A Wicked Conceit (Lady Darby Mysteries #9) - Anna Lee Huber Page 0,109

replied as her glass of wine was refilled.

“Do you know who he is?” I asked.

“Well, the trouble is there are a number of possibilities, and the family has remained rather closemouthed about the entire affair. But the cousin was certainly older than her, and he was already wed, so he couldn’t be forced to do the honorable thing and marry her, which narrows down the possibilities. Perhaps Graham of Strathblane or the Duke of Montrose.” She rattled off a few more names, but none of them meant anything to me. A duke would certainly have the prestige which seemed to be indicated, but from what I recalled of Montrose, he wouldn’t have taken a great deal of interest in a young cousin in Dunbartonshire, no matter how beautiful she was.

Either way, Bonnie Brock certainly had some explaining to do.

* * *

• • •

After rolling over in bed for approximately the tenth time—a not inconsiderable effort when one was heavy with child—I accepted that sleep was determined to elude me. The rich meal combined with the aches in my own body—particularly my hips, which clasping a pillow between my thighs didn’t even ease—and the weight of my thoughts all contrived against me. So I slid as gracefully from the bed as I could while being roughly the size of a gray seal, donned my warmest dressing gown, and crept from the room.

I wasn’t surprised when my steps led me unconsciously to my studio at the top of the house. Pulling aside the drapes, I allowed moonlight to spill over the shrouded easels, their forms almost spectral in the hallowed light. Given the contents underneath, it wasn’t difficult to imagine them taking on a life of their own, as I tried so ardently to imbue life into my portraits.

I hesitated a moment, breathing the chill night air tinged with the lingering scents of linseed oil, turpentine, and gesso deep into my lungs. Then I reached out to carefully remove the covers from each of the canvases, exposing them to the light. They were at various stages of completion, each unique in their composition. Two were commissioned portraits, one a rough sketch of a portrait of myself and our as yet unborn child that I hoped to give Gage for his birthday in late July, and the last three were paintings for my proposed exhibit of the Faces of Ireland.

It was to these last three that I turned, not so much examining my brushstrokes as my intentions behind them. I had been touched by the plight of the Irish people, and the hatred and discrimination the largely Catholic population received at the hands of their Anglo-Protestant leaders, as well as the rest of the population of Britain. And so I’d conceived of this exhibit to illustrate how much they were not so different from us.

But the truth was there were faces in every corner of Britain, every corner of the world that deserved to be better seen—their joys, their pains, their struggles, their humanity illuminated on canvas. And yet I’d largely turned a blind eye to the people in my own part of Scotland who most needed to be noticed. It was a humbling and sobering realization. One that I’d been stumbling toward but had needed my conversation at dinner with Mr. Aldridge to help me to see more clearly.

My thoughts turned once again to my grandmother, who’d often been called eccentric, and at times had been viewed with disdain simply because of her Irish blood and her firm convictions. While I’d always appreciated her wisdom and acceptance—both of herself and others—I hadn’t fully respected how she’d become the woman she was or the adversities she’d faced. I hadn’t fully embraced the things she’d taught me, content to abide by many of the norms of society because I was already seen as so unnatural in other ways.

I saw now that that was wrong. Perhaps it had been understandable given the slights I’d endured because of my peculiarity, but now that I was aware of what I’d chosen to ignore, I couldn’t continue to go on doing so. Not without shaming myself and my grandmother, and our faith. She had done her part, both big and small, to try to enlighten those around her, and now it was my turn—small and insignificant though it might be. I had to try.

I traced the brushstrokes of the old Irish woman I’d nearly finished painting, realizing one of the reasons she had so captured my imagination when