Page 34 of Seductive Reprise
Mrs. Hartley startled into awareness. She dropped the sketch on the small end table alongside her, the large sheet of paper swishing as it fell.
Mr. Hartley’s words echoed in Rose’s head, her body tense as she waited.A few individuals of our acquaintance. That likely included Joseph Palgrave. Her heart dropped with a thud.How could he make her feel this way? After so many years. After being such an—
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Hartley said, clearing her throat. “Walter will be the guest of honor. And you as well, dear.” She added in a stage whisper, “As his portrait artist,” nodding to Rose as if it were the highest honor in the world.
Rose laced her fingers together and forced a small laugh, though she worried it sounded more like a scoff. She breathed in. “And when, exactly, were you hoping for this…”
“Dinner party,” Mr. Hartley supplied. He was slowly doing a turn about the room, leaning in to examine a small ornament on the fireplace mantel as if he didn’t live in the house.
“Er, right… when is this dinner party to take place?”
“Oh, soon. As soon as possible, I should think,” Mrs. Hartley said, her voice bright.
Rose unlaced her fingers and made a show of smoothing her smock.
“Well, I’ve only just started, and although I’ll need another sitting—with the clothes, mind—if I begin quickly after that, I might be finished by, oh…” She looked upward, counting out the weeks on her fingers as she spoke. “September.” She sighed. Mr.Hartley had taken to ambling with his hands behind his back. Did he ever sit still? Her eyes darted back and forth between the pair of them. “Would that be soon enough for your dinner purposes?”
“No!” came Mrs. Hartley’s sharp reply.
“Absolutely,” said Mr. Hartley at the same time, visibly relieved.
“Marcus!” Mrs. Hartley admonished.
Her son made an exaggerated sigh, then turned to Rose, hands still behind his back. “Perhaps we could display the work in progress, if we were to hold it sooner?”
Rose glanced uneasily at Mrs. Hartley, who nodded at her eagerly.
“It won’t be that… exciting to look at.” She glanced at the canvas, where she’d begun the broad strokes and set to capturing Walter’s silly face in detail. Rose would sooner be done with this whole mad business. But at least a dinner would provide her with a hot meal. Idly she thought of her mother and The Bit and Bridle. The smell of cheese and onion pies. The sound of chairs scraping against the inn’s flagstone. A loneliness settled upon her.
“But alright.” Rose paused, her eyelashes fluttering as she attempted a courtlier tone. “I would be honored to attend.”
“Wonderful.” Mr. Hartley straightened up and brought his hands together with a singular clap. “Expect an invitation in short order.”
Unfortunately, Rose didn’t share the relief that had lit up Mr. Hartley. She trudged home that afternoon with a dark cloud hanging over her—a wallflower’s dread. She curled up on the rattan loveseat in the drafty common room she shared with Ruth, sketching the daffy little spaniel over and over again until she lost interest and began filling the page with hands invarious positions. The creaking loveseat rocked back and forth on unsteady legs every time she moved.
She didn’t realize night had fallen until she heard Ruth’s key scraping at the lock. Rose looked to the window and frowned. It seemed only moments ago that she’d gotten up to turn on the lamp in response to the fading light of dusk.
The door wailed, then slammed shut.
She sank further into the seat, the rattan churning out a symphony of squeaks, and braced herself for Ruth’s inevitable interview. For all of her housemate’s lofty notions about propriety, she apparently had no qualms with prying into Rose’s life.
Rose could mark every step of her progress: the rustling that indicated she’d untied her bonnet, the creaking of the floor and clicking of her heels as she came up behind her.
She heard a sniff and looked up over her shoulder.
“What’s all that, then?” Ruth said, nodding to the sketchbook in her hands. She looked more severe than usual, her face drawn and pinched, dark underneath her eyes.
Rose shrugged, then frowned. “What time is it?”
Ruth drew in a deep sigh, shutting her eyes until she released it. “Doesn’t matter, does it? They kept us an hour after. No extra pay, mind—all part of our regular work, so they say.”
Rose looked away. It felt too private, seeing her starched and sharp-tongued housemate this tired and defeated. And she knew Ruth would have to be up again in a few hours to begin the trek back once more. Ruth had elucidated the perils and pressures of being a shopgirl on numerous occasions, though usually when her back was straighter and her eyes brighter.
It felt mean, what Rose was about to ask, but it couldn’t wait. Especially if the answer was no.
“I was hoping you might do me a favor,” she ventured, carefully closing her sketchbook and shifting herself into a more dignified, upright position.
“Oh?” Ruth crumpled into the rattan chair, opposite from and just as shoddy as the couch. “That’s heaven, getting off your feet, isn’t it?” she sighed.
