Page 29 of Romancing the Artist

When his assigned lady took his arm, Edward caught a glimpse of Mariah Kimball. He hadn’t even thought to look for her. Which wasn’t the best behavior for a friend. Tonight, she wore a deep green gown lovely enough to draw the gaze of everyone in the room, though he doubted that wasn’t her intention. It likely had been her mother’s.

Thankfully, Edward and Mariah were put at opposite ends of the table. The long, elegant, wide table, which held four-and-twenty unwed youths, eight married chaperones, and the host and hostess at either end.

Miss Clapham sat across the table and one to Edward’s left, properly at the center of all the guests where she might see and be seen. Far away, too, from the earl and his countess.

As always, the countess’s table boasted the finest dishes Edward had ever seen or tasted. He wasted no time in attending to the ladies on either side of him, serving them whatever they wished, before filling his plate too. The conversation rose and fell in natural eddies and flows, much like the waves lapping on the not-too-distant shore. Among friends, Edward relaxed more than he had in days.

Nearly finished with his meal, Edward listened attentively to Miss Parr at his left, when his ear caught part of the conversation happening across the table.

“You mean to say what, precisely, Miss Clapham?” The tone of the gentleman who spoke caught him as much as the use of the guest of honor’s name. Because there was something unpleasant about it. Almost mocking. “In your village of Dunwich, is the society so dwindled that you rely on farmers’ daughters to make up a dinner party?”

Caroline’s sun-kissed cheeks reddened as Edward turned in her direction, and her gaze dropped to the plate in front of her. She answered too softly for him to hear, but the slight shake of her head and shape of her mouth as she spoke allowed him to make out the words “not what I meant.”

Mr. Penrose put his fork down, his expression incredulous. “What then did you mean? That you take dinner with farmers and their families? At their own tables?”

A few others had hushed, their attention as caught by the strange line of questioning as Edward’s. At either end of the long table, everything went on as normal. The earl and countess had no idea their guest had stumbled in her conversation.

“I have done so before,” she admitted, easier to hear now that others near her fell silent. “I see nothing wrong with enjoying a meal when it is offered by a kind, well-respected family, whatever their position in society may be.”

At her other side, Mr. Howard—a man three years Edward’s junior with a jovial nature—chortled as though she’d told a singularly amusing jest. “Come now, Miss Clapham. You are trying to put one over on us. No one of your good breeding can have so much as entered a farmer’s hovel. One has only to see your fine manners and pretty grace to know such a thing impossible.”

Miss Clapham appeared neither amused nor comfortable. Her whole face had turned the color of cherries. She no longer stared at her plate. Indeed, her chin had come up as though she prepared to do battle.

“What is so terrible about knowing a farmer, be he tenant or a gentleman? Agriculture is the foundation of our nation, Mr. Howard. Where do you think this food came from?” She gestured with her bare hand to the basket of rolls in front of her plate. “Wheat grown in fields, harvested by farmers and their daughters. Beans plucked from runners, tended by men and women who work long days. Fish from those who put boats and nets in water. If it is shameful work for them to do all the things which feed you, perhaps you should also be ashamed to eat the outcome of their labors.”

Admiration for the young woman’s bold declaration swelled in Edward’s chest. She reminded him of Hope, speaking up like that, and yet he had never seen his sister defend a humble farmer before. Miss Clapham’s singular response ought to put anyone who had agreed with Penrose or Howard to the blush.

Except it did not. Miss Parr tittered, covering her mouth delicately as her amusement escaped her. “Oh, Miss Clapham, you hold exceedingly progressive ideas in your head.”

“I think it sounds rather noble,” Mariah spoke next, a few seats away from Edward, her voice barely raised. He saw from where he sat the distressed expression of his childhood friend.

“Or soft-hearted,” Mr. Penrose muttered.

Edward’s fist tightened where it rested on his knee.

Mr. Howard added, “And this is why women are best kept out of politics, my dear Miss Clapham. While your kind heart makes you well-suited to charitable works, you cannot understand the complications of society well enough to see why the association of the gentry with the working class is a danger to the correct order of things.”

“Human kindness ought not be a purely feminine trait.” Edward didn’t realize he had spoken until several pairs of eyes turned toward him. Even then, he barely noticed their attention, as his was riveted on the young woman who had turned pale and quiet during Mr. Howard’s lecture. “I would rather have someone of Miss Clapham’s compassionate and thoughtful turn of mind representing my interests in government than someone ashamed to know the farmer whose labor provided the feast before us. A feast, I might add, that we enjoy in honor of Miss Clapham’s presence.” He lifted his glass as he said the last, “To your health, Miss Clapham.”

Others swiftly raised glasses, repeating his words, until the whole table became aware of the impromptu salute Edward had offered and did the same.

This time, a smile accompanied the pinkness of her cheeks, and her dark eyes settled on Edward with a gleam of gratitude. She tipped her head forward in the smallest of nods, and Edward responded in kind.

* * *

After dinner, Caroline drifted into the cardroom with the other ladies. The rest of the meal had passed without further incident. Mr. Penrose had even seemed somewhat apologetic after Edward Everly raised a glass to her health, as though he had recalled the good manners with which he began the evening. Mr. Howard did not speak to her again, though. She didn’t mourn that loss, given the pompous nature he revealed at the table.

How had Edward known precisely what to do to quiet the conversation that had left her feeling exposed? She hadn’t looked for a rescue from him or anyone else, but gratitude and relief had overcome her the moment she’d realized she wasn’t alone. Though she had to remind herself that Edward hadn’t been the only one to speak on her behalf. Mariah had ventured a defense first.

They were both kind. And evidence of their good nature reassured her in her offer to help them.

Caroline studied Mariah, watching the blonde woman sit at a table and pick up a deck of cards. She chatted amiably while shuffling the deck in her ungloved hands, then dealt the cards to the three women who had joined her. She appeared perfectly at ease with herself and her company.

Who was it, if not Edward, who had captured Miss Kimball’s affection? Neither of them had so much as hinted at the man’s identity, except to say the Kimball parents would find him unsuitable. Though it wasn’t her business, Caroline couldn’t help her curiosity.

Not especially fond of cards, Caroline drifted to the edges of the room. She studied a wall with portraits hanging from ceiling nearly to the floor. Old portraits, whose subjects wore thick ruffles about their necks and plumy feathers in their caps. Their features were quite uniformly oval, the expressions somewhat flat, lips thin and mostly unsmiling. The composition appeared somewhat stiff and formal, adhering to traditional rules of symmetry and balance. The colors and tonal variations, though skillfully rendered, seem muted and restrained compared to what Caroline had been taught.

Thank goodness art had come away from making everyone appear as though their heads were mere eggs with faces painted upon them.