Page 51 of The Lady Makes Her Mark

He glanced once over his shoulder toward the window, then shook his head and strode toward her. “Not at all. I am at leisure.” He gestured toward a pair of chairs. “Come, sit down.” She perched uneasily on the edge of one seat, expecting him to take the other. But he remained standing, his hands still crossed behind his back. “My sisters have been cooperative pupils, I hope?”

“Oh, indeed, my lord.” At that, something wrinkled his brow—disbelief, displeasure? She relaxed her spine and added, more honestly, “To varying degrees.”

That earned a smile. “That’s more like what I expected to hear. But is that what’s brought you here this afternoon? They gave me to understand—and I have, er, noted myself—that you generally employ this time with your own work.”

Had he been watching the progress of her drawing of Rylemoor Abbey, waiting by the window for her to appear? The thought made her at once nervous and pleased.

“You are not bothered by my doing so, my lord? I would not like to overstep.”

One brow lifted in a skeptical arch. “Really? That would be a change.” His gentle teasing—no doubt the same fashion in which he teased his sisters—made her chest ache. Then he sank onto the opposite chair, the better to scrutinize her more closely. “Is everything all right, Constantia? You do not seem yourself.”

“All is well,” she said, feigning brightness. “It is only that your aunt—”

“Good Lord.” His laugh had an edge. “Do not tell me she approached you with her mad idea of having my portrait made?”

“She did.” She plucked at the fraying edge of the bandage around her wrist. It was no longer strictly necessary; she might better take it off than risk dragging it across a sketch and smudging the pencil. “And I have agreed to do it.”

“Oh.” He was on his feet again and in half a moment had placed the desk between them. “Well, given the ample practice you have with the subject, it should pose no challenge to you to make my picture.”

“But a portrait of the sort your aunt has commissioned is something rather different. It will require sittings, I’m afraid. At least a few.”

His shoulders rose and fell on a deep but silent breath. “I see. Well, that will be no very great matter. I’ll just pop round to the schoolroom a time or two, shall I?”

She had already considered what might become of whatever remained of her wits if she had to sit alone with him in the schoolroom, just a few feet away from her bed. “The light there is only suitable in the mornings, I’m afraid, and that is when I teach your sisters.”

“Ah.” He swept a hand in front of him. “Here, then?”

She glanced around the library, which felt heavy and dark in spite of high ceilings and a row of tall windows facing west. No one, not even Alistair, could truly be comfortable in such a room. Discomfort produced awkward portraits, and this one would be uncomfortable enough already. “Perhaps we would do better to seek a less . . . formal space?”

“Less stuffy, you mean,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. But there was a smile in his voice now, albeit a reluctant one. He ventured out from behind the desk again and propped one hip against its bulk. “So what did you have in mind?”

“I don’t pretend to know the house well.” She thought of the few parts of the abbey she had visited. “The family sitting room, perhaps?”

Quickly he shook his head. “Not unless you fancy working with an audience.”

“No,” she agreed. “No, that wouldn’t be ideal.”

“So, if I understand you correctly, you’d like to find, somewhere within the confines of this nearly six-hundred-year-old building, a comfortable place, with better than adequate natural light, where we won’t be disturbed?”

She gnawed at the inside of her bottom lip and nodded.

Silence fell as they both paused to think—well, she presumed he was thinking. Other than a steady drumbeat of the phrases I can do this, I must do this, her mind was an utter blank.

Eventually he pushed himself to standing and approached her chair. His features were carefully schooled to blandness, but there was something glimmering in the depths of his dark eyes that might have been anger. Or pain. Or perhaps both.

“I know a spot. Come with me.”

With the wave of a hand, he ushered her from the library, across the drawing room, and down a different set of stairs. Out of habit, she started to cross the entry hall before realizing he had turned in the opposite direction. Toward the west wing.

His stride grew longer, though not, she felt almost certain, out of eagerness. Determination, perhaps. In spite of her long legs, she had to trot to keep up. They walked along a passageway that was open to the courtyard on one side, a sort of arched colonnade. It was not difficult to imagine monks marching two by two from their cells to the abbey church.

At the end of the passageway stood another heavy oak door, this one studded with iron nails and shut with a rusted padlock. From his waistcoat pocket, Alistair produced a key of equal antiquity and opened it. With the aid of a shove from his shoulder, the door scraped across the stone. Though they were as good as standing in the open on this cold and damp day, the air that swept out of the door was somehow colder and damper still.

“Is it safe?” she asked, taking a last upward glance at the crumbling church tower.

“That depends entirely on how far you go.” He went in first and waited for her to follow. “You’ll need to watch your step.”

Heeding those words of caution, she kept close on his heels. Even in the dimness, she could make out wispy cobwebs and patches of green growth on the walls and at their feet. No one appeared to have passed this way in quite some time.