The Painted Lady (14 page)

“You haven’t withered, ma’am,” Kasey gallantly replied. “You are radiant indeed.”

Catherine was wearing a lemon-colored gown with coquelicot and azure blue stripes, topped by a fur-lined mantel. Her bonnet sported an ostrich plume that had been dyed yellow to match the gown, and a striped reticule dangled from her wrist. Passing gentlemen—and local farmers and shopkeepers, too—tipped their hats and smiled at her as they passed. Lilyanne could not help but feel a twinge of jealousy, ruing her own drab outfit, until she recalled Lady Edgecombe’s dreadful husband and dire circumstances. Lilyanne could leave Bannister Hall; Catherine could not. Besides, it was Lilyanne who had the most elegant escort at the fair.

“Come on, then, Lil,” Lady Edgecombe was urging. “There’s a woman down this row with a wagonload of straw bonnets. Cottage fare, of course, but cheap. All the milkmaids and serving girls are buying them up. You have to have one.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. I did not bring any money, anyway.”

“But I did. I got your nipcheese uncle to spare me a bit more than pin money. It’s my own blunt, after all,” she added for the duke’s benefit. “Marriage settlements, don’t you know. Not even Edgecombe can overturn those, although he doles it out by the quarter, instead of giving me enough to live on, on my own. But that’s too sad a topic for such a perfect day. Come on, Lilyanne, before the hats are all gone.”

“I cannot—” Lilyanne started to protest.

“Of course you can,” Catherine said. “It’s not as if I have a lot of other places to spend my brass.” And it wasn’t as if the Duke of Caswell wouldn’t pay her back. He was the one who’d demanded Lilyanne have a new bonnet after all, at whatever price. “There’s a place we can purchase some silk violets to pin on the brim. You’ll look a treat, see if you don’t.”

Lilyanne looked at Kasey for guidance, but he was already leading her in the right direction. Once there, he did not go to look at the nearby sheep pens like the other men, but stayed as she tried on various bonnets. Lilyanne was so embarrassed by his attentions that the hat seller could have sold her a coal scuttle, but neither Catherine nor the duke would have let her. He had an opinion on which brim shadowed her eyes too much, and which covered too much of her hair. Caswell also gave his advice—unsolicited and untoward, for an unmarried gentleman—on the ribbon trims, and the exact location of the silk flowers. He retied the bow himself, against her left cheek instead of under her chin, and Lilyanne
turned scarlet as some giggling farm girls begged him to tie their ribbons next.

“There,” Catherine declared. “Now you don’t look like a hired mourner.”

Lilyanne looked toward Kasey for his verdict. “Lovely,” was all he said, but he did pick up her gloved hand and bring it to his lips while the dairymaids cheered.

“Here now, enough of that, Caswell.” Lady Edgecombe’s narrowed look was meant to remind the duke that she’d agreed to help raise Miss Bannister’s spirits, not lead to her downfall. “You wouldn’t want to turn the gel’s head.”

Too late, Lilyanne’s inner voice told her, much, much too late.

The viscountess strolled along with them after that, looking for a Gypsy fortune-teller. “All decent fairs have one of those. I’m hoping she’ll tell me about some sad news in store— Edgecombe’s demise.”

They found the two-headed chickens, and marveled at the counting pig, although Kasey insisted the trainer was tapping his toe, and laughed at the Punch-and-Judy show. They ate and drank, and Catherine tried one of the cigarillos Kasey won. Lilyanne would not. Lilyanne won a penny from the man guessing weights. Catherine would not get on the scale. Catherine urged the duke to take his chances in the prize ring with Harold the Hammer. Kasey would not.

Lilyanne wished the day would never end. It would.

“Caswell did not drive too fast, did he, Lilyanne?”

“No, Uncle. His Grace is an excellent driver.”

“He did not make any improper advances to you, did he?”

“Of course not. I am your assistant, not one of his flirts. The duke is a gentleman.”

“And he never showed evidence of brain fevers or aberrations? No hallucinations, no disembodied voices?”

“No, Uncle. I think the duke is as sane as you or I.” Perhaps saner than both of them put together, Lilyanne could not help thinking.

“Excellent, excellent. My theories are proven!”

“I am glad for you, Uncle. And for the duke.”

