Grace Burrowes: Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait

“Let me see,” Amanda demanded. She plucked the sketch from Jenny’s hands. “That’s Aunt Jen. She loves to draw.”

Jenny wanted to study Fleur’s childish rendering at greater length, she wanted to draw Mr. Harrison forever, and she wanted him gone from the house.

“Lady Jenny, your turn.”

She passed her sketch pad over to him, feeling a pang of sympathy for accused criminals as they stood in the dock. And yet, she’d asked for this. Gotten together all of her courage to ask for this one moment of artistic communion.

“Well,” Mr. Harrison said, “isn’t he a handsome fellow? What do you think, ladies?”

“You look like a papa,” Fleur observed. “Though our papa doesn’t sketch. He reads stories.”

“And hates his ledgers,” Amanda added. “Is my hair that long in back?”

“Yes,” Jenny said, because she’d drawn not only Elijah Harrison’s hands, but all of him, looking relaxed, elegant, and handsome, with Amanda crouched at his side, fascinated with what he created on the page.

“I look…” He regarded the sketch in silence, while Jenny heard a coach-and-four rumbling toward her vulnerable heart. “I look… a bit tired, slightly rumpled, but quite at home. You are very quick, Lady Genevieve, and quite good.”

Quite good. Like saying a baby was adorable, a young gentleman well-mannered.

“The pose was simple,” Jenny said, “the lighting uncomplicated, and the subject…”

“Yes?”

He was one of those men built in perfect proportion. Antoine had spent an entire class wielding a tailor’s measure on Mr. Harrison’s body, comparing his proportions to the Apollo Belvedere, and scoffing at the “mistakes” inherent in Michelangelo’s David.

Jenny wanted to snatch her drawing from his hand. “The subject is conducive to a pleasing image.”

He passed the sketch pad back, but Jenny had the sense that in some way, some not entirely artistic way, she’d displeased him. The disappointment was survivable. Her art had been displeasing men since she’d first neglected her Bible verses to sketch her brothers.

“You next, Mr. Harrison.”

“Of course.” He passed her a charming little study of Fleur perched on the hearth, the tip of her tongue peeking from her lips as she concentrated on sketching Jenny. Something in his portrait reminded Jenny of Fleur’s sketch of her aunt.

“You made her hair tidier,” Amanda noted. “Fleur hardly ever looks that serious, though.”

“One takes a few liberties in the name of diplomacy,” Mr. Harrison said. He aimed a look at Jenny, likely intended to give the words deeper meaning.

He was tired, and he was rumpled. Where was the harm in showing those things?

“He means,” Jenny said in anticipation of Amanda’s question, “that one needn’t show every unflattering detail when trying to render a person’s essence on the page.”

“Like if the crow had some tattered feathers, you’d still try to show how shiny they were?”

“Yes, Amanda,” Mr. Harrison said, though he was looking at Jenny as he spoke.

The nursery maids returned, looking somewhat restored, and Jenny’s half hour—an hour in truth—with Polite Society’s most in-demand portraitist was over.

And in that hour, she had not earned his respect for her art. This should be a relief, should give her ammunition to aim at the part of her that wanted nothing but to disgrace herself with an artistic life, and damn the consequences.

As he escorted her down through the house, Mr. Harrison stopped on the first landing. “Why so quiet, my lady?”

The daughter of a duchess was capable of great feats of diplomacy, also great feats of courage. Jenny would never have an opportunity to work with an instructor of Elijah Harrison’s caliber again, or at least not for many years.

“You did not like my sketch.”

The servants had been busy. In the foyer below, wreaths hung in the windows, cloved oranges in the middle of the wreaths. The scents were lovely and the light cheerful, but the space, being high ceilinged and windowed, was cold.

“I liked your sketch quite well.”

“What did you like about it?” Because in five minutes, he’d be on his horse and disappearing into the winter landscape, and Jenny had to know what he’d seen in her work, even if he’d seen only trite, unprepossessing efforts.

“You are good, Lady Genevieve. Your accuracy is effortless, you’re quick, and your technique very proficient for one who has likely had little professional instruction.”

Those compliments would have distracted her, had she not been watching his eyes. His soul was not in those terse compliments, and he’d be gone in four minutes.

“But?”

He captured her hand and placed it on his arm, moving with her down the last flight of stairs. “But you rendered me tired and rumpled, when I was quite sure the fellow in that nursery was the most charming exponent of English artistry ever to aspire to membership in the Royal Academy. You also made me look…” He glanced around as they gained the empty foyer. “Lonely.”

“Amanda said you looked like a papa. I tried to convey the affection with which you—”

“I miss…” He frowned, unwound his arm from Jenny’s, and stepped back. “I have many younger siblings. It’s natural I should miss them from time to time. That you saw in me something I’d ignored in myself confirms your talent rather than denies it.”

Somewhere in that grudging admission was a true compliment, though likely one he hadn’t intended.

“Thank you.”

Which left nothing more to say. The footmen being derelict or preoccupied with decorating some other part of the house, Jenny took Mr. Harrison’s greatcoat down from the hook and held it up to him. Next she passed him his scarf, then held his hat and gloves while he buttoned up.

And then their time together was over, and Jenny heard the sound of many heavy coaches rumbling, not toward her artistic inclinations, but more in the direction of her heart. “Safe journey, Mr. Harrison.”

“My thanks for your hospitality.” He tapped his hat onto his head and pulled on his gloves. “Have you considered corresponding with old Monsieur Antoine? He’s very generous with his guidance, and not at all opposed to encouraging the talented amateur, regardless of gender.”

His suggestion cut in several ways, though it was intended as another compliment—to a talented amateur of the inconvenient feminine persuasion. “Monsieur is, as you say, very generous, but his eyes are failing.”

Mr. Harrison tossed the ends of his scarf over his shoulders in a gesture more Continental than English. “I didn’t know that.”

“Few people do. He has been helpful, though now when I call at his gallery, we spend our conversations on his reminiscences. He’s very proud of you.”

Mr. Harrison glanced up, as if entreating the heavens, then grimaced. “The Yuletide season has officially started.” He pointed to the crossbeam over the antechamber, where a swag of mistletoe had been hung.

“Louisa and Joseph are quite enamored of all things—”

Whatever nonsense Jenny had intended to spout one minute before Elijah Harrison trotted out of her life, she forgot as he put a gloved hand on her shoulder. “It’s a harmless tradition,” he said. “One I’ve had occasion to appreciate.”

With that, he kissed her, and not on the cheek as a proper gentleman ought. He touched his mouth to hers softly, a lingering, gentle kiss that conveyed… something. Regret perhaps, at having to face the miserable winter day.

Before he drew back, he whispered, “You’ll want to look at the sketchbook I used, and, Genevieve?”

He bore the scent of rosemary and lavender, and he was leaving.