“Of course! I am sure we will be seeing each other as well. In London during the Season.” She looked from Jess to Beatrice. “I have no doubt of it.”
Nora Kendrick set Finch on the floor and he scampered ahead of her, out of the gallery, leaving Beatrice and Jess alone in the cavernous space that echoed a hundred other conversations.
“Beatrice Brent.”
It was all he had to say for a blush to fly up from her neck to her cheeks.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Will you take my arm and examine that Rembrandt drawing we discussed our first evening here?”
“If you wish.”
“No, Beatrice,” he said firmly, “if you wish.”
She hesitated and he cursed himself. She could not leave before he even started.
“What I wish and what I can have are two very different things, my lord.”
“Your father said that I could seek you out for this conversation.”
“He did? And that gives you confidence enough to approach me?”
He laughed; he could not help it. “If I look confident it is only because I have perfected a gamer’s face these last years.”
She cast her eyes to heaven but took his arm.
“Whereas you have a face as easy to read as a headline in The Morning Post.” They began to walk. “Have you seen your sister and Des?”
Beatrice smiled. “Yes. They are so silly, acting as though they are the happy ending of a farce, but so in love you cannot laugh at them but must laugh with them.”
“If they are a farce, what are we?”
“A failed production. Not a tragedy, too predictable to be a drama. I suffer too much heartache for it to be a comedy.”
“But the end is not written yet.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Your version of the end sees you cozy in Birmingham with a dog for company, the loving aunt to as many children as Destry and Cecilia are blessed with.”
“Studying and writing on the great artists. Do not forget that. My life will have purpose.”
“My version of the end is somewhat different.” They had reached the simple drawing she had used to explain Rembrandt’s genius that first night, the small landscape with cottages and the distant windmill.
“This drawing has the most astounding simplicity that reveals its little world in detail.” He wanted to say that it was just like her, but was not sure she would take it as the compliment he meant it to be.
“Do you recall when you explained to me what made a Rembrandt drawing a masterpiece?” On the chance that she did not, he repeated back the lesson. “The path to the cottage is a brown wash and the grasses beside it are really just five or six lines. But they convey to the eye a meaning beyond that.”
“Yes.” Beatrice gave a jerky nod that made him think her hands were probably shaking. He realized of a sudden that she was as tense as a string pulled tight. It would be best to put them both out of their misery.
“Beatrice.” He took her hands and turned so he was facing her, the drawing at his back. “The phrase ‘I love you’ is nothing more than three words strung together in a sentence. I hope that when I say them to you, you can believe that they can mean as much as a hundred lines Rembrandt draws.”
She bit her lip and shook her head just a little. She did not believe him.
“When I say ‘I love you, Beatrice’ it means I want to be a part of your life forever, that I want to die with your touch as the last thing I feel on this earth.”
Her face drained of color and she did not smile.
“Between now and my last breath, I hope I can become the kind of person you could love, that I can someday earn the same respect from you that you have for your father, the same friendship you feel for Roger Tremaine, and the same love for me that I have for you.”
Silence stretched between them. Did it take her that long to understand his words or to prepare a gracious rejection?
“Do you mean what you are saying, Jess, or are you just being polite?”
He kissed each of her hands before he went on. He truly had work to do to earn her trust. “Here I am being as much of a poet as I can be, putting my heart before you with nothing to protect it, and you want to know if I am being polite? No, my darling girl, I am