“If you are so glad, niece, why did you leave your entire dinner untouched? Do not tell me the carriage ride overset your nerves.”

So she did not tell him.

* * * *

For the next two days the duke and the doctor’s niece spent most of their time together, with Little Henry and his dog along so there was no hint of impropriety. They all went on long hikes in the morning, and they all gathered plants for the stillroom one afternoon. They told Sir Osgood that they were driving, riding, fishing, and walking, which they were. They were also picnicking, talking, and painting, except for Little Henry, who spent most of the time sleeping, and Wolfie, who was off chasing rabbits.

Kasey told Lilyanne about art, about how the newer painters were using color and light to give form to their work, rather than classical figures. Lilyanne taught him to recognize birds by their songs, and which so-called weeds had medicinal value. He showed her how to fish, and she showed him how to make wool ready for spinning. Kasey and Lilyanne talked of almost everything: politics and the poor, war and religion, flowers and the nature of friendship. She was not as well-read as he, naturally, since her uncle frowned on any but improving works, and the only newspaper Sir Osgood subscribed to never mentioned literature, the arts, or society. Still, Lilyanne had intelligent ideas, and could ask sensible questions.

Kasey was impressed that Lilyanne could argue an issue logically, without resorting to emotional outbursts, unlike most females of his acquaintance; Lilyanne was delighted he respected her opinions, unlike her uncle.

As close as their camaraderie was growing, they did not discuss the duke’s painting. That is, they talked about each piece Kasey completed on their walks and rides, but they never spoke of his artwork as a whole, the duke’s determination to keep his talent hidden. By tacit agreement, they did not mention the problem painting.

On the day before he was to leave, though, Lilyanne felt she had to try once more to convince Caswell to share his gift with the world. “You cannot keep hiding your light under a bushel,” she said, looking over his shoulder. He was sketching a picture of the deer they had seen earlier, before Wolfie chased them away. “Or in an attic. They are simply too beautiful. Imagine if every artist kept his best pieces locked away out of sight, what a poorer place this would be.”

“And the artists would be poorer, also. I wonder how many of them would bother with galleries and museums and critics and collectors, if they did not have to pay their landlords. But what of you?” he asked, purposely changing the subject. “What are you doing if not hiding your beauty under that ugly mobcap? Wearing those dull colors?”

She smiled and went back to the blanket she’d been sitting on, embroidering roses on a pair of slippers for her sister. “Why, I am being practical, saving my lovely new bonnet for church, and wearing clothes that do not get ruined in my garden or on my walks. Unlike you, some of us do have to consider pounds and pence.”

“It’s more than that. How long are you going to stay in your uncle’s dreary shadow? He’ll keep you here forever, making you do the work while he gets the credit and the compensation. Don’t you want a life of your own, a husband, children?”

Lilyanne put her needle down. “I used to. Then I grew up and stopped dreaming about what I could not have, without a dowry or connections.”

“Now that, my dear, is a waste.”

“No, I have accepted that I am firmly on the shelf, and get great satisfaction from assisting my uncle.”

“Satisfaction is all you will get, if that. You’ll have no family, no security, no bank account—and no pleasure out of life.”

He was not saying anything Lilyanne had not told herself a hundred times. “I have been thinking of starting a school someday. Especially if my sister does not wed, for she is the one with the fine education. I have great hopes she will find a husband, however, despite having no dowry, because she is everything pleasing, and now has her school friends to provide introductions. She will be visiting the Uphams in Hampshire for the holidays. Do you know of them?”

“A horse-mad baron with four daughters? If your sister is half as beautiful as you, his wife will ship your sister home before the cat can lick its ear, lest she be competition for her own chicks.”

Lilyanne bit her lip. Lisbet was far, far prettier. “Well, I have also considered becoming a ladies’ companion, where I might save enough money to provide Lisbet with a dowry.”

“In thirty years, at companions’ salaries! Besides, you might as well stay here, for all the opportunities afforded an upper servant to meet marriageable gentlemen.”

“I told you, I am more concerned about becoming an aunt at this point. I would be an excellent aunt, I think. Besides, I think I have had enough of being under a man’s control, be it an uncle or a husband.”

