“Just two, not much room at all. If that’s too much, we can take the post.”
A baby doesn’t require much space. He’d loved holding Agatha the day she was born, and Amelia was most adorable at three months when she could hold her head up. The babe had slept against his lapel. “There will be enough room for two, and more.”
She smiled at him, then stretched to the sky she’d made.
Lady Ashbrook missed a detail or two upon occasion. She could be wrong about the artist.
The changes in Cecilia could be the difference of ten months apart. None of them were bad. Who didn’t like more woman to hold?
Maybe a babe is why she left Warwick. His father was miserable, but he’d tell Felton about a child, especially a son.
Where was this babe now?
In whose care did she leave his son or daughter?
No child of his could live in Covent Garden where so much vice occurred.
Felton had to do something with his hands. The scars on his left looked very exposed. “Your platform looks unsteady.”
He moved to the base of it and poked at the limbs and struts. “Let me make this safer. A good foundation is best.”
This was his truth and he’d grown in it since watching the Duke and Duchess of Repington and the Ashbrooks navigate their married lives.
Cecilia stretched to the top of the canvas to touch up a star, then bent to her paints. The scaffold rocked, and he put his weight against it. No more ignoring her safety, even if he was mesmerized by the smooth flexing and stretching of her trim arms.
The delicate motion of her hands changed the shape of the clouds, shifted the way the light reflected on the image.
“I could walk right into that meadow.”
She stopped and dangled the paintbrush. Then she glanced at him.
For a moment, a second or more, she smiled, and he lost all comprehension of the wobbling.
Her half sleeves exposed her arms. His wife was a sculpture of the finest copper. She was Helen of Troy with a face that sent men to battle—a duke and his son.
Or Felton versus himself. He was at war with his soul, for all his missteps. Weeks had come and gone. Did she ache even a little for the times they had things right?
“Do you need any help, Cecilia?”
“No, Felton. I’m quite capable. This is my third commission.”
Her tone sounded brusque.
He immediately raised his hands straight up. “I didn’t mean you weren’t capable. I merely want to help.”
Even at this distance he could feel her bristling.
Was it his tone? Was there something wrong with her needing him? He decided to get her talking again. “First-rate, your landscape. The finest quality.”
Her head whipped in his direction. Her hair, thick and curly, had come down from the thick braids she wore in her chignon.
“I think I must stipple more blue in the sky. What is your opinion?”
If he said yes, would that be interpreted as her art was lacking? If he said no, would she think him patronizing?
“I . . . I’m not sure. If I came closer, I could study it and be more sure of my answer.”
The tip of her thin brush handle was along her soft bottom lip. “No. You stay there. But you’re right about how things look different depending upon where you stand.”
