Someone to Hold

Viola sighed. “He was my husband, Anastasia,” she said. “And though I know now that he never truly was, it is nevertheless hard for me to be disloyal to the vows I made him when I married him. He was as he was, and he did something right, at least. He fathered four fine young people.”

“Four? You include me?” Anastasia glanced at her, her eyes suspiciously bright. But they had completed the circuit of the room and Avery was stepping forward to meet them, his lazy eyes taking in his wife’s unshed tears. Viola felt a wave of envy for the sort of love she had known fleetingly once upon a time, before her father presented her with the perfect marriage partner.

“I will think about your suggestion, Anastasia,” she said. “Avery, do I have you to thank for Harry’s promotion to lieutenant?”

“Me, Aunt?” He looked astonished. “Harry made it perfectly clear at the start that he would allow me to purchase his commission but nothing else. I understood that he meant it, that he would be mortally offended if I were to intervene to purchase promotions for him. I took him at his word. And has he been promoted?”

“A letter arrived yesterday addressed to Camille and Abigail,” she said. “He sounded quite excited. And thank you for not interfering. It is more important that he acquire a sense of self-worth than that he achieve high rank in his regiment.”

“It is to be hoped that he will acquire both,” he said. “I have great faith in young Harry.”

* * *

Joel kept himself busy during the first half of the week in an attempt not to be overwhelmed by the new fact in his life. He did not want to be the sort who would dash out and squander a fortune on riotous living and ruin his own character in the process. And it would be quite easy to do, he had realized in alarm down by the river on Sunday. Money held immediate and almost overwhelming temptation.

He also did not want to think too much about Camille—or, rather, what he owed Camille. He owed her marriage. Having an affair with her was somehow quite different from having an affair with Edwina had been. With Edwina it had been like a game in which they both knew the rules and had no wish to change them. With Camille it was no game. He knew she had slept with him not just for the simple enjoyment of sex. And it had not been just that with him either. The trouble was that he did not know quite what it had been. Love? But frequently she annoyed him enormously, and, to be fair, he believed he annoyed her too at times. Regardless of what it was between them, of course, he did owe her marriage. He just did not want to think about it yet. His head felt a bit as though it had been invaded by wasps or hornets.

But good God, the sex had been enormously enjoyable.

He spent most of Monday working. He was at the house on the Royal Crescent during the morning, explaining to Abigail Westcott how he planned to pose and paint her. He sent her off to change into her favorite dress, not necessarily the most fashionable or the finest or the most admired or even the prettiest, but the one in which she felt most herself. In the meanwhile he chose a chair and its correct positioning with relation to the light and the other aspects of the room. Her mother was there, taking the place of the maid who usually sat silently in a corner as chaperon.

Abigail returned wearing a light blue cotton frock, which looked well-worn and slightly faded. Her mother looked at her somewhat askance, but Joel knew immediately that it was perfect. Her hair was dressed simply and took nothing away from the pure youthful prettiness of her face. He had had some doubt about the cheerful floral upholstery of the chair he had chosen, but when she sat in it, leaning slightly forward, and gazed at him with her happy, eager face and her sparkling, slightly wounded eyes, he knew that the painting he wanted was before his eyes and merely needed to be melded with the sketch he had made yesterday and then transferred to canvas in his studio.

“No, ma’am,” he explained when Miss Kingsley asked him if he would be painting here at the house. “When I paint from life, my mind becomes too caught up in getting every fine detail correct and my spirit is silenced. And my subject becomes stiff and wooden from holding a pose and an expression. No, I will sketch what I see now as quickly as I can and then paint in my studio. If I need to see the original again, as I probably will, then we will set up this scene again.”

He spent all afternoon on the painting and the evening too until the light became too poor. He was a bit uneasy that it was all happening so fast. Each step of the process usually took him a great deal longer. But inspiration was something that must be trusted above all else. He had learned that over the past ten years or so. And he was inspired now. He saw the girl as she was and as she must appear on his canvas, and he could not paint fast enough so that he would not lose that spark in himself that would do her justice. How did one capture light and hope and vulnerability on canvas without losing the fine balance among the three and without giving in to the temptation to paint the merely mundane—a very pretty girl in her case?

A notice of the death appeared in the Bath papers on Tuesday morning and identified Joel by name as both the great-nephew of the deceased and the principal beneficiary of his will. Mr. Cox-Phillips was described in the notice as one of the wealthiest men in Somerset and, indeed, the whole of western England.

Joel went to the funeral. It was at a church in a village north of Bath, where apparently his great-uncle had worshipped regularly until the last six months or so, when deteriorating health had kept him at home. Joel was a bit surprised at how well attended the funeral was. He sat alone in a pew at the back, and he stayed behind the small crowd that gathered around the grave in the churchyard afterward for the burial. Uxbury was there, making a show of dignified grief, as were the two men with him. Joel did not think Uxbury had seen him until, just as Joel turned away at the end to return to his waiting carriage, the man leveled a steady look at him. Joel had not made any display of grief during the ceremonies, though he felt some. Perhaps, he thought in the carriage on the way back to Bath, it was the grief of regret for what might have been. If he had learned the truth a year ago, even six months ago, perhaps he could have had some sort of relationship with the man in whose house his grandparents and his mother had lived. Now it was too late.