A Lady's Dream Come True - Grace Burrowes Page 0,10
many a long hour sketching botanical specimens for his father. Today, Oak’s objective had been some fresh air and perhaps a drawing of Merlin Hall itself to send back to his brothers in Dorset. On a sunny summer morning, the Channing abode showed to good advantage. A handsome country manor in a verdant bucolic setting.
“Stay on the path if you must go for a walk,” Catherine said. “Do you know what a quaking bog is? It looks solid, but in a quaking bog you’re not walking on earth. You’re walking on a mat of plants and dirt, and if you jump up and down, you can make the ground ripple—or you can break through the mat and ruin your boots or even die.”
Hence the dark water and peaty scent. “A thick mat of moss, Sphagnaceae, according to Linnaeus.”
“Who?”
“Linnaeus. A Swedish fellow who knew a lot about a lot of things. Ask Miss Diggory who he was. What had you so upset?”
Oak began to sketch Catherine out of habit—and because she was a perfect example of the human female with one foot in adulthood and one in childhood. Her shorter skirts still showed trim ankles and slender calves, but her figure had left behind the coltish angles of girlhood. Her honey-blond hair was pulled back and allowed to cascade over narrow shoulders, while her profile was a cameo-perfect landscape of young female pulchritude.
Her chin tended to a point, her nose tilted slightly. A piquant face, and Oak could see traces of Dirk Channing around the girl’s blue eyes.
“I was crying because of everything,” she said, heaving a sigh that ought to have set the whole earth to quaking. “I’m suffering the regular inconvenience to which my gender is condemned. Do you know what that means?”
Oak tried to capture the blend of fierce indignation and dismay in her expression. “Is this an inconvenience a man with sisters ought to comprehend?”
“Yes, if he is not a complete lackwit. It’s not fair. I had hoped the pain was simply a first-time thing, but here I am, a month later, and completely out of sorts and uncomfortable. I hate it.”
Boggy ground, indeed. Six months from now, she’d be mortified to have had this conversation with him at all. Hell, he was mortified, but also a little touched. Was there nobody in whom this girl could confide her miseries? Nobody who could suggest she curl up with a hot water bottle, a drop of the poppy, and a lurid novel?
“What does Mrs. Channing suggest for your discomfort?”
“Her.”
Nobody conveyed disdain as effectively as an upset adolescent. “I take it your step-mother is among your many afflictions?”
Catherine pooched out her lips, which made her look about four years old. “I like Alexander well enough, though he’s only a boy. He’s had a hard time of it since Mr. Forester joined the household. I wish I could trade Alexander the use of Diggory for Mr. Forester’s instruction, I truly do. Step-mama, though… She took advantage of Papa’s grief. My mama, my real mama, was his muse. His work was never as good after Mama died. Everybody says.”
Such hope colored that declaration, such sadness. “Everybody?”
“My aunt Winters, who is quite knowledgeable about art. What are you drawing?”
“I draw what I see. Is your step-mother a gorgon, forcing you to memorize entire books of the Bible or live on bread and water?”
“No, but she’s always busy, and she’s beautiful. Even Papa said she was beautiful. He was lonely, I know, but mightn’t he have settled for a woman people don’t gawk at?”
Oak had no answer for that query. He’d thought only to have a short ramble, then meet Mrs. Channing in the gallery. Still, he did not want to take an abrupt leave of Miss Catherine, as if her concerns were inconsequential.
“What does Miss Diggory say about your discomfort?”
“That pain is normal, the price all women must pay for Eve’s betrayal. That I’m not to indulge in hysterics. That only little girls try to win pity by whining. You should see her when she has a megrim. We all tiptoe about, and heaven help the maid who closes a door firmly.”
“I don’t agree with Miss Diggory, if I can say that without sounding disrespectful. Turn your face a bit,”—he touched her chin—“like that, so you aren’t in shade. Miss Diggory likely means well, and in her way she might be trying to jolly you away from thinking about the hurt, but there’s no ignoring a bodily misery, in my experience.”