A Prince for Aunt Hetty (11 page)

“Don't get paint on me!” came a shout that stirred his focus back to the room.

“Hey! Hey!” he protested, snatching a brush out of Agnes' hand. “Let's stop that.”

“I think it might be time for us to go home,” Hetty had also hurried over to the children. “It is getting late and we are all growing tired.”

“Are not,” the children grumbled, though anyone could see that they were.

“That might be a problem,” Rupert said apologetically.

“What?” Hetty asked in alarm.

“It's started to snow even harder,” he gestured toward the window. Hetty sighed. His heart shrank at the discouraging sound. She was not happy about staying.

“How about this?” Rupert decided to appeal to the children instead. He wanted to keep them all here, especially if there was a chance that he could have another moment alone with Hetty... “How about you all stay for dinner? And in the meantime we can make a special surprise for your Aunt Hetty.”

A chorus of enthusiastic assent met this suggestion. Rupert looked at Hetty, who gave him a tired smile and nod. He had her for another two hours, then. Good. It was something. Maybe in that time he could figure out how to talk to her about what had passed between them.

Chapter Eight

“
W
HAT AM
I
playing at?” Hetty muttered to herself. Her heart rate had finally returned to normal after whatever it was that had happened up in that room. She chose not to dwell on it. The children were upstairs doing something that sounded like moving furniture and she was here in the cozy parlor. Hetty did not particularly want to be alone with her thoughts at the moment. But in the absence of distraction, she couldn't stop them from turning back toward that painting.

If I'd only stayed out of that room...

But she could have sworn she'd heard the children in there. So she'd checked all the hiding places, thinking they were playing a joke on her. Then when she'd stood up, she'd seen it.

It was her own face looking back at her from one of the canvases. Her own face drawn in pencil and half covered in paint. She was fascinated and appalled at the same time.

And then Rupert had discovered her gawking at the portrait. Mr. Henderson. Thinking of him in formal terms now helped her keep her distance. Using his Christian name seemed all too intimate. Hetty's skin prickled with awareness again, even though Mr. Henderson was nowhere near her.

I wanted to kiss him. She blushed at the silly thought.
At my age? As a confirmed spinster?
Hetty scoffed at herself in the same way that her friends might scoff at her. She was past her prime. An old maid that had long-ago passed her chance for love and marriage. What did she want with kissing?

But something inside of her rose to her own defense.
No. I am still a vital woman. Why shouldn't a man feel attracted to me? Even if it was only the proximity and intimacy of that room that provoked it. Even if it was just a moment in time and we return to the same friendliness we've had for a week now.

Her thoughts spun again. But if it was only that they were close together in that room, how to explain the painting? How to explain that he had clearly thought more of her that just that moment in that room?

For what felt like an hour, Hetty sat there, the same jumble of thoughts turning over and over in her mind. She couldn't get anywhere in her thinking. And it all came back to the portrait.

Is that how he sees me?
She thought about the delicate contours and the careful attention to all the lines and creases on her face. Most mornings she looked in the mirror and sighed. She wasn't a young woman any longer. Seeing that painting, though... the wrinkles and lines were there, but they didn't look the same as what she saw in the mirror. In the painting they suited her as delicate and graceful features of her face. They made her look like she was smiling without smiling.

I've never had an artist paint me before.
There was a kind of flattery in being a person someone wanted to paint, to spend time on and linger over.
But he didn't ask my permission. What did he think he was doing without my consent?
Her dander rose at the thought. She could demand that he stop, demand that he destroy the work. But what would that do?

And who was Rupert Henderson, after all? She'd gotten a vague impression from Agatha and Jonathan that he was a business man in London who had decided to come to the country for his retirement. But artistic talent like he had didn't just grow overnight. His was not the kind of talent nurtured by a few quiet months in the country after a life of business.

What she had seen in that room was life-long talent that had been cultivated as more than just a hobby. But if he'd been in London, why hadn't she heard of him? It was very hard to keep anything under wraps there. Society matrons were constantly dragging even the most minutely talented artists and singers into the light, eager to say they had “discovered” someone of great note.

And she'd almost kissed him.

After so many years of inattention from the opposite sex, Hetty barely remembered what that
frisson
of awareness felt like when someone looked at you and really saw you. She'd forgotten what it felt like to sense that someone was interested in more than just smiling politely at you or asking you to introduce them to someone else. She'd forgotten what chaos it caused the nerves. But now she remembered and she couldn't say that she liked it very well. As a thoughtful woman, Hetty didn't enjoy the way her heart had swelled in her chest and her lungs had refused to hold air when he had looked at her. It had only been a moment within a moment, but it now consumed her thoughts.

Hetty paced the room. She was flustered, frustrated and all the other words that meant she couldn't settle down to any task.

Just as she was about to go walkabout in the hallway, though, Vincent came bursting into the parlor and grinned at her.

He was out of breath from his excitement. “Aunt Hetty! We're ready for you!”

“Thank goodness!” she exclaimed and followed the boy out of the room. In the hallway he took her hand, pulling her along. “So what is it that you have prepared for me?” Hetty asked.

“Uh-uh,” Vincent shook his head. “I'm not supposed to say. I promised.” He looked up at her apologetically.

“Oh, that's all right with me. I guess I shall just have to be extra surprised by whatever it is that you are about to do.”

