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Chapter 15
“I apologise if this is boring for you—”
“Not remotely, my lord, carry on,” Violette said, urging Lord Northrive. She was sitting in a downstairs room that had become his study, ever since James’ passing. A rather light and bright room for a study with more windows than shelves full of books, it was a pleasant place to be. It was made even more pleasant to Violette by the number of drawings and paintings that Lord Northrive had scattered around the room.
“Bloody work…” Lord Northrive muttered as he leaned over the desk again, trying his best to get a handle on doing the accounts for the tenants on the large estate that belonged to his father. Violette at first peered over his shoulder to see what he was doing, but seeing how complicated it was, she soon lost interest, understanding why it was so frustrating for him.
For a few minutes, she just admired him instead, indulging in the luxury of being able to do so when his mind was occupied elsewhere, and he didn’t notice her. After lunch, he had asked her to keep him company whilst he attended to some business, to lighten the mood, but on occasion he would need to concentrate, as he was doing now.
He was leaning over the desk with his jacket long discarded, his shirt sleeves rolled up and the cravat so undone that a flash of skin was visible. Violette spent some happy few minutes imagining what it would be like to lay her hand to that tanned skin and drift her fingers delicately across his chest. The image made her shift between her feet, feeling a heat start up somewhere inside her.
It burned, but in a pleasant way, until the burn took over, and she was soon imagining what it would be like to touch that exposed skin not with her fingers, but with her lips instead, tracing a path across it.
“Mr Blake?” The sudden words made Violette snap her head in the direction of the open doorway, surprised to find Lord Catling there.
“Yes?” she said, praying she had not been caught ogling his brother.
“Do make sure my brother doesn’t work too hard, will you? He’ll give himself another migraine at this rate.”
“I promise,” she said with a reassuring smile, one that Lord Catling returned before he wandered off. With the doorway now empty, Violette hurried toward it and closed the door. She didn’t want to be disturbed again.
Rather than ogling Lord Northrive anymore, she turned her attention to the numerous sketches and paintings there were around the room. She smiled as she moved between them, astonished to find just how greatly skilled he was. He was not only able to capture an image, but there was always some kind of activity or spark to the moment. Whether it was the humour of the landscape picture in Hyde Park, or a drawing of a flock of birds taking flight off a river, or the gaze of a woman looking up from a piano….
Violette froze as she set her eyes on this sketch again. It was discarded on a table, rather than pinned to a wall, as though it had been forgotten about and thrown there casually.
“It’s me,” Violette mouthed the words to herself in realisation. It was her when she had still had long hair and dressed as a woman, sitting at the piano and being forced to play when Lord Northrive came to visit. It was a calm drawing, apart from the intensity of that gaze. There was a connection there, between the version of her behind the piano and Lord Northrive who had drawn the sketch.
She looked up in surprise, turning to him. She was about to ask him about it when she stopped, having to remind herself that she was no longer Lady Violette, but Mr Victor Blake. With his back turned to her, Lord Northrive didn’t notice her abruptly jittery behaviour.
Desperate to try and distract herself from what she had seen, she walked around the room again and found another painting of her, only this one held colour, and she was not Lady Violette in it, but Mr Victor Blake.
It was a rather astonishing painting of the night they had fled the drunkard looking for a fight outside of the boxing ring, with her running behind Lord Northrive, that same intense gaze turned on their pursuer.
She turned her eyes back to Lord Northrive, determined to say something about it.
“I remember that night very well,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant as she pointed at the painting. He looked up from his accounts and turned to her, a smile appearing on his face as he noticed the painting she was referring to.
“It was fun, wasn’t it? That drunkard certainly made it a night to remember, even if he did leave my hand with a bruise,” he said, chuckling under his breath as he returned his gaze to his accounts.
“You are a greatly skilled artist, my Lord,” she said, wandering around the room. “I know I have admired your skill before, but you have a talent that is rarely seen. Can you not continue it?”
“Were I not to be the Marquess, I would have more time to indulge in such things.” His body froze. “I fear that is a future I can no longer indulge in.”
“Why not?” she asked, walking toward him, earning his gaze. “Why can you not do your art if it is what makes you happy?”
He lowered the quill with which he had been adding to his accounts and sat back in his chair.
“Because being the heir to a Marquessate is already so much work. When I am someday Marquess, there will be even more to do. It will take up all my time.”
“Can you not ask for help? I thought Lord Catling helped you,” she said slowly, watching his face. There was clearly discomfort at having the conversation, discomfort she wanted to remove but couldn’t.
“It is unfair of me to expect him to give up his life to help me,” Lord Northrive said, saying the words quietly in a tone she had not heard him use before.
“Oh,” she said in realisation and took a nearby chair, sliding it forward and sitting on it, so that she was a little closer to him. “I have a feeling that, from the way you speak, it is something you have not admitted to aloud before?”
“You would be right,” he said, nodding his head at her. “You are perceptive, Mr Blake.”
“I aim to please,” she said, earning a small laugh from him. “So, out of fear of asking too much of your brother, you are going to abandon this love?” she asked. When his head jutted up sharply, she gestured around the room at the drawings and paintings. “Your love of art.”
