Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

“Amy said she’s been here for nearly a year,” Zoë said, searching for conversation.

“Fourteen months,” he said, and she had the idea that he could tell her how many days it had been. He’s in love with her! Zoë thought. He is flat-out, no-holds-barred in love with her.

Zoë turned away from him, afraid that he would read her thoughts. If he was in love with Amy, how was he going to feel when she disappeared in just three weeks? On the other hand, someone who seemed to be Amy had been here for a year, so maybe that person would stay.

Zoë could feel him looking at her, as though he expected her to say something. She was searching for words when she saw a miniature portrait nestled in a white napkin lying on the top of the sideboard. It was no more than four inches tall, in oil and probably on ivory. She picked it up. “She’s pretty.”

When he said nothing, she looked back at him. He suddenly looked as though he might cry.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she put the picture down. “I didn’t mean to be rude.” She stepped back from him.

“It is I who should apologize,” he said as he picked up the little portrait and gazed at it. “Usually, this is in my room, but the frame has a crack in it, so it’s to be repaired.”

“I could do it,” Zoë said.

“You? Do you have experience in this?”

“I’ve been working with framing for several years now,” she said. She was watching him and figuring out who the woman in the picture was. Unfortunately, Zoë’d had quite a bit of experience with that look. Many of her clients had looked at photographs of deceased loved ones like that.

“Who was she?” Zoë whispered, letting the “was” tell him that she understood.

“My wife,” he said, his eyes still on the portrait.

“I can make a larger picture from that,” she said. “I can make copies for you.”

He looked at her, blinking for a moment, then he smiled. “You are a painter?”

“Yes,” Zoë answered and straightened her back. If she had a job here she wouldn’t feel as though she were trespassing.

He put the picture back on the napkin. “I have a painter living here,” he said, “and he will repair the frame. And he will make copies for me. He is painting my sister now. You will have to ask his permission if you are to work for him.”

With that, he gave a little bow and left the room.

For a moment, Zoë stood there staring after him. He had dismissed her, and she had no doubt that it was because she was a woman. He’d said she was to work “for” the man. Didn’t he think a woman could paint as well as a man?

While it was true that Zoë had never been to art school, had never had a lesson in her life, she had certainly read a great deal on her own. She knew what itinerant portrait painters in the eighteenth century did. Sure, there was a Stuart now and then, but mainly they painted on boards in a style that was stiff and, to Zoë’s eye, ugly.

She went down the stairs to the kitchen where Amy was at the table kneading bread.

“I met your big, beautiful boss,” she said from across the table. The people in the room didn’t exactly stop what they were doing, but they did slow down, and the voices ceased.

“What’s he done now?” Amy asked, not pausing in her kneading.

“I volunteered to paint some pictures of his wife, but he said he already has a painter. If I don’t draw and paint, why am I here? What am I to do for three weeks? Play the pianoforte?”

“He told you about his wife?” Amy asked. If possible, it got quieter in the room.

“Not really,” Zoë said, “but you remember that I’ve been living in other people’s houses for years now, and I know what it means when their eyes look at a portrait in that way.”

Amy quit kneading and wiped her hands on a damp cloth. After a glance at all the people in the kitchen who were staring at them, she put her hand under Zoë’s arm and ushered her up the stairs.

“This place gossips more than any tabloid,” she said when they were upstairs. “Zoë, I know that I brought you into this and I’ll fix everything that I can, but it’s true that he has a painter living here right now. If I’d known that when we were in Maine I wouldn’t have asked you to come. I’m sorry. But couldn’t you just enjoy what you see here? I can get him to buy you some paper and pens and you can sketch what you see. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“Why do you always call him ‘he’? Doesn’t he have a name?”

“Sure,” Amy said. “It’s Tristan, but it’s also the eighteenth century. I can’t call him by his first name because I’m a lowly housekeeper, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to call him ‘my lord.’” She gave Zoë a pleading look. “I really do have a lot of work to do. Feeding the people who live here is a major undertaking every day. If I run out of anything I can’t just go to the supermarket. I have to wait for it to grow!”

“So you’re telling me to entertain myself and get out of your hair.”