Louisa moved away, grabbing a receiving blanket from a pile folded near the hearth and shaking it out. “Mr. Harrison didn’t sketch Fleur. He sketched some little girl who looks like Fleur trying to make a drawing. He sketched what he saw, not what he felt.”

Jenny studied the drawing again, and admitted that Louisa’s conclusion was… not invalid. The image was accurate and whimsical, but not… Fleur. Her little-girl eyes, so full of life and vulnerability, didn’t stare up from the page. “He doesn’t know Fleur.”

This was true—it was also a defense of an artist who needed no defending.

“I suspect he doesn’t know children, or he doesn’t know a nature like Fleur’s. She’s purely sweet and easy to love, much like you.”

“Gracious, Lou, you’ve gone from spouting poetry to spinning fiction. I’ll leave you now and give your regards to dear Sophie.”

“And Joseph’s regards to Sindal too please, and keep the sketches, Jenny. I think Mr. Harrison meant them for you.”

Louisa didn’t smirk as she made that observation. Her green eyes held a touch of pity, though, the same pity Jenny bore lately from her aunt and uncle, her cousins, her siblings, and—she would swear to this—her very own cat.

As she drove the pony cart over the snowy lanes to her sister Sophie’s domicile, Jenny tried not to consider that pity, and yet, it circled her awareness like a shark among shipwreck victims.

The pity rankled because Jenny was pouting over Elijah Harrison passing through her life, leaving her a sketch, and departing without a backward glance.

Pouting was for children, which she would never have. Her family was a group of perceptive, forthright people, and yet, they would not talk about a sister who wanted to pursue art instead of holy matrimony.

They would only pity her.

“For Christmas, I would like to be spared my siblings’ pity.” The pony, a shaggy little scrapper by the name of Grendel, shook his harness bells as if in reply. “I would like to be appreciated for who I am, for my art, and yet…”

As she turned the little gray up the Sidling driveway, Jenny buttoned up her untoward resentments and longings. Paris was a dream, not a just desert.

Sophie, Baroness Sindal, was waiting in the foyer of her sprawling Tudor home, little Kit clinging to her skirts, and the baby—he wasn’t really a baby anymore—perched on her hip.

“Jenny, welcome! Sindal, take the children and let me have a moment with my long-lost sister.”

Sophie’s tall, blond husband hoisted the younger child to his hip and took Kit by the hand. “Jenny, you see how it’s to be. The menfolk banished to the nursery while temptation wafts up from the kitchen. I ask you, how are we to be good little boys when faced with such an ordeal?”

Sindal stood well over six feet, and yet around Sophie he was a very good boy indeed.

“Papa, pick me up!” Young Kit held his arms up and was obliged with a perch on Sindal’s other hip. “’Lo, Aunt Jen Jen!”

Kit shouted everything. Jenny could not recall the last time she’d shouted anything, and silently applauded the boy’s boisterous approach to life.

“Hello, Master Kit. When your mama and I have finished the stollen, will you come down and sample it for us?”

She reached a hand out to tousle his blond curls but stopped short of her goal, fingers outstretched, the child grinning at her. A queerish feeling came over her. Were she not a lady, she would have called it excitement. “Whose scarf is that?”

The scarf in question hung on a hook in the foyer, draped over a gentleman’s greatcoat, the pattern an unusual plaid done mostly in dark purple. When she’d first beheld that scarf, Jenny had noticed the colors—a green stripe, a lavender stripe—because the scheme had been unusual but quite pretty.

“That would be mine.”

Elijah Harrison emerged from the drawing room down the hallway and bowed in Jenny’s direction. “Lady Genevieve, we meet again.”

He was smiling. He was smiling, and he was here, and though she knew her sister, her nephews, and even Sindal were watching her, Jenny was helpless not to smile back.

Elijah was used to working in spaces not entirely conducive to producing good art, much less great art. He was used to manufacturing sunlight where none existed, opulence of setting where none had ever existed, and personality traits—charm, dignity, sagacity, even chastity—his sitters’ own mothers would never have ascribed to them.

He was not, however, used to ignoring the scent of Christmas baking while he set up his studio. Worse yet, through some quirk of antique architecture, he could hear Lady Jenny’s voice wafting up from the kitchen through the flue, hear her laughter and the lilt and rhythm of her speech, though he couldn’t make out a single word she said.

Fortunately, the Evil Chimney of Distraction had fallen silent about a half hour ago.

Elijah moved furniture around to make window light more available. He organized stretched canvasses, pigments, linseed oil, walnut oil for the lightest colors, brushes, and the containers where he stored bladders of paint, then he moved the furniture around some more.

Where was she? Was she staying under the same roof as he?

“Mr. Harrison?”

At first he thought the chimney had spoken to him, then he realized Lady Jenny stood in the doorway to the guest room he was converting to artistic use.

He bowed. Not because she was a duke’s daughter, not even because she was a lady. He bowed because something in him finally was able to focus now that he knew where she was—and because she was carrying a small tray. “Lady Jenny.”

“I’m having tea sent up, and I brought you some stollen fresh from the kitchen. I gather this is where you are to work?” She hovered in the doorway, much as she had at Kesmore’s house the previous night.

“My temporary studio, the most recent of many. Won’t you come in?”

Won’t you please come in?

He shoved two heavy chairs nearer the hearth, then realized he hadn’t lit the fire. “I apologize for the cold. Moving furniture about warms one up.”

She came closer, peering around as if in a curiosity shop. “You have some of the heat from the kitchens too, I think.”

“Which we will lose if that door remains open.” He crossed the room to shut the door, and not because the room would get cold. “Shall I light a fire for you?”

She set the tray down on the raised hearth and sent him an unfathomable look. What had he said? What had she inferred? Why was she destined to find him in shirtsleeves, cuffs turned back, rumpled, and untidy? He cleaned up decently when he made the effort.

“The tea will be along presently. That will warm us up if needs must. You made a sketch of me.”

She wanted to talk about art, and he wanted to eat whatever was on that tray and simply behold her.

“You made one of me. Artists often perform reciprocal courtesies for one another. For years, my anatomy was available to model for Antoine’s students.” He should not have said that.

“I know.”

And she really should not have said that.

The knock on the door felt every bit as intrusive to Elijah as if they had been on the point of a kiss—another kiss—or perhaps on the point of issuing each other a challenge.

“That will be our tea.” He hustled over to the door, took the tray from the maid in the hallway, and closed the door in the servant’s face. “Shall you pour?”

“While you butter our bread.” She smiled as if this informal, impromptu picnic were a delight to her. Her smile wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t particularly merry.

That smile—he was astonished to conclude—was a trifle naughty.

He dropped into one of the heavy chairs without asking her permission and lifted the linen from the small tray. The scent of yeast and sweet bread hit his nose, and in the chilly room, fragrant steam rose from the half loaf of bread.