Page 4 of When She Loved Me
Trevor nodded in acceptance of this, sorrowful though it was. They arrived then at Dulwich College, which housed the picture gallery and exhibition of great painters. Trevor, having not visited the gallery as it had opened to the public while he was away with Wellington, delighted in the company of one so educated and enamored of the artists and their works. He watched, amused, as Nicole dragged him happily from one vaulted cove to the next to inspect the works of Rembrandt and Gainsborough, among others. She was able to enlighten him about the painters and their lives, even giving him a history lesson on Rembrandt, informing him that his personal life was filled with much misfortune, his wife bearing four children, though only one survived, before dying at the age of thirty.
Trevor decided as he watched and listened to Nicole’s animated conversation that she must be this passionate about anything she discussed. It seemed to him that there was a natural thirst for information within her and a desire to share what sheknew. Several times, she grabbed at his sleeve to underscore a certain point, and always her glorious eyes shone with delight.
With a casual intent to see if she were so impassioned about Gainsborough, he asked, “Did you know that Gainsborough married at the tender age of only nineteen?”
She nodded enthusiastically, and confided from the side of her hand, “I was made to understand he hadn’t much choice in the matter.”
Trevor chuckled. “And what might you know of that?” He asked, wondering how this little innocent miss hinted at a knowledge of a duke’s bastard daughter’s pregnancy forcing the hand of one of the great portrait painters of England.
She lifted her brows in feigned innocence. “I would know nothing at all, my lord. I wasn’t there.” And then she shrugged, moving on to the next portrait though Trevor caught sight of an interrupted grin that likely would have proved jaunty if it had been allowed to advance fully.
He was ill prepared for the amount of enjoyment he derived from this young woman’s company. As he was to be shortly married to this girl’s sister, he pushed aside the pleasant warmth that enveloped him, a feeling which grew then as she turned and beckoned him forth to view a Van Dyck, her smile pretty and unexpectedly disarming.
TREVOR IMAGINED THATtwo sisters, having been deprived of their mothers and having to live with the baron, whom Trevor now understood firsthand suffered only two temperaments—markedly gruff and decidedly oblivious—might be well pleased to have each other’s company. The drive in Hyde Park hinted that this was not exactly the case, and today’s visit to the Kent house verified that these sisters shared not one whit of affection. To be fair, though, he allowed that the younger sister would very well embrace any congeniality from the older, if she but offered, yet she did not.
Trevor sat, rather on the edge of his seat in the drawing room, as if he might bolt at any moment, while the two sisters attended their embroidery and his company. Sabrina had poured him tea earlier, though he’d wished for something more fortifying and actually debated traveling with a flask if all their meetings were to be so stilted. She’d inquired of the weather, wondering if he agreed that the air contained a certain chill today. And that, apparently, had exhausted her efforts to engage him in conversation, and she sat mostly mute afterward.
He was quite aware that Nicole stole glances at him while she sat at the opposite end of the elegant settee. Her eyes danced with some merry light and he wondered if this was a constant circumstance, that bubbling just under the surface of laughter being always ready.
“And what is it you are working on there, Miss Nicole? Some letter sampler to frame upon the wall?” He asked, not particularly interested in yet another young lady’s boasting of her fine needlework and her knowledge of the alphabet.
She laughed. “I should have, perhaps, only limited myself to that endeavor.” She held the piece up for his inspection. “I should explain that my intent to create a likeness of Lady Hortense—no, not viscount Marmount’s wife,” she clarified when hiseyes widened in horror, upon viewing the threads upon the linen. “Lady Hortense is my favorite mare.”
That made more sense, Trevor thought, but still was inclined to narrow his eyes, trying to discern a horse within the artwork, but could truly only make out four stubby legs and a conical body.
“Exactly,” Nicole said, looking now with disappointment upon her handiwork. “Mayhap, it will only be a likeness of my favorite dog.”
“You have a dog?”
“I do not. But my needlework proposes that I do. I shall name him Lord Higginbotham.”
