She was having a bad day.
Surely it was nothing to do with him. Apart from that brief encounter this morning, she had not seen him for four days.
She set her brush in the water and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. He heard her sigh.
“Behold the frustrated artist,” he said.
She did not whip her head about as he expected. For a moment she stayed as she was. Then she lowered her hands and turned her head slowly.
“Gloucester must have moved closer,” she said.
“Gloucester and I were not fated to m-meet today, a-alas,” he said. “My horse developed a limp.”
“Did it?” She looked skeptical.
“Perhaps not,” he said, uncrossing his arms, pushing his shoulder away from the tree, and strolling closer to her. “But it might have if I had gone f-farther.”
“It is always best to be cautious,” she said.
“Ah.” He stopped walking. “Double meanings, Mrs. Keeping?”
“If so,” she said, “I do not follow my own advice, do I? I meant to be here for an hour and have probably stayed for three or four. I might have guessed you would find a reason to return early.”
She sounded bitter.
“When you told me you would paint later,” he said softly, “were you inviting me to d-discover something amiss with my h-horse?”
“I do not know,” she said with the ghost of a smile. “Was I? I have no experience with dalliance, Lord Ponsonby. And I have no wish to acquire any.”
“Are you quite s-sure,” he asked her, “that you are not deceiving yourself, Mrs. Keeping?”
She turned her head to look back across the meadow.
“I cannot paint,” she told him. “The daffodils remain out there and I remain in here, and I can find no connection.”
“And I am to b-blame?”
“No.” She looked up at him. “No, you are not. I might have avoided that kiss here almost a week ago. I might have avoided going into the east wing with you the evening I was there with Dora, and, having gone there, I might have avoided dancing with you and kissing you again. You are a flirt, my lord, and probably a libertine, but I cannot pretend that you have forced anything upon me. No, you arenotto blame.”
He was rather bowled over by her assessment of him.
A flirt? Was he?
A libertine?Washe?
And hewasto blame. He had destroyed her tranquility. He was good at destruction.
He came up beside her, looked at the blank page on her easel, looked about at the discarded paintings, looked at the daffodils.
“Does your p-painting usually give you this much trouble?” he asked.
“No.” She sighed again and got to her feet. “Perhaps because I am usually content to grasp the simple beauty of wildflowers. But there is something about daffodils that demands more. Perhaps because they suggest boldness and sunshine and music, something more than just themselves. Hope, perhaps? I do not pretend to be a great artist with a large vision.”
She was looking at her hands, which were spread, palms down. She sounded on the verge of tears.
He took her hands in his. As he suspected, they were like twin blocks of ice. He placed them flat against his chest and spread his palms over the backs of them. She did not make any protest.
“Why did you t-tell me you were coming here?” he asked her.
