Art and Artifice by Regina Scott

“Lord Robert is currently
threatening mine. I wish to paint, not marry someone who cares
nothing for me. So, please, tell me, why did he have to settle
down?”
    Mary clutched the gown to her chest and
lowered her voice, as if afraid the silk-covered walls might
overhear. “He was a wild fellow, your ladyship. The other servants
were talking about how he had a girl in every village around the
family’s country estate. Even dallied with a merchant’s daughter
here in town and a married lady.”
    Oh, the cad! Hadn’t she said he was up to no
good? She ought to be furious that anyone would think she should
marry him!
    Mary must have noticed that Emily had
reddened, for the maid hurried to fetch one of her painting
dresses, a sturdy cotton print in navy and green with long sleeves
and a high neck. Even though Emily was careful to wear an apron
over the gown, she could still see remnants of past painting. That
crimson was from The Battle of Hastings , she was certain.
There had been a great deal of blood in that one. And the
saffron-colored streak was from The Battle of the Nile , as
it matched the stripe along the side of Nelson’s ship.
    “Now, don’t you worry, your ladyship,” Mary
said, pulling the gown over Emily’s head and setting about
fastening it up. “He chose you, didn’t he? That proves he intends
to do right.”
    Perhaps. But it might also prove that he’d
simply bowed to pressure from his family. What better way to turn
respectable than to marry the daughter of an old family friend,
particularly when she was the daughter of a duke? There was nothing
more respectable than marrying the daughter of a duke. So just how
tame was Lord Robert Townsend now?
    She considered the matter while she painted
before dinner. Unfortunately, she quickly realized that Mary had
handed her nothing she could use. Obviously His Grace knew all
about Lord Robert’s reformation. He’d said he’s been discussing the
wedding with Robert’s brother and Lord Robert. So she still had
nothing she could tell her father that would change his mind and
free her from the engagement.
    And it wasn’t as if she cared how Robert
dallied. She really didn’t want him to fall in love with her. But
she’d thought, she’d hoped, that if she married, her husband would
see more in her than merely her father’s consequence and good name.
Was it not possible that someone might enjoy her company,
appreciate her art, want to be with her simply for herself?
    It was a bold thought, she knew. Some might
even call it daring. Many of the marriages among the aristocracy
had been made to unite families, increase funds. Love was a
fanciful ideal. She’d been known to scoff at it herself, until
she’d seen the blazing light of the love Lord Brentfield had
conceived for Miss Alexander. Could it be that someone would look
at her that way, as if she were the very air he breathed?
    That was quite fanciful enough. She forced
herself to think about painting instead. She had been itching to
start another battle scene, this time from the War of the Roses.
She could just imagine all those feudal fighters in the colors of
Lancaster and York. At least their roses weren’t pink.
    She despised pink.
    Truly, was there ever a more insipid color?
It neither made the bold statement of red nor whispered the purity
of white. Yet she was convinced that His Grace would be the
happiest of men if she wore nothing but that color. Pink, he seemed
to think, was singularly feminine.
    It was simply not her.
    Candles positioned strategically around the room as
evening closed in around her, she set up the larger of the two
seasoned canvasses that Miss Alexander had sent with her to London
and stood staring at the creamy surface before sketching out the
basic scene in charcoal. It would be a huge clash, the battle lines
wavering, bodies strewn from here to the far horizon, her most
glorious work yet. And maybe, in the foreground, a single trampled
rose.
    But still her focus eluded