Page 90 of Miss Devoted
He rested an arm along the top of the bench and sat back. “One concludes they like having Papa around more.”
Maybe Michael was feeling shy too. “And you?”
“A chasm in my soul has been filled with bedtime stories, hugs, homilies on table manners, philosophical debates on war, and great debates on the absolute necessity of acquiring a puppy. I am dazed with joy and trying not to be too indulgent. Mrs. H and Finny find me uproarious, and I relish their ridicule.”
“Because you are a family now, as you could not be before. I’m glad for you, and, Michael, be indulgent. Get the puppy. Get two puppies. Trust the joy.”
“Two puppies?”
“You asked me recently if I was interested in fighting for a future with you and the children.”
“My circumstances were vastly different then. Your art means a great deal to you, Psyche, and with me on your coattails, I hardly see the best commissions coming your way. You have a gift, and I refuse to be the reason the world fails to appreciate that gift.”
“You appreciate my gifts.”
“You deserve more than my appreciation, Psyche Fremont. You deserve the sort of recognition one artist cedes to another, the Royal Academy, the Continental academies… London is just the beginning for a woman with your talent. You might think a little domestic idyll with me and the children would content you, but five years from now, that domestic idyll could pinch badly.”
He had sketched this out to the last detail in his mind, the wretch. “I’ll tell you what pinches badly, Michael Delancey. Having to sneak about in disguises, sitting in the shadows, and watching lesser talents get the better commissions. I don’t want to make the mistake Lord Dermot so nearly made.”
A squirrel started chattering in the branches above.
“What doeshehave to do with anything?”
“He did the sketch you brought to St. Mildred’s, and it was a good sketch, Michael. Ricardo says Lord Dermot is doing an entire series on Preacher’s exploits, and his sketches might well outsell my flower girls.”
Michael sat forward and braced his forearms on his thighs. “I made a bargain with the devil, but I wanted that print badly. I gave him the basic ideas, and he ran full tilt toward the objective. I’ve sat to him for hours since. He’s good at satire.”
“And his sketch made your point more effectively than threats, exhortation, or pleading ever could have.” That fact had given Psyche much to think about.
“Ricardo’s handiwork helped too,” Michael said, slanting a look at her over his shoulder. “Helmsley is a respecter of documents, so I produced a document.”
“And you never said it was the original will, but you didn’t have to. Ricardo’s art, illicit though it might be, convinced the right audience to stop and think.”
Psyche rose when she wanted to throw her arms around Michael and hide in his embrace. “This should not be so difficult.”
Michael, ever the gentleman, was on his feet as well. “If you want to put our dealings behind you, Psyche, then say so. I will always treasure—”
She rounded on him, abruptly out of patience with his reasoning tone and selfless goodwill. “What do you want, Michael?”
“I have my children happy and healthy in my household. I have the love of my family, and I have good health. My blessings are too numerous to—”
She got hold of him by the lapels. “I want you,” she said. “I thought I wanted to be the next Sir Joshua, to be Gainsborough in a corset, my portraits hanging in ballrooms and titled dowagers lining up to sit to me. Ricardo’s forgery—a work of very low art, but art—stopped Arbuckle in his tracks, and Dermot’s sketch finished the job. There is great art everywhere, and the government knows the satirists are a bigger threat to its excesses and evils than the portraitists will ever be.”
She leaned in, bracing her forehead against Michael’s chest. “You would not hold me back, Michael. You would be the perfect partner. You would give me the courage to make the art that matters, not simply the art that flatters.”
The squirrel had gone quiet, as had the nursemaid and the boisterous children. To embrace Michael in public was the height of forward behavior, but Psyche could not have turned him loose for a commission to paint King George on a white horse.
“What I want,” Michael said, his arms stealing around her, “is for us to always be honest with each other. I love you. I need for you to be happy, and you are an excellent portraitist.”
Psyche eased her grip on his lapels and slipped her arms around his waist. “I am good, but the flower girls are worthy subjects too, Michael. Those girls adorn half the street corners in Mayfair, but we don’t see them starving and coughing themselves to death in plain sight.”
“And if Lord Tavistock asks to sit to you?” Michael murmured, “you’ll refuse him?”
“The marquess?”
“The young, handsome, wealthy marquess to whom I am distantly connected through family and marriage.”
What was Michael asking? “He hasn’t asked, and he probably won’t.”
