Someone to Hold

“You really do not want to know, Grandmama.” She moved past Joel and took a seat. “It was just an ill-conceived lesson idea of mine.”

Miss Camille Westcott, Joel thought, looked a great deal more handsome when she was ruffled. And a great deal more starchy and stubborn chinned and thin lipped too. Those children had probably not had more fun for a long time—or learned as much.

“Do sit down, Mr. Cunningham,” Mrs. Kingsley said, indicating another chair. “I hope to persuade you to paint my two granddaughters, though I am well aware that your services are in high demand at present.”

“It would be my pleasure, ma’am,” he said. “Did you have a group portrait in mind or individual portraits?”

“My grandson is in the Peninsula with his regiment,” she said. “If he were here, I would choose the group portrait of all three. As it is, I would prefer my granddaughters to be painted separately so that a portrait of Harry may be added after he comes home.”

The grandson, Joel remembered from Anna’s early letters, had lost his earl’s title and fortune on the discovery of his illegitimacy and had fled England to fight in the wars. She had been very upset by it all. Her good fortune had been ill fortune for her brother and sisters, and she had not been as exuberantly happy as might have been expected when the dream of a lifetime had come true for her.

“I do not wish to sit for a portrait, Mr. Cunningham,” the elder Miss Westcott informed him. “I will do so only to please my grandmother. But I do not want to hear any nonsense about capturing my essence, which is apparently what you did or tried to do with Mrs. Dance. You may paint what you see and be done with it.”

“Cam,” her younger sister said reproachfully.

“I am perfectly sure Mr. Cunningham knows what he is doing, Camille,” her grandmother said.

Miss Westcott looked at him accusingly, as though he were the one arguing with her. He wondered what she had been like as Lady Camille Westcott, when almost everyone would have been her inferior and at her beck and call. She must have been a force to be reckoned with.

“I will sit for you, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, “but I trust it will not be for hours at a time. How long does it take?”

“Let me explain something of the process,” he said. “I talk with the people I am about to paint and observe them as I listen. I get to know them as well as I can. I make sketches while we talk and afterward. Finally, when I feel ready, I make a final sketch and then paint the portrait from that. It is a slow and time-consuming process. It cannot be pushed. Or varied. It is a little chaotic, perhaps, but it is the way I work.”

Indeed, there was nothing orderly about the creative process. One could commit the time and the effort and discipline, but beyond that one had little control over the art that came pouring out from one’s . . . soul? He was not sure that was the right word, but he had never been able to think of one that was more accurate, for his art did not seem to come from any conscious part of his mind.

Miss Westcott was looking very intently at him.

“Paint Abby first,” she said. “You may observe me two afternoons a week in the schoolroom and get to know me that way. You may even present me with a written list of questions if you wish and I will answer all that I consider pertinent. I will allow you to discover all you can about me, but do not expect ever to know me, Mr. Cunningham. It is not possible, and I would not allow it if it were.”

She understood, he realized in some surprise. She knew the difference between knowing about someone and actually knowing that person. She was beginning to intrigue him more than a little.

“Will you accept the commission, then, Mr. Cunningham?” Mrs. Kingsley asked him. “And begin with Abigail? I will have a room set aside here for your use. Perhaps we can agree to a schedule that will fit in with your other commitments. And to terms of a contract. I assume you would like something in writing, as I would.”

“Yes to everything, ma’am,” he said, glancing at the younger sister, who was flushed with seeming delight. For the first time it struck him that she would perhaps be more of a challenge than he had first thought. It would be a joy to paint youth and beauty, but it was not his way to paint only what he saw with his eyes. Was there any depth of character behind the lovely, eager young face of Miss Abigail Westcott, or was she too young to have acquired any? It would be his task to find out.

“Let us go down to the library to discuss details,” Mrs. Kingsley said. “I will have some refreshments brought there.”

But it was Camille Westcott who had the last word before they left the room. “Did you know that Anastasia is coming here?” she asked him.

He stopped in his tracks.

“She and Avery,” she told him, “and all the rest of the Westcott family. They are coming to celebrate the seventieth birthday of the Dowager Countess of Riverdale, my other grandmother. You did not know, did you?”

“No,” he said. No, he had not heard from Anna for more than a week. They did not write to each other as often as they had when she first left Bath. They remained close friends, but the fact that they were different genders complicated their relationship now that she was married. In addition, she was happy now and did not need his emotional support as she had at first. “No, I had not heard.”

“I thought not.” She half smiled at him. Do you love her? she had asked yesterday when he had asked her if she hated Anna. She was too intelligent not to have noticed that he had evaded answering the question. Just as she had not answered his.