Page 133 of A Shore Thing
The drawings and the children. Lucy had managed to combine her roles, so they seemed compatible, integral even, each to the other—artist, wife, mother. Aristocrat, less so. Pomp and circumstance still put her back up—she dressed herself in the mornings and gritted her teeth through society functions—but she’d also used her station to advance the causes she supported, with Weston’s help.
Kit leaned back in his seat, contemplative.
“Would you have imagined,” he asked, “when we were nineteen years old, just starting in the Antique School, that we would one day take a train together to the sea—you a duchess, and I a gentleman?”
“I’d have imagined winged pigs before this.” She laughed, shaking her head, and then, slipping into the East End cant that once peppered her speech: “Life’s a rum go, ain’t it?”
“That it is,” he murmured. Lucy’s accent had changed over the years. She had changed, but he still recognized the half-feral girl, impassioned and ambitious, loyal and kind. He hoped that—in some sense—he remained recognizable too.
He tipped his head. “What would they think of us? Our nineteen-year-old selves?”
“They’d think we’re a dream come true.” She gave a happy sigh and flicked at the window curtain. The landscape whirring by was lushly green, only a few broken branches and puddles scattered in the fields to show the storm’s path.
“So.” She turned back to him, expression suspiciously innocent. “Who is Muriel?”
He told them, as much as he could tell them, in a busy train carriage, as a man of honor and discretion. When their curiosity was appeased, they told him their idea.
“The Siblinghood?” he repeated.
“It’s not sonorous,” Lucy admitted. “But it captures the spirit.”
He gave them all a doubtful look. “The Sisterhood is women artists dedicated to supporting women artists. You don’t want to change or obscure that.”
“We want you, though,” said Gwen. “Stop moving.”
“Are you sketching me?” He stilled, swerving his eyes to peer down at her sketchbook. “I don’t look half-bad.”
“The Siblings,” said Nelly. “I think it’s brilliant.”
“It was your idea,” guessed Kit, and Nelly sniffed. He laughed and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Sorry,” he muttered, as Gwen made a beleaguered noise and lifted her pencil. “And thank you all, truly.”
The three of them waited, watching him, love and hope and excitement written plainly on their faces, even Gwen’s. They were his friends, his Sisters, and their desire to bring him back into the fold was profoundly moving, and perhaps…not exactly in line with his own sense of things.
He opted for absolute honesty. “I confess I’m unsure about Sibling.”
Nelly’s sniff became an offended huff.
“I’m not opposed to it,” he said. “But I might rather something else. Maybe you stay Sisters, and I’m a cousin. Maybe we won’t figure it out today.”
Lucy nodded. “We have all week.”
“Or this week,” he added, wryly. A frown puckered her brow. She opened her mouth to protest, then checked herself.
“It’s well begun, at least,” she said, relenting but determined.
“Another thing.” His heart skidded to a stop. The buoy of happiness turned to lead in his chest and plummeted to his stomach. He pushed himself to speak through a clenched jaw. “I can’t seem to paint at all these days.” He put on a mocking expression, a cover for his wavering composure. “My ability to participate in any circle of artists is currently hypothetical.”
“What do you mean—you can’t paint?” Lucy’s eyes narrowed.
So he told them, too, about burning his easel, about his subsequent headaches and shaking hands. He told them haltingly, tension locking his neck and shoulders, then sat in silence, eyes on the window.
“It’s because of what I said.” Lucy’d gone rigid too, her steepled hands pressed to her bloodless lips.
“Don’t worry. You’re not so powerful.” He sighed, and suddenly it was easy to speak, to let the most maudlin formulation slip out.
“I abandoned the Sisterhood,” he said. “And then I abandoned art.” His laughter seemed to shred his throat. “Too late, I discovered that art had abandoned me.”
