Charlotte’s stomach clenched. If Christopher’s hope for her future with Lord Ainscough might cost her her friendship with Lydia, it would in no way be worth the cost.
Lydia didn’t seem to require an answer, however, and went to work setting up her easel. Charlotte did the same, but her mind snagged on one point: her sizable dowry. Her thoughts began to whirl, not unlike the breeze that dashed around the park. She hoped the blustery air would not ruin their landscapes just as she hoped her dowry would not spoil her prospects for true love. With a dowry greater than that of nearly every gentleman’s daughter and even some titled young women of the peerage, most men saw her for only the gains she could bring them.
She glanced at the trees and the water before her, trying to decide where to start, when her mind sailed home to Northumberland. The landscape today was a stark difference from home, but it was Alex’s charming face that seemed to arrive on the breeze in front of her.
She thought again of how hasty she’d been in her censure of him. She hadn’t really given him the time to explain himself. That was just like her too. In her youth she’d been prone to overtalking, especially around him, and she had been no different in her interactions with him as an adult. What was it about Alex that made her words fly about without thought?
Perhaps it was because, unlike her father or Christopher, Alex had never yelled at her to hold her tongue or expected silent obedience. Another memory from their childhood flitted into her mind, but before she could recall it in full, Lydia cleared her throat.
“Were you planning on painting today or just staring into a blank canvas for the afternoon?” She raised an eyebrow in question as she touched the back end of her brush to her lips and analyzed the first strokes of her own painting.
“Oh yes.” Charlotte’s blank canvas stared back at her. She flushed and shook herself. She ought not to concern herself with weightier matters when such a beautiful day lay before her. “You are painting the bridge, then?” she asked Lydia.
“Yes, for I love the rich hues. And yourself?”
“I think I’ll try to capture the reflections on that bit of water there.” She readied a few oils on her pallet, favoring mostly greens and blues.
“That will be marvelous,” Lydia breathed. “It is a wonder to me how we can see the same landscape in such different ways.”
“Just don’t go making all of your browns maroon, will you?” Charlotte laughed and shot a glance toward the beginning strokes of Lydia’s bridge. She pointed with the bristles of her own brush. “There, the color’s wrong. You need more brown. Less... mauve.”
Lydia shook her head with playful vehemence. “I like that shade and will be keeping it, though I thank you for your opinion. We shall never agree on palettes, I fear.”
They’d had similar discussions so many times that Charlotte knew the argument was fruitless. Best to change the subject back to Lydia’s favorite one. “Now, tell me, which other gentlemen interested you at the dinner?”
Before Lydia could answer, a sudden gust of wind blew a leaf onto her canvas, smudging the bit of bridge she’d just outlined. “Oh, goodness. It’s ruined.” Setting down her paints, she tried to delicately remove it. “As for last night...” She sighed with more despair than the ruined painting warranted. “I don’t think any of those gentlemen had any interest in me, but it was a pleasant enough evening.”
Charlotte put down her own supplies and came to Lydia’s aid. If only the men of the world could see what a wonderful person Lydia was despite her lack of fortune. “No doubt they were all undeserving of you, that’s what.”
Lydia laughed, and just as they pulled the leaf free, another gust of wind tipped Charlotte’s palette, sending her round of oils onto her blank canvas. Most of the big gobs of paint adhered to the canvas as the wooden palette slid down the length of cloth and landed in the grass.
“Oh no!” Charlotte gasped. “The elements are against us!”
A gentleman approached them then. “Allow me to assist, ladies.” His tall top hat shaded his eyes, but Charlotte recognized his voice. Lord Ainscough. He began scooping up what paints he could as the wind increased in force. “What else should I rescue?” he asked, hastily stuffing paints and brushes and cloths under his arm. Despite all the things he carried, he drew near the side of Charlotte’s easel and with his free hand gestured. “Dare I move your canvas, Miss Roylance?”
“Oh, that would be—”
A gust of wind caught the canvas and flung it off the base, sending the whole frame, fresh oils still clinging to it, directly into Lord Ainscough’s chest. When he pried the canvas off him, the bright, wet hues had created a hideous work of art on his shirt.
He glanced down, and one eyebrow rose high. Then a waggish grin followed. “I’ll just see to this, if you don’t mind.” He placed the canvas under his arm, paint outward, winking as he did so. She couldn’t help but laugh as she came to his side, her bonnet strings whipping around in the air.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “Here you are, trying to play the hero, and this is how my artwork repays you.”
“No appreciation, I declare!”
Then something landed on his head and his eyes shot heavenward. When she followed his gaze, dark rolling clouds covered the west part of the sky, and she felt a plump raindrop against her shoulder.
“We must take it all to my carriage!” Lord Ainscough said.
They gathered the rest of the tubes and brushes and made their way to the road. The rain poured down in a fury, and Charlotte was relieved when the small party threw all the art supplies onto the squabs and His Lordship handed Lydia up and then herself, the three of them piling into the carriage.
“Well,” Lord Ainscough said, wiping water from his brow and inspecting his shirt front at the same time. “That was quite an adventure.”
“Oh, Lord Ainscough,” Charlotte breathed. “I am ever so sorry. I will pay for your shirt, of course, as it was my fault it’s ruined.”
“Do not bother yourself. Mother Nature played a good joke on us today, didn’t she?”
“Indeed,” Charlotte replied. She’d just admitted to Lydia that she wouldn’t mind giving Lord Ainscough up, but his easy manner and kind words were enchanting, she had to admit. And his gallant rescue didn’t hurt either.
