She all but leaped to her feet. “So you say, sir. But I have no evidence of that, have I? For all I know, your walls are bare because you have never managed to hang anything straight upon them.”
“You have found me out.” Ruler in hand, he measured something against the back of the frame, and then held the wooden strip up to the wall and made another mark. “I have proven myself utterly incapable of nudging a frame along its wire until it is straight. ’Tis a curse that plagues me daily.”
Gwyneth chuckled and eased across the space between them because…because unless she had a purpose for being elsewhere in a room, she always seemed to end up at his side. A realization that did indeed plague her daily. “I see no other reason for your dreadfully stark walls.”
The glance he sent her this time was far too serious for their banter. “I used to have a few decorations. I sent them all to Alain’s new house when he escaped the Turks. To help Jack make the transition from my home to his.”
Her feet came to an abrupt halt with half the room still between them. She frowned. Was this another fact that had slipped through the cracks in her mind, or had it never been mentioned? “Jack lived here?”
“Hmm.” He scratched one more mark. “Before Alain returned home. Which was six months after Jack’s mother passed away. Alain had hoped to return from his trip in time for his birth, but instead we got the news of his death. When Jack’s mother died too, I was the closest thing he had to family.”
A shiver overtook her, despite the evening’s heat. That explained much. “You said it was Barbary pirates who captured him?”
“First they left him for dead, and the sole crewman to escape brought back word that he had been killed with the rest. ’Twasn’t for another two years that we realized he had survived it, and that when they saw he lived, they sold him into slavery. We had no idea until he returned one day, out of the proverbial blue.”
Slavery. Another quake coursed through her. “What horrors he must have faced.”
“He has spoken to me of it only once, which was all he could bear.” Thad picked up the nail he had waiting on the mantel, and the hammer along with it. With one solid whack, he had driven it in just enough.
Poor Captain Arnaud. Gwyneth forced her feet back into action so that she could lift the painting and put it in his waiting hands. “There you are.”
“There I am indeed. And my first love with me.” He lowered it until the wire across the frame’s backing caught on the nail and then nudged it to the right. “Is she level?”
Gwyneth retreated a few steps to better see. “Tap the left side once more.” Latching onto levity again with both hands, she grinned. “Or is ‘tap’ too imprecise?”
He narrowed his eyes and tapped once upon the frame. “You tell me.”
Her breath caught in her throat as she took it in. Her painting, so prettily framed and hung in the center of the wall, where every visitor to the Lane house would see it. See her interpretation of his ship, the sea he so loved, him as fearless captain. Made all the more complete with said fearless captain leaning against the mantel and studying her as she studied her handiwork.
Her fingers tangled together over her abdomen. “Well, look at that. You managed it.”
“A feat that will inspire minstrels for years to come.” He too took a step away to survey it. “I daresay there is no finer painting in all these United States.”
Gwyneth chuckled. “I am afraid that is not saying much for your country.”
He turned to face her, brows raised. “Do not disparage your talent, sweet.”
She knew well her grin must look impish. “I am not. I am disparaging the rest of the art to be found here. You ought to have heard the things said of you Americans in the London drawing rooms.”
“Prithee, what things?” A sparkle in his eye to belie the slope of his brows, he took a step forward.
She inched back. “The ones you might expect. That the land is still untamed and uncultured, and the people in it have no appreciation for refinement.”
“Rubbish.” The sparkle turned to an outright glint as he swept his gaze down her. “I have great appreciation for refinement.”
Had the sun reemerged and blasted her through the window? She felt its heat to her very bones. “Of course you would think so. How would you know better? Given that all Americans are uneducated bumpkins.”
“Bumpkins!” He took another step toward her, though if he wanted to look menacing, he would do better to keep the smile from the corners of his mouth. “You are calling me a bumpkin?”
She edged back a bit more. “Not I, sir. The ton of London. They are the ones who view you all as ignorant—” she had to take a larger step back to counter his stride forward—“uncouth—” she bumped into the leg of the low table—“uncivilized—”