“You have journeyed a long way already, Your Grace. Lady Phoebe and the Duke will be back in a matter of hours. I am sure they would both be delighted to see you.” Mr. Grimsby had his hands behind his back.
“I suppose I could wait a few hours. And it seems silly to ride all the way here just to turn around immediately,” Harriet said.
“Shall I arrange some refreshments while you wait? A lemonade or perhaps tea?” Mr. Grimsby asked.
Harriet hesitated. “I… Yes, a lemonade would be nice.”
“And shall I have your horse rubbed down?” Mr. Grimsby gestured to the horse being handled by the footmen.
“If you would not mind.” Harriet nodded.
“It would be no bother.” Mr. Grimsby bowed low. “I shall see it is done.”
He slipped out of sight, leaving Harriet standing alone in the hallway of Irondale hall. She looked around, the skin on her back and neck tingling as she stepped further into the house.
It was quiet, still. The servants were nowhere to be seen – no doubt busy with various tasks. There was no sound of Phoebe’s laughter, no gentle murmuring as Theodore worked on paperwork.
Perhaps this was a bad idea.Her eyes fell on a book that was sitting on a sideboard.
“That is not supposed to be there.” She frowned and picked it up. “You belong in the Eastern Library if I do not miss my guess.”
A loose sheet of paper slipped from the pages and floated softly to the ground. The furrow in Harriet’s brow deepened as she stooped to pick it up.
She turned the paper over in her hand and her heart tumbled into her stomach. It was a sketch, but it was not hers. Nor was it Phoebe’s. It was more skillful than a child’s drawing, though there was a hesitancy in the lines that made Harriet suspect the artist was not used to drawing.
These thoughts were in the back of her mind as she focused on the image in front of her. It was of her and Phoebe playing in the garden. Phoebe was laughing, a shy smile on her face but Harriet…
“I look beautiful.” Whoever had drawn her face had managed to capture the fine lines of her face, though the smile seemed softer than any she’d ever worn.
Her mouth was dry as she took another step into the hall and saw another book. Like the first, it was not where it belonged. She moved towards it, opening the covers and leafing through until she found another sketch.
This one showed Harriet and Phoebe sitting together at breakfast. Their heads were bent close together, whispering as though they were plotting. Her stomach knotted itself tightly. Her eyes saw a flash of green.
Another book was waiting for her in the drawing room. She drew in a breath, moving towards it, not daring to release the ones she had already found.
There was another drawing in the pages. This one showed Harriet alone, leaning against the trunk of an oak tree. Her eyes were closed, and she looked so peaceful it made her heart ache.
“TL.” Her fingers brushed against the initials. “Theodore Langford.”
She found another book, and another. Books dotted all around the house. Each with a sketch hidden within the pages. There were moments of her laughter. Moments between her and Phoebe.
Sketches of her curled up in the window with a book, sketches of her making silly faces with Phoebe. Tiny moments, that could only have been captured by someone who was watching her closely.
“Not just watching. He was seeing me. Really seeing me.” She placed the tips of her fingers against her lips. The sketches captured details she had never seen in the mirror, but the care in each line showed her the truth of Theodore’s perceptions.
Theodore’s drawings had grown more confident and expressive which each one Harriet had found. She could feel the emotion in the scenes that he had drawn, and each one pulled her back into the memory of the moment.
She steadied herself against a wall as her head swum. She had to keep reminding herself to breathe. A part of her wondered if she should stop, and take a rest, but she could not.
She moved from room to room. Sometimes she found only one book, others she found several. Each contained a drawing, some tiny piece of the life she had carved out for herself at Irondale.
There was one of her staring down at a wad of paper, her brow creased and a print on the side of her face where she had leaned too hard against her fist. “I was trying to work through the taxes and the rent we were owed.”
It had been mind numbingly boring work, but somehow, even in what she knew had been a very disheveled state, Theodore had made her look endearingly pretty.
“Is this how he sees me?” Harriet touched the skin of her cheeks.
His dark blue eyes filled her mind, dark with intensity. She swallowed. She had caught his attention, she knew that, but she had thought it only an occasional sort of thing.
