“That’s what Tramel said. You sound . . . just like him.”
His face clouded.
I shouldn’t have said that. He’d come back with coffee and food and remained patient and encouraging throughout the night. “Sorry.”
“No. Continue.” He again put his back to me. “You say I sound like him when I praise your work?”
“He loves art. We would talk for hours about technique and hues.”
“Is that what you did when you stayed at Warwick through March? It was quite clever. That would be the last place I’d ever look for you. I even refused his Christmas invitation. And yet, you would have been there. We could’ve started over sooner.”
“My lord, please.”
He knelt and fussed with his boot. “Is that when you went to Demerara?”
Stuffing the rest of the sweet biscuit in my mouth, I kept quiet. I didn’t want Tramel’s help to be another complaint from Felton. They needed healing, not more enmity.
Stretching again, he came closer and attempted to retie his cravat. “Sorry. Secrets and curiosity do get the better of me, and you’re pretty clever to outwit me.”
“Your pride prevents you from seeing any good in Tramel.” I stuffed another biscuit to my lips. “Forgive me. Not my place to comment on your family.” My words were full of crumbs.
Felton’s fingers flared, spreading open then closing to a fist as he pulled his arms behind his back. “No, continue telling me of his goodness and mercy. Perhaps the wisdom will now follow me all the days of my life.”
“He saved my life as I walked away, struggling in the snow. I wasn’t coming back to you just to be warm. Don’t take what’s wrong with us out on the duke.”
His mouth dropped open, then he sat at my side. Long legs dangled near my short ones, and he scooted until we were hip to hip. “It’s clear that I owe my father. He did us a service. You and I can talk, even argue with one another, and no one has run.”
He glanced at me, the sweet way he did when we awoke together in his chambers. “Your neck is stiff.”
His index finger swirled along my throat, tracing the stiffness that led to my shoulders. “I don’t want you troubled; let me stop being a pain in your neck.”
The massage and kneading of the muscles along my spine began. The man knew exactly what to do and how—the right pressure, the heat of his skin to mine. “I need you to help the girls understand that this is my fault. That it’s me you no longer want. They aren’t the reason we are done.”
“They can’t think that, Felton. It wasn’t.”
My head dipped to his chest as his hands shredded my knots. Thumbing circles behind my ears, along my throat, he dipped his brow upon my crown. His coffee breath warmed my cold nose, and I remembered the intimacy of his touch. “They miss you, Cilia.”
I missed them too. And somewhere in my icy heart, I remembered this, these quiet moments when Felton’s touch meant so much.
When his hands dropped away, I longed for the sweet tension to continue. Blinking, willing away the sleep that wanted my eyes to close, I stared at my canvas. “Three weeks of work, and now this is done.”
His face held the brightest smile. Was that pride beaming in his eyes?
That couldn’t be.
Art wasn’t practical.
My tiredness made me see things, things that could never exist.
“You need to sleep. My carriage is in a close mews. I can take you to your residence to gather your party and we can be off.”
The ride to Warwick was a long one, but was it wise to sleep in a carriage and afford Felton the opportunity to interrogate Enna?
He rolled down the cuff of his white sleeves. Everything was wrinkled. He was thin but well muscled, almost deceiving in his strength. He turned to the scaffold. “I shall take this apart.”
I tugged at my apron. It swallowed my thick limbs, my small frame. “It’s not necessary. The theatre manager will attend to it.”
“Instruct me, Lady Gantry. Like you did in our posing, tell me exactly what you’d like me to do.”
