Page 15 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

She had the sinking feeling that his unlucky presence at the house party was going to have a decidedly adverse effect on her future.

Five

Teddy added a box of chalk to the growing pile of art supplies on the guest room’s damask-draped four-poster bed. He’d already gathered a leather-bound sketchbook, soft lead pencils, Indian rubber for erasing pencil lines, and stumps—made of tightly rolled wash leather—for shading them. When combined with his drawing board and easel, it would be more than he could easily carry. But no matter. That was what Jennings was for.

The balding manservant bustled about the room. Part valet and part ham-fisted nurse, he was a hulking figure, well made for his work. Alex had hired him several years ago, in an act of kindness, not long after marrying Laura. Before Jennings, Teddy had been reduced to relying on a teetering old footman with scarcely the strength to lift him.

It was a grim reality that, in certain situations, Teddy must be carried. Though not entirely without feeling, his legs had long lost the strength to fully support his weight. He required assistance to climb up and down the stairs, and to attend to some of the essentials of life.

There wasn’t anything dignified in it. Not so far as Teddy was concerned. In the beginning, he’d preferred to remain confined to his bed than submit to the humiliation. But for a man without use of his legs, life contained a series of unavoidable indignities. His chair was a necessary appliance, as was Jennings. Teddy endeavored to think of them in the same light. To do otherwise was to venture down a dark and miserable road. He knew that from experience.

It was especially dangerous thinking on a day like today—Christmas Eve Day—when the rain had stopped, and the sky was crisp with the promise of snow. A day when every other member of the house party had promptly dropped what they were doing in favor of venturing out of doors to gather Christmas greenery and mistletoe. Miss Hobhouse was no doubt among them.

Teddy, meanwhile, was confined to remaining indoors.

But he wouldn’t allow himself to indulge in self-pity. Never mind that it was another lost opportunity with his muse. Just as the day before had been.

Miss Hobhouse had spent most of yesterday avoiding him. She hadn’t been at breakfast, nor at afternoon tea. And when she’d at last appeared at dinner, looking stunning in a gown of pale violet silk, she hadn’t addressed him at all.

The latter had, admittedly, been a disappointment. However, they hadn’t been seated near each other at table. And afterward, amid the clamor that had followed the announcement of Mr. Hartford’s engagement to Lady Anne, there’d been little opportunity for Teddy to get Miss Hobhouse alone. On the heels of their brief—and all-too-public—exchange in the drawing room, they’d separated off into smaller groups, with the rest of the guests, for an evening of cards.

Miss Hobhouse had made up a foursome with Lady Anne, Mr. Hartford, and Lady Anne’s formidable, black-clad mother, the Countess of Arundell, while Teddy had been relegated to the opposite corner of the room, where he sat with Alex, Laura, and one of the other tradesmen in attendance—a rival lavender grower from Dorset, who hadn’t the sense to beg off any card game where Alex was concerned.

The nurturing of business relationships between the earl and his botanical acquaintances may be the house party’s raison d’être, but to everyone else in attendance, it was a party of pleasure. Especially now that there was a betrothal to celebrate. Games had taken up the whole of the evening. Not only card games, but games of charades, snapdragon, and blind man’s bluff. It appeared that similar amusements would be enlivening the remainder of their stay at Sutton Park, punctuated by regular outdoor excursions.

It was dashed awkward for a man in Teddy’s position.

One of his many leather traveling trunks sat on a silk upholstered bench at the end of the bed. He riffled through it with increasing irritation. “Where is my drawing board? I’m sure I brought it with me.”

“You brought two of ’em, sir,” Jennings said. “I put ’em in the dressing room with your canvases.”

“Fetch the smaller one,” Teddy said. “And I’ll want my easel as well.”

“Another day at the easel?” Alex’s voice sounded from the doorway.

Teddy cast his brother-in-law a distracted glance. “As you see.”

Alex strolled into the room, dressed in the same gray wool sack coat and trousers he’d been wearing at breakfast. He was a tall, athletically built man, with dark hair and a vaguely piratical countenance. A rogue, some might say. And many did, once they learned of his former career as a sharper. But he was a good-humored sort. Good-hearted, too, as Teddy and his sister could attest.

After breakfast, Alex and Laura had departed the table, along with several other of the more business- and botanical-minded guests, for a visit to the Earl of March’s greenhouses. Teddy hadn’t seen either of them since.

“Sometimes,” Alex remarked, “it seems that Jennings spends more time hauling your art supplies about than he does hauling you.”

It wasn’t the first time Teddy’s brother-in-law had made the droll observation. Teddy gave his usual reply: “He’s paid well enough to do both.”

Alex crossed to the bed. His gaze flicked over the chalk and pencils that lay atop the embroidered coverlet. “No paints?”

“Not today. I’m sketching something.”

“Something? Or someone?”

Teddy stilled for an instant before resuming the search through his trunk for any other supplies he might require. “Laura told you.” It wasn’t a question.

“About your missing muse? She did. Why? Was it meant to be a secret?”

“Are you and my sister capable of keeping secrets from each other?”

Alex’s mouth ticked up at one corner. “I like to think not.”