Today, she had reached for her brush—and Clara had fully expected another evasion—only to put it down again.
Why Eustacia had been so keen to paint her, of all people, Clara did not know.
The town thronged with beautiful women, especially with the grand ball which had been held last night.
Eustacia could have chosen someone whose portrait would draw gasps of admiration from the world, instead of plain old Clara Halfpenny.
Eustacia took a step back, folded her arms, and regarded the portrait once more, her expression critical.
Oh, she hated it.
Clara wanted to weep. It wasn’t as if she’d expected to be depicted as a goddess, or to discover she was really a beauty, and it had just taken Eustacia’s skill to bring it out.
But she had hoped Eustacia would be pleased with it, and that it would look like her.
Perhaps it would even show Clara herself, if not the world, that there was something in her worth recording for posterity.
Certainly, there was no one else in the world who thought so.
Her aunt found her useful, but she doubted the woman would care if Clara disappeared and someone equally biddable took her place. Perhaps she wouldn’t even notice.
“It’s a masterpiece.”
Clara blinked, torn from her brown study by the words. Her eyes flew to Eustacia to find the woman grinning, her beautiful face alight with triumph.
“W-What?”
“A masterpiece, a triumph! Good God, Clara, I knew… I just knew that you and I would do something marvellous. It was all there in that splendid face of yours.”
“Spl-Splendid?” Clara repeated doubtfully.
Eustacia nodded, striding up and down, her excitement palpable.
“I’ll apply for the Summer Exhibition, but that will be next year, months and months off, and they are all such stuffy old men, I doubt they’ll understand the brilliance of it.
But I shall show it before that. It will make my name, and yours, Clara. We’ll be famous, you’ll see.”
“Famous,” Clara repeated the word, uncertain she liked the way it tasted.
Eustacia nodded, too worked up to notice Clara’s uncertainty.
“I’ll show it to the Venturesome Ladies first. That’s a friendly enough audience to gauge opinion, but the dowager duchess has a keen eye.
She knows quality when she sees it. If she’s half as canny as I believe her to be, she’ll want to sponsor me or at least open a door or two. ”
Eustacia strode back to the painting once more, gazing at it and then giving a little yip of triumph.
Though tempted to flee and never return, Clara steeled her nerves. “M-Might I see it?”
Eustacia threw up her hands. “Oh, my goodness. Clara! Hark at me wittering on, and this is as much your triumph as it is mine. Come,” she said, holding out her hand. “Come and see.”
Benny huffed with annoyance but jumped down from Clara’s lap as she stood, brushing off her skirts before she went to Eustacia. She kept her eyes on her friend, their fingers curling together as Eustacia smiled at her. “Ready?”
Clara nodded, and Eustacia turned her around.
The woman in the portrait stared back.
Clara’s breath caught.
She couldn’t think, could not react, let alone speak.
That’s me.
No. It can’t be. Is… Is that how people see me? Is that how Eustacia sees me?
The woman in the portrait was plain, her dress worn, its cuffs slightly frayed.
She was alone in the world, but for the little dog in her lap, upon whose head her hand rested with such affection, and who stared up at her adoringly.
There was something in her gaze, in the way she met the viewer’s eye.
Defiance. Strength. Yearning.
A lump thickened Clara’s throat, tears burning in her eyes. The woman in the portrait had survived disappointments, she had endured, and yes, she was a little uncertain of herself, her place in the world—her posture showed that much—but she was going to claim that place anyway. She still had hope.
“Clara?”
Clara’s hand went to her mouth, too late to smother the sob that rose there. It was too much, too much to take in. She ran for the door, tugged it open, and fled.
For a moment, Eustacia stood motionless, too shocked to react.
She looked back at her beautiful painting, the masterpiece she had slaved over all year, and knew that if Clara hated it, no one but her would ever see it.
The portrait was everything she had said it was, and it would make her name, but nothing was worth hurting Clara.
Picking up her skirts, she ran for the door.
She paused on the threshold. Benny had run after his mistress, and she could hear his agitated barking. Eustacia followed it, running as fast as she dared, slipping on loose gravel as the steep hill wound sharply down towards the town.
“Clara! Clara!” she called, her heart thudding anxiously.
