Free The Queen's Sorrow by Suzannah Dunn Page B

Rafael nearly overbalanced. Righting himself, he strained for the lift, bore the weightthen settled him, marvelling how the little body could feel both so unlike Francisco’s and, somehow, at the same time, identical. His heart protested at the confusion. Breathing in the muskiness of the boy’s hair, he nodded to Cecily to lead the way.
    She led him from the Hall to a staircase and up the narrow stone steps to a first-floor door, opened the door, ushered him inside, and drew a truckle bed from beneath the main bed. He made sure not to look around – that would be improper – as he lowered Nicholas on to the mattress. Nicholas frowned, turned on to his side and drew up his knees; Cecily bent over him, wiping his nose again and then busy with blankets. Rafael retreated, risking a glance back from the doorway and getting a preoccupied smile in thanks. She’d be staying in the room. He made his way to his own.
    The next day, visitors arrived: Mr Kitson’s secretary – in London on business – with four smartly dressed men whom Rafael didn’t recognise. They, too, talked all through dinner, but just amongst themselves, perhaps on business matters, which left Rafael’s usual crowd in respectful near-silence. Suffering the beginning of Nicholas’s cold, Rafael was content to sit back. He listened not for the actual words but to the sounds, and he found that he was beginning to be able to distinguish between those sounds: yes, there were the blunt ones, particularly concerning things to hand – the food, and the dog, in whom they all took an interest as if it were a child, in fact in place of any interest in the actual child – but then they’d turn into conversation which had more flow, and Rafael would catch notes of French and Latin. It was a ragbag of a language, English.
    They’d gone by the following suppertime. After that meal, Rafael retired as usual to the cushions alongside Cecily and her son, and Richard – the old man – and dog, to sketch from memory the front elevation of the house, for Francisco. This is where I’m staying. This – up here – is my window . After a while, it occurred to him that Cecily might be watching him: occasionally there was a quick lift and turn of her head in his direction. Once, he’d managed to meet her gaze but she’d glanced back down, expressionless, as if hoping to get away with it. Having sketched her, he’d unsettled her, which he was sorry to see. She was anxious to know what he was up to, to see if she was once again his subject. But it would be too open an acknowledgement for him to take the initiative and show her his drawing. Instead, he took to putting it down every now and then in what he estimated to be her view, while he blew his nose; and then, when that didn’t seem to have worked, he laid it aside while he paced to stretch his aching legs. After that, there were no more surreptitious glances.
    Later that week, he found himself dabbling at the cleft between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. In isolation, the fold wouldn’t be recognisable: just a smudge of charcoal. Nothing, really. A space.
    There was something about her brow, though, with its broadness that he’d noticed when he’d first seen her. There was something appealing about that. The eyes wide-spaced, unlike so many English faces, which tended towards the pinched. Hers was an open face. He half-sketched, doodled, seeing how little she had by way of eyebrows or eyelashes. Cursory and incomplete, they were, as if only the briefestattempts had been made at them. He had to be so very light with the charcoal to draw their absence.
    He could see some of her hair, even though he wasn’t looking. It reflected light – but whether it was golden or silvery, he didn’t see. Women’s caps here were placed back to reveal middle partings and hair sleek to the head. In Spain, there was never a glimpse of hair: just foreheads, high and bare. Leonor wouldn’t sketch well, even if he dared