Chapter 5 #2
When Algernon concluded, warm applause echoed throughout the gallery.
As he stepped down, Augusta reached quietly for his hand.
Her fingers closed around his.
Algernon acknowledged the gesture with the slightest turn of his head, yet his own hand remained perfectly still at his side.
It was such a small thing that William doubted anyone else noticed.
He almost dismissed it himself.
The applause gradually dissolved into conversation as guests dispersed through the adjoining galleries. Some lingered near the historical canvases, while others drifted toward portraits or landscapes, the steady murmur of admiration and polite debate filling the rooms once more.
William caught Rosalind's eye across the gallery.
Without speaking, he inclined his head toward one of the smaller exhibition rooms branching from the main hall. It was quieter there, its walls devoted almost entirely to landscapes that attracted fewer admirers than the grand historical pieces.
For a moment she merely regarded him.
Then, with the slightest inclination of her own head, she understood.
She murmured something to Lady Eastmere before crossing the gallery with Isabella at her side.
William deliberately slowed his pace, allowing Gabriel and Isabella to reach the first landscape ahead of them.
“I always envied painters,” Gabriel remarked, studying the broad sweep of hills and sky before him. “When I was younger, I thought I should like to become one.”
Isabella smiled. “I should never wish to be painted.”
Gabriel glanced at her with quiet curiosity. “No?”
“No.” She folded her hands loosely before her. “I would far rather be the one holding the brush.”
His brows lifted. “You paint?”
“I do.”
“I confess that surprises me.”
“That,” Isabella replied with a smile, “is because gentlemen generally imagine women make better subjects than artists.”
Rather than laughing, Gabriel considered the remark with unexpected sincerity. “I suspect there is some truth in that.”
His attention returned to the painting. “There is something strangely familiar about this one.”
Isabella studied the landscape for a moment before nodding. “There is.”
“I cannot decide whether I have seen it before.”
“Perhaps you have.” A teasing smile touched her lips. “Or perhaps landscapes simply have the advantage of being allowed to differ from one another.”
Gabriel looked at her. “Unlike portraits?”
“Unlike women in portraits.” She gestured lightly toward the adjoining gallery. “Walk into the next room and you'll find ladies arranged in precisely the same graceful poses, wearing precisely the same serene expression, painted by gentlemen who seem convinced we all think and feel alike.”
Gabriel followed her glance toward the portrait gallery before looking back at the landscape.
After a thoughtful silence, he nodded. “I believe you are right.”
She looked at him, pleasantly surprised by how readily he accepted the criticism.
“I've looked at paintings all my life,” he admitted. “Somehow I never noticed.”
“Most gentlemen do not.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I imagine I shall notice now.”
Their conversation carried them naturally toward the next painting, Gabriel listening with genuine interest as Isabella began pointing out details William suspected he would never have observed on his own.
William watched them disappear farther into the gallery before turning toward Rosalind, who had stopped before a solitary landscape hanging in the quietest corner of the room.
He lingered where he was, watching Rosalind rather than the landscape before her.
She stood perfectly still, her gaze fixed upon the lonely stretch of countryside captured in oil.
Rolling green hills disappeared toward a distant horizon beneath a broad afternoon sky washed in pale gold and soft peach, while a narrow footpath wound through the grass with no village or road in sight.
There was very little happening upon the canvas.
And yet she looked almost peaceful.
It was the first time since Lord Eastmere's disappearance that William had seen anything resembling calm settle across her features.
He stepped quietly to her side. “I am surprised my brother agreed to lend this one.”
Rosalind glanced toward him before looking back at the painting. “Why?”
“Because it is my mother’s favorite.” His gaze followed hers across the bright sweep of countryside. “She likes to keep it in her morning room whenever the collection returns to Aldermere. I never expected Algernon to part with it, even for a few weeks.”
“Yet he does.”
William smiled faintly. “He insists she enjoys knowing other people may admire it as well. I have never entirely understood what she sees in it.”
“I think I do.”
He studied the landscape again. He had always thought it pleasant enough, certainly, but somewhat empty. A solitary figure walked the distant path beneath an enormous summer sky, with nothing waiting ahead that William could see.
“It seems rather lonely.”
“Only if you believe the traveler is lonely.”
William looked at her.
“There are no houses,” she said softly, her eyes never leaving the canvas. “No village waiting for him. No one expecting him to arrive at a particular hour or become a particular sort of person.”
A thoughtful smile touched her lips.
“He could be anyone.”
William followed the winding path toward the horizon. He had stood before this painting more times than he could count and had never once considered that possibility.
“I imagine it would feel,” she said, pausing as she searched for the words, “free.”
“Free?”
“To arrive somewhere no one knows your name.” Her voice grew quieter. “No expectations. No whispers. No history following wherever you go.”
She gave a small shake of her head as her gaze lifted toward the peach-colored sky.
“An unspeakable freedom.”
The words lingered between them, and for the first time William understood exactly why his mother loved the painting.
He turned his attention from the canvas to Rosalind. “I owe you an apology.”
She looked at him, clearly caught off guard. “For what?”
“For whatever I did that convinced you I could willingly play any part in harming your father.”
The quiet ease that had settled over her disappeared almost instantly. “I never said willingly.”
“No.” He met her gaze steadily. “But you believed I knew more than I admitted.”
“You were the last person seen with him.”
“I was.”
“And now he is gone.”
William inclined his head. “Yes.”
“I cannot simply ignore that.”
“I would never ask you to.”
She folded her hands loosely before her. “Then what are you asking?”
He was silent for so long that he almost convinced himself not to answer.
When he finally spoke, the words surprised him as much as they did her.
“I am asking you to remember me.”
Her eyes lifted to his.
“You knew me before any of this mattered,” he said quietly. “Before titles. Before society. Before either of us cared what people expected of us. Do you truly believe I would stand by while harm came to your family?”
She searched his face, and for one impossible heartbeat he thought she might say no.
Instead, she lowered her gaze. “People can change, William.”
Hearing his Christian name on her lips after so many years should not have affected him as it did.
“They can.”
“My father was seen with you.”
“He was.”
“And now he is gone.”
The distance between them quietly returned, as tangible as it had ever been.
William rested his fingertips against the edge of the frame.
Rosalind did the same a moment later.
Their hands met between carved leaves and worn gold.
Neither moved, and for the briefest instant they simply looked at one another, the years between childhood and now seeming strangely uncertain.
Then Rosalind stepped back, breaking the spell.
William lowered his hand, forcing himself to look once more at the painting instead of at her.
“There is something else I discovered today.”
She looked at him immediately. “What is it?”
“It concerns your father. I think—”
“Well.”
The single word cut neatly between them.
Sophronia appeared at William's elbow, smiling with effortless grace.
“Lady Rosalind,” she said warmly. “I do hope you will forgive me for interrupting.”
Her gaze shifted to William.
“I could not help thinking Lady Rosalind has endured quite enough gossip for one Season. I should hate for anyone to misunderstand such a prolonged conversation.”
She smiled as though she had offered Rosalind the greatest kindness imaginable.
“Lord William, might I borrow you for a moment?”
William met Sophronia's expectant smile before looking once more toward Rosalind.
He could not shake the uncomfortable suspicion that the interruption had been anything but accidental.