11

Lord Wakeford and I found ourselves in a familiar position, though this painting was far too large to be leaned on a chair. Instead it was set on the floor by the piano, covered in a sheet. We hadn’t long. It was Thursday, and nearing the hour of Gwen’s arrival for tea.

We stood side by side, equally excited; equally nervous.

“Ready?” I said.

Wakeford looked at me as though to relay the question. Was I ready? Well, hardly. I’d spent the morning making up excuses not to go upstairs, not quite yet. Especially not when there was the cleaning of brushes to be done, and the reorganizing of my supplies. Then there was luncheon to be had, and I was starving, having been too nervous to eat breakfast.

And, not least of all, I couldn’t forget the sounds of his shouting from down the corridor. What if whatever rage had set Wakeford off in the night had lingered into day?

But the time had come and Wakeford had opened his door. I was in his apartments, at his elbow, close enough to notice he’d been on cigarettes and whisky and had used cologne in an attempt to hide it.

“Shall you do the honors?” I said.

Wakeford appeared to be just as nervous, opening and closing his fists at his sides. Was he as fearful as I was that what I’d done would be a sheer travesty? I had my pride to think of, but he had his money. Whatever was under the sheet, he’d have to pay for. Presumably. Unless he retracted his offer. I could hardly blame him if he did.

“Please—” Wakeford’s throat was raspy today, crackling sorely. “It’s yours to reveal.”

So I had a deep breath, took a corner of the sheet, and drew it away.

There it was. Castle Braemore in the distance, the lake in the foreground and the lovely deer dotting the lawn, breathing life. It still gave me a rush of pride to see it finished, perfectly lit in the sun coming through the window.

I dared not look at Wakeford. I was scared stiff, wringing the sheet in my hands.

For what felt like an age, he didn’t move. Nor speak. I wasn’t entirely certain he was breathing, either, but there was a rustle of clothing, so I had to believe his lungs were filling.

Then he stepped back. Brought his desk chair forward. Sat. Facing the painting, he leaned his elbows on his knees, chin in hand.

I waited some more. I was bursting to say, Well? but contained myself. After all, that isn’t how people observe paintings in galleries. They don’t go wailing at the brilliance of the colors, calling out to those around them, Come look at this! It’s genius!

My heart pounded. Where was that whisky, eh? I could’ve used some.

Finally, Wakeford released a long breath, and with eyes on the painting said, “Thank you, Bertie.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant. It sounded like the sort of thing that came before but.

“Not at all,” I said, trying to sound unguarded.

Wakeford unclasped his hands and wiped them on his trousers. Sitting up, he stretched the blades of his shoulders back. The chair creaked under him, the only sound in the room.

I had to say something. I was improving, but I had not been cured of my need to fill a painful silence. There were insects of all sizes buzzing about in my stomach.

“The thing is,” I began, “this was always just a practice go. There are so many other angles by which to see the house. Why, I suppose not all of them will be ideal. It’s all a matter of trial and error, is art. A piece is never truly complete—”

I stopped when Wakeford stood, resting his hand on the back of his chair. “I like it very much. It’s precisely what I was hoping for, and that is why I’ve found myself without words.”

I might have said that wasn’t out of the ordinary for him. “So it’ll do, then?”

“It’ll do.”

His smile was sad. But for what reason? If he was happy with the painting, why was he so somber?

Something in his silence set my teeth on edge. Why, why did he not speak? What understanding might come between us if he would only open to me, if I didn’t have to grasp for every single word . . . ?

With my knuckles whitening, I pushed on. “If you’re unhappy with it, my lord, there’s certainly time to start again . . .” I trailed off, hearing how sterile my words sounded.

Unexpectedly, Wakeford’s cheek washed with color. “Julian. Please.”

“Julian. Is something not right with the . . . ?” Words escaped me. His face and posture had fallen so completely; it couldn’t possibly have been my doing. “Are you quite well?”

Wakeford turned his chin to the window, light flickering on the lenses of his spectacles. Then he trudged to the divan below it and sat. I took the look he gave me as invitation, and joined him at a comfortable distance, letting the sheet drop at our feet.

“I didn’t sleep last evening,” he said. “You must have heard.”

I nodded. “What caused it?”

He glanced at the window again. “Rage, I would have thought, at my own absurdity. Or perhaps fear. I had the idea to go downstairs—to my study—while no one was about, but I . . . I was arrested.”

I felt myself thawing. His plight was more than wishing to be alone, more than self-consciousness over his mask. It was simple fear. Agoraphobia, perhaps, if diagnosed. Though I doubted he was wont to see a doctor.

Wakeford faced me again. “I’m under a great deal of stress, you see, and it’s—it’s to do with the reason I’ve asked you here.”

I must have started—for he moved away to give me space. This was it; he was going to confirm my suspicion that he’d hired me in desperation. I braced myself for the truth.

“I haven’t told my family,” he said. “Only Gwen knows. I hardly know why I’m telling you now, apart from my eagerness to . . .” I lost him again to his thoughts. His gaze went beyond my shoulder, then returned. “My eagerness to prove to you that I’m a man—of flesh, and feeling.”

I couldn’t be certain where he was leading, but his tone and closeness made my eyes sting. I put my hand over his. To my astonishment, he neither started nor recoiled.

“War robbed me of something, Miss Preston. I feel strongly that a piece of myself was torn out and left behind, buried in the muck, and I’m uncertain who I was before. There are days I question whether I even started here at Braemore, that I belong in my own body and my face—not my own.” His hand tightened around my fingers. “The missing piece, the empty place—there was nothing to fill it with when I returned, save the title. Lord Wakeford. That’s all I’ve left of myself now, or so I thought. Until I met you.”

