He dropped the used brushes into the glass of turpentine and looked once more at the large canvas near the window, its half-painted scene vivid on one corner and blank on the other, appearing as though the cat he had begun painting was melting from the canvas. He planned to depict the cat sprawling as it often was of late on a chair near the fire. The cat itself was currently nowhere to be seen, but Bentley had come to expect that from him. He appeared when he was hungry then napped on the chair or disappeared for hours at a time.
Taking his notebook from the table, he selected a charcoal pencil from his implement drawer and lowered himself into a chair beside the window. His fingers began before his mind settled on a subject, and he watched an image take form on the page as though he was not creating it himself. Indeed, sometimes he wondered if the pictures formed of their own accord, for he did not feel himself consciously choose the strokes necessary to make the gentle slope of a nose or the dashes of dark eyelashes against a rounded cheek.
Miss Green appeared on the page through no fault of Bentley’s, and he watched her take shape, looking down as she’d been at her arm as Mrs. Notley had gone about dressing her wound. He completed the drawing and stared at it, unsure of how to go about creating her freckles. A few light dots of the charcoal seemed to work well enough, but they were not exactly right.
Turning the page over, Bentley began again. This time he angled her face up as though she was looking at the painting above his parlor mantel. The painting he had done. He added the shine to her eyes, the slightly lifted eyebrows. He could see her face so clearly in his mind that it was easy to translate it directly to the paper. When he completed the portrait, he leaned back and studied it.
The freckles were still not quite right. Which was entirely frustrating. Bentley didn’t often struggle with his sketching. It was a skill that had always come naturally to him.
“Your dinner is prepared, Your Grace,” Egerton said from the doorway.
Gads, was it that late already? Bentley stared at the notebook in his lap, faintly aware of the flickering candlelight around him. His eyebrows were drawn together so tightly he was certain to bring on a headache if he was not careful. Closing the notebook, he dropped it onto the table beside him and rubbed his thumb and forefinger along his eyebrows.
“In the dining room?” he asked.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
He nodded. “I’ll be in shortly.”
Egerton quietly left the room, and Bentley rose, crossing to the window. The darkness beyond the panes was only broken by flickering candlelight from the lamp behind him, and he looked out over where the treeline should be, his mind conjuring the image he’d seen earlier that day. He’d been standing just here, considering the brown he should use for the leather chair underneath the cat in his painting when the volley of barking and chicken squawks had pulled him from his activity.
It was with amusement that he’d watched Devlin try to manage the chicken while simultaneously beating off the dogs. But his feelings had quickly shifted to concern when Miss Green broke through the trees, vexation written on the freckled lines of her face. Bentley stared into the darkness now, picturing her outrage upon finding Devlin trying to keep her dogs away from the irascible chicken.
Bentley could have stayed away, allowed Devlin to—albeit, unsmoothly—deal with the situation, but once his eyes laid upon Miss Green’s face, he had dropped the paintbrush and made for outside at once. His body had moved without his mind first determining it to be a good idea, and now he wondered exactly what damage his actions had caused.
He’d let the woman into his home, and she’d met his housekeeper. Mrs. Notley, Egerton, and the rest of the staff had done a decent job of attending church the last seven years without creating relationships within the parish. Their tight-lipped refusal to speak about their employer in the beginning had nipped any further attempts at gossip in the bud, and while he’d once felt guilty for what he’d asked of them, ultimately, it was their choice. Each of his servants had known exactly what they were agreeing to when they had come to Devonshire with him, and his wishes had not changed.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, he turned his back to the window. He’d been weak today, curious, allowing himself to indulge in the company of someone else for only a moment. But now his walls needed to be replaced, his protection reinforced. Bentley only hoped his carelessness hadn’t jeopardized everything he’d spent the last seven years building up.