“I’m sure he meant no harm,” Laura murmured, trying to smooth over the awkwardness that had once again descended.
“Of course not,” I replied, not wanting everyone to make more of it than it was. I refused to become a target for Miss Remmington. “And, in any case, there’s no harm in speaking the truth. After all, I suppose I am rather notorious,” I added, forcing the jest past my lips. Almost everyone seated at the table smiled.
“I’m truly sorry,” Damien began earnestly, leaning forward to see past Miss Remmington, but I cut him off before he could continue.
“Damien, it’s quite all right,” I assured him with a tight smile, feeling my own cheeks begin to heat in embarrassment. If the boy didn’t cease protesting, he would expose the anxiety beneath my veneer of careful indifference.
“Yes, if I were Lady Darby, I would actually begin to capitalize on that sobriquet,” Gage said. He flashed me an encouraging smile before nodding to the table. “I have had more than one acquaintance inquire as to whether she would be accepting portrait commissions again. They seemed quite eager to hear that she would.”
I couldn’t withhold my surprise, at both the fact that people had actually been asking after me and the fact that they had asked Gage, of all people.
“I, too, received more than one inquiry,” Lady Hollingsworth reluctantly admitted.
“Well, then, that is excellent news.” Philip smiled warmly at me over his wineglass. “For I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you that she plans to take on new commissions once we settle in Edinburgh.”
I fought against the urge to squirm as the others expressed their delight at the news. I was excited to begin painting the likenesses of real persons again, instead of the imagined subjects I had been portraying since I had tired of depicting my sister and her family months ago, but I was not accustomed to so much praise or attention. The works I had created since the scandal and my self-imposed banishment from London had been sold anonymously, and though they fetched higher-than-expected profits, I rarely encountered the buyers, and then usually with my secret identity still intact.
“Oh, then you must take me on as your first commission,” Lady Caroline declared. Her face flushed a fetching shade of pink as everyone turned to look at her. “That is, I remember that you painted Lady Cromarty’s wedding portrait. Your sister was kind enough to show it to me while we were at Gairloch Castle.”
I nodded. The portrait hung in the master bedchamber.
“Well, it was ever so lovely. And . . .” Her cheeks reddened deeper, nearly matching her skin tone to the cherry-red ribbon laced through the neckline of her gown, as she glanced down the table toward her fiancé. “I wondered if . . . you might be willing to paint mine.”
Complete silence fell over the table as Caroline innocently broached the topic of which everyone was thinking, but no one dared speak. Eyes darted around the table, as if uncertain how the others would react and whether anyone would actually pursue the matter. As much as I wanted to demand that they explain what exactly had everyone so on edge, I knew that now was not the time. A confrontation at the dinner table could only end in heartache, at Michael’s and Caroline’s expense. I simply couldn’t open them up to public ridicule like that.
So, instead, I adopted a bright smile and addressed Caroline. “I would be honored.”
Her gaze flew back to mine from where it had been pinned on her mother. “Truly?”
“Of course.”
Her joy and excitement were so evident in her shining eyes and dazzling smile that I couldn’t help but respond in kind.
“If there is a wedding,” Lady Hollingsworth muttered crisply.
The happiness faded from Caroline’s face like the sun disappearing behind a cloud, and it was clear to me, if nothing else was, how very much Philip’s cousin wanted to marry Michael.
I wanted to reach down the table and pinch the marchioness. Two months ago, Lady Hollingsworth had tried to match her daughter with a horse-mad brute who had ended up compromising one of the other young ladies at my sister’s house party. I had been as unconvinced then that the marchioness had her daughter’s best interests at heart as I was now.