“Her Grace’s quarters, Your Grace,” Blackwood replied.
Lionel drained the last of his Scotch and strode from the room. He had not asked which paintings she was moving but an instinct told him which it would be. When he reached the hallway leading to her rooms, he found Cecilia and Peggy struggling to lift one of the landscapes that he had painted. It was sizable and, with its gilt frame, heavy.
As he approached, Peggy looked around and the movement was enough to disrupt her grip. A corner of the frame slipped from her hand. Lionel caught it before it could hit the floor. Peggy stepped away as he took the full weight, muscles bursting out in his neck from the strain. From around the frame, his eyes met Cecilia’s. She still held her share of the weight and her fingers slipped down the frame to his own.
“You should not have tried to lift something so heavy without aid,” Lionel grated.
“We managed it this far. But the effort was tiring,” Cecilia began.
With a grunt and a sharp pulse in his weak leg, he pulled it from her and laid it to rest against a wall.
“Peggy, the music room and its hallway are out of bounds. Blackwood will tell you as much,” Lionel said, “go along now, about your duties.”
Peggy looked alarmed, face flushed. She dropped into a curtsy and scurried away.
“She should not get into any trouble over this. She was obeying my orders,” Cecilia defended.
“I understand, and she will not. I would not punish someone when they did not know they did wrong.”
“And why is it wrong? These paintings are very fine indeed. Works of great skill.”
“Amateur daubing,” Lionel said dismissively.
He looked at the pictures she had already hung. There had been half a dozen in the music room hallway and the same again in the music room itself. Cecilia seemed to have found almost all of them.
“Hardly. I am no expert but I love all of them. Especially the picture of Penrose,” Cecilia murmured as she turned her gaze to the painting too.
Lionel’s eyes scanned the walls for the painting in question but he could not see it.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“I have hung it inside. I’ll show you.”
She opened a door and disappeared inside. Lionel followed her to her bedchamber, seeing the picture hung opposite the bed, where Cecilia might look at it as she lay, awaiting sleep.
“When did you paint it?” she asked. “I do not recognize it as belonging to Arthur’s time as lord.”
“It was as a present to him on his inheritance. I found some engravings of the house from the time your family acquired it, during the reign of William and Mary.”
“And from that, you created this?” Cecilia cooed in awe, drifting a hand across the surface. “It is remarkable.”
“As I said, I am no painter.”
Cecilia rounded on him. “Your modesty is ill-placed given the evidence I can see with my own eyes.”
“Nevertheless. I did not tell you but I do not care to see these pictures. That is why they have been left in the music room. That area of the castle is out of bounds,” Lionel replied.
“Why?” Cecilia asked.
“Because those are my orders!” Lionel snapped.
He saw the fire flaring in Cecilia’s eyes then. She stepped towards him, chin raised. He did not like to be defied, it was not a state of affairs that he was accustomed to. But he could not deny that she was magnificent when roused. Cecilia stood facing him with defiance in her expression.
“Well, that is not good enough. I am not your servant. I am your wife. You may think that makes me your property and the conventions of our society may agree with you. But I am not. The women of my family are equal to the men. That is how itis and how it should be. If you would care to tell me why I am prohibited from going to the music room, after you gave me leave to use it three days ago, then perhaps I shall consider it.”
“Three days ago…” Lionel began.
But he could not finish. He was being irrational and he knew it. When he had heard Cecilia singing, he had been entranced. When he recognized that fact, he had wanted nothing more than to be away from her lest the spell take firmer hold. At the moment in which he stood there listening to her sweet voice, he would have given her anything. To hear her sing for just a few moments more he would have paid a king’s ransom.
