Married to a Perfect Stranger (23 page)

Mary started violently, whirled, and knocked the sketchbook to the floor.

John blinked at her from the doorway. She hadn't heard it open. “I woke, and you were gone. There's no need to lose sleep over this drawing, Mary.”

Was there not? “I couldn't sleep,” she said. He stepped closer. She bent and snatched up the sketchbook, flipping it closed.

“Do you want to show me what you have so far? Perhaps I'd recognize…”

“No!”

John frowned at the snap in her voice. “Very well.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean…” Her recent thoughts were too raw. She couldn't talk to him right now. “I need to work in my own way.”

John gave a brisk nod. “I didn't mean to interrupt.”

The coolness in his tone tore at her. “John.”

But he had turned away and disappeared into the darkness of the entry. She ought to go after him, Mary thought. She should say…something else. But she was so unsettled and so tired. Whatever she said just now would not be the right thing.

Mary lay in bed, exhausted, and listened to the small sounds from the bedchamber next door. John was preparing for a new day. He'd been asleep again when she finally returned to bed last night. She'd listened to him breathe and told herself she was overwrought and being foolish. This didn't help her sleep.

She heard him leave his room and go down the stairs. On another day, waking so early, she would have rushed to dress and join him for breakfast before he left the house. Now, she climbed out of bed slowly and dawdled. When she sat at the dressing table to brush out her hair, she observed the dark circles under her eyes. “You would not have them if you were a more sensible person,” she told her reflection. “And, no, talking to myself is not a sign of good sense.”

Mary waited until she was certain John was gone before descending. In the dining room she found cold toast and tepid tea. She had to go to the kitchen herself to renew them. Kate had almost stopped working at this point—though she still saw herself as quite magnanimous for staying on. Mary had decided that she wouldn't replace the maid until she was married and away. She didn't want any new servant to learn Kate's lax habits.

She ate her breakfast looking out the window over the square and thinking that she must go to her studio and try again to draw. It was a lowering reflection, like knowing that you had to have a tooth pulled. Which was alarming. She'd never felt that way about sitting at her easel before.

Leafless trees reached toward a ceiling of clouds that promised cold rain. Wind tossed the branches. It was not an appealing morning for walking, yet there were two people rounding the corner of the garden—a woman and a child. The woman's cloak billowed at a gust of air. She turned her head, and Mary recognized Caroline with…Arthur?

Mary rose and went to the window. It was indeed her neighbor's granddaughter and Mary's…guest from Somerset. It was hard to think of Arthur as a proper servant. Caroline gripped his arm above the elbow and seemed to be urging him along toward Eleanor's house. Puzzled, Mary went to her front door and flung it open. “Arthur?” she called over the rush of the wind.

The walkers started and turned. Arthur had a black eye.

“What has happened?” Mary shivered as the wind raced through the entryway. “Arthur, come here at once.”

They both came. Mary ushered them inside and shut the door behind them. “Have you been in a fight?” she demanded.

Arthur gazed at her, mouth open.

“Yes, a fight,” said Caroline.

Arthur turned startled eyes on her.

“I encountered Arthur on the street,” she continued. “And I thought I would just help him…”

“Conceal his misbehavior from me? With that eye?” Mary put hands on hips and frowned at him. “Who were you fighting?”

“It was…it was…” Arthur gulped. “Near the market. This…fella just…just punched me without a lick of warning. I didn't do anything. I swear!”

The last two words were so heartfelt that Mary couldn't doubt him. “But who…?”

“I didn't even hit back,” Arthur added. “I…came away.” He put a hand to his injured eye and winced. “Ow.”

“Did you see what happened?” Mary asked Caroline.

“No.” She looked down at Arthur. “You'll be all right.” When Arthur nodded, she turned to go. “Grandmamma will be wondering where I've gotten to.” She was through the door before Mary could even thank her.

“Come to the kitchen. We'll ask Kate for something to soothe that eye.”

“Aww, Cook will make a great fuss,” Arthur replied. “Can't I just go up…?”

“No.”

He was right about Mrs. Tanner. She fluttered about the kitchen and exclaimed as Kate unearthed a bottle of lotion from the ever-increasing store of concoctions she was accumulating. Arthur was not only slathered with it, he was dosed with a tonic that he pronounced utterly vile.

