“They have never liked me much,” Eliza said. “I have grown accustomed to it.”
“I wish you had not,” Somerset said, so softly that Eliza was not sure he meant her to hear. “I wish . . .”
He trailed off and they walked on in silence for a moment.
“I hope I have not ruined things,” he said roughly.
Eliza caught her breath and let it out in a slow, long exhale. What ought she say? Things had been ruined—for her, at least. But . . . She still wanted him in her life, even if she would have to put to bed her other sentiments, would have to learn, once and for all, how to fall out of love with him.
“Perhaps we were foolish to think we could simply spend time together, again,” she said, “without the subject of our past arising, on occasion.” Eliza looked up at him, forcing herself to hold the eye contact. “But perhaps now it has, we may be able to start our friendship, afresh.”
“Do you truly wish that?” he asked. “Even after . . .”
“Yes,” she said.
It was better than nothing.
“Friends . . .” Somerset sounded thoughtful.
“Only if you wish it, as well,” she added hastily. She would not again make the mistake of assuming she knew his feelings.
“Do you think,” Somerset asked abruptly, “that friends, while in Bath, might meet at the Pump Room each morning?”
“I would,” Eliza said cautiously.
“Perhaps they might attend concerts together, as well?”
Eliza could not read his expression.
“They might.”
“And ride out together, when the weather allows it, do you think?”
A small smile was pulling at the corner of his mouth and Eliza returned it very, very tentatively.
“I do,” Eliza said.
Was it only to her ears that such a friendship sounded so akin to courting? Eliza tried desperately to banish the hope that was trying to unfurl once again in her chest.
“Then yes,” Somerset said, bowing over her hand in farewell, “I should like to be your friend very much.”
Balfour House
February 14th ’19
Dear Eliza,
Though I received your last letter safe in hand, I will not answer here any of your questions regarding the family—you may assume all of their health—for a piece of most disagreeable news has reached mine ears.
I have received report—by way of Lady Georgina, by way of her cousin, and thence a Mrs. Clemens of Bath—that Lord Melville and Lady Caroline Melville have made their home in Bath. Can this indeed be true? If it is, you can only guess at my horror! And I wonder that I should receive such reportage from Lady Georgina—by way of her cousin, etc.—and not from you, yourself!
I must instruct you to act with great prudency around such persons. The disgraces associated with their name are numerous, disparate and, indeed, recent—there are whispers that an affaire d’amour has been occurring between Lord Melville and Lady Paulet for years. Lady Paulet, you will recollect, is the female painter whose work was so lauded by the ton last year and the fury of Paulet—Melville’s most loyal patron—upon discovering the cuckolding was reportedly great. With such a scandal as this brewing, I trust that you will give Lord Melville no encouragement as to any pretensions of friendship.
You may expect more anon—there are a few expenses regarding Rupert’s education that I have agreed to on your behalf. He is—though you have demonstrated a shocking lack of interest in your heir—in possession of a further molar.
Your affectionate mother.
13
Will you try to sit still?”
“I am.”
“You are fidgeting.”
“If you count breathing as fidgeting.”
Eliza gave Melville a hard stare over the top of her portfolio, trying to emulate her grandfather’s implacable manner of staring down his most demanding subjects.
“Are you well?” Melville asked, with a glint in his eye as if he knew very well what she was trying to do and had decided to be as difficult as possible. “You look dreadfully uncomfortable.”
Eliza hid a smile behind the page. It was Thursday morning and this would mark the second of Melville’s sittings. Eliza had decided, dredging up her recollections of how Mr. Balfour Sr. had conducted his portraits, to spend their first hours together capturing Melville in a variety of poses in order to decide upon the painting’s composition. It was more challenging than she had expected. Partly because Eliza had never met anyone who sat with more animation than Melville, but mostly because Eliza felt so flustered to be sitting with him quite alone. It had not been what she had imagined, upon Tuesday, when Melville and Lady Caroline had called soon after breakfast, and they had sat cloistered together in the parlor with Lady Caroline examining Eliza’s paintings.
“Do we have to indulge in such a charade?” Melville had protested, when Eliza had reiterated the need for some excuse for the hours he would need to spend at Camden Place.
“Yes,” Eliza had insisted. “I cannot be seen making such a spectacle of myself.”
This solution, in the end, had been Margaret’s.
“What if Lady Caroline were teaching me French?” she had suggested. “Melville would be escorting her to and from the house and visiting with you during the lessons.”
Lady Caroline had raised her eyebrows. “And I just . . . dawdle here, for the duration of the sitting? How thrilling.”
“Or you could actually teach me,” Margaret had said mildly. “I have always wanted to learn and . . . I should not think it your first time in the role of tutor, is it?”
At that, Lady Caroline looked hard at Margaret for a few beats. Margaret returned her gaze steadily.
“It is not,” Lady Caroline agreed with a slow smile. “Very well.”
Eliza had imagined that they would conduct their lessons in the parlor, too—Eliza and Melville seated at one end, Lady Caroline and Margaret upon the sofa—a cramped affair, yes, but warm and companionable. Today, however, Lady Caroline had thrown that idea out.
“We have not enough space,” she said, beckoning to Margaret. “We shall have to station ourselves in the drawing room.”
“But . . . what about chaperonage?” Eliza said. At her age and as a widow, chaperonage was not perhaps as essential as it was for a young lady, but given the intimate connotations of a portrait sitting, it felt only wise.