I began to turn away, unwilling to listen to his criticisms yet again. However, he reached out a hand to stop me. “You’re right,” he staggered me by admitting. “I’ve been canting at you like a vicar. I wouldn’t like it either.” His eyes pleaded with me. “But I can’t help it. I worry for you, Kiera.” His gaze flicked downward. “Especially in this state.”
“You don’t need to.”
“Maybe not,” he retorted, cutting off my protest. “But I do so anyway. Because you’re my sister.” He shrugged one shoulder in chagrin. “And maybe because I didn’t do such a good job before of worrying about you when I should have.”
“Trevor, I’ve told you that’s not your fault.”
“I know you have. But that doesn’t absolve me of the guilt, nor does it remove the sense of responsibility I feel toward you.” His voice softened. “You’re my sister. And my younger one, at that. I’ve been struggling to keep you out of trouble for twenty-six years, and I’ll continue to do so. Marriage and motherhood don’t change that.”
I gave a huff of laughter. “You’ve been keeping me out of trouble? I would say it’s been more the case that you’ve gotten me into it.”
His lips quirked. “Well, yes. That, too.”
I arched my eyebrows in teasing. “So only trouble started and sanctioned by you is allowed?”
“Something like that.”
I shook my head fondly. “You are a noodle.” I sighed. “But I love you anyway.”
His teeth flashed in a wide grin. “Of course you do.”
I swatted his arm at that, and then turned to stride down the hall. “Come on, then. I’ve a duchess to find.” I peered over my shoulder at him. “That is why you’re here, isn’t it? Either Gage or you appointed yourself to be my escort.”
Matching his stride with mine, he threaded my uninjured arm through his. “Can you blame us?”
“No. But there’s no need to be sly about it. Contrary to what you men seem to think, I do have common sense.”
In truth, I was rather relieved to have Trevor at my side. Whatever the truth surrounding my near tumble down the stairs, I was justifiably nervous about taking the staircases on my own again. It was a fear I would eventually have to overcome, but with one arm in a sling, further compromising my balance, it would not be today.
The duchess’s bedchamber was situated directly below mine, though the configuration was slightly different, and her sitting room exceeded mine in sumptuousness. More hand-painted wallpaper graced the walls, this time decorated with little birds perched among peonies. Luxuriant velvet curtains on gilded curtain rods flanked the windows, and a small crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Pale turquoise damask upholstery graced the creamy furniture edged with gilding, while veins of blush pink ran through the marble of the fireplace.
Her maid had answered the door, ushering us inside before setting off to locate the duchess. The fact that we were granted such easy access to her sanctum told me she had been expecting just such a visit from me. My gaze trailed around the room, noting the writing desk in the corner, swept free of all correspondence. Whether the duchess wrote her letters on a different piece of furniture, or she had tidied away all evidence of her communications for another reason, I could not say.
The portrait over the fireplace immediately drew my eye next, for it was undoubtedly painted by that most popular of Regency portraitists, Sir Thomas Lawrence. It had his polished and gratifying style, though he had chosen to boldly highlight the subjects while painting the rural background in deepest shadow. It portrayed all six of the duchess’s children, from the infant Henry up to an eleven- or twelve-year-old Traquair. They were all posed in almost a fanciful manner—one lounging on the ground, another with their arms spread wide—and their faces the sweetest and most serene.
Trevor’s face twisted as he stood beside me, gazing up at the scene captured on canvas. “I don’t care if they are a duke’s children, there’s no way they all posed like that. Not even for a second.”
I smiled. In my portraits of children, I preferred to capture them as they were—boisterous or shy, mischievous or uncertain. Of course, all art was in some ways an artifice, for no one wanted their offspring forever immortalized while screaming, or sulking, or even drooling. But to remove all expression from them extinguished the spark of life and light that shone inside them.
I found myself wondering if