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Since the notices had gone up, she’d seen the Cantrell children more often, playing in the court or running past the shop windows. Maybe Mrs. Cantrell wanted to give them a holiday before they all landed in the poorhouse. Today, Beth and Mary were bareheaded, bundled in matching green coats, nut-brown braids falling over their shoulders. With their dolls on their knees, they made a very pleasing composition.
If the light held for a few more minutes . . .
“Lady Beth, Lady Mary, this is Mr. Turner,” she said. “Why don’t you tell him what we grow in the garden?” She was already spinning to race back into the house for her sketchbook.
• • •
She’d only been gone two minutes at most, but the scene in the garden had changed completely by the time she reemerged. The girls had produced a long rope, and Mary and Weston were turning while Beth hopped about, she and Mary chirping wildly the words to some skipping song with an Irish lilt.
It sounded like babble to her, but after a moment, she realized that Weston had begun to chant along. The last rays of daylight lit his eyes as he grinned at her. In that moment, he was hopelessly charming. He was also ruining her opportunity.
“Beth, Mary,” she called. “When you’re done jumping would you sit again with your dolls, and I’ll make a picture?”
Mary dropped her end of the rope and ran back to the barrow, where she snatched up her doll and hugged it with sufficient force to pop out a real baby’s eyes.
“Will you draw a portrait of Lily and Violet?”
“I prefer to draw you all together,” said Lucy. “Because you’re a family.”
“After I jump!” said Mary, and, with Beth and Weston turning the rope, she set herself to jumping with more determination than skill, clutching her doll in her arms.
Every time the rope bumped against her ankles, Weston let the middle length drop to the ground and counted off before swinging again, nodding with encouragement.
“Now,” he said when it came around, and Mary jumped again and again, beaming.
He wasn’t merely indulging these children; he was enjoying himself. Who was he really? A drunkard. An idiot. A philistine. A friend of four-legged creatures, ragpicker boys, and, it turned out, children generally. She clapped to get their attention.
“Very good, Mary.” She glanced at Weston. “Shall we?”
Weston stopped the rope and coiled it neatly, using his elbow as an anchor and seating the rope in the V formed by his thumb and first finger. Given the attractions of his more obvious features, it seemed unfair that a span of his hand could also make her stomach flutter.
She wouldn’t waste daylight watching the man coil a rope. The girls sat on the barrow, and she sat, awkwardly, on another one. She balanced her sketchbook on her knees and studied the tiny figures before her.
Both girls were staring at their boots, downcast faces stiff and nervous.
“You can talk,” she said, pencil hovering. “Go ahead. You can play with your dolls. Don’t move much, but . . .”
Don’t retract into your coats like turtles.
A tread alerted her that Weston had come up beside her.
“It’s a pleasure to see all four of you together,” he said. “But tell me—which doll is Violet and which one is Lily?”
In a heartbeat, the girls flashed to life, their round faces glowing and animated. Lucy hardly listened to the words tumbling out of their mouths, her pencil flying over the paper. Soon, they weren’t even addressing Weston. Their heads tipped together and they were speaking to each other as Violet and Lily, planning a feast of sweets for Lady Beth and Lady Mary’s supper.
She hadn’t her mother’s lightning speed, but the fading light, the chill creeping into the air, and the limited patience of her subjects propelled her hand. When Mrs. Cantrell shouted to the girls and they leapt out of their positions, she’d already captured enough and could put her pencil behind her ear with a satisfied sigh.
Not bad. There was something to it, something in the girls’ posture and their rapt focus on their dolls that made the simple, private moment open up and hint at a vast shared inner world of make-believe. Maybe, maybe, she could turn it into a decent canvas.
“Your Grace?” She rose, frowning, for she’d heard a thud. What was he about? He stood by the backhouse in his shirtsleeves, his discarded jacket crumpled on a barrel. This time as he bent, squatting deeply, she couldn’t help but indulge in the view. His trousers revealed the taut curves of his thighs and buttocks, which flexed as he strained to stand.
He was trying to lift the fallen beam.
“Of all the pigheaded . . .” The words burst from her and she stalked toward him. Men expected to be praised for feats of strength. That dated back to Hercules. But if Weston dragged that beam through the herb patch or knocked down the rest of the wall, she could be excused from applauding.
The cords in his neck stood out and he wobbled slightly as he hoisted the beam, but then, with a groan, he heaved it over the herbs and rolled it up against the side of the main house. He turned, brushing off his hands. His chest rose and fell quickly. Simple enjoyment punched those deep dimples in his cheeks. He was grinning like mad. Jumping rope, heaving beams—these were the kinds of things that brought him happiness.
She gazed at the mangled, muddy ground and the withered, broken herbs, recently liberated from the crushing weight of the beam and the portion of the wall it had brought down.
