Page 65 of How to Wed a Courtesan

Her fingers trailed over the table in front of the chair that sat between the other two. The gentle touch left streaks in the dust, but Lottie didn’t seem to notice.

‘Dina said when I was in London Lily would drag her chair to the window by the door to watch for me.’ Lottie looked at the window and smiled through the tears glittering in her eyes. ‘I tried to come as often as I could.’

‘She clearly enjoyed your company.’ Evander swept his thumb over her cheek, where one tear had escaped.

Lottie took him to the hearth next, and shared how they would sing songs before the fire as Lily prepared for bed.

On and on the stories went, their details filling Evander’s mind with the little girl he would never know.

What was more, they filled his heart.

They stopped near the far corner of the room, where a desktop had been secured to a frame, boxing the piece of furniture in on itself. Lottie hesitated in front of it for a long moment. Then, lips pressed together and back stiff, she undid the latch and slowly lowered the top of the writing desk. Inside there was a pile of paper.

‘Do you...?’ She drew in a shaking breath. ‘Do you want to see what she looked like?’

Lottie placed her hands on the stack with a reverence that caught at his chest.

‘More than anything,’ he answered with his whole heart.

She took another breath, long and deep, which she slowly let out. ‘I haven’t been able to paint her again since. I left them here because...because I couldn’t bring myself to look at them.’

Even as she spoke she averted her gaze and passed the stack to Evander. The pages crackled in his hand, the watercolour paint having left them stiff. Though he knew they weren’t as fragile as they felt, he used the greatest care as he turned each one over and froze.

There was a little girl with laughing blue eyes gazing up at him, her mouth in a smile that reminded him of Lottie, auburn curls blowing against her cheek on an unseen breeze.

All at once those stories Lottie had shared solidified in his mind. The child who had been blank now had a face. It was her sweet likeness singing songs she’d made up, begging to let a rabbit from the forest live with them, and sticking her tongue out with concentration as she organised flowers in the vase before dinner.

Suddenly it was real.

She was real.

They were no longer stories, no longer something he couldn’t imagine. Now there was depth. Heart.

That happy girl in the paintings had once been alive. She had been his daughter.

And she was gone for ever.

Emotion swelled in him with a force he couldn’t control. He set aside the papers swiftly, so they wouldn’t be damaged, and covered his eyes as the tears began to fall.

Lottie’s arms folded around him as he gave in to a grief he could not control. They held one another while he pulled at a strength buried deep and mustered his wits.

‘She was beautiful,’ he said hoarsely.

Lottie gave a sad, tender smile. ‘She was.’

‘I’d like to see the rest.’ He reached for the stack once more, but Lottie set her hand atop it.

‘I would like to look at them with you,’ she said slowly.

‘I’d like that too.’

She leaned back against his chest. Her head came to just beneath his chin, which worked for them now as she lifted the pages and together they studied the first image Evander had come across.

Lottie had always had an amazing talent, possessing the ability to bring anything to life with a pallet of watercolour paints, some ink and a few brushes. What she had captured of their daughter, he knew, would be as accurate as any portrait that could be commissioned.

One by one they looked through all the paintings Lottie had left tucked away in the protection of that little writing nook. She shared the inspiration behind each one with tales that had him smiling and laughing. In each one Lily’s likeness had been captured to perfection, from infancy until midway through her second year of life.

Getting to the bottom of the stack was like turning to the final page of a captivating book and wishing to have more. Evander wanted the paintings to go on for ever—to show their daughter meeting him upon his return from his arduous travels, then later having her coming out ball, and later still marrying the man who won her heart, having children of her own.