Page 33 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

“She means everything to me.”

“More than your own independence?”

“Locket gives me independence. More than I’d have in any other circumstances.”

“I can think of a few circumstances where you might have more,” he said as he resumed his sketching.

Stella was aware of them. She’d thought of them often enough. “Only marriage and widowhood. And, unfortunately, the latter state can only be arrived at by the former. As far as anything else…” Her brows knit. “An unmarried young lady can’t keep a house for herself. Not without a chaperone of some sort. Even then, it would be considered wildly peculiar.”

“Your chaperone needn’t be a chaperone in fact,” Teddy replied. “Before my sister’s marriage to Mr. Archer, she and I lived under the care of our old aunt Charlotte. But it was my sister who ran the household. Aunt Charlotte was merely there to lend us countenance.”

“I don’t have an aunt Charlotte, regrettably. There’s only my brother. And now that my second season is at an end…” She couldn’t finish the thought. Not out loud.

The scratch of Teddy’s pencil went quiet on the page. There was an uncomfortable silence.

Stella chanced a look in his direction. But she didn’t find him looking back at her with concern. He was glaring down at his sketchbook, scowling at the page as though vexed by something he saw there.

As she watched, he retrieved a piece of Indian rubber from his row of supplies and used it to erase part of the sketch. It wasn’t a very promising development, if his expression was to judge.

“What will you do?” he asked distractedly.

Stella stared back at the clock. She had no desire to discuss her lack of options. Not with Teddy or anyone. Certainly not when he wasn’t wholly attending to what she was saying.

She didn’t want to think about the bleakness of her future. The house party was meant to be a respite from all that, if not an outright solution. One last chance for pleasure and merriment before it must all come to an end.

And it must.

The provision in her father’s will didn’t stretch to a third season.

“I will return to Derbyshire,” she said.

“After which…?”

Stella set her shoulders. “There is no ‘after which.’ ”

Teddy once again raised his head. He was troubled by what Stella had been telling him. By the prospect that, in a very short while, she’d be retiring to Derbyshire, permanently out of his reach. But, at the moment, something else troubled him far more.

He held his sketch pad an arm’s length away from him, hoping that a bit of perspective might improve his opinion of his progress.

It didn’t.

A building irritation rapidly soured his mood. Something wasn’t right. Here she was at last, his luminous star, seated in front of him, a willing subject—for today and tomorrow, at least. And he couldn’t capture her. Not the way he wanted.

This time, it wasn’t the light that was at issue. It wasn’t even the information she’d been imparting, grim as it was. It was something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Seeming to sense his growing displeasure, Stella again turned her head. A guarded expression came over her. She’d plainly realized that she’d said too much—confided too much. Unmarried ladies weren’t meant to converse so freely with unmarried gentlemen. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”

He chewed the inside of his cheek. “I’m not sure.”

“Is it something I’ve said?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“It’s…” He studied her face, his frown deepening. She had on the same black crepe cap she’d been wearing yesterday, and like yesterday, it masked the entirety of her hair. Teddy wasn’t one to comment on the vagaries of ladies’ fashion. Even so…“Why have you taken to wearing that dreadful cap?”

Some of the color drained from her face. She touched a self-conscious hand to the dull black ribbons that trimmed the offending article. “It’s not dreadful.”