Kasey crumpled the page he’d been working on. “Rot!” He was frustrated with the dratted picture and Lilyanne’s dismal future. The idea of her working for wages for a cranky old woman rankled him as much as the deer, who looked stiff and sticklike on his paper. Chances were, the old besom would have a weak-chinned nephew who’d be waiting for Lady Moneypots to cock up her toes, and waiting in a dark corridor to accost the companion! Caswell started a new page, although he feared his concentration was gone for the day, along with the deer. The worst part was that the image of Miss Bannister beside some mooncalf, two or three little tots at her knees, was even less pleasing.

Lilyanne could not like the duke’s dark mood, nor his accusing scowl, as if she could change her circumstances the way he could start a new painting. “What of you?” she asked in return. “I have seen you with children and know you will make an excellent father, so why have you not begun your own family? I thought dukes were duty-hound to take a wife and produce little copies of themselves.”

He ripped up another page. “One has been selected.”

“Ouch.” Lilyanne sucked on the thumb she’d nearly pierced. She was not surprised Kasey was taking a bride; she was merely surprised that she hadn’t melted into a mound of misery at the announcement. She cleared her throat. “You make it sound as if you’ve ordered a new waistcoat.”

“No, that is more enjoyable.”

“But if you do not wish
...
?”

“As you said, a duke has duties.”

“But you take no joy in them?”

Kasey tossed his drawing pad aside, and the brush with it. “Being a duke, my dear Miss Bannister, is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

No, but they could afford to waste a lot of good paper.

Chapter Fifteen

He stayed one day longer than scheduled, because it was sleeting. And because he did not want to leave.

“I have found peace of mind here, and a friend,” Kasey told Lilyanne as they walked toward the stable, where his horses were waiting. He’d made his farewells to Sir Osgood earlier, with appreciation. Whether or not the man’s ideas were as buffle-headed as a brick canoe, Kasey had never felt better. Lady Catherine had waved her handkerchief from the steps, along with her solicitor’s address, the duke having again promised to look into the legalities of her situation. He’d left vails with all the servants, and his pocket watch with Little Henry. He’d left a sheaf of paintings for Lilyanne, her favorite flowers and scenes, but the ones of her, all but the girl in the field of flowers, those he had in his satchel, for himself.

“And I have learned to knit.” Kasey wrapped a woolen scarf around her neck, a very long, amateurishly stitched, ragged-edged scarf of undyed wool. The ends trailed down Lilyanne’s shoulders, even with the scarf wrapped twice. “I wonder which is the greatest treasure.”

She clutched it to herself, like a lifeline. “I... I made something for you, also, to remember us by.”

“As if I would forget.”

Lilyanne handed him a small striped pouch of fine-knit yarn, every stripe a different color. “No, don’t open it,” she said when he would have pulled at the drawstrings. “Smell it.”

Lavender and roses, verbena and—Kasey could never identify them all. The sachet smelled of sunshine and forests and minted teas and Lilyanne. “Ah,” was all he said.

“The scent will last a long while if you keep it in your drawer or among your bed linens.”

He tucked it into his inside pocket, next to his heart.

The horses were stamping in their traces, and two grooms were struggling to hold them.

“I have to leave.”

Lilyanne wrapped her fingers in the wool scarf. “Yes.”

“I dare not stay longer. Your reputation
...
”

She nodded. “I know. Catherine warned me that people are starting to talk. Uncle Osgood sees only what he wishes, but others see the worst in any situation, especially in a small village like this, with not much of interest except the doings of the neighbors.”

“It would be worse in London. Why, if I so much as held your hand”—he took both of them now, between his own larger, gloved hands—”people in Town would comment. They are like pigs, rooting around for the least morsel of gossip. Lud, I do not want to return there.”

“Then don’t stay in the city. You have country properties, you told me yourself. Go, find a pretty place to paint, find people who will cherish your talent. And you.” Lilyanne could not say more, not with the lump in her throat, which must be from the scarf being wound too tightly.

“And you, I pray you find happiness with someone worthy of your beauty. Not the outward appearance, but the goodness and purity inside you. By heaven, if only I could offer—
”

Lilyanne freed her hands to place trembling fingers over Kasey’s lips. “Hush. It is all right. You have given me so much, by reminding me of the joy of life.” She was not thinking of the day at the fair but of the picture he’d painted of her, laughing in the garden. ‘‘And its warmth.” Lilyanne was not thinking of the woolen scarf, but of his kiss. “Now go, sir. Be well. Be happy.”