Or happen to be an easy target for an enterprising murderous rapist.
Cole scowled, then opened his mouth to admonish her for her carelessness, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to cause the death of one more of her winsome smiles.
Instead he said, “As a soldier I had little need or care for the arts. I’m curious, if I were to happen upon a gallery, which paintings are the ones most worth my time and admiration?”
She gave her answer less consideration than he expected. “The paintings with the dustiest frames.”
“Pardon?”
Her smile disappeared regardless of his efforts, and Cole immediately missed it. “Often, when a gallery has a showing, there are those paintings that are advertised by some great master, the ones that draw the largest crowds. Then, the walls are frequently scattered with others of lesser acknowledgment.” She plucked at a loose thread in the violet lace overskirt, her gaze ever more distant. “Patrons often walk past those other paintings with a single-minded idea that the only worthy piece of art is the one coveted by others. But those paintings, the ones with the dusty frames … someone must appreciate them, mustn’t they? Someone should give a thought for them, for the visionary who created them. Else they are returned to the shadows. To a basement somewhere. Locked away. Quite forgotten.” The whites of her eyes turned pink as the lids washed with tears. “Sometimes I can’t bear the thought of it.”
She sniffed, removing her gloves to catch the tears with her fingers before they fell. “Forgive me, Your Grace, I must still be overwrought. Surely you didn’t come here to watch me weep like a silly schoolgirl. Somehow, I can’t seem to help myself. It’s not at all like me. I’ve never—”
Before he realized what he was doing, Cole caught her bare hand in his, and brought it to his lips. His eyes didn’t stray from her face as he kissed the moisture from her fingers, tasting the salt of her sorrow.
Her breath quickened behind her stays, and her gaze darted about the crowded park as though only just realizing what an exhibition they made. “Please don’t be kind to me,” she begged in a husky whisper. “I’ll fall apart in front of everyone. I’ll humiliate us both.”
Reluctantly, he released her hand, wishing more than anything that they were alone, that he could pull her against him. That he could shield her tender feelings from all danger with his body, and hold her wounded heart encased in the empty cage of his own chest.
Holy fucking Christ. This was dire. He needed to depart, but how could he leave her like this? He had stridden into her day, wishing to share in her sunshine, and somehow managed to rain all over it.
God, he was a loathsome brute.
He tried to think of something, anything, to bring her smile back. And realized that not only did he not know much about her, he knew precious little about women in general. Usually, he had to do little more than look at a woman and cock his head to bring her hither. And then she was all titters, flirts, and occasionally more. Imogen was a different sort of lady, to be sure, but a woman all the same. So … a compliment, perhaps, would do the trick. “Your dress is … it’s very bright.”
She looked down at it with a rueful twist to her full lips.
“I meant, in an appealing fashion,” he rushed. “It was how I recognized you in the crowd. Why is it that you always wear so much color, even during the afternoon, when every other lady is swathed in white or pastels?”
She spread her silk skirts and fondled a layer of lace as she glanced out at the coiffed and coddled women twirling their parasols and pretending not to watch them with raptorlike interest.
“It’s not that I don’t like pastels,” she mused, then paused and squinted as though looking for guidance from far away. “I think that people like you and I have a … unique understanding of just how dreary and sometimes … ghastly the world can be, do you agree?”
He dipped his chin, feeling that he’d far missed his mark where cheering her was concerned.
“After Edward died and I was in mourning, I went through a period of time where I looked at everything through a pall of gray. I trusted no one. I resented everyone. I was listless and irritable and expected the worst of any situation. It was a rather dreadful few months.”
“I didn’t realize his loss was that much of a tragedy to you,” Cole admitted, remembering how cold he’d been to her at the funeral and castigating himself for it.
“It wasn’t only that,” she confessed. “Before I married him, I lived a life full of such … well, of difficulty and disappointment. I hadn’t been privy to much in the way of kindness or beauty or…” She paused to give him a searching look. “Or pleasure.”
Even the word on her lips sent a thrill of lust through him. Would that he could show her pleasure. That he could give it. Take it. God, what he could do to her. If only—
If only his heart didn’t belong to another.
“Anyway, the moment I came out of mourning for Edward, I burned all my black dresses, and ordered a new trousseau in all the brightest colors of the spectrum imaginable. I wear them at my leisure, to remind myself that for all the gray in the London sky, there’s always color to be found. A smile to give. A kindness to share. A sunny day to look forward to. Or at the very least … a bright dress to wear. You see, Cole, if I cannot find that color, if there is no bright spot, then I must become one.”
“And so you have,” he murmured, distressed by the tenderness welling inside of him. “Like an oil painting in a gallery of watercolors.”
“Exactly that.” A delighted smile spread slowly over her face, chasing away the sadness, eliciting something so achingly sweet within him, he had to turn away.
“It’s not just the dresses, you know,” she continued earnestly. “It’s sort of an entire way of life I’ve found. The charity. My family. And art, of course. It all grants me something like happiness, I think.”
He envied her in that moment, that she could create something so elusive. Something he’d convinced himself he couldn’t have unless he found what had vanished.
Or whom.
Suddenly he realized how foolish it was to pin one’s hopes for redemption on a memory. But … if he didn’t have that, have Ginny, then what was he left with? A great empty house and an emptier life.
“I wonder what advice you would give to someone mired in that gray place. What if they’ve lost the ability to feel anything but enmity? To expect nothing but betrayal? To see nothing but shadows and darkness?” Even as he said this, he knew it to be an admission he’d given to no one else. Why should he confide in her like this? Why should he lay his troubled thoughts at her feet for her to tread upon when they were little better than strangers. Barely more civil than enemies. A few nights ago he’d been vowing her demise. Now he was seeking her advice?
Perhaps he should have his head examined.
“I believe you find your way out of the mire with small but consistent victories,” she mused, giving him a sad smile. “But you must look for the light, as it will not always find you. You must stop to marvel at commonplace miracles. You must find wonder in the mundane. To me it’s like weeding through a cacophony to find a melody, and then learning to hum along.”