“This is too much, Diana. I never need gifts from you.”
“I know you don’t,” she said softly, placing a hand on his arm. “Would it make you feel better if I said it wasn’t a particularly expensive gift? It is only something small.” He smiled instantly.
“An awful lot better.” He picked up the parcel and tore into it. Diana bit her lip, realizing what he meant.
Perhaps the idea that he does not have so much money to buy such a gift in return upsets him?
She was distracted from this thought as the tissue paper fell away, and his eyes settled on the gift. A leather box of paints fell open before him, with a myriad of slim red paintbrushes inside.
“For me?” he asked in wonder. “You bought me paints?”
“I like the charcoal sketch, but I wondered if you might want something else to paint with in future – mff!” She got no further with her words. Just as she had cut him off the other day with a kiss, he had done the same.
The kiss was a passionate one indeed, pulling her towards him as he placed the paints down on the desk. When they parted from one another, they were both breathless, with his hands on her waist and her hands resting on his chest. “I take it you like the gift?”
“What was your first clue?” he said, planting playful nips to her neck.
“I can’t decide if it was the smile or the vigour of the kiss.”
“Definitely the kiss,” he said again, still planting kisses further down her neck until he tarried along the neckline of her dress, making her hands curl around his lapels.
“You like them then?” she asked with seriousness, wanting to hear the words.
“I love them,” he said, lifting from his kisses so she could see his face. “I used to paint a lot as a child. Every day. My mother bought me some paints once as a Christmas gift. I used them until there were no paints left in the tray.”
“Why did you stop?”
“I grew up, realized a serving boy does not have time to paint. I went into service, quickly became a butler, and decided the best way to continue was to take unused charcoal. They are not as fine as paints, though. Thank you, Diana.” He reached for the leather box and flipped it open, pulling out one of the paints. “I cannot tell you what this means.”
“What will you paint first?”
In answer, he looked towards her, with a smile appearing on his face.
“What?”
“I would have thought that answer would have been enough,” he said with a chuckle and kissed her again. His lips were hovering just above her when he told her his answer. “I will paint you first, Diana.”
***
Diana wrote the final word with a flourish and lifted the quill off the paper, staring down at what she had written with a smile growing across her cheeks.
“It is done.” She could scarcely believe she had finished it. Since Owen had encouraged her to finish what she had written and take the chance in sending it over, she had dedicated almost every waking moment to finishing her story.
Well, to the story, and to Owen. When her mind was not full of one thing, it was full of another. “It’s finished!” she said excitedly and stood from the writing desk in the library, looking down at the papers bundled together.
After all the rewrites and edits she had done, she was finally happy with it, but she needed someone else’s opinion first. At that moment, she hardly cared if it was daytime, and she and Owen should not be seen together. If she were careful, surely, she could take the risk?
She piled the papers under her arm and hurried out of the library, glancing for Owen, turning her head up and down the corridor in search of him. She caught sight of some of the maids wandering up the staircase. As Diana let the door to the library close behind her, it alerted the attention of the last maid on the stairs.
Jessie stopped and turned around, her piercing eyes finding Diana and making her flinch so much that she nearly dropped the papers in her grasp. Remembering the last conversation she had shared with Jessie, Diana was very pleased other maids were around, making any kind of communication or confrontation impossible.
Instead, Diana was the first to turn her eyes away and hurry through the corridors, though she felt Jessie watching her from the staircase the whole time she walked. Only when she entered the dining room, hiding from Jessie’s eyes, did she sigh with relief, leaning back on the door.
“Where is he?” she whispered into the air. Glancing once back at the door, ensuring it stayed firmly shut with no sign of any of the maids following her, she hastened onwards, walking through a myriad of rooms.
She passed through the music room and the parlour before she eventually alighted on the silver room. Inside, Owen was standing by one of the open cabinets, performing his responsibility of cleaning the silverware.
“Owen?” she called to him in a whisper. He jumped so much he nearly dropped the silver pitcher in his hands, launching it into the air instead so that it somersaulted before he snatched it back out of the air and turned to look at her with wide eyes. She giggled at the sight and hurried to close the door behind him. “That was a close call.”