“Do be quiet,” replied Kate. “I know what's good for you.”

“Oh, I suppose you know just about everything?” he sneered.

“Everything I need to know about you, you little ruffian. Hold still!” Kate surveyed his face to make sure she had covered all of the bruise.

“No, you don't then. Think you're so clever…”

“Clever enough not to be fighting in the street!” Kate snapped.

“Girls don't fight!”

“Because we're clever!”

Bested and reeking with the lotion, Arthur turned tail and escaped to his room.

Mrs. Tanner wasn't far behind. After making her displeasure at the lack of help, and the necessity for her to walk to the greengrocer, perfectly clear, she went out with a basket on her arm.

Mary found herself lingering in the kitchen, watching Kate wash a small funnel and ready a tray of bottles. “You simply tell people how skillful you are,” Mary found herself saying.

Kate turned to stare at her. “Well, I am,” she replied with a mystified expression.

“Do you never have…doubts?”

Kate simply frowned at her.

“What if someone doesn't think you are?”

“Who?” Kate raised her chin, belligerent.

“I don't…what if you had a customer at the apothecary shop who said your concoctions weren't any good? And they told other people that they…”

“Which concoctions?” the other demanded.

“I don't know, Kate. Any of them. Hasn't anyone ever questioned your ability to create such things?”

The maid finally seemed to comprehend. “Oh. When I started out, a course. I wasn't but fifteen when the duchess let me begin to help in the stillroom.”

“So people did criticize you?”

Kate nodded. “Until I gave them samples, see? That shut them up pretty quick.” She went to test a cooling lotion with a wooden spoon.

“Was there no one who could not be convinced?” Mary asked.

Kate shrugged. “I can't be bothered by idiots,” she replied, as if this was the only possible attitude. “If you're staying, could you hold on to this funnel while I pour? It's liable to wobble. I've told Jer he must order a new set.”

Bemused, Mary stepped forward and steadied the funnel. Kate asked for what she wanted with none of the diffidence of a servant. She was crafting a life on her own terms. And Mary still couldn't figure out where her assurance came from.

The phrase “can't be bothered by idiots” stuck with Mary well after she'd left the kitchen. What would it be like, to see anyone who didn't appreciate one's skills as an idiot? She'd found her reluctant housemaid annoying—she still did sometimes. But now she wondered whether she couldn't learn from her. You didn't have to assume that harsh judgments were correct. Kate acted as if her abilities were worthy of praise, and people seemed to go along.

Mary thought of Lady Castlereagh's party—the memory of all those avid, sneering faces still made her shiver a bit. But what if she hadn't shrunk back before them? What if she'd reacted differently, full of confidence? Could she have changed what happened?

Mary frowned. Perhaps. There was no knowing; the past was past. And other people weren't exactly her problem now.

The fears of the night came back as she entered her studio. Why was it easy to see that they were ridiculous and still impossible to banish them? Mary opened her sketchbook and looked at the drawing of the cloak with the empty hood. She took up a pencil and forced herself to go on with a rough suggestion of the face she'd begun there. But each stroke she made on the page seemed more wrong. This wasn't the man.

She flipped quickly past last night's self-portrait to a fresh sheet. Her heart leaped when this seemed to help, and she started to draw. But the image that quickly emerged was John, asleep. His profile against the pillow, half-turned toward the viewer, looked younger than his waking face, softer and more vulnerable. Gazing at it, Mary had to smile. There was this John, and there was the one who had defended her to his brothers, and the one who had put out the kitchen fire so masterfully, and the one whose blue eyes went smoky with passion. He had turned out to be everything she wanted in a husband, more than she had dreamed.

As if in response to the thought, her pencil limned him in other poses—active and pensive and even impatient. Every one of the images brimmed with love.

But no matter how she urged and berated herself through the afternoon, she could not produce a decent image of the watcher in the square.

* * *

When John reached home that evening, he found Mary at her easel. Crumpled pages surrounded her on the floor, which was something he'd never seen before. When she turned at the sound of the door opening, she looked worn out and disturbingly dispirited. He thought she might even have been crying. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. I…”

“Mary, something is obviously wrong.” What could have happened to make her look so woeful? he wondered.

“I…” She hesitated, then words came out in a rush. “I don't know… I've tried and tried, but I can't draw that man who was following you. I'm so sorry.”

