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“I’m sure I’d be terrible at making a speech to a crowd of politicians, but you’d still encourage me to try, if I had something important to say.”
“But I don’t have anything to say about the lake.”
“Is that true, Leo?” his aunt said softly from where she stood at her easel on his other side.
He scowled at her, scowled at the lake, and then scowled at the canvas, before stabbing his brush into the black paint and dragging a thick black stroke across the pristine white.
“Good,” said his aunt.
Leo
All Leo had managed to do was smear some black paint over the canvas, but Pea gave him such a happy smile that it was almost worth the humiliation of attempting to paint in front of her.
She gave his arm an encouraging squeeze before moving down the line to talk to the others. Leo closed his eyes briefly and willed himself to relax, making himself feel the dappled sun that moved across his back. He let out a breath and looked from the set of paints to the view.
The sky was blue. The hills were sort of…brown. The lake was…
His chest tightened. His fingers gripped the brush. The lake was black.
He moved his brush. It hovered over the black paint. Pea laughed at something Kethnick said. Leo couldn’t just fill the canvas with black. It wasn’t what Pea would paint.
He lifted his eyes. Made himself look at what was in front of him. Tried to see what Pea would see.
The lake was black. And it was also grey, like wet slate. And it was also silver. And it was blue from the sky, and the edges were green from the trees, and a great swathe of it was brown from the hills.
And it was dark. But it was also smooth as silk. And it shimmered like glossy hair in candlelight. And where the sunlight caught, it sparkled and glinted like Peony’s eyes when she smiled and teased.
The lake was death.
And it was also alive.
Leo let out another long breath and chose a different colour for his brush.
Chapter nine
Pea
“Blackberrypicking!”Peaannounced,as she set the trug down again on the Count’s desk. Unlike the picnic, this time it was empty. He looked at the trug, then at her, and leant back in his chair, elbows on the armrests as he regarded her coolly.
“They’re on Rose’s dinner menu,” Pea said. “Blackberry compote. We can pick some for the chef tomorrow. The ones from your own estate will be so much nicer than shop bought.”
Something almost like amusement glinted in the Count’s dark eyes. “Obviously.”
“You can finish work now, can’t you? It’s already past five. The sun will be setting in a few hours.”
“May I remind you that the last time you tried to pick fruit you ended up stung and bleeding? And that was an apple, not something hidden behind thorns.”
Peony flushed, because no, she didn’t need reminding of what had happened that day. Not the bit after the apple picking at least, when the Count had taken extremely good care of her tender skin.
Maybe he remembered too, because he looked away and appeared to become absorbed by whatever was on his laptop screen.
“I’m busy. Take my aunt. I’m sure she would love to help.”
“But…”
But I wantyou, she nearly said.
“But you must know the best blackberry spots. I saw some from the lane but that’s quite far to walk. Come on, Count. It’ll be fun. And I know how much you love fun.”