There was a pained cry ahead of her and Eustacia exclaimed with fright, terrified in case Clara had come to harm. She ran on, finding Benny barking and barking beside Clara, who was sitting on the grass verge, her head pressed to her knees.
“Clara! Oh, my dear. Oh, I’m so… so very sorry.
Are you hurt? Good Lord, but I’m such a wretched, selfish creature, I never thought—no one will ever see the painting, Clara.
If you hate it that much, I-I shall put it away and n-never—” Eustacia’s throat hurt with the pain of her promise, for it truly broke her heart, but better hers than Clara’s.
She had been such a frightened little thing when Eustacia had first met her, but little by little her confidence was growing.
It was that Eustacia had been so proud of capturing, and so much more, but Clara was weeping and—
“P-Put it away?”
Eustacia hesitated at Clara’s words. Her dark lashes were spangled with tears, her cheeks blotchy, but she was gazing at Eustacia in horror.
“Yes, if that’s what you want?”
Clara blinked and then gave a sniff. “Why on earth would I want that?”
Eustacia sat back on her heels. “You ran away. You were weeping,” she said accusingly.
A flood of colour turned Clara’s already blotchy complexion the colour of a lobster. “I was… overwhelmed,” she said tautly.
Eustacia regarded her, hardly daring to hope. “Overwhelmed?”
That seemed like a good word, positive even.
Clara nodded, she reached out and soothed Benny, who quieted and sat down beside her. Taking a deep breath, she looked up and met Eustacia’s eyes. “How did you know?”
“Know what?” Eustacia asked.
Clara gave a short laugh and shrugged. “Everything.”
Eustacia sat down beside her on the grass and looked out at the sea, at the view that had drawn her to Seagull Heights. “I just painted what I saw, Clara. I just painted you as I saw you. The rest is all you, I had very little to do with it.”
They sat in silence for a long moment.
“So, you don’t hate it, then?” Eustacia asked slowly.
Clara did not answer at first. When she did, her words were hesitant. “N-No, but it… it’s so exposing. It makes me feel like, oh, I don’t know, like I’m parading about town in my shift.”
Eustacia’s eyes widened and Clara laughed. “Very well, not quite that bad, but… but you see me, all of me, and that’s… that’s rather terrifying.”
Eustacia nodded, dejection flooding her once more. She had known at once that there was far more to Clara than perhaps even Clara knew, but she was shy and modest at heart. If she did not wish to be exposed to the world, Eustacia would not be the one to force her.
“I understand.”
Clara glanced sharply at her. “You must show it.”
“What?” Eustacia’s heart gave a little leap as Clara grinned at her.
“I’m going to be horribly anxious, and I may cry more than once, but you are right, Eustacia.
It’s a masterpiece. It will make your name, and you must not hide it from the world.
The woman you painted looked brave, she looked as if she could survive just about anything.
I wish, more than anything, to live up to this image of myself. ”
Eustacia reached out and took her hand, squeezing her fingers tightly. “Oh, love. It is you. It’s already you.”
Clara nodded and squeezed back. “Yes. Yes, I think perhaps it is.”
The Duke of Hawkney reached down and patted Sultan’s glossy black neck.
He was hot and rather sweaty after taking Sultan for a long, bruising ride.
The big stallion needed working hard, however, or he got restless.
Hawkney rather understood how he felt. He was out of sorts himself, but he didn’t know why.
Guilt, probably—the knowledge that he had once again shirked his duty and not announced his betrothal.
He ought to be marrying this autumn. He ought to be setting up his nursery, and he didn’t understand why the idea made him so bloody wretched.
No, not wretched precisely. It made it want to jump on the nearest packet boat and run far, far away. Damned coward.
“Easy there,” he said, tightening the reins a little as Sultan picked his way down the hill.
It was remarkably steep, but worth it for the splendid views over the sea and the town.
He could see his grandmother’s house from here.
Hatherley Hall looked elegantly time worn.
It was the closest thing he had ever known to a home, and he smiled, experiencing a flood of warmth towards it and his grandmother, dreadful creature that she was.
They were perhaps a quarter of the way down the hill when Sultan’s head came up and he stood stock still, refusing to take another step.