Yet how could she wish for him to have suffered merely so that she might now have had a chance of meeting him? There was a newfound illogicality to her thoughts that she couldn’t banish, no matter how hard she tried.
This, she reasoned, was love.
“I see you,” she said, not having the words to express any of the other feelings rampaging in her body. She wanted to sleep for two days and climb a mountain.
He smiled once again and kissed her ankle. “I see you.”
As always, he knew precisely the right thing to say.
It never once occurred to her to question staying as he came to wrap her in his arms. Exhausted, sated, utterly contented, she fell asleep to the cadence of his breath.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Christiana examined thepainting on its easel. Amelia had painted in her bedchambers so Hugh would not get wind of what she was doing—but over the past few days, he had been so occupied with running the estate, andher, that it would never have occurred to him to check.
Christiana pushed the surge of guilt back.
“It’s perfect,” she said. If anything, it emphasized the burns across Hugh’s face, Amelia having spent more time depicting them than anything else in the painting. His clothes were a vague and somber black, and the background was a gray smudge. She made him appear almost monstrous.
And yet, for all that, Christiana loved it.
There was one painting of Hugh in the gallery, from before the fire. There, he was almost impossibly handsome, his dark hair brushed back from his forehead, his skin unmarred and whole, and a worldly expression in his brown eyes. That version of him was arrogant, fully aware of his position in the world.
That version did not know pain or sacrifice.
The man who stared at her from Amelia’s painting had known all these things. In his eyes, she read patience andkindness, a quiet endurance spawned from his determination to survive.
The reason Amelia had painted it was so she could ensure no potential servant would flinch at the sight of it, but Christiana found herself wishing she could hang it in her private parlor.
“I know,” Amelia said, watching her expression. “He looks likehim, doesn’t he?”
“He would hate it.”
“Yes.”
“After this is done, I ought to destroy it.”
Amelia nodded slowly. “That would probably be for the best. But…”
“But,” Christiana agreed.
“Will it work, do you think?”
“Perfectly.” Christiana attempted a smile. She had risen from Hugh’s bed that morning, and it sometimes felt hard to believe that this was her life. But she wasn’t done—they had made progress, admittedly, but she would not rest until Hugh took his place in this community, in Society, in the world, as he deserved to.
“So will you do it?” Amelia asked. “Dismiss Mrs. Partridge and Penwick, I mean.”
“I did a little investigation, and it seems they have bought a house at the very edge of Grancott,” Christiana said. “A sizeable property.”
“Too large to have been purchased on their income here, you mean?”
“The worst part of it is Hugh might well have helped them if they had asked.” Christiana sat on the edge of Amelia’s bed, her head aching. “If they wished to marry and buy a house, he might have given them some money with which to do so. They’ve served the family for a long time. Instead, they insisted onthis.”
Amelia shook her head. “I always thought they quietly disliked us all. And Mrs. Partridge has openly insulted you.”
Christiana glanced at the portrait one last time, then drew the sheet over it. “I’ll speak with them today.”
Mrs. Partridge’s eyesbulged. “You can’t mean that, Your Grace.”