Free That Summer: A Novel by Lauren Willig Page A

inspiration .” She spoke the final word with touching conviction.
    “And have you found it, then?” Imogen asked.
    “Most certainly,” drawled Fotheringay-Vaughn. His eyes were on Evie, frankly admiring.
    Evie’s cheeks went pink, her eyes as wide as saucers.
    Imogen looked pointedly at Arthur, but Arthur was deep in conversation with Thorne, their heads bent over the Book of Hours as Thorne sketched something in a notebook with a quick, sure hand.
    Not that Arthur would be any use; Imogen had warned him, time and again, that he was keeping his daughter too close, that she needed to be allowed to try her charms on the inoffensive sons of neighbors, under the watchful eye of half a dozen earnest mamas. She would be an heiress when the time came. Not a great heiress, not the sort who made waves in society and elicited articles in the Illustrated London News, but she would have a tidy enough sum to bring to her future husband. Especially for an artist with pockets to let and expensive taste in watch fobs.
    Kept close as she was, Evie was likely to be easy prey for the first plausible fortune hunter who came her way.
    As you were, my dear? Arthur had chucked Imogen under the chin and laughed a little laugh to show that he was joking.
    The idea, of course, was risible: the fortune was his; she had been all but penniless when he married her. Jane had certainly remarked upon it often enough. And yet … And yet. Imogen wondered if the arrow had fallen quite so far from the mark as he had intended. He might not have married her for money, but she had been gulled by him all the same, had, in her naïveté, believed him something quite other than what he was.
    She was determined that Evie shouldn’t make the same mistake; when Evie married, it should be for some form of real and lasting affection, not on the strength of a compliment and an illusion.
    Sometimes Imogen thought that those years in the schoolroom with Evie were all that had kept her from packing a bag and slipping out a window in the middle of the night. Their lessons had been no great success. Evie would never make a scholar; she hadn’t the interest or the dedication. She had a facile, if shallow, intelligence, but she made up for it with the exuberance of her affection.
    Evie was the closest to a child that Imogen was ever likely to have, and Imogen wouldn’t let her throw herself away on a scoundrel.
    “Goodness, how interesting,” said Imogen loudly. “It is so seldom one gets to see real artists at work.”
    She crossed carefully between Evie and Fotheringay-Vaughn, sliding her arm through her stepdaughter’s, ranging herself between them. She was taller than Evie by half a head; if she didn’t entirely block her stepdaughter’s view of the older man, at least she impeded it.
    She squeezed Evie’s arm affectionately. She was so slight, so unprotected, her Evie, as unaware of the vagaries of the world as Imogen had been. In its own way, Herne Hill felt as far from London as Cornwall.
    “You must tell me more of your visit,” Imogen said to Rossetti. “Was there anything in particular in my husband’s collection that you came to see?”
    “Anything!” said Rossetti, with a sweeping gesture. “Everything! It has been a revelation.” The word must have pleased him, because he repeated it. “A revelation! I had seen the works of such painters before only in crude, printed copies. To see the originals…”
    “Was a revelation?” Imogen provided with a hint of a smile.
    “Like a heavenly vision,” said Rossetti extravagantly. “Did you know that in all of our National Gallery there is only one work painted by an artist prior to Raphael?”
    Fotheringay-Vaughn rolled his eyes.
    Imogen found Rossetti’s enthusiasm rather charming. Had she been like that once? Yes, a very long time ago, when she had thought she would help Arthur in his work and they would immerse themselves in medieval manuscripts together. Such a utopian vision and so very far