Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction (Mackenzies & McBrides #9)(6)
Jenny opened her eyes, her whimpers building toward a wail. Alec gathered her close, rocking her in his big arms.
“Hush now, sweet.” He turned from Lady Celia and walked with Jenny to the stairs. He began to sing in a soft voice, a song in Erse his mum had whispered to him so very long ago.
Jenny’s cries eased into sniffles as Alec climbed higher in the house to return her to her chamber. He was very aware of Lady Celia watching him from the doorway, her gaze fixed on him until he turned the corner of the stairs, and she was lost to sight.
Celia had recovered some but not all of her wits by the time the drawing master reappeared.
He didn’t simply walk into the room. He burst into it like a bright comet, stealing the light and forcing all attention to him. At the moment, the attention was Celia’s and that of yet another footman who set a pitcher of scented water and glasses on a low table.
The drawing master eyed the pitcher as the footman vanished. He brushed past Celia with a waft of fresh air, lifted the pitcher, and carried it to the other side of the room.
“Don’t want to tempt ye,” he said. “You have a fondness for throwing water around. Now then, lass.”
He looked about the room as though he’d never seen it before, spied her portfolio, and made for it.
He’d changed from nightshirt to knee breeches that looked a bit worn, stockings that had been mended, black shoes he shifted uncomfortably in, a linen shirt, a dark brown frock coat with one patched elbow, and no waistcoat or cravat.
Celia’s irritation turned to pity. He was poor, as she’d suspected, a man scraping a living teaching drawing to daughters and sons of aristocrats. Likely he’d left Scotland after the war was lost, looking for work, too proud perhaps, to take a post in the factories and mills. Why he’d left France if he was so famous there, Celia couldn’t guess. No doubt he was putting up with Lady Flora now because she could bring him paying clients.
Any idea that Lady Flora was having a scandalous affair with this man Celia did not bother to consider. Everyone knew about Lady Flora. The great surprise was that she’d married at all, but her much-celebrated nuptials—the daughter of a notable earl wedded to a marquess—had made her a powerful woman.
The drawing master reached a broad-fingered hand to Celia’s portfolio. Of course he’d be curious about her work, but Celia pictured him finding her pathetic efforts and laughing out loud. He’d have a booming laugh, and she’d die of mortification. Celia had brought the drawings only because Lady Flora insisted.
She hurried to the table and pressed her hand to the portfolio’s cover. “What is your name?” she asked. “Lady Flora did not tell me.”
The man’s eyes opened and closed a few times, his lashes fair and thick. “Mr. Finn. Ansel Finn.”
He spoke the name slowly and carefully as though as uncomfortable with it as with his heavy shoes. It didn’t fit him, that name. It was tight and simple, and Celia already believed him much more complicated than that.
Not his fault. He was impoverished, he couldn’t help what he was named, and he was under Lady Flora’s power. Celia wondered what he’d done to put himself into such a terrible position, but she felt sympathy for him.
He unfastened the portfolio’s catch with strong fingers. Celia leaned to press her hand more firmly to the leather top.
“What was that language?” she asked, groping for questions. “That you were singing to your daughter? What was the song?”
Mr. Finn flushed brilliant red, the color blending with the russet hair at his forehead. Then he beamed a wide smile, like sunshine blasting through smoke.
“’Tis very old. Greek, I think.”
Celia lifted her hand from the portfolio. “Absolute nonsense. I understand Greek perfectly, and that is nothing like it.”
“Ah. Well then.” Mr. Finn rubbed his nose. “It’s that embarrassed I am, lass. It’s Irish. Me mother tongue.”
Celia supposed it sounded a bit like what the Irish maids gabbled at each other below stairs. Never in Celia’s mother’s hearing, of course. In the duchess’s opinion, all servants should speak perfect, unaccented English or not speak at all.
“I see,” Celia said. “Well, you’d better not speak Irish while you’re teaching me, Mr. Finn. Lest my mother, who believes English is the language of God, gets wind of it.”
Mr. Finn slanted her a startled look before amusement danced in to cover it. “I will try to remember. What am I supposed to be teaching you?”
“To be an artist, of course.” Humiliation bit her. “If I become an eccentric and paint day and night, I will be forgiven all my sins.”
Mr. Finn looked her up and down, blatantly so, no politeness. His eyes were the color of gold, or amber, like the whisky her father drank when her mother wasn’t home. “What kind of sins can a wee thing like yourself have committed? I’ve done them all, lass.”
A lump lodged in Celia’s throat, and her breath didn’t work quite right. “Apparently, embarrassing my mother is the most grievous sin of all.”
Mr. Finn gave her another look of surprise, then he began to laugh. It was a deep, true laugh, crinkling up his face and smoothing its hard lines into something handsome.
“Poor little lass.” He shook his head. “You’re a charmer, you are. I meant what specifically am I teaching you? Drawing, painting? Landscapes? Portraits? Let’s see what ye’ve done.”