Mr. Willingham glanced at the biscuits and then me.
Another awkward silence settled.
Not wanting to break it by talking, I crumbled a sweet biscuit onto my tongue.
“Mrs. St. Maur, I hope it is a good while that you stay in Town. I’d like to keep visiting you.”
“You wouldn’t come if I resided in the country?”
His face pinched as if he considered it. “It’s more difficult. My business is at the ports.”
He rubbed at his neck, upsetting his thick cravat. “You haven’t seen all the good things in Town. You said you and the duchess where going to the market. Perhaps I can escort you two.”
I shifted and hid a little more beneath my shawl. “No, that’s fine. Our plans have changed. I . . . We are staying in today.”
His brow raised as if he had questions to ask, but he nodded and gobbled another biscuit. For a moment, I pictured a settled life with him at the breakfast table looking at my biscuits with such affection.
What happened when the treats ran out?
“Well, maybe tomorrow, Mrs. St. Maur. I could escort you two then.”
“I’ll have to check with the duchess. She may have plans.”
“Let me know. Don’t forget . . . I mean remember to . . .” He took up another biscuit.
I let the crunching of the crispy treats encourage more silence. Perhaps I should ask Willingham to leave so I could check on Patience.
She wasn’t feeling well this morning. She hadn’t looked so well, not for the past week, very pale in her tawny skin.
Did she hurt herself climbing and keep the injury to herself?
Did she think I’d get worked up and decided to keep the secret from me . . . and the duke?
He’d be highly upset.
And I’d be sad, sad that she was hurt and thought it necessary to treat me so carefully. Everyone should be clumsy like Mr. Willingham and just say whatever awful thing they meant.
“You’ve gone quiet on me again. I didn’t mean to . . .” He stood and wandered about the room. The warm paper treatment of the walls, the suit of armor in the corner. It was a mesh of the duke’s and duchess’s styles—formal, militaristic with color.
Willingham stopped and stood in front of my watercolor painting Patience had hung yesterday.
It was bright, reds and burgundies, my best fruit bowl. “This is lovely and new. Did the duchess get it from a vendor at the market?”
The man had his hands on hips as if he readied to be a model for my next drawing if I drew people. Did I draw people?
“No, sir.” I didn’t feel like explaining or enjoying such false praise. I was just beginning in watercolors, and Willingham wasn’t my muse. Pomegranates were.
“I rather like this room, Mrs. St. Maur. A very comfortable situation. You said the duchess redid this room. What color was here before?”
“Pink. I think it was called dead salmon.”
The man laughed as he circled the couch. “The duke’s last decorator had a since of humor.”
But that was how the color was described, dead as in flat, salmon as in fish pink. I stood and swept to the window. Tugging the curtain wider, I witnessed nothing new, still a lone street. Still one carriage, Mr. Willingham’s.
“Are you looking for someone?”
“No. No.” I drew the airy panels shut. It was foolish to hunt for the earl. His plans could’ve changed.
