Page 28 of A Lady's Beastly Duke
“I say!” Camilla exclaimed when they were perhaps fifty yards from the shop. “He was...quite taken with you.”
“Camilla!” Anastasia flapped a hand at her, grinning widely. “No, he wasn’t. He just wanted some advice about fabric for ajacket.”
“Yes. Yes, certainly.” Camilla beamed. “And it couldn’t just be an excuse to talk.”
“No!” Anastasia laughed, but her heart soared with delight at the thought. “No. He really wanted to buy some fabric.”
“Yes. I believe you.” Camilla grinned.
Anastasia flushed and looked away.
They went to the milliners for bonnets and stopped to look at a shop that sold gloves. By the time they had completed their purchases, they had to hurry to the park, where the coach was waiting to collect them.
As the coach rattled down the street, taking Rachel and herself back to her family’s townhouse, Anastasia found her thoughts wandering to the duke. Camilla could not be right—he was a quiet, respectable man and there was no reason for her to think he was taken with her, as Camilla had said.
But then, she thought, wonderingly, he had sought her out to speak to and come into the shop with them when he could easily have waited.
Her lips lifted in a grin at the thought. Perhaps he really had enjoyed talking as much as she had.
Nonsense,she told herself silently.He just wants to buy new clothes now that he is out of mourning again.
She frowned, wondering how long he had been in mourning. There was so much she did not know. And, oddly, she longed to know, to ask him the answers.
You’re being silly,she told herself crossly.You have no reason for any interest besides a polite, friendly sort of curiosity.
She tried to put the conversation out of her mind and focus on the time with Camilla, but the chat with the duke circled around her mind again and again and she could not stop herself from smiling to herself all the way back to the house.
Chapter 10
Sidney stared at the canvas in front of him, feeling a mixture of annoyance and sorrow. He gazed at the face that was emerging under his brush and oil paint. Blue eyes looked back at him, the exact shade of summer morning sky. Hair fell across a pale forehead in soft waves of pure pale blond.
“But the nose is horridly wrong,” Sidney said angrily.
He had been trying for at least twenty minutes to recall, and then to depict, the shape of Lady Anastasia’s face and nose. Her eyes he had set down immediately—nothing about them eluded his memory. They gazed at him now, twin pools of mysterious, shimmering blue and he felt his heart leap. He had managed to render them so that, at least in part, that part of the painting resembled her beauty.
“But this chin! And this nose, too.”
He sighed and stood back. He was getting tired, and the longer he stared at the canvas, the less sense it would make to him. He knew that from experience. He put his brush into the turpentine and turned away. He needed a few minutes to regain perspective.
“Sidney? Sidney!”
He shut his eyes. It was his mother at the door. He did not like being interrupted, but this time he had an additional fear. He did not want anyone to see what he painted. He never painted portraits, though he had some talent. He did not want her to ask him who the person was and why he was painting her. He turned the easel swiftly to face the window.
“Coming, Mama. Just a moment.”
He pushed the easel back so that it almost touched the windowsill. That way, nobody could walk around to the front and see what he painted. His mother was curious, on the rare occasions that he hid a painting, but she never pushed.
He opened the door. His mother looked up at him, a slight surprised smile lighting her face when she saw him, though he could see lines etched on her brow.
“Son! There you are.”
“Mama, come in,” he said at once, standing back so that his mother could enter. She wore black, though her shawl was white, and she had not worn the usual jet beads. She was in half-mourning now, as was he. His heart lifted to see it. “May I send the butler to fetch some tea for you?” he asked. He felt genuinely pleased to see her despite her having interrupted. He had been working all morning and part of the afternoon uninterrupted while she went into town to call on a friend. He was glad to have some company, especially that of his mother, who was as close to him as Amy, if in a motherly way.
“Thank you, son, but no,” his mother murmured. “I had something to mention to you. If I may?” She frowned.
“Of course,” Sidney said awkwardly. His mother never looked so tense, and he wondered what on Earth might be bothering her. “I would be glad to hear of it, whatever it is.”
“I was in Grantley’s Tea Shop,” his mother said awkwardly. “When I happened to see these. I never normally look, but I was with Lady Renning and Lady Aldersley, and they always look.” She blushed, as though she felt uncomfortable. “I happened to see your name in it. I’m sorry, son,” she said carefully. “But I had to read further. I hope you can forgive me.”
