Page 35 of A Misguided Devotion

His insistence was touching, most gentlemanlike, but given her recent past, somewhat ridiculous. “Do you fear I’ll compromise your reputation and you’ll be obliged to marry me?” she asked, while they waited for a response to his summons.

Mr Merry’s shoulders shook with laughter. “I can think of nothing less likely, but as I am sure you would not wish to be forced to wed a man you despise, it will be as well for us both to engage a chaperon.”

Kitty bit back the smile that jumped to her lips at the sound of his mirth. It was hard to keep despising him when he made her laugh.

Kitty paced up and down the Long Gallery until the requested maid entered, holding a cloth bag, which she assumed was full of mending. The girl bobbed a curtsey, sat in a chair near a window, and extracted some sewing.

Unable to delay any longer, Kitty walked the length of the room and took her place in front of Mr Merry’s easel. At that distance, the servant would not be able to catch anything they said.

He dipped his brush into a pot of paint and fixed his eyes first on her and then on his canvas. “Tell me about yourself, Miss Lacey. How did you come to be at Rufus House?”

There were some things Kitty would rather not talk about. “Does it matter?”

He shrugged. “I like to know something about those I paint. It helps me bring their portraits to life.”

“May I remind you it is not my portrait you are painting?”

“Humour me.”

Kitty maintained her silence. If she related her story, she would lose Mr Merry’s respect. A respect she had not foreseen, and did not deserve, but which she found herself reluctant to forgo.

“Very well. Tell me about your family.”

That was a safer topic. “My mother died giving birth to Edward, and my father was killed in the Battle of Tournay in Belgium a few years later. As I’ve told you already, my grandfather passed away a few months ago and my brother is fighting Bonaparte. There is no one else.”

“What is he like?”

Kitty pictured Edward’s face, the last time she had seen him. If he had not been so set on following in their father’s footsteps, she would not be alone now.

“Similar to yourself—arrogant, selfish, handsome—except that he is not here.”

Mr Merry grinned. “You think I’m handsome?”

How conceited! He had picked on the only positive trait she had mentioned—and that had snuck out without permission. She refused to bolster his self-importance any further.

“Did you overlook the part where I told you he is not here? He’s at war. Even now, he might be dead. I have no family. No one.”

“You can have some of mine. My father desires me to follow in his footsteps, whether or not I want to, and as for my sisters, they are always nosing into my affairs. Telling me what to do. Chiding me for worrying them if it slips my mind to tell them where I’ve gone, when all I desire is to be left alone to paint—”

Kitty could not believe what she was hearing. He was complaining about having people who cared about him. “Is that all you value? Do you think of nothing other than your art?”

“Little else when I’m painting.”

“Is it comfortable to be so obsessed?”

“Obsessed? That suggests an unhealthy fixation.”

“Is it?”

“I am merely pursuing my God-given gift.”

“Regardless of who you hurt in the process.”

“I’m not hurting anyone.”

“Yet you put your painting before those who care for you. Did you even hear what I said? I have no one. You have no notion what it is like to be alone. How dare you belittle your family—a family who sounds as if they love you very much.” She paused and added in a gentler tone, “They do, don’t they?”

He acknowledged the truth of her words with a brief nod.