“Of course, Aunt.” Harriette squeezed her hands. Her aunt still looked robust to her, but she was aging. Harriette’s children were the one hope of continuing her family and its rule of the duchy of Löwenburg, since Franz Karl was not like to sire heirs. She knew her aunt was determined to live long enough to see to their education the way she’d seen to Harriette’s.
“The High and Well-Born Natalya Dobraya,” Dunstan went on. He never wearied of this, no matter how many times the girls visited. “Miss Darci Kilcannon. Miss Melike Yilmaz. Miss Sorcha Cowley. And Miss Chima?—”
He looked with a small challenge at the last girl. Lady Cranbury’s former companion had become a fixture of the Catherine Club. She and Sorcha were constantly together, and she showed no small skill for writing and spinning tales. She was working on a novel about a kidnapped girl who turned out to be an African princess, and Harriette was desperate for her to reach the end so they could publish it.
“Miss Chima Smythe,” Chima said, with a bold wink at Harriette, and Harriette grinned.
“I didn’t miss it, did I?”
Amalie swirled into the room, hair powder floating gently in her wake. In the year since Harriette had married her brother and come to live at Renwick House, Amalie had gained every day in health and vitality. The grey line above her teeth was gone and her gums no longer bled. Her eyes were bright and clear, her hair thick and healthy, and there was nothing dainty about her appetite.
Jock was teaching her how to ride, Abassi was teaching her how to shoot, and Beater, of all people, was teaching her how to dance. The three men ambled into the room, carrying on a strenuous argument about the results of a recent mill they’d all gone to see, the specifics of which Beater was critiquing with some flair.
Abassi was no longer in hiding, now that advertisements for the bounty on his head had ceased, and he dressed the part of a gentleman with white stockings, a multitude of gleaming buttons on his embroidered coats, and a handsome cane that went rakishly well with his eye patch. He strolled to stand behind where the Countess of Calenberg had seated herself, one hand resting on the back of the couch near her shoulder. Harriette smiled to herself. She didn’t know the full relationship between her aunt and the much younger man, and frankly it was none of her business, but she was glad to see his protective, affectionate gesture.
The Countess of Renwick no longer resided at Renwick House. She had consented to attend her son’s marriage, accepting congratulations with stiff hauteur, then had taken up an invitation to tour the Continent with the disgraced Dowager Duchess of Hunsdon. She did not write to her children, other than to say she would take up residence at Bolton Abbey whenever she returned. Harriette held out the hope that healthy grandchildren might soften Ren’s mother in time.
But they would have to be strong and healthy. She would accept nothing less.
“You’re just in time.”
Harriette moved to the easel as the company arranged themselves about the room. Ren had let her appropriate the morning room of Renwick House for her studio, as it captured the most natural light. The subtle golds and greens of the room soothed her but didn’t distract, and Amalie and Ren were happy to take callers in the library or, for more important guests, one of the formal drawing rooms upstairs. Ren had given her anything she asked as far as accommodating her wish to paint and her wish to have someone else see to the housekeeping, and Harriette again acknowledged her good fortune.
A silence held as she pulled the cloth from the tall canvas. It was followed by the small sigh that Harriette had learned to crave more than any other response to her art: that sigh that said the viewer was touched and moved by the beauty of her creation.
Amalie stared from the canvas at them, meeting their eyes with an expression both frank and demure. She stood in profile, light gleaming on her gown of lilac silk. Her left arm rested on a small table in its ubiquitous, identifying muff; Amalie’s muff had become the rage of the Season, and every young lady demanded one. Paris couldn’t send them fast enough.
In her right hand she held a small book, open as if the viewer had surprised her in the act of reading. Her hair was lightly powdered, her unmarked cheek pink with health, but it was the light in her eyes that was most marvelous. With a few bits of paint, Harriette had captured her intelligence, her strength, and a trace of her vulnerability as well.
“Hari,” was all the countess said, but her voice was full of pride.
Harriette peered into Amalie’s eyes, then at the canvas. “You don’t think—just a touch more silver in the blue?”
“Leave it,” Princess said firmly. “You have her to the life, Hari.”
Amalie’s eyes filled with tears, and she rested a hand on the lace fluttering at her bosom. “That’s—that’s me?” She turned to Harriette with shining eyes. “You made me sobeautiful.”
“I paint what I see,” Harriette said loyally, and held out her arms as the girl leaned into her, sniffling. She could not manage a proper embrace, what with her belly, and even the small pressure made the child within her turn. Something in her stretched tight, tight, and tighter still. Then she felt the unmistakable clench, like a belt tightening across her middle, and she knew what was happening.
Her eyes flew across the room to meet Sorcha’s, who raised her eyebrows. Harriette gave her a tiny nod, then looked away to accept the praise of the other girls who crowded around her.
“Angelica Kauffman will adore this one, too,” Aunt Calenberg pronounced after Dunstan brought refreshments and the party turned to tea.
“She has already said she wants it for the next exhibition of the Royal Academy,” Harriette said with pride.
Sorcha had told her first babes took their time. She would not cut short Amalie’s party, nor her triumph. This was only her second finished portrait for display, and she wanted to savor the accomplishment. She still had so much to learn, but after months of work and the interruptions of pregnancy and travel, it had turned out exactly as she wanted, and that was saying something.
“And,” she went on, “Mrs. Kauffman says if she has her way, she will hang it right next to Ren’s.” Harriette had posed Amalie with her right side facing the viewer partly to hide her left side, but mostly so that her portrait would complement Ren’s, who was looking left in his. The gorgeous Matheson children would face each other in matched dignity and beauty in the gallery of the Royal Academy Exhibition, and, Harriette hoped, gain her more commissions.
“And the Bessington portraits?” her aunt asked.
“The major figures are done, and it remains only to fill in the backgrounds and a few final details. The family is on holiday in Italy now, but I will finish this fall.”
“And visit Löwenburg this winter,” Ren said. “The little duchess will have to see her lands.”
Harriette grimaced. “The littleearl,” she said, “is like to remain here, safe with his wet nurse. I do not think a babe of a few months ought to travel.”
“I will come with you this time, I think,” Aunt Calenberg said, sipping her tea. “I want to ensure my nephew is proving a proper steward.”