Intent, I moved closer, stacking my hands over his. I ached for him, my heart breaking apart like the seeds of a dandelion, taking wing on my breath. It was an immense lightness, something I’d only wondered about but never felt. It was not my imagination. Lord Wakeford cared for me.

When I didn’t speak, his mouth turned down in his odd little smile. “That was terribly forward of me.”

“I like it when you’re forward.”

His eye creased handsomely. “What I began to tell you is that I’m under much stress at the moment, for I must sell the estate.”

The floor fell from under me. “Oh no . . . you can’t!”

“I must. I cannot afford to run this house any longer.”

“But . . . the champagne,” I said dumbly. “The footmen, the motors, Celia’s wardrobe—”

“Have rather put me in debt. However, I would have my brother and sister enjoy their final summer at home, and I . . . would have a memory. That is why you’re here.”

I had so many questions—how he’d let it come to this, where he would go once he’d sold it, what would come of the gallery and the statuary. But one question stood out amongst the many, and I was selfish just for thinking it: How would Lord Wakeford pay his artist? If I left here empty-handed, I’d have nowhere to turn.

Wakeford’s hand moved to work itself from mine, but I kept hold. Seeing now his anguish, relishing his words, I forgot the money nearly as instantly as I’d thought of it.

“Some of my tenants have opted to purchase their land,” he said, “but if a buyer cannot be found for the house, we’ll have no choice but to demolish.”

The idea was horrifying. Braemore in and of itself was a work of art. Losing it would be like watching a Monet be trapped in a burning house.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This place; it’s part of you, isn’t it?”

“My ancestral seat, as it were.” He gave a careworn smile, and I saw for the first time how the war had aged him beyond his years. “But I don’t feel worthy of it anymore.”

I was suddenly desperate to close the chasm between us, to break down the last of his defenses. I shifted until our legs touched. “Now I’ll be quite forward, if you don’t mind. But I should very much like to see the man you speak of.”

Wakeford took my meaning. He touched the bridge of his spectacles as a flush curled over his ear and down his neck. My oil paint was flaking from the mask. I rubbed some of it away, brown flecks falling like snow onto his shirt.

I traced my fingers up the mask to his hairline. Wakeford shivered as I tucked my fingers behind his ear, where only thickened scar tissue remained. I felt the other side of his face to compare. Despite the perfect artistry of his mask, there was no contest. A metal sculpture could not mimic the uneven texture of skin, the warmth and pull of a cheek’s dampness, the rigid top of his ear that bent and flicked back into place.

With his face surrendering to my hold, I tipped his head to my left and pressed my lips against the mask. It was surprisingly warm, stealing heat from his body, but solid, metallic, too severe. No give and, more importantly, no take. It didn’t move with him, breathe with him. It didn’t rise to my touch.

When I let go, he caught my wrists, setting my hands back on his face. Our eyes had never been pinned so firmly, our pulses never so quick.

“Ask,” he said.

It was all I could do not to glance at his lips. “Please, will you show me?”

In a tangle of fingers, our hands moved together, pulling wire arms from over his ears. The mask stayed in place at first, so carefully molded to his features. As one again, we lifted it away, and with the peeling sound of clammy skin and metal, it was off.

His eye closed.

At first glance, it seemed things were not so bad after all. Having served at a military hospital on the Western Front, I’d treated new wounds, and rarely saw those that were fully healed. I was accustomed to gaps in faces—gaping holes through which tongues and broken teeth could be seen, jaws entirely gone missing, noses torn away. This was not that.

But there was something to hide.

One could trace the path that the shard of hot metal had taken as it cut him, starting at the corner of his mouth. The left half of his lip was shinier, dense with scar tissue, lacking the natural color of the other side. Slightly misshapen, a gap remained between top and bottom when at rest. From there, a deeper scar continued upwards, where flesh had been regrown, sewn back together. Whiskers grew in patches, here and there, in some places spare as fallen eyelashes that could be swept away.

The larger scar went up and spidered to what was the worst of it. His eye was gone. Remaining was a shallow, round bit of tissue with the slightest inward curve, a mere allusion to what it replaced. The eyebrow lacked an arch to match the other, feathery hairs at the front, but no tail. New flesh had grown in and taken over, like lines of clay added to a sculpture. Harder, denser, and perhaps unfeeling if I were to touch him.

I understood why Lord Wakeford decided to put it all behind his lovely mask. To keep the world from being discomforted by the ghastly remnants of war. I understood why, too, he hid them from himself. For though the hurt side of his face still held the structure and shape that other men lost entirely, it was wiped clean of what made the other half remarkable. What made the other half Julian Napier.

His eye remained shut as I felt around his cheek. He flinched away, making a small, compulsive sound of fear.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

Wakeford shook his head, drawing his lips inwards. Then he leaned in, lifting his chin. Inviting me to try again.

As the pads of my fingers registered warmth, a part of me melted. It was not the same as the other side—it was firm to the touch, rough in places, and too smooth in others—but it was flesh, not metal. Living, pulsing flesh that twitched beneath my touch.

I kissed his face again, this time on his scarred cheek. My lips pulsed with urgency, wanting more than I could give them just yet. Wakeford sighed deeply, breath dusting my jaw and neck. I leaned into him. His hands moved blindly to my waist. My fingers threaded into his hair. We were suddenly flush, naught but our tangled knees between us.

I touched my nose to his, filling my lungs with his air, longing for his eye to open. When it did, the sheer intensity rendered me boneless and I fell against him.

He was beautiful, all of him. No longer the Earl of Wakeford, but Julian. The man.

My lips were humming, my legs on fire, my heart beating unbearably fast.

“Bertie . . .”

A knock.

We separated so instantly that I nearly fell backwards off the bench, but Julian caught me. He looked at the door, and then at his watch. “Damn.”

Another knock.

“It’s teatime.”