Whispers from the Shadows (25 page)

“Humph.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Eight-and-twenty. And if you intend to lecture me like Arnaud did—”

“Alain does not approve?” Father frowned and slid one of his hands away from Mother's to smooth down part of the bandage.

“Bennet.”

“Sorry.” He looked nowhere near sorry, though still plenty curious. “What did he say?”

Thad waved it off and strode toward the door. “He does not trust my judgment in love, that is all.”

“Thaddeus.” That particular tone of Mother's could, he was sure, halt a stampede of wild mustangs. He stopped with one shoulder through the doorway and looked back at her. She sighed and repositioned her gown over her ankle. “The wound is still fresh for him. Those two years we were mourning him, he was living for the thought of coming home. To get here and find his wife deceased and—”

“I know.” All too well.

Mother lifted her brows. “It is understandable that he would preach caution. He does not want to see you hurt.”

Thad said nothing in reply. He merely nodded and ducked into the
hall. He saw no point in arguing with his mother.

But sometimes, when talk turned to the topic love, he had to wonder if Arnaud really wished him well. Or if he rather thought Thad deserved to be every bit as miserable as he.

Nineteen

G
wyneth jolted upright in bed, her eyes searching the dark for some clue as to what had awakened her. Not a bad dream. Her heart wasn't thudding, and no ferocious images snapped at the back of her mind.

A noise. She had heard a noise, and she heard another outside now. Not a suspicious one though—unless it was such to be whistling when the only light from the window was the pearly gray of predawn. She tossed aside the sheet and scurried to the window overlooking the street. Little light was needed to tell her who was striding down the walk with such cheer. She had yet to see any other man in Baltimore as tall as her Thad.

Thad—not
her
Thad. Heavens. She pressed a hand to her gritty eyes and spun back to her room, lest he look back and catch her watching him. And divine, as he so often did, exactly what she had been thinking.

Bother. Now her heart pounded, and she had no handy nightmare on which to blame it. And certainly no hope of claiming another hour of sleep. That was all right, though. With a lilt to her step, she dressed in her simplest day dress, jabbed a few pins into her hair, and gathered up her art supplies. If she went out to the garden now to set up, she would be ready for the first touch of morning light. She could finish her rendition of the
Masquerade
and then still be available to lend a hand to Winter later. Her ankle was largely healed these ten days after the accident, but stairs still caused her discomfort, and she walked with a limp yet.

Her shoes in hand so she could slip silently down the hall, she tiptoed past Jack's room, the elder Lanes', and down the stairs. Last evening Thad had mused that, as it was mid-July, Captain Arnaud
ought to be back any day—an observation he would not have made around Jack had he not been certain of it.

She paused at the back door to slip on her shoes and let herself out into the pleasant morning mist. Warmer than any she had known in England, but still familiar, this fragile veil that hung over the day.

By the time the silver had turned to gold under the rays of the rising sun, Gwyneth had set up her supplies and brought out the nearly finished painting. She had thought it done four days ago, until she realized it had yet to pulse, had yet to breathe. Something was missing.

Some
one
. She had known right away that she would have to add Thad, though she had hesitated to do so. He had seen the truth of her father so quickly in that one. What would he see in this, if she included him?

She blew out a long breath to steady her hands and picked up one of the brushes he had bought her. Perhaps she risked revealing emotions of which she was still unsure, but she had no choice. The
Masquerade
needed her captain at the helm.

And she knew exactly how he must be—as she had sketched him that morning he took her to the stationer's. His feet braced on the pitching deck, spyglass in hand, eyes sparkling with fascination with the world around him. His nose a strong line leading to his lips, quirked in that way of his. One side raised and the other steady. Not quite laughing in the face of the encroaching storm, but showing clearly that his respect for it gave no way to fear.

Finally, that pulsing surrounded her, each thump of light in time to the strokes of her brush. The
Masquerade
danced upon the waves, partially hidden by the froth and the coming tempest, but still bathed in sunlight that lit fire upon the water. So sure of her triumph, because her captain could take her through any storm, against any enemy.

