Page 124
So, he’d used them both.
Evasive Simon had put down, on paper, exactly how he felt in neat, deliberate lines and then added a double closing.
For the first time in weeks, her stomach settled. Heavens, how she wanted to trust him.
Two days. She could survive for two days. He had said that he had urgent matters to attend, although she could not imagine anything taking precedence over love.
A giddy feeling filled her chest—not quite relief, but hope.
She righted herself, carefully tucked the note into a secret crevice in the cupboard, and then pinched her cheeks. Once she’d pulled herself together, she returned downstairs and rejoined Emily and Nettie upon the settee.
She leaned in to see what Emily had drawn in her sketch book. Blackwell and Simon appeared on the page just as they’d looked when standing in the doorway this morning.
Seeing Simon’s dear face, even in graphite, caused her heart to squeeze. He was looking off to the side and...
“Blackwell’s jaw is wrong.” Nettie pulled the sketch out of Emily’s hands. “He has perfectly proportioned features.”
Emily retrieved her book. “Actually, I think this could be my most accurate sketch yet. Your perspective can’t be trusted.”
“Why?” Nettie demanded.
“L’amour yeux.” Emily met Lenora’s gaze. “Love eyes.”
Nettie stuck out her tongue.
Lenora studied the drawing. Emily had captured the worry on Asquith’s face.
“Blackwell is fine.” She felt a little teary. To hide the welling emotion, she teased. “But you haven’t got Asquith quite right. He has a narrower face and, on the rare occasion he truly smiles, a slight dimple on the right side.” A dimple would change the worried expression into happiness.
Emily smiled knowingly. “The dimple, I can add, although I’m not sure I’ve noticed one.” She sighed. “But I have neither rubber nor breadcrumb, so I cannot smear away the slight rounding of his cheek.”
“A crumb from Nettie’s cake should work,” Lenora suggested.
“Heaven forbid.” Nettie moved her dish safely out of Emily’s reach. “Not even for a correct likeness of either man.”
Lenora stared back down at Simon’s face. She had little choice but to place her life, and that of her child’s, fully in his hands.
If she’d been right about him from that first day—that he was a good person with a wounded heart—she would soon gain everything she ever wanted.
But what if she’d been wrong?
She expelled a long, heavy breath. “You did, however, perfectly render the curve in Asquith’s eyebrows.”
“Perfectly?” Emily questioned with her incisive gaze. “Nothing can ever be perfect.”
Lenora slowly nodded. “You are, of course, correct.”
She knew all too well.
***
Hampton accepted Asquith’s request for an audience. Asquith steadied himself as he entered Hampton’s study. Everything was on the line—not just a reprieve for Preston, but security for Lenora and Millie, Hampton’s mentorship, and long overdue accountability for Willard.
“Asquith.” Hampton gestured to the chair opposite the desk. “Sit.”
The gentleman’s mouth was set in a grim line. He looked tired. The altercation with Preston, or, perhaps the fear Preston was headed in a disastrous direction, had cost him his usual good humor.
Asquith understood. He wondered if his father had felt the same fear when he’d stumbled.
