“I’m next,” Aiden said. “I’m going with purple because that’s the color of the gown my lovely wife was wearing when I first met her.” He moved his arm as though he was stroking a violin.
By the time he was finished, Finn was already standing there. The brothers exchanged a few quiet words and a grin.
“They resemble each other so much,” she whispered.
“They have the same father.”
She jerked her gaze to him, a question in her eyes.
“The Earl of Elverton,” he said quietly.
She’d never liked the man. It was no secret that his unfaithfulness to his wife included multiple affairs at the same time.
“Beast, L is yours.”
He shoved himself to his feet, and she found herself desperately missing his touch. She watched his graceful, powerful strides. How was it that so simple a movement,a movement common to most, seemed extraordinary when performed by him? It had the ability to addle her mind, still her breath, cause her heart to drum a little faster. At that moment she knew if Father Christmas existed and was to grant her one gift for Christmas, she would ask for a waltz with Benedict Trewlove.
Slowly, he outlined the L in red, and she wondered if the shade of her gown had influenced him at all.
Once he was headed back, Gillie stood. “This is taking too long. Come along, Fancy.”
With arms locked, the sisters marched forward, took their turns with the O and the V, and returned to their husbands’ sides with no fanfare. Trust a woman to get on with things. Only the final E remained unpainted.
Aiden eyed them all as though each was responsible for some nefarious act. Then he looked back at his canvas. “Well, I didn’t plan that very well now, did I? You can’t have Trewlove without an e at the end and we’ve run out of original Trewloves to paint it.”
“It seems to me,” Mick said, “that what we need to do is find someone who has only one name. I just don’t know who—”
“I have only one name,” Robin piped up. He was sitting on the floor, nestled between Gillie’s and Lavinia’s feet.
“Are you sure about that, lad?” Aiden asked.
“I should hope I know my own name. It’s just Robin, nothing else.”
“Well, isn’t that a lucky coincidence,” Gillie said.
Finn slid off the sofa and knelt, making himself nearly eye level with the boy. Althea realized she’d made a dreadful mistake when shopping for her wardrobe. She’d failed to purchase a handkerchief and feared during the next few minutes she was going to be in desperate need of one.
“Would you like to be a Trewlove, lad?” Finn asked gently.
The boy nodded with so much force that his hair flopped against his forehead. “Caw! Would I? It’s the best name ever.”
“Shall we make him a Trewlove?” Aiden asked. “Everyone in favor raise a hand.”
Not only the original Trewloves voted, but so did everyone who sat beside them. Althea shot her hand up so fast she likely hurt her shoulder.
“Well, Robin Trewlove, come give us our final E,” Aiden announced.
The boy jumped up and dashed over to the easel. As he painstakingly painted the E, a different color for each line, Althea turned to Benedict, who was little more than a blur through the veil of tears she’d been unable to blink into submission. “Did you know that’s where thisprojectwas headed?”
As he handed her his linen handkerchief, he slowly nodded. “Finn and Lavinia wanted to give Robin our name, asked our permission, and since we were all in agreement, we wanted to do it in a way that let him know he was part of all of us.”
She dabbed at her eyes, at the tears. Such a simple gesture and yet its impact couldn’t be measured, would change the manner in which the boy viewed himself. She might possibly never have another moment like this, of sharing in the giving of a gift that had not cost a single penny but was still more valuable than gold.
As she sat there clutching the linen of a remarkably generous man, surrounded by the members of his incredibly kind and thoughtful family, she didn’t know why happiness rested in returning to Society, why she had put such value on its embrace.
If she became another man’s mistress, she would likely never see Benedict again, would most certainly never bealone with him again. She would have no more evenings of sitting in a library and talking. No more moments of discovering yet another facet of this layered, complicated man.
“Well done,” Aiden announced, and she glanced over to see that Robin had finished painting the E and was wearing a broad smile that had to be causing his jaw to ache. “When the canvas is dry, we’ll frame it and you can hang it in your bedchamber, so you don’t forget you’re a Trewlove now.”
