Page 27 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

In the end, all she’d done was delay the inevitable. Her very attempts at avoiding Mr. Hayes had led her straight to his door.

And then his painting had lured her inside.

It was unlike any landscape Stella had ever seen. Not an exact rendering, by any stretch of the imagination. It contained only the barest impression of the form of a tree, set against a snowbank of gleaming white. A blurred depiction, composed of small, unblended brushstrokes that rather miraculously managed to capture the changing effect of the morning light on the bark and across the expanse of the snow.

Some might call it an unfinished effort. A work unworthy of even a novice artist. But the whole of it inspired an odd ache in Stella’s breast.

Was that how Mr. Hayes meant to depict her? Not as a duplicate of herself, but as an indistinct figure who would provoke that same queer feeling in others?

It was unnerving to think of.

It was also rather exciting.

He’d spoken of light and movement. Of paintings that served no purpose other than to stimulate the artistic sensibilities. “Who’s to say that strange is bad?” he’d asked her.

Only everyone she’d ever met in her village in Derbyshire. Only the whole of fashionable London.

But Mr. Hayes didn’t seem to care about any of them. He didn’t appear to be influenced by anyone’s opinions but his own.

“I intended to have my tea here alone,” she informed him after the servants had gone. “Mr. Hartford said that no one ever came into this wing of the house. He said this parlor was private.”

“Lord March assured me of the same,” Mr. Hayes said. “He offered the room to serve as my studio for the remainder of my stay, so I might have a place to work in peace.” He studied her face. “Why alone?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why not join the others in the drawing room for Christmas tea?”

Stella reached for the silver teapot to fill their cups. She would have liked to join the others, but there was no way to show herself in the drawing room without causing comment. With her cap on, she looked an absolute quiz. Everyone would know something was amiss.

It was a small miracle that Mr. Hayes had yet to remark on it. He’d glanced at the awful head covering often enough, and with a slight notch between his black brows, too, as though he couldn’t quite discern what she was about in wearing it. It was only a matter of time before he broached the subject.

She’d hoped to get through the remaining three days of the party without encountering him—or any of the guests—in the house. Far better to see them out of doors, where she could justifiably cover her newly restored gray hair with a combination of a silken net and a bonnet.

As for the fact that today was Christmas, it would have to be enough that she’d honored the day with Anne and Lady Arundell earlier this morning. The three of them had shared a private breakfast in the small sitting room attached to the countess’s bedchamber. Anne had surprised Stella with a ribbon-wrapped pair of new worsted riding gloves, and Stella had given Anne a framed sketch she’d drawn of Anne’s golden stallion, Saffron.

“Sometimes I prefer being on my own,” Stella said as she poured Mr. Hayes’s tea. “What about you? Why aren’t you celebrating with the others?”

“You weren’t at breakfast yesterday, either, I observed,” he said, not allowing Stella to turn the subject away from herself. “Nor at dinner last night. Nor at the dance.” He paused. “You haven’t, by any chance, been avoiding me?”

Her ungloved fingers slipped on the handle of the teapot. A gush of tea streamed from the spout, missing Mr. Hayes’s cup and splashing onto the table. It soaked into the linen tablecloth in a swiftly expanding dark ring of Darjeeling.

Stella hurriedly sat down the pot. “Oh, how clumsy I am!”

Mr. Hayes seemed to take the spilled tea as confirmation. “So, you were avoiding me.”

She exhaled a frustrated breath as she dabbed at the wet spot with her napkin. “Well, if I was,” she muttered, “I’ve done an abysmal job of it. Rather than sharing a breakfast table together with dozens of other people, we’re taking tea, just the two of us, in an otherwise empty room.”

His mouth quirked. “Scandalous.”

It was. Oh, but it was. Stella’s thumping heart told her so.

That didn’t mean she wished to draw attention to the fact. The less fuss they made over this situation, the better. And in the end, what damage could it really do? They were merely two guests at a respectable house party. Cordial and indifferent acquaintances brought together by chance. Surely any danger in their being of the opposite sex was outweighed by the obligations of civility?

He’d said he was on his own and desirous of company. It would have been churlish for Stella to dart off and leave him here, absent the assistance of a companion or servant.

But she recognized the danger. And not only the danger posed by his offer to paint her, but the very real danger posed by the mere fact of being in his presence.

It was too easy to talk with him. Too easy to share things she oughtn’t. Good Lord, she’d already discussed coloring her hair, and told him about her old governess, and about her brother and Miss Trent. Heaven only knew what else Stella would confide if she remained in his company much longer.