“I find your art quite interesting.” He smiled down at her. “It’s refreshing.”
A blush spread across her cheeks. “You are the first, to be honest. My brothers don’t appreciate strange faces peering down at them from a height greater than theirs.”
“You enjoy getting a rise out of them.”
Honoria grinned. “I do.”
The journey to the gallery was slow and strenuous, and when they reached the room four corridors and two flights of stairs later, Lash’s breathing labored heavily. Perhaps Honoria should not have chosen the farthest room in the castle from his chamber.
Honoria dragged in a deep breath as they entered the gallery. She loved the smell of this room. It smelled of hopes and dreams and paint. She turned to Lash, who had stopped to lean against the door, catching his breath. After a moment, his eyes flicked to the different works of art displayed against the walls.
His lips curved. “This is what you do to pass the time?”
Honoria twirled around in full circle before turning back to Lash. “I read as well. But mostly I paint. Leave me for years and years with a paintbrush. My brother, Adair, assigned me this room to fill with my art.”
“That is generous.”
“It’s for their benefit, not mine,” Honoria murmured. “Walking the corridors at night with eyes peering at them from all sides of the corridors gave them the horrors. Adair decided to confine my work to one room in the castle.” Honoria chuckled. “Sometimes I leave them little surprises on their bedchamber walls.”
“I can see how they might find that disturbing.”
Honoria thought of the stag head removed from Callum’s room. “Serves them well. I have begged and pleaded for them to take me to Edinburgh, and they refuse me each time.”
“What is in Edinburgh?” he asked.
“Only the greatest works of art from artists of Scotland.”
“And you wish to learn from them?”
She nodded. “Most of the great artists travel abroad to study in Italy, which I will never be permitted to do. Luckily, the shores of Scotland beckon them back.”
“Perhaps your brothers have a valid reason for refusing you?”
Honoria snorted. “I am of age, unmarried and ready to live my life. There is no valid reason to lock me away in a castle.”
“No, you are not a woman to be locked away like a gilded bird,” he drawled.
The thick, husky consonant of his words spread heat through her belly and Honoria’s pulse scattered. “You are the first man I have met who voiced such a view.”
They stared at one another for a heart-stirring moment before turning to examine the paintings decorating the wall. They weren’t all faces. Some were nothing more than a legion of brush strokes. And Honoria could not help but wonder, as they gazed at her work, were there more men in the world like Lash Ruthven?
She did not believe him a vagabond, trickster or swindler. All of her instincts pointed to him being a good man. And that he was the man to break her free from this sheltered life.
“Some of your strokes are . . .”
“Endless?” she finished with a laugh.
“Certainly that.”
“I believe everything is connected.” She mimed the motion of strokes with her wrist. “When I focus on the flow of my arm, the magic in the movement, I forget about the brush and paint.” She twirled her hand in the air. “Even when it does not seem that way.”
“Your paintings are portraying connection?”
She started at his voice, so close, startled to find him suddenly beside her. She hadn’t heard him approach. “Most of the time I don’t understand what I’m attempting to portray.”
“And the faces? What do they represent?”
“Faces.” She winked at him.
