She laughed. “We’ll see.”
Atlas shoved his hands into his pockets, watched his walking boots. “He can have a dog.Of coursehe can have a dog. I had a dog.”
“Oh? What was his name?”
“Tickles.” The word a barely audible grumble. “Because it tickled when he licked me.”
Was that her heart attempting to pop right out of her chest and give the man a hug? Why must he say such things looking as he did, handsome and embarrassed and, she couldn’t help but notice, virile.
“That’s terribly adorable.” Her turn to grumble. “I don’t think I should have married you. You’re too adorable to be a husband.”
“Adorableness is a bad thing in a husband?”
“Yes. It makes a lady wish to cling.” And this relationship did not require clinging.
His hand lifted, hovered around his jacket breast, then fell once more. “The lake is just over that rise. The sun is out. We can sit on the bank a bit.”
Excellent. A man could sit on the bank of a lake when he could not sit on the floor of a parlor.
“When shall I see the dower house?”
“Tomorrow if you like. It’s”—he rubbed the back of his neck—“better than it used to be. But there’s still much work to do.”
“How did it get in such a state?”
“Time. Bad choices. Made by my father, particularly. The inheritances have helped quicken improvements.”
“Inheritances?” She’d not heard of an inheritance until now.
“My father loved art. Expensive stuff especially. More, at times, than he loved his family. That’s where all the money went, where all the bad decisions came from. He left, upon his death, everything to the Royal Society for Art. Except for six paintings. Highly valuable ones. Each worth a small fortune in its own right. He willed one painting to each of his children with the stipulation that in order to inherit it, they must first produce a work of art approved by my mother.”
“Arsehole.” Clara spoke through little wheezes. The small rise that hid the lake was steeper than expected, and when he offered his arm, she took it readily.
Atlas chuckled. “Right bad one at times.”
They reached the top of the small hill, and there, spread before them, a sheet of silver gray, glittering in the sun.
“Lovely,” she breathed. “Alfie must learn to swim.”
“He doesn’t know how?”
“No. Lord Tefler did not think it proper. Alfie! Where did he get to?”
Atlas pointed to the far side of the lake. “Look.”
“How?” She started down the hill to the lakeshore. “He is going to enjoy it here. He likes to climb. And there are so many trees. And at least two roofs.”
“He’ll climb the roof?” His brows snapped down into a V.
“He likes high places. I managed to keep him on the ground in London, but I fear I will face the same struggle I faced at Coledale now.” She sat on the grass some ways from the lappingedges of the water and grinned up at him. “Sit down, then. Join me.”
After a brief hesitation, he complied, stretching both legs out, one a bit more gingerly than the other.
There. Finally, she’d gotten him to sit. He rolled slightly over onto one side, lifting the other leg just a bit off the ground. Did it pain him?
“Tell me more about this inheritance,” she said, turning her face up to the sky.
He grunted. “We’re not artists. Well, except Theo. Maggie, my sister, a bit too. But we’re not artists with a capital A. Not much ‘divine talent,’ as my father called it. Maggie won her inheritance first. She created a design for silk brocade. Flower of some sort that had to do with a memory of our father. It’s beautiful. Her husband is a silk merchant, and he had a pelisse made with the design for Mother. Raph won his next. You’ll have to ask Matilda about that. Then Zander. Drew and I are the only two who have not yet won our inheritances. Mother would just give them to us now. She decided a while back we shouldn’t have to suffer for art’s sake any longer. But Drew doesn't want the money at all, and I… I want to earn it.”
