Page 22 of A Thousand Painted Hours

I straightened, hurriedly sluicing tears from my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”

“It’s all right.” She stood. “Come, sit with me. Don’t worry about those awful girls. They’re all ninnies, angling for the right husband and afraid you’ll capture someone they want.”

This woman was a bit older than I, perhaps twenty to my sixteen. She had very dark hair smoothed back from her heart-shaped face. Large blue eyes dominated her features. “I’m Nina,” she said. “I believe we’re second cousins, through my mother and your father.”

I sank next to her. “I suppose you know I’m Elsie, then.”

“Yes. Tell me what you hate about this fair land.” Her eyes twinkled. “Is it the rose gardens, the wide lawns, the beautiful summer skies?”

I laughed. “Of course I like those things. And my new frocks.” I smoothed my skirt, took a breath. “I miss India, that’s all. It’s the only place I’ve ever known. This is quite a change.”

“Tell me, darling,” she drawled, “what is one thing you miss the most?”

A dozen things tumbled through my mind—the sound of music, the marketplace, the mountains holding down the entire horizon, Tanveer, monkeys, Gurdaya, the way the light fell into blue hues at evening. “I was free there,” I said at last. “Here, I am the earl’s daughter, and everyone wants me to be someone I don’t know how to be.”

“Hmm.” She regarded me silently. “It isn’t only that, you know, suddenly finding yourself in a position you had not prepared for. You’re a young woman now, and eligible, and they wish us to behave in a certain manner.”

“To find a husband!” I exclaimed. “I do not want a husband!”

She laughed, and the sound was as delicate as her features, a sound I did not realize until later that she had cultivated as carefully as she’d cultivated everything else about her persona, to hide her secret in plain sight. “Certainly an understandable sentiment, but hardly practical.” She raised one arched dark brow. “The trick is to find a husband who will not limit you too terribly.”

“No,” I said. “I’m going to be married to my art. Husbands, families, all those things will distract me.”

“An artist!” she cried. “How marvelous! You must meet my friend Rocky. He’s not here today, but I shall write to him immediately.”

Her kindness suddenly made me suspicious. I narrowed my eyes. “Why are you being friendly?”

Her grin flashed. “Good. Be wary of everyone in this world, my little doe.” She reached up and brushed a lock of hair from my face. “I like your fire. It’s so refreshing.”

A young man emerged from the patch of forest nearby. “Hullo!” he called. A red-and-white dog trotted alongside him.

“Peter!” Nina called. “Come, meet my cousin.”

He was tall and graceful, with a thatch of blond hair, and the regular, pleasing features I’d come to expect from this lot. His eyes brightened when he looked at me. “How do you do?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Elsie is the new Earl of Herewich’s daughter.” She gestured toward him. “Peter is the third son of a marquess, so he’ll be looking at a life as a barrister.”

He didn’t seem to mind the rib. “Not a barrister, darling. My grandmother has left me a fortune, you know.” He winked. “We wouldn’t want our new friend to think I’m poor.”

I smiled.

Nina jumped up. “Luncheon will be served soon. You must both come sit with me.”

Peter offered his arm as we headed back to the house. For the first time, I felt I might not wither away in despair in this new land.

Mint Tea with Nina

1940

London

—13—

With both Mother and Peter napping, Betty still missing, I grew restless. The air was charged, as if the molecules of dust freed by the bombings had been magnetized. Walking had always been one of the ways I could shake out any mood, so I donned a hat and gathered a small offering of vegetables and one of the pears I’d found, then headed over to Nina’s.

Jonathan and Nina’s city dwelling was much larger than ours, taking up an entire corner of a block near Bedford Square. Built of white stone in the 1790s, it showed the wealth of its owners in the details of stone carvings and wide marble steps. I patted the lion on my way by, as I always did, and rang the bell.