John stepped farther into the room. He could see now that the page on the easel contained the rough outline of a man, with no discernible features. “You're pushing too hard,” he suggested. “I know how that is. You should let it be for a while, then come back…”

“I did that and everything else I could think of. Nothing works.” She slumped dejectedly in her chair.

John hid disappointment, even as he realized that he'd started to count on the portrait to redeem his efforts in Limehouse.

“I'm so sorry,” Mary repeated. “I've let you down.” She started to cry.

John couldn't bear that. He hurried over to put an arm around her. “It's all right.”

“It
isn't
!” She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed.

This seemed an overreaction, but John knew better than to say so. He didn't know what else to say, however. Nothing he'd offered so far had reached her. He wanted that portrait, but he hated to see her this upset. So, he simply held her, waiting for the storm to pass.

There were open sketch pads scattered all over the long table under the windows, he noticed. It looked as if she'd been pawing through older work. As he patted Mary's shoulder soothingly, his eyes ran over the gallery of images set out before him.

There was Arthur to the life, squatting over a pile of pebbles. The boy looked as if he would raise his head at any moment and show a face full of mischief. There was Mary's Great-Aunt Lavinia Fleming, more formidable than she'd appeared when he met her. Beyond two portraits he didn't recognize was one of their cook and maid, pictured together. And by God, there was Fordyce, in all his sneering glory. She'd captured his sly malice and disgusting superiority. And she'd only seen the man once, briefly. Mary really was amazingly gifted, he thought.

Further along the table, his eye caught a picture of himself—gazing into the distance, a suggestion of the sea behind. He remembered her drawing that one on their honeymoon trip. He hadn't wanted to pose, but he'd indulged his new bride.

Staring at it now, he wondered, Who was this man? He looked…listless, ineffectual. It wasn't him. Or…it was, of course, and…not. This man needed to rouse himself; he needed shaking up. And so he had been, John thought. So he had been.

He smiled at the memory of just what a shaking he'd gotten in the Far East. It seemed an age ago now. The old John had scarcely known what hit him, at first. He examined the portrait again. Something in this outdated image made him truly appreciate how much, and how permanently, he'd changed. He'd shown it, even been praised for it, but somehow he hadn't fully felt it until now. He'd been offered the chance, and he'd accepted the challenge, and the change fit him like a perfectly tailored coat. Through her drawing, Mary had held that metaphorical garment out for him to slip into. Her artistry made it plain. “You are amazing,” he said. The words just slipped out.

“What?” Mary hiccuped. She raised her head and blinked red eyes at him.

John gestured at the array of images on the table. “Look at these. Look at how you've captured the essence of these people. It's astonishing.”

Mary turned her head toward the tabletop and blinked again.

John pointed. “When I look at this picture of me, I see so much about myself that I might never have noticed otherwise.”

“But I haven't been able to do the one drawing you really need.” It came out as a wail.

He gazed down at her. Her eyes were pools of darkness—anxious, uncertain. She'd worn herself out trying to do this for him. Had anyone ever cared so much, wanted so intensely to support his cause? John felt an odd sensation, as if his heart had turned over in his chest. No one had. Nor had he ever cared so much for another person. “Whether you draw the man you saw or not, all will be well. But never doubt that you have a true gift.”

Mary sniffed. “But his portrait was going to lead you to information in Limehouse. You thought it could be important to find him.”

He felt a pang of regret. He still thought so, and the loss of this possibility was a bitter pill to swallow. However, the chance wasn't worth making Mary so nervous and unhappy. With a resigned shrug, he let it go. “The truly important thing is that you stop worrying.” He took her hands. “As long as we love each other…”

“Do we?” she interrupted.

“What?”

“Love each other?”

Despite, or perhaps because of, the desperate way she clung to his hands, John felt something very like a laugh bubbling up in him. “Well, I can't speak for you, of course. For my part, very much indeed. It will be quite a blow, in fact, if I discover that you do not…”

“Oh, John, of course I love you! I thought… I was afraid…”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “Are you going to cry again?” He very much hoped she was not. She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder, so it seemed she was. He braced himself. But then she drew back and gazed up at him, radiant. John was delighted to see the change in her expression—from tense and woebegone to happy. He was equally glad to respond to her kiss. It was several delightful minutes before Mary pulled away. “Where are you going?” he asked.