"Had hoped what?"
Rosanne hesitated, her fingers tracing the pattern on her teacup. "I had hoped that you might... I do not know. Reach him, somehow. You are socalm, Miss Whitcombe. So steady. I thought perhaps..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "It was a foolish notion. Forgive me."
Lillian felt a strange flutter in her chest; not quite alarm, not quite interest, something in between. "You thought I might befriend your brother?"
"I thought you might be good for him. Forus." Rosanne's voice was very low. "This house is so quiet, Miss Whitcombe. So cold. Daniel keeps everything under such rigid control, and I understand why, truly, I do, but sometimes I feel as though we are both slowly suffocating. As though we are trapped in a beautiful cage, too afraid to reach for the door."
The imagery was striking. Lillian looked around the elegant sitting room, the perfectly arranged furniture, the carefully curated decor, the sense of everything held in careful, measured stasis, and understood, suddenly, what Rosanne meant.
"I cannot promise to reach your brother," she said gently. "I suspect he does not wish to be reached."
"No. He does not." Rosanne's smile was sad. "But that does not mean he does not need it."
Chapter Three
"Your perspective is slightly odd."
"I amawarethat my perspective is slightly odd, Lillian. That is why the tree appears to be falling over."
"It is not falling over. It is merely... leaning. With great enthusiasm."
Lady Rosanne set down her paintbrush and fixed Lillian with a look of exasperated affection. Two weeks had passed since their first tea together, and in that time, Lillian had become a regular visitor to Wynthorpe Hall. Frequent enough that the staff no longer announced her arrival, simply nodding their welcome as she made her way to whichever room Rosanne had claimed for the day's activities.
Today, that room was the morning parlor, where the light came in soft and golden through the east-facing windows and the air smelled faintly of linseed oil and turpentine. Lillian had offered to teach Rosanne watercolors, and Rosanne had accepted with the sort of desperate enthusiasm that suggested previous artistic instruction had not gone well.
She had been right to be desperate. Rosanne painted with more passion than precision, attacking the paper with bold strokes that owed more to determination than technique. The results were distinctive.
"You are being diplomatic," Rosanne accused. "The tree is terrible. Theentire paintingis terrible. I have somehow managed to create a landscape that looks as though it is suffering from a digestive complaint."
Lillian examined the painting in question; a view of the gardens from the morning parlor window, rendered in watercolors that had achieved a curious muddy quality despite starting out as perfectly respectable pigments.
"It is not terrible," she said carefully. "It simply requires refinement."
"That is exactly what my last painting master said. Right before he resigned his position and fled to Cornwall."
"I am sure Cornwall was merely a coincidence."
"He specifically cited 'artistic differences' as his reason for departure. My artistic difference was that I had none." Rosanne sighed, setting down her brush with an air of defeat. "Perhaps I am simply not meant to paint. Some people are not, you know. Some people are meant toappreciateart rather than create it."
"That is one perspective." Lillian reached over and gently adjusted the angle of Rosanne's brush. "Another perspective is that you are trying too hard."
"Is that possible? To try too hard?"
"At painting, yes. You are attacking the paper as though it has personally wronged you. Watercolor requires a lighter touch." Lillian dipped her own brush in the paint and demonstrated, letting the pigment flow across the page in soft, transparent layers. "See? You are not forcing the colour onto the paper. You are inviting it."
Rosanne watched with the intensity of someone witnessing either a miracle or a confidence trick; she had not yet decided which.
"That seems like a miracle."
"It is simply patience. The water does most of the work. You merely guide it."
"I am not very good at patience."
"Then perhaps this will be good practice."
Rosanne considered this, then picked up her brush again with renewed, if tentative, determination. Lillian watched her make a few careful strokes, her tongue poking out slightly in concentration, and felt a warm swell of affection. Over the past fortnight, she had grown genuinely fond of Lady Rosanne Wynthorpe. The girl was anxious and self-deprecating and far too quick to assume her own inadequacy, but beneath all that, there was a sweetness that reminded Lillian of a flower struggling to bloom in insufficient sunlight.
She deserved better than this beautiful, empty house. She deserved laughter and friendship and the knowledge that she was valued for herself, not merely for her connection to her brother.
