"I would chide you for being late this morning, but you're looking rather green, Lieutenant. You needn't have met me if you were feeling ill. I am not such a harsh mistress as that." The fountain behind her splashed pleasantly as the water surged and fell back into its basin. The soft rushing sound almost drowned the droning pain in his head. Miss Jennings watched him appraisingly from her perch on its stone lip. A straw bonnet shaded her face and a tablet was balanced on her lap.
He lowered himself beside her and took out his own tablet and paper. The morning sun glared against the white page. He squinted, wishing for nightfall to hurry. He wanted to go back to bed, though he had woken up early. "I'm not ill."
Her eyebrow quirked. "Lieutenant, I mean no offense, but..."
He made a smudgy mark on his page with his pencil. "Let me clarify. I am not ill, but perhaps I am unwell. I believe I may have been rather intoxicated last night."
Kate's eyebrows lifted, but she did not look up from her page. Her pencil made a soft scratching sound. "You believe? You are not certain?"
Marlowe peeked over the edge of his tablet at hers, which was quickly filling up with an impressive sketch of the plaza. He was amazed at the power of just a few lines to so clearly communicate the essence of a place. "I would not expect such a gentle lady such as yourself to know this, but when one imbibes liquor in extreme excess, one's memory tends to fade around the edges."
She made a snorting sound. "Oh Lieutenant, how naive you are! Do you suppose that I have never found myself intoxicated before?"
He glanced sharply at her. The motion made him feel nauseated, but he smiled at the devious expression on her face, shadowed as it was under her bonnet. He wished for a moment that he might have his own bonnet to block out the appalling glare of the sun, though he supposed he would look a fool. The brim of his own hat was too stylish to be of much use. "Is that so?"
She colored prettily. "Well, not often, of course. Maman insists that I water down my glasses of wine if I have more than one or two."
"She's quite wise, your mother. If only I had her guidance last night." His stomach did an unseemly flip flop at just the thought of wine. At the thought of what he had done after the wine, well, his stomach positively roiled.
He looked across the plaza at the building he had decided to draw and sighed, dragging his pencil across the page. The line looked wrong. He rolled the pencil in his hands and tried again. "So how did you happen to become intoxicated then, my dear Miss Jennings?"
She suppressed a grin. "Once, when I was thirteen, my mother vexed me thoroughly one afternoon-I had asked her to have a new summer dress made up, you see, for there was going to be a grand picnic with all of the young ladies, and I had ruined my best dress only days before by spilling a pot of ink on the skirt. When she told me that I was too clumsy to have a new dress made up that I would only destroy, and that my second-best would have to do, I knew that I must have my vengeance. I was a regular fury at that age, you must believe."
He snorted. "I believe it."
"Oh Lieutenant, you must at least pretend to protest and tell me that you think I must have always been a well-mannered girl!"
"I beg your indulgence, dear lady. My mind is addled from the drinking."
"Proper young men do not brag about their vices, Lieutenant, but with your permission, I shall carry on in my tale."
He waved his hand. "Pray do."
"Maman was having quite a little party that evening, and had just got ahold of some sort of costly peach brandy that she was planning on serving to the ladies after dinner. I knew that it was a point of pride to her, so I resolved to throw the whole thing out. Only when I went to dump the bottle, it smelled so nice and peachy... and mother and father had never allowed me to drink brandy before. Well, I trust you of all my acquaintances to know how alluring forbidden fruit may be. I thus resolved to try it for myself. It was quite sweet, and though I did not quite like it, I pretended that I did and brought the bottle to my two bosom friends who were visiting for the fortnight. Oh, we had quite the afternoon! We drank the whole bottle in the attic, laughing and giggling... Until we were sick, of course. Violently ill. But before the vomiting, oh forgive me ladies shouldn't speak of vomiting, but before the vomiting, I believe it was one of the most entertaining afternoons of my life. I say 'believe,' not 'know,' for even now, that afternoon is a bit of a blur. And I have no memory at all of the evening!" Her eyes crinkled in the corners with her laughter. "Maman says that I tumbled into the parlour of her friends while laughing like a demon before vomiting on someone's shoe and then passing out on the floor!"
