“Yes.”
“Your Grace, I have known you for two years, and I have not, on any single occasion, been told that you box.”
“You did not ask, Alice.”
“I should not have thought to.”
“No.”
She laughed. She laughed in the gallery in front of his only surviving painting with her tears not yet quite dry on her cheeks, and it was a bright sound.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “And you, Alice?”
“Me?”
“Your favorite color.”
“Yellow.”
“That I had guessed.”
“You had?”
“I have noticed.”
“My favorite hobby is to embroider.”
“That I had not guessed.”
“It is very tedious, Your Grace, but I am very good at it. And in my experience, a thing one is very good at is the only thing one can do in a drawing room for three hours straight without going mad. My mother taught me. My grandmother taught my mother. My grandmother’s mother taught my grandmother. Embroidery has been in my family for at least four generations, and I am the latest in the line.”
“And what are you not good at, Alice?”
She laughed. “Painting, Your Grace.”
“Painting.”
“Indeed. I am the worst painter in Buckinghamshire. My governess despaired of me. My mother despaired of me. The drawing master my father hired from London at great expensewhen I was fourteen despaired of me before luncheon on the first day. I cannot make a tree look like a tree. I cannot make a face look like a face. I once painted an apple on a table, and my father very gravely asked me what variety of pear it was.”
“Alice.”
“It is a small irony, Your Grace, that you and I are standing in front of your only surviving painting, given the particular catalog of mine.”
“What did you tell the drawing master?”
“I told him that I did not see the point of painting a thing I could already see. He did not recover from the conversation.”
“And your sister?”
“Daphne does not like any of these much. She prefers to read about insects.”
“Insects?”
“Yes. She has been reading about a particular butterfly for the last three years. She has a small book. On more than one occasion, she tried to read it to me at breakfast, and on every one, I threatened to throw it into the kitchen fire. We have a small understanding now—she reads the book silently, and I do not ask any questions about it.”
“Lord Dowton…”
She nodded before he finished.