Page 10 of Romancing the Artist

“Not for hours.” His father’s tone was low, and he seemed distracted. “Have you need of him?”

“Mrs. Kimball and her daughter are coming to visit at 2 o’clock.”

Edward’s eyes darted to the mantel in the room behind him, noting it was but a quarter hour until the scheduled visit. He grimaced.

“I was hoping he might sit with me while they are here.”

He slowly backed away from the door, alarm rising as he made his way to the open window. He needed to get out of that room, and out of the house, before his mother found him. As of yet, he’d not come up with a viable plan—to show his parents how unsuitable a match he and Miss Kimball were for on another—and if his mother asked him to stay, he had no reasonable excuse to deny her request. Mrs. Everly was too good a mother to easily reject her wishes. Edward sacrificed much to see his mother happy.

And she knew it.

“Perhaps he is in the music room. You know he likes to practice the pianoforte on occasion.”

Edward’s eyes darted to the door he had nearly passed through.

“Yes, of course. I will look there.” His mother’s voice drew closer.

If she stepped into the music room, it would be quite natural for her to try the sitting room next. Perhaps he could leave through the smaller door that led to the dining room—

“Would you like to join us, too, my dear?” His mother asked of her husband.

The door to the sitting room cracked open.

His mother meant to access the music room through the very room in which Edward stood! He held his breath, staring at the six inches of open doorway, glimpsing his mother’s fingers on the handle as she waited for her husband’s reply to her invitation.

In a moment of sheer madness, Edward leaped to the open window, then launched himself out of it, vaulting his legs out first with little care as to how he landed. His feet hit the ground, hard, and his knees nearly buckled underneath him. He looked up and winced.

The window had to be at least nine feet off the ground, and he’d hurled himself out of it like a rat leaving a sinking ship. Really, he ought to be ashamed of himself.

“Edward?” his mother’s voice called again.

He pressed himself to the wall and winced. Did hiding from his mother make him a coward, or merely a poorly behaved son?

He didn’t linger to debate the matter with himself. Instead, he kept close to the house as he went around it to the back, the better to avoid the arriving Kimballs. He’d need to leave his family’s house by a way other than the road, or else risk an awkward encounter. The stables weren’t out of reach, but he hadn’t thought to take a hat with him. Nor was he dressed for riding.

A walk, then. Even if walking about bareheaded might be rather daft. He’d manage. Taking a route that would lead him off his family’s property altogether seemed the safest course.

“I’ll walk to the beach,” he muttered aloud. One could walk on the beach without a hat, especially in fine summer weather.

He tilted his chin up and set the goal firmly in his mind. Two miles would take him off his family’s inland property, down a road that was little more than a lane for carts, and to the Earl of Inglewood’s property. As the earl and his wife were friends of the Everly family, they certainly wouldn’t mind if he accessed the shoreline via their estate. All told, he would have a fine jaunt on a fine day, and he wouldn’t return for an hour or more. Long enough for the Kimballs to have come and gone.

Proving to his parents that Mariah Kimball wasn’t the right match for him wouldn’t be a simple matter. He’d already tried reasoning with his father, and he’d dropped hints to his mother. But they wanted him to marry.

And for some reason, they had decided Miss Kimball was the very woman Edward needed. And Mariah wasn’t about to tell anyone she had no intention of marrying Edward, because the man who held her heart would be deemed unsuitable by her family.

What was she hoping to achieve by buying more time? Would it truly make a difference in the grand scheme of things? He found himself uncertain of the outcome, questioning the effectiveness of their arrangement. Yet, he was willing to comply with her wishes, to honor her plea for secrecy regarding her unrequited love. For now, he would play his part, keeping her confidante without fully understanding the reasons behind her actions.

He kicked a large rock into the brush. His frustrations mounted, and his feet took him down the path faster than normal. He knew the way and navigated it without paying heed to his surroundings. What did it matter if the sky above was cloudless and blue? Or if the birds sang especially bright notes from tree to tree?

If only he had spent more time abroad before coming home. If he’d had an adventure or two more, perhaps he’d feel ready to settle. And then he’d choose a bride of his own rather than have his parents thrust the nearest neighbor into his way at every opportunity.

“Perhaps I could go to London,” he said, glaring at the ground as it changed from the hard-packed earth to softer, grass-strewn dirt. He stepped beneath the shade of birch trees, their leaves full and green for the summer. The cool shadows cast by the tree’s limbs, combined with the heavier feel of the salty sea air, made Edward realize sweat had broken out across his brow. That awareness made him grimace, and he looked upward for the first time since leaving his home.

After two o’clock in the afternoon, on a cloudless day in June, meant he’d been walking through the heat. Without a hat. But in a coat more suited to a cool parlor than the summer sun. He grumbled and tugged at buttons and sleeves until he had the coat off and tucked beneath his arm.

A breeze carrying the scent of the sea brushed by him, instantly cooling his skin.

Edward closed his eyes and leaned into the soft caress, then kept walking.