A Lady of Talent Read Online Free PDF Page A

Barbara could not help remarking on this half an hour later as she allowed her fiancé to help her back into the carriage—half an hour during which Neville had regaled them with the latest on-dits gleaned at the most fashionable haunts of the ton. Clearly the Marquess of Shelburne was a regular fixture at all the places which, until now, had been quite beyond Barbara’s reach. “How charming Lady Cecilia’s brother is. I have no doubt he is much sought after at Almack’s—such an air of fashion, and surely he must dance as delightfully as he speaks. I wonder that we have not seen him there.” Barbara spoke with all the world-weary boredom of one who had been forced to spend countless evenings at the ton’s most exclusive establishment instead of the one blissful night she had enjoyed there, courtesy of her fiancé’s aged great-aunt, who had managed to secure a voucher for her great-nephew’s future wife.
    This artless speculation met with a silence so profound that even Barbara, who was accustomed to chattering on at length without interruption or response was moved to pause and look up at her fiancé in some surprise. “You are so silent. Are you quite well, Charrington?”
    “What?” Sebastian roused himself from his reverie. “Er, yes, I am quite well, thank you.” He was, to be exact, not only quite well, but better than well. He was ecstatic. She is alive! She is real! She exists after all! The words kept repeating themselves in his head over and over again as he relived the moment when the door to the studio in Golden Square had opened to reveal the artist— his artist—bathed in a glow of afternoon light that poured through the windows.
    A man of science and a man of business, Sebastian had never had the least bit of patience with people who put their trust in fate, coincidence, or even the Almighty. If something could not be observed, measured, calculated, or demonstrated, then it did not exist. But as the breath was being squeezed from his lungs and his heart pounded so hard that the blood throbbed in his temples, Sebastian had at last acknowledged that there were some things that simply could not be explained by science or mathematics—some things that existed or occurred simply because they were meant to be.
    Something—some unknown power—had made him discover Lady Cecilia Manners’s self-portrait in a print shop that ordinarily did not deal in paintings. That same unknown power had drawn him irresistibly to the portraits by C. A. Manners exhibited at the Royal Academy, and now he knew why. It was clear that these coincidences were somehow fated to lead to her, his idealized woman, now existing in the flesh as Lady Cecilia Manners.
    It was also clear, however, that C. A. Manners, or Lady Cecilia Manners as she had turned out to be, did not regard this incredible encounter as anything but a purely professional meeting. It might even have been inferred from her frosty replies to the few remarks Sebastian had addressed to her that she not only considered him simply a customer, but as an unfortunate but necessary accompaniment to the ravishing subject of her next portrait.
    From the moment Sebastian and his fiancée had entered the studio it appeared that all of Lady Cecilia’s concentration had been focused on Barbara—her perfect features, her graceful figure, her elegant carriage—and it had taken a good deal of effort on Sebastian’s part to draw her attention to him even for the briefest of moments.
    “... most surprised to find someone of such excellent family and connections in such dowdy attire. Why one might even be pardoned for not realizing she was a lady at all if it were not for the fortuitous appearance of her brother. Poor man. It was easy to see how embarrassed he is by the casual nature of her dress and the deplorable lack of decoration in her surroundings.” Barbara’s voice finally penetrated Sebastian’s consciousness.
    “What was wrong with her attire? I thought it