She told him about her failed Season—the year she had been presented to society and had failed, quite spectacularly, to attract a single serious suitor.
“It was not entirely my fault,” she said. “I simply did not know how to be what they wanted. I was too opinionated. Too quick with my tongue. I made the mistake of actually engaging gentlemen in conversation rather than smiling sweetly and agreeing with everything they said.”
“How shocking of you.”
“I know. Quite disgraceful behaviour.” She shifted slightly in the chair, stretching muscles that had grown stiff. “There was one gentleman—Lord Crawley, I believe—who spent an entire dance speaking of nothing but his horses. His horses, Christian. In exhaustive detail. Their breeding, their training, the cost oftheir upkeep. And when I asked whether he had any other interests, he looked at me as though I had suggested he might enjoy eating children.”
“And what did you do?”
“I suggested that perhaps his horses might benefit from a broader education.” She smiled faintly. “He did not request another dance.”
Christian’s laughter filled the room.
“You are a terror.”
“I am discerning. Again, there is a difference.”
“A difference that left you unmarried for how many Seasons?”
“Three.” She shrugged lightly. “My parents despaired. My mother repeatedly suggested that I attempt being less… myself. But I could never see the point. What use was attracting a husband who would not like me once he discovered who I actually was?”
“None at all.”
Christian set down his charcoal and regarded the paper before him.
“I think,” he said slowly, “it is finished.”
Fiona felt her heart give a small, uncertain leap. “May I see?”
He hesitated. “It has been many years since I last attempted a portrait. My technique is no longer what it once was—”
“Christian. Let me see.”
He rose and crossed the room, turning the page so she could view it.
Fiona looked at herself.
Or rather, she looked at herself as Christian saw her.
The woman on the paper appeared softer than she expected, more luminous. Her eyes were bright with amusement, her mouth curved in a half-smile, her hair escaping its pins in unruly curls.
She looked—Fiona thought with sudden astonishment—like someone worth knowing.
Someone worth loving.
“Is that truly how you see me?” she asked quietly.
“That is how you are.” He crouched beside her chair, studying her expression. “Do you not like it? I can attempt another—”
“I love it.” Her fingers hovered lightly over the page, careful not to smudge the charcoal. “I love it, Christian. It is beautiful.”
“You are beautiful,” he said simply. “I only recorded what was there.”
She looked at him then—this man who saw beauty in her so easily and could not yet recognise it in himself.
“My turn,” she said.
***
