Keeping Faith (Fair Cyprians of London 3)

His laugh sounded forced as he rose and returned to the easel where he spent a long time mixing paints and staring at the result, as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Finally, he glanced at her from around the canvas. “It’s probably why my father detests my passion. He sees I can have no sensible thought in my mind when I am so preoccupied.”

“What does he consider sensible?”

“The security of England. The possibility of a threat from Germany. Assessing that threat. Mitigating it. Diplomacy.” Now his laugh was more genuine, though self-effacing. “None of the kinds of things a young lady like you would trouble herself about.”

Faith closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun while all the book learning she’d acquired floated through her mind. She’d been surprised to discover how much she loved history. Her tutor had loved politics, and the result was that she was often engaged in a series of spirited discussions on various topics in the old man’s musty little study in Maida Vale. Including the increasing threat posed by Germany.

“Your father was a diplomat, wasn’t he?” Faith didn’t want to look at Mr Westaway while she formulated her words. If she couldn’t impress him with her beauty, Mrs Gedge’s hope was that Faith would interest him with her mind.

“He was, and I am to follow in his footsteps.”

“He wants you to be just like him?”

There was a silence, and Faith opened her eyes to see him looking intently at her. “Yes.” He nodded slowly. “He does.”

Clearly, Mr Westaway wasn’t enamoured by the idea.

“I daresay you discuss these matters with him,” Faith went on innocently. “France’s shattering defeat by Prussia a few years ago, for example. Do you think that means that France has been supplanted as a threat by a new potential enemy? Should we be worried?” She gazed at Mr Westaway with her most disarming half smile. Some men couldn’t resist the combination of a young girl’s innocent desire to impress, at the same time as be educated, she had learned.

He opened his mouth to reply but she wanted to push her advantage while she had it, going on quickly, “Germany is efficient, militaristic, ruthless, and ambitious. Of course, we should be worried, shouldn’t we, Mr Westaway? Your job is to reduce the risk to our country through gathering information, but of course you have to be discreet. Your father would want you to be as vigilant in your attention to detail as a diplomat as you clearly are as an artist.”

Crispin nearly dropped his paintbrush. Was this the same young woman whose quiet, artistic posture had first attracted his interest? She’d stood out from the many other debutantes that night on account of the plainness of her attire, which contrasted with her beauty. She had been unleashed upon society in the hopes of finding a husband who might see her looks as compensating for her material deficiencies, and Crispin had taken pity on her for no other reason than that she made a good model when he suddenly had the opportunity to paint.

A clandestine activity because it bore no relation to his work. His all-important work for which he’d been groomed since childhood—to follow his father into the diplomatic service.

Yet in a few sentences, she’d succinctly summarised the situation with which he and his father had grappled during long dinner conversations these past months.

He wished his father could have heard Miss Montague speak just now.

And then remembered his father must never know of Miss Montague’s existence or the fact that Crispin was painting.

“You have a remarkable grasp on the situation, Miss Montague,” he allowed. “Where did you pick up such information?”

“I read a lot.”

Her face was turned up to the sun, and her lids had drifted sleepily closed while a contented smile played about her lips. In her hands, she held a small posy of flowers he’d placed there for artistic value. Now, as he gazed at her, he was struck by a sensation he was completely unable to identify. He frowned as his eyes roamed the length of her. She was a beauty, and she seemed entirely unaware of the fact.

What else was in that mind of hers? He could wonder for it went without saying that any other part of her was out of bounds.

Into the lengthening silence, she volunteered on a small sigh, “There’s not much a girl like me can do except read…and do other people’s bidding.” She blinked open her eyes suddenly and smiled. It was like a shadow giving way to the sun. Her eyes were pools of crystal water; her skin dew-brushed petals.

“Don’t move!” he cried again, dipping his paintbrush into a blob of colour on the palette. “Keep smiling. You don’t smile enough. Yes, that was the problem before.”

Feverishly he returned to work. He’d thought a pensive creature suited the mood of what he sought to recreate. But that was before her lightness had transformed his work. His world. She was all vibrancy and life, not a half-dead creature lying languidly amongst the grass. Not a girl living a half life, burdened by a destiny that would not be of her choosing. He’d not thought any of this, but it flashed through his mind in a blinding maelstrom of insight—replacing in the vacuum left behind only the fear that he hadn’t the talent to capture the exquisite purity, the joyful radiance of a young woman, in that moment, uninhibited and alive.

She gave him a few minutes to satisfy the call of genius and then said lightly, “Ah, but I thought the problem was that you were too serious, Mr Westaway. I was afraid I’d fall in your estimation if I allowed my frivolous nature to reveal itself.”

She was teasing him. The chit of a girl so beneath him in age, station, and everything else was smiling her amusement with all the consummate confidence of a dowager holding forth in a salon.

r /> And he was entranced.

He returned her smile, but beneath the veneer of a sudden shared camaraderie, lurked an uncomfortable realisation that she was becoming just a little too interesting.

He’d have to bring the session to an early finish.

“Thank you, Miss Montague.”

Her mouth dropped open as he nodded, suddenly brisk as he began to clean his brushes. He was sorry his words sounded unaccountably clipped and tried to ameliorate with a smile any sense she might have that he was displeased with her.