“Oddly, she does not. She is not my own sweet boy, you see. Her hair, her eyes, the shape of her face… everything is different, and she is so little, not a great big boy like Richard. So you see, my friends have persuaded me that the future will not always be so black. I hope that you, too, are realising that your future is not so black as it was just a few weeks ago.” When he looked puzzled,she laughed and went on, “Lady Patience. Surely you have not forgotten her already?”
“Ah. Not forgotten, no, but not broken-hearted, either. I was never in love with her, Lily. She was a part of my foolish ambition, that is all. I had determined that the way to secure the position I wanted in society was to marry a lady of title. I have been disabused of that notion in spectacular fashion, and can only think my humiliation is well deserved.”
“You are very honest, Lance,” she said, smiling. “If you want my opinion, I thinkshewas the foolish one. She did not appreciate her good fortune when she had it. But the next sets are forming up. Are you not engaged for these two?”
So he went off to find his partner, and dutifully pranced up and down the set. She was one of the better ones who was able to talk as well as dance, and showed no sign of trying to engage his affections or even to flirt, so he passed the half hour in pleasant conversation. It was only when he handed her back to her mama that he realised how thoroughly Patience had deterred him from marrying into the nobility. He had been dancing with a duke’s daughter and had not, even for an instant, considered her as a potential wife.
Lily came to say farewell before she departed for Brinshire. Since she brought her parents, three of her sisters, two brothers and two brothers-in-law, and all Lance’s family gathered to greet them, the drawing room at Mount Street was as full as it could hold. Lance was amused by his family’s deference towards the duchess, but they found her parents much less intimidating. The Willastons were mere gentry, as the Chamberlains were themselves, and the two sets of parents rapidly fell into a discussion of country matters, finding that life in rural Cheshire was not so very different from its counterpart in Surrey.
As Lily slowly made her way round the room, trying to speak to everyone in turn, Lance watched her with sharpened senses.He wanted to remember her like this, the modest setting much more suited to her quiet nature than the grandiose environs of a London ballroom, or even of Staineybank. She was such a dainty creature, and her clothes, although clearly made by the finest modistes, were far from the ostentatious styles favoured by so many of the nobility. And her smile… as soon as she had gone, he would reach for his sketch book and try once more to capture that smile. He had tried and failed many times, but if he could but achieve a likeness once, that would sustain him through the years to come when they would not meet.
Eventually, she made her way to the corner where Lance lurked. “So this isau revoir, but notadieu,” she said, smiling up at him. “Have you settled on a date for your return to Staineybank?”
“I shall not be returning to Staineybank.”
The smile vanished in an instant. “Not return? At all? Ever?”
“Precisely so. I have completed the portrait for which I was engaged, and a second one. I have no further commission to execute, and no excuse to be there. I shall send my invoice to the duke for the agreed sum, and I should be obliged if you would arrange for my paints and easel to be packed up and sent to me here. I think I brought all my clothes.”
“Your paintings have been framed and await hanging. The duke will hold a small celebration for the occasion.”
“Which need not involve me.”
She stared at him, clearly disconcerted. “The duke is expecting you back, Lance.”
“I cannot think why.”
That brought a fleeting smile to her countenance. “I am not sure myself. It is something to do with Mr Goodenough.”
Lance could not help laughing. “What, the fake attorney?”
But she nodded, her face serious. “He says that, whatever Mr Goodenough’s reasons for bringing three people to Staineybank,they were all excellent choices and he wants them to stay. Rowena, of course, is married to the next duke, so naturally she will stay, but he has said the same to Lady Juliet — that she has a home at Staineybank for as long as she wants it. Simon will be busy with the building of the orangery for some time, several years, and Sophia is happy to stay there with her family, so Juliet is content to stay, too. And that leaves you — the third recipient of one of Mr Goodenough’s letters. The duke wishes to extend the same offer to you, to make your home at Staineybank for as long as you care to.”
There was a long silence as Lance mulled over his reply. Not that he had the slightest doubt as to what he should do, but how to word it, that was the question. Eventually, he said simply, “It is better if I do not.”
She looked up at him and nodded. He could see by the sadness in her eyes that she understood him. “Very well. I shall tell the duke this.”
Within a very short time, she had gathered up her family, the final farewells were made, and she was gone, leaving Lance with very mixed feelings.It is better if I do not…so he had said, yet was it?
But there was no point in repining, and painting was, as always, his way of pushing past difficulties. He had received a number of applications for his work, and so he began the process of investigating the possibilities, looking up families in the Peerage or Baronetage, and seeking out the subjects at evening engagements to see which appealed to him. None of them did. The insipid daughters of the gentry, the bouncy scions of wealthy cits or the haughty ladies of the nobility — there was not a one who interested him enough to contemplate painting her. He had once told Charlotte that the whole world interested him, but over the last few months the whole world had shrunkalarmingly. Staineybank, that was the only part of the world that interested him now, and the only part that was forbidden to him.
While he was in this disordered state of mind, Mr Simon Payne, the architect, arrived in town, calling at Mount Street before he had even left his bags at the duke’s house in Hanover Square. Lance was on the point of leaving for his club, but he promptly turned round, and showed Payne into the drawing room.
“You look thirsty,” Lance said, pouring a large measure of Madeira. “Here, drink this and tell me what brings you here all pell-mell like this.”
“I am here on the duke’s behalf, Chamberlain,” Payne said with a rueful smile. “You know what these aristocrats are like — just will not take no for an answer. He wants you back at Staineybank by mid-summer at the latest, or he will know the reason why. He swears he will come up to town to fetch you himself if you resist.”
“Good heavens!” Lance said, exhaling forcefully. “Why on earth does he care what I do? I was engaged to paint Mrs Richard, which I did. Then I was engaged to paint the Merrington sisters, which I also did. Surely that ends any obligation I may have towards him.”
“It was another commission entirely which caused the problem, I fancy,” Payne said. “You altered that wretched spider on the ceiling of your room, and the duke is so pleased with the improvement that he wants you to paint the ceiling of the ballroom on the bridge leading to the orangery.”
Lance gave a bark of laughter. “Does he think I am Michelangelo?”
“He would have engaged Michelangelo, naturally, but since he is sadly unavailable, you will have to do, I regret to say.”
That made Lance laugh again, but he shook his head. “I cannot, truly I cannot…”
“Read his letter, written, I might add, in his grace’s own hand.”
