My heart galloped with dread.
To distract myself, I looked down at my canvas. I had been planning to paint a butterfly, but I had only painted the body thus far and not the wings. I had added too much water to my paint, so a dark gray droplet rolled down the canvas.
I cringed, desperately hoping Mr. Campbell wouldn’t notice.
He did.
His eyes widened, his lips twitching. “What, pray tell, is that?”
The dark gray cylinder was meant to be the body of the butterfly, but it dripped sadly down the canvas. The antennae I had painted sprouting out of its head were limp and fat, and certainly too heavy for the slim body to carry. I covered my work with both hands in a panic. “Go back to your own canvas!”
Mr. Campbell narrowed his eyes, his lips still twisted in a smirk. I wanted to slap it off his face. “You never explained why you pretended to like watercolor,” he said. He didn’t budge, standing just a few feet away from me and my wingless butterfly. “Are any of the things you told me you enjoyed true?”
I picked up my brush, mixing red and yellow paint to make a pleasant shade of orange. I considered his question carefully as I outlined the wings. Were they triangular or circular? I tried to envision the shape, but I realized I hadn’t seen an actual butterfly in a long while, and I had certainly never been close enough to memorize the shape of its wings.
I bit my lower lip in concentration. Was there any purpose in continuing to lie to Mr. Campbell? He didn’t seem interested in a ‘neat and orderly’ woman as Kate had expected. He seemed only to care to know the truth.
I released a sigh. “The list was a little exaggerated.”
“A little?” He scoffed.
“Do you wish to know the truth?” I stepped back with my brush and gestured at my canvas. “Just as I am terrible at watercolor, I am also terrible at most creative skills. I do not enjoy the opera, I am indifferent to rubies and emeralds, Idolike large estates, of course, but I cannot tell the difference between a well-tuned pianoforte and a poorly tuned one. And I have never tasted pineapple.”
Mr. Campbell seemed to be drinking up every last drop of my words, a triumphant smile on his face. “I have been dreaming of such a confession.”
I scowled at him. “Did you not believe me?”
“Of course not.”
Frustration bubbled up in my chest. “Do I not seem like the sort of lady who would be talented at watercolor or the pianoforte?”
He hesitated, his eyes settling on my canvas. His lips twitched. “I can’t say for certain…not with such glaring evidence before me.”
I wanted to be angry, but the sight of my painting was so horrendous that I laughed instead. One wing was much larger than the other, and both were far too triangular. Mr. Campbell laughed too, and the sound only intensified my amusement. His laugh was oddly contagious, and the knots in my stomach eased at the sound. His smile lit up his entire face, and he somehow managed to look even more handsome than before.
When his laughter subsided, he regarded me seriously. “I did find it a bit contradictory that you claimed to be so refined, yet comfortably allowed a bee to crawl across your hand.”
I glanced at the rose bushes, a wave of nostalgia passing through my heart. “My father kept bees on our estate in Dorset.” My voice softened as it always did when I spoke of my father. It was still difficult to do so, even though it had been years since we had lost him. Every memory caused an ache in my heart, butit was accompanied by a sense of fleeting joy for days that had passed. It was confusing. That was why I usually avoided the feeling.
Mr. Campbell’s face was sincere, a gentle curiosity in his eyes. “Does he still?”
“No.” I looked down. “He died years ago.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been quite difficult for you.”
I studied the grief in his own features, reflecting my own. Having already inherited, he must have lost his father as well. “Surely you understand.”
He nodded. “My father died when I was eighteen. I was quite lost without him. We all were.”
“It must have been difficult to endure his loss and learn to manage an estate all at the same time.”
A crease appeared in his brow as he looked down at the grass. If he confirmed my words at all, it was with nothing more than a nearly imperceptible nod. Then he changed the subject. “Tell me more about the bees.”
I dipped my head with a laugh. “What would you like to know?”
“Anything.”
“Well, I liked to help my father plant wildflowers for the bees in the fields beyond our house.” I smiled. “I spent all day spreading seeds, and when the flowers bloomed, I watched the bees fly from flower to flower. I grew quite comfortable with them. I even helped my father and the groundskeeper harvest the honey, and then I learned to make honey cake in the kitchen with our cook and my mother.”