She lifted her brush away from the black it had been headed toward, shook her head. No, no thought of enemies. Not now, not in this painting.

A curl fell into her face, obstructing her view. She shoved it aside and dabbed a bit more brown onto her brush. Just a touch, enough to add that depth, that texture to his hair.

Hers fell again, and again she shoved it aside. If she had to put her paints down to fasten her frustratingly unruly mane…

The mass of it lifted from her back, came away from her face, and
cool air caressed her neck. She drew in a happy breath as she felt it twist and coil against her scalp. She reached out to stop his hand from grabbing the brush nearest him. “Not that one, I will need it in a moment. Use the bigger one.”

A low rumble of laughter tickled its way across her as he secured the knot of hair with the larger brush and then rested his hand on her shoulder. He circled his thumb across her nape.

She made one more dab, so minuscule it could scarcely be seen, and then paused. Her next stroke must be even more precise, and so she had better wait. Wait for his arm to come around her waist, wait for him to pull her back against his chest, wait for his lips to whisper from her temple to her jaw. Wait for…for…

“Oh!” She fumbled her brush, heat scorched her cheeks. What if he realized the thoughts that had flitted through her mind? And why,
why
had they so flitted? Why would she be waiting for something she had never experienced, never even dreamed of? Certainly never dreamed of. Those would be far sweeter images than the ones that visited her in the night.

She put her brush upon her palette and splayed a hand over her frantic heart. “You were not gone long.”

Thad chuckled again as he soothed and frazzled her simultaneously with another sweep of his thumb over her neck. “An hour, which was sufficient for verifying that Alain was home.”

Though her cheeks still felt warm, they no longer stung. She risked turning her head, tilting it back to look up at him. He was studying the painting. “Verify?”

His gaze fell upon her face, warm enough to make her cheeks flame anew. He grinned. “I awoke with an intuition and thought to see if it was accurate. Though I daresay Alain, who had only stumbled into bed two hours prior, would have preferred I had waited until noon to investigate.”

Her lips couldn't help but mirror his. “I for one am glad I heard you leave. The light is ideal this morning.”

“So it would seem,” he said with a nod toward the painting. “It is perfect, sweet. I cannot fathom how you manage it. The sun glistening off the water, the mounting clouds on the horizon…” He shook his head, gave her neck an encouraging squeeze, and then stepped away.

Disappointment whispered until she saw him reaching for two
steaming mugs on the small table near the door. He handed one to her and raised the other to his lips, his gaze still upon the canvas.

“Thank you.” Gwyneth took a sip and found the tea exactly as she preferred. The thought warmed her more than the beverage. Whether he had fixed it or Rosie, either way it was evidence of her welcome.

Thad folded his arms over his chest, his mug still half-raised as he studied the painting. “Is it finished?”

She moved beside him, trying to examine her work as a critic might. “It is hardly perfect. That section of the water there… But mostly finished, yes, except for the figure, which I just began.”

“Well.” He straightened and lifted his chin. “From what you have thus far, I can tell it is a most dashing figure indeed. You have already perfectly captured your subject's poise and good looks, and the charm he oozes with every—”

“Oh, stop it.” Laughing, she gave his arm a shove as she would one of her cousins. “I obviously still have quite a bit of work to do to capture his insufferable arrogance.”

His laugh seemed to wind its way through hers, making it richer, deeper, fuller. Even when it faded to a smile, still it echoed within her. He tilted his head to the side. “Over the mantel, do you think?”

Over the mantel—a place of honor. She wrapped her hands around her mug and took another happy sip. “It ought to fit well there.”

“Of course, once we start adorning my walls, we must make an honest go of it. The others will look all the barer, so I suppose you had better paint portraits of Mother and Father. And Philly, if you can convince her to keep her nose out of a beaker long enough.” He shot her that lopsided grin. “Or perhaps one of her with her nose in the beaker, since it is her natural state.”

