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He could not contain his grin. "Much better."

Chapter Twelve

Domodossola

2nd December 1816

My dear Sutton,

Written on my knee in the coach, so forgive the hand. We crossed the Simplon this morning by the new road, through a gallery cut into the rock. My aunt pronounced the view adequate. I could not speak at all.

We go on to Turin. Write to me there, at the Hôtel de l'Europe, Piazza Castello. I promise to stay long enough to receive it.

P.S. The innkeeper's wife roasts chestnuts in a pan with holes in it and sells them in paper twists. I have eaten a great many, and am eating one as I write.

Your wife,

Temperance

[Sketch of the road gallery cut through the mountain in the margins]

Iprefer ice blue for this room," Temperance said to Mr. Downing, the upholsterer, who held a strip of the paper-hanging that had arrived that morning flat against the wall. He had trailed after her since breakfast, pencil in hand, writing down every decision she made about the renovations in a battered pocketbook.

They stood in the largest guest room of the east wing, surrounded by dust sheets and the sharp smell of stripped plaster.

"Ice blue in an east-facing room will turn dreich by noon, once the sun moves off it," a voice said from behind them.

Temperance started, then arranged a smile on her face and turned to find the duchess in the doorway. "Good morning, Your Grace." She dropped a quick curtsy. "I did not realize you were up. Did you sleep well?"

"Aye, I'm rested and ready for work." The duchess crossed the room, plucked a few sample squares from Mr. Downing's pile, and handed them to him. "Try these, lass. Warmer shades will keep the soft feel o' the room. Or if ye're set on yer blues, at least use the verdigris."

Temperance pressed her lips together. She did not want to argue with the duchess. Besides, she had chosen every paper herself and disliked none of them, and it seemed wiser to keep a cordial footing with her husband's mother and surrender this one small battle.

"An excellent idea," she said, in a voice a shade too bright. "Verdigris it is."

"A wonderful choice, lass," the duchess said.

Mr. Downing laid the strip on the windowsill and scribbled a note. "Shall we proceed to the next room?"

"We shall." Temperance turned to the duchess. "Would you care to join us?"

The duchess raised a brow. "I had nae intention o' doing otherwise."

Temperance swallowed a sigh. The last thing she wanted was a whole morning of being undermined at every turn.

She got it anyway. They went room to room, down the east staircase and along the first-floor gallery, deciding on hangings and furniture and walls, with Mr. Downing scribbling behind them and the duchess countermanding nearly everything Temperance proposed.

In the grand drawing room, Temperance stopped in the middle of the floor and turned slowly, imagining it finished.

"This is where I wish to hang the paper from France," she said. "From Monsieur Joseph Dufour."

She had ordered it some years ago for Sutton Hall. The scenes it presented were of rolling waves, sailing ships, and a wide, pale sky.

But once it arrived, she had realized it reminded her too much of Norway, of the ships she had once watched every morning waiting for Sutton to arrive, and all the hurt that came with it.

She had remembered it after her conversation with her husband in the kitchen. It didn't need to represent the hurt of their once failed meeting, she had decided. It could represent the first story he had shared with her willingly after her return.

It was now on the way to London with some of her paintings.