Page 230 of The Ladies Least Likely
The matron pulled a roll of papers from her apron. “Have all the prints o’ ‘im, I do,” she said with satisfaction. “A farthing each. D’ye mean to make more of ‘em, mum? Find plenty o’ buyers ‘ere, ye would.”
Harriette still startled at being addressed as “madame” or “your ladyship,” but startled further to note that the prints the matron showed her had not come from Mrs. Darly’s shop. They resembled her original sketches only in form; the figure was blurred, the lines not properly inked, and the expression on Ren’s face overall struck her as less pensive and more leering.
Pirated copies, no doubt by a local printer who had hastily made his own plates and was underselling Mrs. Darly. Harriette would never see a share of the profits from these sales, though she was recognized even here as their author. Printing was a cutthroat business, far worse than painters competing for commissions.
She pulled her sketchbook from her pocket. “This is yours alone, mind you,” she said. “You may show it to whomever you like, but don’t let that shoddy printer get hold of it. Mrs. Darly in London is the only person authorized to reproduce my work.”
The matron nodded and watched, wide-eyed, as Harriette brought Ren to life on the page. She sketched him as he was, in his plain leather traveling coat and leather breeches, riding boots, a neckcloth tossed about his throat. She put his cane in one hand and his tricorne hat in the other, and when he turned to watch her from across the room, she captured the expression on his face with a few practiced lines. In a moment the man himself stared out from her paper at them: warm, amused, perceptive, and, if one looked closely enough, with a hint of caution about the eyes, expressed in a few tiny shadows.
“Oi, that’s enough to dream on,” the matron said. “‘Is lordship won’t mind, then?”
Harriette caught Ren’s eye as she neatly parted his sketch from her book and mimed giving it to the woman. He scowled, observing his own likeness on the page, then shrugged.
“Will ye sign it then, mum?” the matron asked shyly.
“Tell me what you like about these prints,” Harriette couldn’t help asking as she scribbled her initials at the corner of the sketch.
Her hostess stared at Renwick with a soft, fond look. Beneath the lines of age and strain, the ragged edges that time and hardship had worn, Harriette glimpsed the sweet dreams of a long-lost girl to whom the world had not yet been unkind.
“I can’t rightly say,” the older woman said. “A man like that’d never glance at the likes o’ me, that’s certain. But I look at a picture like this and it makes me feel that I be understanding ‘im, if ye know what I mean. And with that look on ‘is face, it almost seems—that he’d understandme, if he but knew me. That ‘ee’d like what he saw right back.”
Harriette could only nod, captivated by the woman’s insight. She’d thought of her sketches as simply capturing an image of beauty, or perhaps indulging a silly feminine inclination toward fantasy. But if such a fantasy helped a woman understand herself better, to see and appreciate her best aspects through the imagined gaze of another, or if it helped her envision the kind of relationship that would bring the best part of her nature to fulfillment—that didn’t seem so silly.
Harriette tried to recall if she’d had such notions when she was a girl. She couldn’t recall harboring crushes or infatuations, though she’d done her share of giggling with her school friends when the more fashionable young men of Bath promenaded past them in a square or park. Ren had been her confidant, her primary and most enduring relationship, as close in thought as the letters she composed telling him what she was learning, what she thought of her mother and her school, what she was discovering day by day in her art lessons, and what it meant that she could capture living beauty and share it with others.
After she’d moved to London and her first patron, the squire, had taken ruthless advantage of her youth and stupidity,Harriette had become pragmatic and hard-headed about her work. She captured likenesses of the proud and wealthy who wanted to leave a trace on the world they’d ruled long after they left it. She’d forgotten what had first drawn her to painting: the ability to distill the essence of a living thing and reveal it in a way that others could see.
And to give herself a new way of looking. The innkeeper’s wife had gone dreamy not so much over Ren himself, but the way Harriette had captured the man she loved on paper—dashing, handsome, full of secrets and mischief and passion, the type of companion many a woman would yearn for.
“What mun I pay ye, mum?” the matron asked, placing the sketch with care in her apron pocket so as not to crease or crumple it.
“’Tis a gift,” Harriette said, and ceased hearing her hostess’s profuse thanks when Ren headed her way with a smile on his face.
“Is that how you are paying our tab for the fare?” He took his seat across from her at the small table supplied with what rather looked like a full meal than a light supper.
“Indulging your fans,” Harriette said lightly.
She applied herself to dishing the hearty ragout onto his plate so she didn’t stare fatuously at him, her thoughts writ large across her face. She was hopelessly in love with this man. His very nearness made silly fancies flutter about inside her. Knowing that she was the focus of his attention, when everyone else here was hung upon his every move, was a sensation that was going straight to her head and bringing foolish and impossible thoughts along with it.
He’d kept her at arm’s length throughout the journey, as much as was possible in a vehicle meant to seat two, yet their conversation was free and easy. He told marvelous tales of his travels, though she noticed he left out mention of any ofthe courtesans. She sketched as they rode, often sitting on the outside seat with him for an unhampered view of the landscape, and he listened as she told him stories of the Catherine Club and the various women her aunt had taken under her wing.
The man he’d become fit so logically with the boy he’d been—thoughtful, observant, attuned to the plight of the less fortunate, slow to anger or to judge but quick in understanding. And yet he continued to surprise her with his sly humor, the wit he’d cultivated, his sensitivity to his sister’s feelings, and the way he noticed and anticipated her comfort. As now, when he passed her the dish of pickled salmon, knowing she adored it.
Perhaps this was what marriage was like for some, this comfortable companionship, this looking after someone in small ways. Ordering ale for him instead of beer at meals because she knew he preferred it. Inspecting his bedding to ensure the linens were well-aired and there were no vermin in his mattress or pillows. Accepting his arm and making a stately turn or two around an innyard as if they were taking air while he stretched the sore muscles in his scarred leg, leaning on her to disguise his limp.
These small, nurturing touches were more pleasant to supply than she would have expected. It was no imposition to stop the chaise and walk a bit when his leg was cramping, just as he didn’t demur when she wanted to halt and sketch a view. It was no great burden to bring one of her linen strips to his room to dry his face with when he dropped his in the shaving bowl. Even though she had, in the process, been exposed to the sight of Ren in an open shirt and stocking feet, his head bare of wig. His state of undress thrilled and delighted her, and yet she’d bolted as shy as any untried maid. Because she thought that was what he wanted.
Because she was alarmed, truth be told, by the intensity of the stirrings she felt for him. The attraction had growndeeper through continued exposure, not less, as she might have expected.
Still, she told herself firmly, that didn’t mean she would make him a goodwife.She was going soft in the head.
“The squire warned us to beware of unrest in Shepton Mallet,” Ren said as he dug into the collops. “The mill owners there have begun adopting the new spinning machinery. One spinning jenny can do the work of eight men, they say. There is some understandable concern among the workers that they will be left without jobs.”
Her heart squeezed with affection even as worry set in. “Did the squire find the concern understandable?” she asked mildly.
“Indeed not. His words were to the effect that some ruddy belligerent blokes who were already getting paid enough to keep an honest man happy were raising a breeze that their earnings might be diminished.”
“I would think a squire would be concerned about men out of work,” Harriette remarked, spooning up the cabbage. “They needs must raise the poor rates to support them.”