They only marched a few doors down the hallway to what looked like a replica of where she'd just been. The end of the room had been covered with curtains. It was dark with only the fire and some candles for light. Hetty heard giggles and lots of movement behind the makeshift stage. One of the big chairs in the room had been pulled up before the curtain and Vincent led her over to it.

“Sit here, please, auntie.”

“Gladly,” Hetty settled into the overstuffed chair.

Vincent ran behind the curtain. She heard him whisper loudly to his sisters and brother, “Shh! She's here!” Then he emerged again, this time from a split in the middle of the curtain.

He drew himself up to his full height and announced, “Ladies and gentlemens, we present to you a th-the --” he was clearly having trouble with whatever word he was supposed to speak. One of the girls popped her head out from the curtain and whispered something to him.

“Ladies and gentlemens,” he started again, “we present to you a... a... the-at-ri-cal about the prince and princess.” He bowed low to her and Hetty clapped vigorously. Vincent gave her a brilliant smile and turned to push the curtains open.

There was Agnes in a ragged cap scraping a broom across the rug. She sighed loudly and said, “Oh my. All I ever do is clean and cook and carry water for my ugly sisters and my horrible mother. I wish I could be a princess someday.”

And so the story went. Margaret and Harriet played the ugly sisters while Vanessa played the mother. She made excellent work of bossing everyone around and being mean. All of the sisters were having fun, it seemed, from the giggles they could not suppress whenever they looked at each other. Eventually Vincent appeared as the prince, and the story played out in the familiar way.

Until the dragon appeared. Then all of the children went mad and the theatrical changed into something else entirely. From a normal fairy tale about the love of a prince and princess, it became an all-out quest to stop the dragon that, as the children managed to inform Hetty between attacks on it, had been killing all the people in the town. So princes and princesses and ugly sisters and horrible mother all teamed up to write a tale she'd never heard before.

Hetty laughed until she cried as any semblance of a plot went out the window and their “theatrical” became a free-for-all wrestling match against Mr. Henderson, who was bedecked in green face spots and coat and growling around the stage.

Eventually they wrestled the dragon to the floor and pronounced him dead. The children finished their play with a dance around the “dead dragon” and a song they were clearly making up on the spot. Then they all lined up carefully for a bow. All except the dragon, who remained dutifully dead on the floor.

Hetty applauded wildly as the children beamed in delight. They crowded around her, asking if she had liked it and if she had noticed this or that little thing. She gave enthusiastic answers to all of their questions and complimented each child on the excellent performance.

“Children, why don't you run down to the kitchen and see what cook has prepared for our dinner?” Mr. Henderson was sitting up now and smiling at their exuberance. Still twittering away to each other, they skipped out of the room, completely forgetting the grown-ups.

“Miss Masters.” The dragon rose from the floor and stood watching her.

“Mr. Henderson?” Hetty thought a frank and steady gaze would help her through whatever conversation they were about to have. Certainly she should not play the part of a shy girl who'd never spoken to a man before.

Their eyes met but it was a moment before he spoke. “Miss Masters, I... I could see that you were startled by what you saw in my studio.”

“I was.”

“I must apologize.”

“Oh?”

“I imagine that it must be disconcerting to see your face in a painting for which you have not given your permission.”

Hetty stared at him, trying to keep the surprise out of her face. Had he been reading her thoughts? It was a new sensation for her to be faced with someone so willing to own up to his errors.

“I should have asked you, I admit. But I also never meant for anyone to see that. At least not in that particular form.”

“Then what is it for?” Hetty questioned.

Mr. Henderson dropped his eyes to the carpet, visibly uncomfortable. But then he sighed and stood up straighter. He looked her in the eye again and said, “The truth is that you intrigue me.” He paused. “From that first day on the roadway until this very moment, I haven't stopped thinking about you.” He shuffled his feet and looked down. “But we have only known each other a short time and I didn't quite know... know how to ask. And... the drawing... it just kind of happened one day. I... I didn't plan it, but that's what came out on the paper when I started. So I went with it. I never intended anyone to see it.”

Hetty could not say anything. His speech crashed around in her head, trying to sort itself out.
I'm fascinating? And he couldn't help himself? He just had to paint me?

He continued. “I will... of course... destroy it if you wish.”

“No!” Hetty spoke loudly. She realized her volume and scaled it back. “No, that won't be necessary, Mr. Henderson.”

He nodded but didn't speak.

She paused. “I will admit that I have spent the past hour puzzling over you and over the painting. I admit to having very mixed feelings about it, but I cannot let you destroy your work.”

“It's no matter. I will make others.” He shrugged.

“But no, I cannot ask you to destroy it...” Hetty paused. “You are very talented.”

“Thank you.”

They fell into silence again, interrupted shortly by a yell from down the hallway.

Mr. Henderson's mouth quirked into a wry smile. “It's a good thing they are lovely children, huh?”

Hetty returned his expression and then rose to go.

“Miss Masters?” his voice stopped her and she turned back towards him. “I mean every word of what I've said. I hope you will consider giving me permission to continue.”

“I will think about it,” Hetty replied. “But I hope you will not destroy it.”

“I won't.”

“Well, then...” Hetty turned and, with halting steps, left the room.

They ate a hearty and pleasant meal before climbing into Rupert's carriage to go home. As the children settled themselves, Rupert took her hand to help her up.

Their eyes connected.

“Thank you,” he said and lightly squeezed her hand before letting it go. “Children,” he turned his attention to the tired little bodies inside the carriage, “I shall see you tomorrow.”