Laurie's Painter (sweet Regency romance) Read Free

random when that worthy enquired
if he would like more wine. After his meal he sat before a fire, gazing into it
without seeing the flames.
    "Send fruit," he
said suddenly, sitting up straight, uncrossing his legs. "I shall send
fruit. That is always good for an illness, and perhaps she would paint it."
    He began to rise, and then
hesitated. "No! It's far too soon for fruit. What was I thinking?" He
relapsed back to his chair and frowned down at the glass of wine he'd been
swirling for the last ten minutes but forgetting to drink. He drained it off,
and set it down with finality. I thought at twenty-and-eight, I was too old
to be such a fool.
    He wandered off to bed,
only getting lost on the way once.
     
     
    Chapter two
    Jenny did her best to
settle her brother comfortably. He refused to be removed from the chair on
account of not wanting to waste the heat (he said), but more probably because
he hadn't the strength to rise or the humility to accept her help.
    She could see from his
pale, sickly look how ill he felt, and gave him a spoonful of spirit of saffron
for his cough and refreshed him with several cups of hot, thin tea from their
cracked and mismatched china.
    She picked up her mending
and sat opposite him, keeping an eye on him, hoping he would revive enough to
eat. Her own stomach protested uncomfortably, but she didn't want to eat
without her brother. The heat from the extra coal burning was pleasant, giving
a bit of warmth to her cold fingers. It made the mending easier.
    At length Henry cast her a
sharp glance. "You're never mending my shirt again? I didn't rip it yet."
    She was cast into
confusion, not knowing how to answer him, for indeed, it was not his shirt. He's
found me out! Her expression must have told the tale already. Henry's face
twisted.
    "You're never mending
and darning for money," he said with savage scorn. He thumped a fist on
his chair. "Sometimes I could strangle our father!"
    "He's already dead."
She bit through a thread, folded the finished shirt away, and began work on the
second. This one was obviously a worn workman's shirt, and she saw no reason to
hide it now.
    "Well, if he wasn't,"
said Henry irritably. "I'm hungry. Can we eat?" He glanced at her,
his eyes holding emotions his words did not: sorrow and apology for her silent
sacrifices.
    "Of course." She
rose, smiling, and fetched the bread-and-butter, broth, and half a mutton pie. They
divided it all carefully between them, eating slowly before the fireplace,
eschewing the tiny kitchenwhere Jenny had banked the fire down for the
night.
    Henry seemed to feel better
for eating, and Jenny felt revived as well. She returned to stand in front of
the canvas and regarded her day's work critically in the warm, low light. "I
wonder how I've done for Mrs. Wainscott's hearth. And I can't think her pugs
can be quite so ugly."
    "They are, trust me!"
Henry wiped his mouth on a cloth napkin and sighed, setting aside the tray. He
sounded more nearly human.
    She wished that he would
feel well enough to play his pipe as he used to do, and the two of them could dance
around the room together, all silliness as if they were small children, faces
alight. But she knew such days might never be again. Quickly shifting her mind
away from the thought, she returned to his side. "Tell me of Joysey. How
did you meet him?"
    Henry grimaced as if he'd
tasted sour lemon. "He came to visit Catchpole and distracted him. Catchpole
stopped posing. He hadn't been doing very well anyway. I don't know why he
picked that stupid pose. At any rate, Joysey fed me some of Catchpole's tea
things and made remarks about the background painting—quite nice remarks."
He coughed heavily. "He asked me where I'd gone to school, and pried it
out of me. We'd been to the same one, before Father couldn't afford the fees
anymore." He fell silent with a brooding frown, then began to cough.
    Jenny waited on for him to
finish his coughing spell and continue.
    He took a few deep
breaths, not