XANDER
The light was fading too soon,and I still wasn’t precisely sure what was wrong with my landscape. I preferred the morning light of the room I chose for my studio, but the afternoon was close on morning’s heels.
The painting wasn’t quite right. The early dawn sky was too bold, and the grass wasn’t muted enough.
For days, the watercolors had refused to do my bidding, each work a greater disappointment than the last.
I wasn’t an artist, not by any means, though I did fancy myself a connoisseur. That meant I had more than enough understanding to know precisely how far I was from being an artist—a true artist. But I was rich and idle. And painting was something to pass the time. Something to avoid the unpleasant thoughts of recent days.
My shoulders met the wall as I stepped back to take in my work. The fired orange and honeyed reds swirling in the sky and kissing the edges of the clouds were more vibrant than I’dintended. It was too much, cloying. It also wasn’t a problem I’d ever had before.
I enjoyed watercolors for their gauzy, soft qualities. There was a dreamy note in them—the world as though beneath bedsheets, in that hazy place between waking and sleep.
But ever since the masquerade—since that night, everything felt wrong. My skin stretched too tight on my frame. The stitching on my shirt chaffed my arms. Food was under seasoned and uninteresting.
And my nights, oh my nights. Long, lithe fingers caressed my skin as husky whispers promised to shoulder my responsibilities if I only let go. Prussian eyes traced my form, looking not to judge but because doing so brought him pleasure. Increasingly filthy words were whispered by soft lips against my flesh. It was maddening and wonderful at the same time.
Consumed within a lovesick melancholy for a man I didn’t even know. Utterly absurd.
A knock sounded, interrupting me as I was wiping my hands on a rag—Godfrey, my valet.
“Your Grace?” A tentative, pitchy quality laced his tone. Which only meant one thing.
“What has she done now?”
“Your mother sent a note that your sister is missing. She requests your presence at Hasket House.”
A sigh broke from my chest. “Is that all she said?”
“Well, Her Grace used more words than that. And a scented parchment.”
My fingers found the bridge of my nose where an ache was already forming. I pinched away the more pleasant thoughts of my nighttime paramour.
“It all smells like that.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Thank you, Godfrey. I should dress.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
A change of clothing followed by a brief stop in my study to locate my purse, and I was off.
When I arrived at Hasket House, Mother had taken to her chambers in a fit of histrionics, as was her usual way.
I found her in her dressing room, curled on the floor beside her shoes with a very distraught—and new—lady’s maid trying to coax her to a nearby settee.
The girl fled eagerly at my dismissal.
“Mother?”
“Oh, Alexander! It is too wretched to conceive. Your dear sister has relinquished, forsaken, discarded all the comforts of this dazzling abode. She is lost to us, to all amiable society henceforth. How should I be expected to endure such a grievous loss? Another precious babe, taken from me prematurely!”
My head gave a disgruntled throb behind my left eye. Mother was moments from a full episode. They’d become more frequent after Gabriel’s death, and more common still after father passed. But they were no less dramatic for their frequency.
If I could not produce my sister, and soon, Mother would be bedridden for weeks with ailments ranging from megrims, fatigue, and nervous flutterings to vertigo and aching in her joints.
I helped her to the chaise, one arm around her shoulder to guide her. She threw herself on it, face first, and collapsed with a dramatic wail.
