She breathed deeply. The air was sharp with electricity and sea salt and the pungent bite of linseed oil and paint. But beneath that harsh perfume, the narcotic scents of sandalwood and cloves marked the room unmistakably as Nicholas’s. She closed her eyes, allowing the rumble of thunder from yet another approaching storm and the rhythmic rasp of charcoal across canvas to lull her senses.
Still, she was mindful of her ulterior motive for the sitting: she needed information.
“Nicholas?” she asked, her voice hazy with relaxation. “You said you had not painted a portrait in over a decade. Did you never paint Olivia Linworth?”
For a moment, she thought he would not answer.
“No,” he finally responded tightly, “no, I never painted Miss Linworth.”
Mira let the silence stretch out between them again, washing away the small tension the mention of Olivia’s name had raised.
But then some little demon in her mind compelled her to ask about Olivia again. And this time she opened her eyes so that she could study his reaction. “What was she like?” she asked, hoping the question sounded casual.
“Who?”
“Olivia. Miss Linworth. What was she like?
“Like?” Nicholas responded absently. “Well, she was blond, and I believe her eyes were blue…”
“No,” Mira interrupted impatiently, “I did not mean to ask what she looked like. I meant, what was she like as a person? Was she kind? Did she love animals? Did she laugh a great deal?”
He stopped sketching and appeared to contemplate these questions for a moment. “I don’t really know. The only thing I can recall is that her voice was very high and thready—breathless almost—and I found that endlessly annoying.”
Annoying.
A tiny uncharitable part of Mira rejoiced at the word. She would not wish to live forever in the shadow of a dead woman, a woman who would only grow more perfect in Nicholas’s mind as the years passed. Yet it seemed he did not harbor any deep affection for Miss Linworth.
That instant of joy was followed quickly by a wave of guilt. Poor Miss Linworth. It seemed that she, too, had been an unwanted bride.
Nicholas seemed satisfied that their conversation was over, and he returned to his sketch, not saying a word but only occasionally humming a measure or two of unfamiliar music.
The more Mira thought about it, the more she felt compelled to defend Miss Linworth. After all, she was not there to defend herself. And it seemed disloyal of Nicholas to speak so unkindly about her under the circumstances.
“How rude!”
Nicholas jumped a bit in surprise at her outburst, and his charcoal skipped across the paper.
He tried to minimize the stray mark as he responded. “I don’t think it’s a question of rudeness. She could not very well help how her voice sounded.”
“Not her. You! How very rude to speak so critically of Miss Linworth.” Warming to her cause, Mira continued, “Surely you could find some positive feature on which to comment.”
Nicholas shrugged one shoulder. “I am certain Olivia possessed many admirable qualities, but I confess I was not interested enough to note any of them.”
“You cannot be serious,” she exclaimed. “You were engaged after all!”
“Mmmm. Well, we were not entirely engaged.”
“Not entirely engaged? I should think one either is or is not engaged. I am unaware of any middle ground.”
Finally Nicholas abandoned his drawing to give his full attention to Mira and his explanation. “Olivia’s father and mine are, or rather were, great boyhood friends. They were forever throwing us in each other’s path. It was generally assumed that we would marry. It would have been a terribly advantageous match all around.”
Mira sat up, riveted. “You do not sound as though you were eager for the match,” she commented.
“To be honest, I did not especially relish the idea, but I did not imagine I had much choice but to marry Olivia.”
“But I thought you said that you and Miss Linworth were not actually engaged,” she prodded. “If your respective parents were so set on the match, why was there no engagement?”
“Olivia was quite a few years younger than I, more near in age to Jeremy. It was no secret that he was utterly smitten with her, and she with him. Olivia’s parents would never have settled for Jeremy as a husband for her, however, because he is only a younger son with only faint prospects of a title and no money to speak of. It placed me in a rather awkward situation.”