She attempted a haughty look, but her smile no doubt ruined it. “If you intend to keep me so busy, Mr. Lane, I may have to start charging you a commission.”

“We can negotiate terms later.” His gaze, as he said it, swept down to her mouth and lingered there.

Which set that frisson of heat skittering over her again. And made her wonder, again, if he had somehow caught a whiff of her thoughts when he first arrived.

Well. She had learned to flirt in the drawing rooms of London. She could manage his lingering gaze in an isolated garden. “Why do I
get the feeling your idea of negotiation wouldn't be entirely proper, sir?”

“Me?” Merriment sparked in his eyes. “
You
are the one setting the terms, my lady.”

And hers the thoughts not entirely proper. She cleared her throat and turned back to the painting, hoping that if she raised her cup to her mouth again, he would think her flush a result of the hot tea. “But I am a gentlewoman, sir, unaccustomed to such base matters as trade. And certainly I have no idea what the going rate is for a masterpiece in such a savage land as this.”

“Careful, Miss Fairchild. Call this land savage often enough, and it may decide to show you how right you are. Though at least you can be sure that I am a gentleman.” He sent her a smile that no doubt deepened her cheeks from rose to scarlet. “Most of the time.”

Her throat went dry, and the drink she took did nothing to help her. Gracious—she had been bad enough at flirting in the staid and chaperoned London drawing rooms. What was she thinking, attempting it in an isolated garden? She swallowed another gulp of tea and faced forward. “You will need one with Jack too, and his father. And perhaps…” She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing, even as the words formed, that she ought not say them. Especially not
now
. “Perhaps one of Peggy. If you have a likeness of her, or could describe her for me…”

He sighed, but it sounded more resigned than pained. “Perhaps someday, Gwyn. But not for my walls. This was never where she wanted to be.”

“What? But…” She turned to him, ready to probe further and make sense of that. He had never said anything to make her think his marriage had been unhappy, but for its ending. Granted, he spoke of Peggy only rarely, even less than Captain Arnaud spoke of his Marguerite.

But Thad's eyes were narrowed, not at her but at the painting. He traced it with his gaze as he had the one of her father, as if following her brush strokes one by one. Then he loosed a surprised breath. “There are no shadows in this one.”

Of all the inane—Gwyneth pivoted back to the canvas. “Of course there are. The shadow of the hull on the water, of the sails, and within the clouds. The only one I have not put in yet is yours.”

“No, that is not what I mean. Down here.” He motioned to the
edge. “There are no unexplained ones.”

“What in the world are you talking about, Thad?”

“I am talking about—I shall show you.” In one smooth movement, he spun toward the door and grabbed her free hand, pulling her along beside him. He tugged her through the door, into the drawing room, and over to the
secretaire
where all her drawings were, along with the painting of Papa that Winter had asked her to move back downstairs.

He released her hand, set his mug down, and strode to the windows. A few stiff tugs opened all the drapes and sent morning light onto her work. Then he was back at her side, pointing. “See? Here. And here, and here.” He shuffled from page to page. Then he pulled forward the sketch of Papa's study and tapped a finger to the bottom. “And especially here. Which is the same one you put into the painting. Your uncle's sword, yes? That one I figured out.”

She could only blink at the evidence—so clear, yet she scarcely remembered putting it there. She would never have identified it, had anyone asked, as a blade. But obviously it was. The shadow of Uncle Gates's sword, visible where he wasn't. “I did not…”

“But these.” He indicated the other shadows. A scalloped edge, darting on and off the paper. “What are these?”

“They are…” She felt like a lazy pupil, unable to solve the simplest equations. Her eyes burned as she shook her head. “I do not know what or why. They are just there. When the images come, they are there in them.”

“In all of them.” He shuffled the papers again. “Your father's study, the garden, this country scene, your mother. The same shadows in all.”

“But not in the
Masquerade
.” She set her cup onto a table before she dropped it and rubbed at her temples. “I…I wish I understood. But you saw the blade when I did not. Surely you will make sense of this too. If it even matters.”