That made Zoë laugh harder. “It was a horrible joke and I shouldn’t be laughing. You’re as bad as that man.”
“Which man?”
“Your boss. Or was that a lie too? Maybe you own this place and he just struts around.”
“Lord Tristan?” Russell said, beginning to sober from his laughter. “You sound as though you don’t like him.”
“I told him I’d repair the frame on the miniature of his wife but he told me that only a man could do it.”
“He said those exact words?”
“Well,” Zoë said, “not in those words, but more or less.”
“Ah, I see,” Russell said. “Perhaps he didn’t want to insult a man who has lived with him for nearly a year and who has been a friend to him. Could that have had something to do with it?”
“Maybe,” Zoë said. “Women in my time tend to take things as being chauvinistic when maybe they aren’t.”
“Your time?” he asked.
She waved her hand in dismissal. “I mean, in my country. How about if you tell me everything about yourself?”
“My favorite thing to do,” he said as he stretched out on the grass under the tree. “Where should I begin?”
“Where were you born? Where have you worked and have you had any training as an artist?”
This last question made him look at her with wide eyes. “Are you telling me that you do not?”
“I was in an accident,” she said softly, “and when I woke up, I could draw.”
“How old were you?”
“Nineteen.”
“And you are now?”
“Twenty-five.”
He looked at her for a moment. “That old and no husband? No children?”
“Never met a man I liked enough to want to keep. What about you? You’re certainly older than me. You have a wife and children?”
“None,” he said. “I have had offers. My mother has worked hard to find me a wife but I’ve liked none of them.”
“Is your family from Scotland?”
He smiled. “My parents, not me, but I sound like them. Do ye hear the heather in my voice?”
“A little bit,” Zoë answered, teasing. His accent was thick when he turned it on. “When did you know you wanted to be an artist?”
“All I ever wanted to do was draw or paint. When I had just turned three I nearly walked into the fireplace, but all I wanted was some charcoal. I drew the face of my mother on the wall.”
“And what did she do?”
Russell smiled in memory. “I was told the story many times when I was growing up. We lived in London in one of the poorer sections. My father drove a big wagon and took kegs of beer to the public houses. He was as strong as his horses, and he was a sweet man, but he was not a scholar.” He looked at Zoë as though she might condemn him for
such a lowly father.
“But what about your mother?” she asked.