"My word!"
She grinned and shrugged. "I told you I was a devilish child."
Marlowe felt a laugh bubbling up and pressed his hands on his temples. "Oh Miss Jennings, please don't make me laugh in such a way! It is murder on my skull."
She shot him a sly smile. "I can not help my naturally amusing nature."
"I should say not."
She frowned at his page. "I can, however, help you develop your artistic skills. You've barely done anything yet, and the whole page is waiting for you. Don't be afraid to start. You will, of course, make errors. But then we will correct them."
"Perhaps I could just watch you."
She stuck out the side of her tongue at him. "You are afraid that I shall reprimand you if you present me with unsatisfactory work."
He chuckled. "Not afraid. Afraid is an understatement. I'm terrified!"
"Am I such a cruel teacher?"
"The cruelest. Ow!" he laughed as the blunt end of her pencil went digging against his ribs. His head throbbed again, but he decided to ignore its whining. "Shall I bribe you with some peach brandy?"
"Oh heavens no! Just the thought of peaches makes my stomach churn. Do not think of bribes, sir, only imagine how cruel I shall be if you do not complete your work."
"I may faint at just the thought." He really might. He was damned exhausted.
She made a sound under her breath. "Lazy man."
"Sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear your praise under the sound of my pencil scratching because I am working so diligently." He frowned at the paper, but did pick up the pencil once more, glancing again at Kate's paper beside him. It seemed effortless, the way she was able to render the world in just a few strokes. But watching her closely, he could see how she was at work, the little crease between her brows, the frowns that tugged at her lips which she was working, erasing, shading, gliding her pencil across the page. And as she had told him at least one hundred times, it wasn't talent that gave her the ability to paint and draw so skillfully. It was practice and work.
He concentrated on his page. He wasn't sure how much time had passed when he caught her looking over his shoulder. He paused for just a moment, feeling self-conscious but then continued.
"Very good," she said. "Take a look at that cornice piece you just drew for a moment, however. What do you see?"
"Mine's... not quite right."
She nodded. "Look at this line. Can you see it like this from where you are sitting?"
He glanced up. "No."
"You are trying to draw what you think the cornice looks like. Not what it actually does look like. You have to trust your eyes, not your mind, Lieutenant. It will try to fill in the details and inevitably skew them."
He nodded, looking again, trying to make the angle he drew on the page match the angle he saw across the street.
"That's much better," she said approvingly. "Make sure you shade it."
He gave her a quick nod and bent his head once more, doing his best to render his drawing as true to what he saw as possible.
He felt her peering over his shoulder. "This is quite good, Lieutenant. My word, you are improving daily! You have an eye for it, I think. For rendering beauty."
He felt suddenly bashful at her praise and took a long drink of water from the canteen that he had brought along before taking his materials back in hand.
She was still watching as he made a few more strokes across the page. "We've tried you at landscapes and still lifes, but there is something about the way that you render a building... it seems so natural. I wonder... have you considered what you will do when we return to England?"
He grimaced. "Not in the slightest." A thousand hopeless thoughts danced through his mind, mostly about Arabella, and just what exactly he was going to do if she was with child. The woman vexed him! Worse, he vexed himself. The tip snapped off his pencil and he groaned, reaching for the small knife they kept nearby for such occasions.
"You might consider apprenticing with an architect."
He scoffed. "Me?" But still, the idea was intriguing. He was a bit old to be apprenticing at anything, it was true. But what was the point of having money if you could not use it to get what you wanted? Surely it was something that he could study. His parents had connections... And he always had been interested in the shapes of buildings, their permanence on the landscape of history. There was many a ruined castle or abbey around the country that he had enjoyed romping about in, dreaming of the knights and ladies that once had resided there... He had sharpened his pencil to too fine a tip. It broke off again and he cursed under his breath.
Miss Jennings raised an eyebrow. "Why don't we consider this one completed?"
He handed it to her with a flourish and she eyed it approvingly before she tucked it away in his folio for him. She took out another sheet of paper for him, seemingly unaware of what her words had sparked in him. The idea was utterly ridiculous... And yet...
