“Incredibly beautiful,” she answered without hesitation.
“Not the Roundtree town house,” he clarified. “I meant back home on your farm.”
“So did I,” she said, her tone wry.
His neck heated at the gaffe. “Tell me about it.”
“Villages in the West Midlands are the opposite of London,” she said after a moment. “There are no factories, no soot-filled sky, no beggars pleading for alms.”
Heath blinked. That was definitely not the impression one hoped one’s capital city would make on a visitor.
“Back home, the air tastes clean,” she continued. “The rumble of passing carriages are few and far between. One mostly hears the call of birds. And occasionally the bleat of sheep.”
“It sounds idyllic,” Heath admitted.
“You would love it.” Her eyes shone. “Stepping outside at night and seeing the sky so full of stars… The universe seems endless and full of infinite possibility.”
He tilted his head at the phrasing. “What is it you wish would be possible?”
She bit her lip. “A better life for my brother. Aneasierlife for my grandparents. We are proud of our farm, but they all work so hard from dawn to well past dusk. I wish I could give them an extra hour each day, when responsibilities would melt away and all that was left to do was relax and enjoy being with nature and each other.”
“It sounds like you love your family as much as I love mine,” he said softly.
“They are my best friends.” Miss Winfield let out a long, slow breath. “I miss them very much.”
His smile faded at the yearning in her tone. “It must be horrid to be so far away from one’s entire family.”
“Not my entire family.” Miss Winfield’s eyes brightened. “Lady Roundtree is my second cousin, and I’ve come to love her just as much as any other.”
Heath’s mind stopped. “You and Lady Roundtree are cousins?”
“Afraid so.” She looked up at him quizzically. “Does it matter?”
Shame heated the back of his neck. It should not matter. Miss Winfield was the same person he saw before him, no matter who her cousins were.
Yet that accident of birth gave her more of an advantage in this environment than she likely realized. Many of his peers believed the non-aristocracy beneath them. Blood relatives, however…
How many young ladies made their splash because of an earl or a viscount in the family? How many younger sons puffed out their chests with importance because they were ninth in line to a presumptive courtesy title?
“Look,” Miss Winfield breathed. “It’s Samson and Delilah. Note the stylistic choice of shears rather than scissors… See how the eye focuses on her? The artist has chosen to bathe the hero in darkness and the villainess in light.”
Once again, Heath was impressed by Miss Winfield’s uncanny insight into how each artist played with perspective and color. She rhapsodized about how different types of brushstrokes invoked movement and emotion. Nothing escaped her notice.
As they walked, Heath found himself soliciting her opinion more than espousing his own. Her eye was incredible. His sisters could tease him that he had come to respect the opinions of a client’s companion as if Miss Winfield were a Grenville herself… And his sisters would be right.
“Are you sure you’re not meant to be an artist?” he asked.
She turned the question back around on him. “This outing was your idea, and I daresay a jolly good one. Are you certainyouare not meant to be an artist?”
He gave a self-deprecating snort. If only she knew how many hours he had dedicated in pursuit of a talent he would never possess.
“I’m hopeless at art,” he admitted with a smile. “I cannot trace my hand and have it still look like a hand when I’m done.”
She frowned, rather than laugh at the image. “How is that possible? You are so well educated. Your ability with languages, all the details about geography and local history as relates to these paintings…”
“There is a vast difference between ‘passable’ and ‘gifted.’” He gave his shoulder a light shrug. “I’m not talented at artistic pursuits. I’m gifted in exactly one arena: memorizing data.”
She shook her head. “I am certain that’s a shocking understatement. Your multilingual literacy alone—”
