His words were spoken in anger, and even as he said them, he regretted it.
Tears shone in her eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to apologize.
“Perhaps I should go back to my parents’ house. At least there I wouldn’t be a complete outcast,” she said.
James shook his head. How had a simple disagreement turned to such a furious battle? Leah was using every weapon at her disposal to hurt him.
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
“No? Well if I see any of those stinking paintings anywhere near the house after tonight, I shall burn the bloody lot of them. And you are not the only one who is regretting this marriage. At least with Guy I wouldn’t be having to watch every farthing,” she bit back.
He leaned in close. Mere inches separated their faces. “No, you would just be his whore.” James brushed Leah’s hand away from his jacket and stormed out of the room. He marched into the drawing room and slammed the door loudly behind him.
Chapter Forty-Seven
James was good to his word. While Leah sat in the sitting room steaming over their row, he moved all of his paintings out of the house and into the garden shed. When she retired to bed that evening, he was still moving the last of his things. Leah waited for him to come to bed, but when her eyes finally closed in sleep, James had still not appeared.
Leah woke the next morning to see that James hadn’t slept on his side of the mattress, and he was already gone from the house. She lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. There would be time later that day for her and James to speak and apologize to one another. She was certain that her husband would eventually come around and see that she had been right.
After breakfast, Leah ventured into the now empty drawing room. She walked around for a time, imagining where various pieces of household furniture could be placed. There was a rug in one of the other bedrooms which would go nicely in the drawing room—its rusted red shade matched the color of the curtains.
With the smell of paint and linseed oil now slowly leaving the house, it would only be a few days before she could consider hosting guests in the house. Her first visitors would be her mother and sister once more. She would show her mother that she was taking her role as lady of the house seriously. It pained her to crave her mother’s approval.
She headed downstairs and into the garden. The wooden shed where James had relocated his work now appeared much smaller than her recollection of the previous day. After pulling the door open, she stepped inside.
There were a number of smaller paintings stacked against the far wall, but the space was mostly taken up by the two large easels which James had set up for theDerbyshire Twins. They were at the back of the cramped garden shed.
“It is nowhere near big enough,” she murmured.
Their butler had earlier informed her that it had taken more than an hour for them to carefully move the two large canvasses out of the drawing room and slowly inch them into place inside the shed. James had been at great pains to ensure neither of his precious paintings were damaged in the process.
She stood back from the first of the paintings and examined it. Already, the image of a riverbank and the overhanging grey willow trees had begun to take shape. Through the clever use of various shades of brown and green, James had been able to capture some shadows thrown by an afternoon sun.
Even to her untrained eye, it was clear James’s work was not a mere indulgence of a passing fancy. Her husband was truly gifted. Given the right support from his friends and family, James could be one of the greats. Someday these works would hang alongside those of the masters, such as Reynolds and Gainsborough—she was sure of it.
She wiped away a tear, her heart swelling with pride. If she had to make sacrifices in order to see him succeed, she would.
She stepped in front of the second of the two landscapes. Less than a foot separated them in the confined, cold space.
James had made significant progress on the work, his long hours at the easel evident. He had created the soft green and gold canopy of the woodland trees, and the first rough outlines of the lush undergrowth could also be seen. She could just imagine James picking up his paintbrush and adding color to bring the rugged bushes to life.
Her gaze then drifted from the paintings and took in the linseed oil rags which had been laid out flat to dry. If she had thought the paint and oil fumes in the expanse of the drawing room had been bad, in the tiny garden shed they took her breath away.
She sighed. James had been right; this was never going to work. Stepping back into the fresh air of the garden, her victorious mood of earlier that morning was now subdued by reality.
“I am a terrible wife,” she muttered.
James had supported her from the moment she’d fled the church. He had allowed her to make her own choices. He had seen her safely to her grandfather’s house. Never once had he forced her into doing something against her wishes. And this was how she, his wife, had repaid him. How she had shown him her love.
It was her husband who deserved her loyalty, not her parents. Not the people who had willingly sacrificed her to a life of misery for their own political gain. James loved her. Her parents only cared about status and power.
“Oh, Leah, you stupid, selfish girl.”
Little wonder James had refused to come to their bed last night. She couldn’t blame him, imagining how disappointed he would have been in her lack of support. How frustrated he must have felt standing in the garden shed, wondering how on earth he was going to be able to complete his work when he barely had room to stand.
A hopeful smile came to her lips. James would be at work until late today. She had time to fix this, to show him that his work was important. That if he succeeded in his efforts as an artist, it would be in part due to a wife who fully supported him. And if he failed, they would cross that bridge when they came to it together. In the meantime, she would do everything to help him.
“I hate morning teas and ‘at homes’ anyway. They are always full of harridans and their spiteful tongues,” she said.
