Heat flooded her face. ‘I drew it from imagination.’
‘The kind of imagination that brings you home at three in the morning.’
She gasped.
‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone, but be careful of that young man, miss. He’s not all he seems.’
Her heart sank. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s just a feeling, miss. But you’ve trusted me before to put you right, so this is my advice. You’ve got through things pretty well up to now. Don’t do anything rash. Your birthday is coming up. Your majority. Everything will seem much clearer then.’
‘How?’
He tugged at his cravat. ‘I can’t say, miss. It’s this feeling I have.’
‘The same feeling you have about Mr Deveril.’
He glanced at the picture. ‘No. That’s a different feeling altogether.’ His craggy face shifted into the small smile he sometimes gave her. ‘It’s very good, that picture, but you better not let anyone else see it.’
‘On that I will take your advice, Mr Snively.’
‘On the other too, I hope, miss.’ He bowed and departed with his usual dignity.
Frederica pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. How could she have been so careless? She whisked the easel into the corner and turned it to face the wall. She covered it with an old shawl.
Dear old Snively, never one to get in a flap. And she could rely on him to keep quiet about what he’d seen, but if one of the other servants had walked in and seen the picture, there would have been a horrible fuss.
Could he have guessed just by looking at her that things had gone much further than her drawing Robert’s picture? Did she look different?
She felt different. More like a woman. For a while, she’d felt desirable too. Their lovemaking had been so utterly wonderful. To her.
‘Don’t come here again.’ He’d sounded weary.
Perhaps she’d disappointed him in some way. That must be it. Before they’d made love, they had been friends. Now, it seemed, they were nothing. He couldn’t wait to be rid of her. When they walked home through the woods, he’d said not a word.
And he’d refused to accept any money. Did he consider she’d paid him with her favours? A rather horrid thought. It sounded like something her mother would do.
Or was it something much more mundane? Did he fear she’d betray him to her uncle? Well, she wouldn’t. Never.
Frederica picked up the letter from the desk. Her hand shook as she read Dr Travis’s words. He wrote first of his delight with the drawings received so far. He was happy to accept them for his book.
Her heart seemed to stop in her chest. He liked her work. It was going to be published. In a book. Dreams did come true. Even if they could not be published in her own name.
He noted that the first instalment bank draft awaited her, or rather waited for a Mr Smith, at the publisher’s office in London. The second instalment would be paid on publication.
Her excitement subsided. It might take months for publication. She’d understood the final and much larger payment would be due on delivery of the last of the pictures. Without all of the money right away she wouldn’t have enough to leave Wynchwood.
She picked up a pen and dipped it in the ink. Slowly and carefully, she pointed out that this was not how she had understood his offer. If she provided everything he asked for on time, should he not be equally as timely?
Feeling rather bold, she sanded the letter and folded it. She’d have to await his answer, before making her own plans. Another delay.
And then there was the matter of her unwanted chaperon. The meeting with Lady Radthorn this morning. No doubt the dowager countess would find her a dreadful disappointment. Too thin. Too plain. The thought of trying on gowns in front of the elegant lady made her stomach churn.
Nothing too expensive, Uncle Mortimer had begged, even as Frederica had begged him to let her cry off from the ball. Not even her lack of knowledge of the waltz had changed his mind. Just sit it out, he’d advised. Tell anyone who asks that I do not approve of such scandalous cavorting.
Scandalous cavorting, like her mother. They’d be shocked if they knew she’d been doing a bit of scandalous cavorting of her own. After all, a bad apple never falls far from the tree, Uncle Mortimer always said. She glanced down at the letters, her key to leaving the tree far behind. Carefully, she tucked the doctor’s letter into her clothes press and her reply in her pocket.
Until the doctor’s answer came, she had a role to play. Uncle Mortimer must not suspect a thing, which meant facing Lady Radthorn.
There was one good thing, though. On her way through the village, she could post her reply to Dr Travis.
Stomach fluttering as if it might fly off by itself, Frederica followed the Radthorn butler’s directions into an impressive drawing room full of family portraits and gilt furniture.
An elegantly gowned middle-aged woman with grey dusting her pale gold hair and a warm smile creasing her patrician face held out her hands. ‘There you are, Miss Bracewell, and right on time, too. I like promptness in a young gel.’
Frederica didn’t know she had an option but to be on time. She took a deep breath and made her curtsy. ‘Good morning, my lady.’ Good. No hesitations.
As she raised her gaze, she saw that Lady Radthorn was regarding her with narrowed eyes and slightly pursed lips.
‘Curtsy is good,’ the elderly lady murmured. ‘Gown is dreadful.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘Looks nothing like her mother.’
Frederica’s jaw dropped. This woman knew her mother? ‘I b-beg your pardon.’
‘Oh, la, did I say that aloud? John, my grandson, is quite sure I have reached my dotage when I do that.’ She laughed, a bright tinkling sound in the spacious room. ‘Would you like tea? Of course you would. And besides, I want to take a look at your comportment. Nothing like serving tea to separate a lady from a hobbledehoy, I always say.’
Lady Radthorn glided to the bell pull and gave it a swift tug. ‘Do sit down, my dear. My word, you look terrified. I assure you I have not sharpened my teeth this morning.’
Was that a joke? It was hard to tell with such a grandam. Sure her knees were knocking, Frederica crossed the room beneath the critical gaze and perched on the sofa indicated by the lady’s imperious gesture.
The dowager countess took the chair opposite. ‘Now I look at you more closely, I see you have your mother’s lovely skin.’ She touched her own lined face. ‘Poets wrote odes to her complexion.’
Frederica’s heart thudded uncomfortably in her chest, questions stuck in her throat, like a fishbone gone down the wrong way. She swallowed hard. ‘You knew my mother?’ She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was all very well hearing vague rumours from servants and dire warnings from Uncle Mortimer, but the thought of someone actually knowing the person felt like opening Pandora’s Box. She wished fervently she hadn’t asked.
‘Gloria came out the same year as my oldest son.’ She smiled sadly. ‘My poor John.’ She gazed off into the distance, lost in the past. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew that the loss of her son and his wife to influenza had been a huge blow. The current Lord Radthorn had inherited the title as a minor. But that had been years ago.
Frederica shifted in her seat. ‘I’m sorry.’
Lady Radthorn blinked as if clearing her sight. ‘So foolish. What is past cannot be undone.’
Were all those of Lady