Trevor chuckled at this and then was surprised when Sabrina casually turned her own needlework toward him for his perusal. Her design showed a perfectly styled vase and flowers, with curving and graceful vines and leaves. “Quite well done, indeed,” he intoned approvingly.
“Dear Nicole hasn’t the patience to learn the genteel arts,” Sabrina said, the ‘dear’ being said in such a tone as to suggest she was anything but. She stared at her sister for just a moment, while Nicole bent again over her needlework, and Trevor was somehow not precisely surprised to witness Sabrina actually looking Miss Nicole over from head to toe—he would have said with repugnance but could not fathom this—with the barest whisper of a sneer drawing her lips down.
“I just cannot sit for so long,” Nicole confessed, raising her face again, unaware of Sabrina’s inclination. “Drawing and painting, and the piano—practice, practice, practice. I’d ratherseeorhearthese things brought to life by persons who were engaged by passion and inherent genius to create their art, and not by onewho is compelled to create atrocities to please a society that insists that she embrace a talent when none naturally exists.”
Trevor was taken aback by the ardor behind her argument, which advised that it was not the first time her own abilities or desires were brought into question. And then she surprised him by smiling, her eyes lighting up with mischief, and proclaiming with laughter in her voice, “But now that we’ve established I have neither the liking nor the artistic ability to attempt such nonsense, I can dispense with it.” And she placed her embroidery aside then settled her arms upon the rolled arm of the settee and rested her chin there to simply gaze out the window.
It came to him, as he watched her rather sprawl out, that she would lift her feet and tuck them underneath her if not for his presence. Just now though, there was something very attractive about her pose, her waist and arms twisted to face the windows, her hair being pinned away from her face, the length of it curling down the slim line of her back. She slanted her head upon her forearms so that her cheek lay there but her eyes still kept on the street outside. She raised her gaze to the sky and Trevor wondered what had caught her interest to lift her lips in soft appreciation. Her brow had been knit with her frustrated concentration when she’d applied herself to her embroidery and now, just gazing out the window, watching carriages or people or birds pass by, her brow lay perfectly untroubled, her needs obviously met and her mind at ease. How perfectly envious of her he was just now.
Silence had now stretched for quite some time, but he didn’t think to disrupt it as it rather unconsciously occurred to him that her pose, however artless and unintentional, was actually quite provocative. Her position stretched her back and waist,showing her lean figure, while the angle at which sat her head and face revealed a wonderful and swanlike expanse of neck, the bare and creamy skin almost begging a man to touch. She is not a child at all, he realized just then, admiring still the line and arc of her neck and jaw.
Trevor caught himself, jerking his eyes away just as the shameless content of his thoughts struck him.Bloody Hades!He’d just ogled lecherously the sister of his fiancé. His gaze lifted guiltily to Sabrina, and found her eyes upon him, her fingers unmoving upon the thread and needle. He aimed for nonchalant, lifting his brow to her as if he only awaited words she might speak. She stared back, her look perceptive, while Trevor had all he could do not to clench his jaw at his grand error in judgment—indeed in thought and action.
“Will you and the countess come to dine tomorrow night, my lord?” Sabrina asked, her hands still frozen, though her smile was honeyed.
“Oh, yes, you must,” Nicole cried and thankfully straightened herself to a perfectly ladylike seated position.
Trevor sent his gaze to her for only a split second before returning it to his betrothed.
“Say you will,” Nicole pleaded.
Trevor kept his eyes on Sabrina. “I should be delighted,” he lied smoothly. “I will send ‘round a message to mother.”
NICOLE GLIDED THROUGHthe kitchens of the Kent house in Mayfair, inhaling deeply to identify scents of garlic and lamb and onions.She found Mrs. Abercrombie chopping anchovies at one end of the long prep table. The director of the kitchen showed no hair, her graying locks tucked neatly under a turban of red cotton. Nicole thought her life might turn upside-down if ever she walked into these kitchens and saw the middle-aged and ruddy-cheeked woman with her hair loosed.
“Please say there’ll be no mackerel tonight,” Nicole begged prettily of Mrs. Abercrombie, sidling up next to her, wrinkling her nose as she inspected the reeking fish upon the counter.
