Tempting the Bride - By Sherry Thomas Page 0,13

now your voice caught and your shoulders recoiled.” He looked directly into her eyes. “And unless I am very much mistaken, your pupils are dilated.”

“That is just how I react to finding a worm in my apple, my lord.”

“Then think about how you’d feel finding such a worm—indeed, half a worm—in every apple you’ll ever henceforth bite into. Be careful, Miss Fitzhugh. More pieces are moving on this board than you think, and you may yet find yourself outmaneuvered.”

Sunday afternoons Hastings and his daughter painted the wall of her tearoom at Easton Grange, his estate in Kent. Or rather, Hastings painted and Bea watched.

The mural was almost complete. The sky, the trees, and a number of cottages along the edge of the pond had been painted. The pond itself, done the previous week, had dried to a glossy, sunlit green.

“See?” He showed the palette to Bea. “I take some red and some yellow, and when I mix them I get orange.”

Bea watched intently, but without comment.

“Would you like to put in a few orange flowers among the red ones?” he asked. The window box he was adding to the cottage in the foreground was a riot of nasturtiums.

Bea bit her lower lip. He could sense her desire to participate. Silently he encouraged her to say yes.

She shook her head. He sighed inwardly—at least it was taking her longer and longer to decline.

“Maybe another time, then. It’s quite fun, painting. You take a blob of color, you put it on a brush, and soon you have a picture.”

He would have liked for her to join him. For a girl who spoke very little, and reluctantly at that, color and images could have become useful substitutes for words. But he didn’t start this mural to lure her to paint, just as he didn’t devote all the hours and days to the mural in his town house to impress Helena Fitzhugh.

Painting had become a form of prayer. When he lurched between hope and despair, a brush in one hand and a palette in the other was one of the ways he dealt with sentiments too raw to be discussed and too big to shove away. And this mural was his prayer for Bea: that she would grow up strong, happy, and unafraid.

He took up a new brush. “Now I am going to paint some leaves. You like watching me mix yellow and blue to make green, don’t you, Bea? Would you like to try your hand at it?”

He waited the usual few seconds for her to say no. To his shock, she nodded and reached out for the brush in his hand. But then she didn’t move. He realized, after a while, that she meant for him to hold her hand and guide her.

After what had happened when she was younger, he never felt quite worthy of her trust. But for some miraculous reason, she did trust him wholeheartedly.

He wrapped his hand around hers, kissed her on the top of her head, and showed her what to do.

At half past three Monday afternoon, a coachman dressed in the Lexington livery came for Helena at her office.

“Well, there is my carriage,” she said to Bridget. “I know you must be anxious to get back and prepare for your mistress’s return. Take a hansom. Mrs. Wilson has already been instructed to add the cost of your transportation to your wages.”

“Thank you, miss, I might then. I want to make sure everything is ready—Lady Fitzhugh won’t have much time to change out of her traveling dress before she is to head to the duchess’s for tea.”

“Indeed she won’t.”

And neither, after so much trouble, would Helena enjoy much more than half an hour with Andrew—she, too, was expected at the five o’clock tea. And she had better arrive before Millie, to avoid questions about why she’d taken so much time en route.

She hopped into the brougham, directed the coachman to a nearby post office, and made a telephone call to the Lexington town house, letting the staff know she’d be coming home on her own, accompanied by Millie’s maid; no need to send the carriage.

Now to the hotel—and Andrew.

Inside the carriage with all its shades drawn, she fiddled with the drawstring of her reticule. She thought she’d done enough, but what if she’d underprepared? Granted, her presence at the Savoy would raise no eyebrows—the hotel’s terrace was a popular place for a cup of afternoon tea. But would it not have been even better had she disguised