Read Online My True Love by Karen Ranney - Free Book Online

was only about a foot square, making it easy to carry. It had been constructed to act primarily as a slate. The wood had been bleached until it was nearly white, then oiled until it shined. Such a surface allowed her to practice a sketch with charcoal. When she was finished, she needed only to wipe it clean. Two knobs at the top held paper when she was ready to render her sketches onto a more permanent surface.
    She removed the drawings she’d started from the pocket of her cape. Unlike her father’s mapmaker, she didn’t so much as draw what she saw as much as feel it. An explanation that might have amused the man.
    People rarely sat still long enough for her to sketch them. Dunniwerth was a busy place, with most of its inhabitants given duties to perform. Therefore, a glimpse might be all she had of a face or a smile. She learned to store an expression away in her memory, to be unearthed when there was time. The emotion a smile carried or a laughing pair of eyes was more important to her than color.
    Perhaps it was because her work was done in monochrome. Shades of gray and white and black. One day she hoped to work in colors, to take the knowledge of what she’d learned from shadow and transform it into a painting that might last for a hundred years. Instead of a sketch that lasted only a few.
    She began to work on her drawing. Such occu pation eased her, hid all of her worries and fears. The past week had been an unbearable one. Constrained by propriety, by the cordon of servants that stood between them, and perhaps his own wishes, she’d been unable to help nurse Stephen. But the wish was there, and the wanting, too.
    She’d had to be content with hearing of his recovery from Betty’s daily reports.
    Would she see him soon? Another concern that was supplanted by her work. Too many questions, not enough answers. But then, Stephen had always been a mystery. At least now, she knew he was real.
     
    “What do you think you’re doing?” Richard scowled at him from the doorway.
    Stephen handed the two lists to William.
    “My duty,” he said shortly. “Give the list of foodstuffs to Betty,” he told William, his young aide. “Tell her I understand that we are short on supplies. What she needs can be obtained from the village.”
    He had already sent out scouts to find General Penroth’s location. The general’s proximity concerned him. He disliked the idea of the Parliamentarians being this close to his home. Should Penroth wish to fight him, he was woefully unprepared. Sixty men against six thousand were not odds he would choose.
    William nodded. He was the son of the mayor of Langlinais, had been with Stephen since Edge-hill. He had been, like so many of the regiment, untried in war. But unlike most, William was suited for it. It was rumored that Oliver Cromwell pos sessed the same type of instinctive military nature.
    “You’ve barely recovered.”
    “But I have,” Stephen said, standing. His left arm was bent and bound to his chest, a position it would retain until his wound healed.
    “You would coddle me, Richard.”
    His suite of rooms occupied the whole of the east wing. A commodious series of chambers. Enough space to raise a family if the rest of the house disintegrated around him.
    He’d discovered in the last days, however, that it was not altogether a comfortable place. The bed was soft, the furnishings as elaborate as any in the house. The windows let in a soft light. The wall-coverings were in a soft hue, unlike the garish green parlor. There were enough touches to remind him that it was his chamber and therefore home. But it was too quiet and left too much time for thoughts he’d rather not have had.
    In his study, he could at least be of some use. Time was fleeting, and he’d lost too much of it in illness.
    “I want you well,” Richard argued.
    Stephen smiled. “I am as well as I can be. The king will expect me.”
    “Must you return? The war will get on well enough without