Read Rite of Summer: Treading the Boards, Book 1 for Free Online Page B

dinner. I thought I might take a look around. Will you come?”
    Evander shook his head and Stephen felt an odd twinge of relief. “I’ve a few things to take care of first, but I’ll be down shortly. Go on without me.”
    Stephen let himself out, the hallway continuing on ahead for what seemed like half a mile. It was ludicrous to have a home so large that the only way that it could possibly be filled was by importing other families. A wealthy man with four children, say, or even five, could get along quite well in a house half the size, with six bedrooms, a suite for guests and six or seven staff to tend to it.
    It was exactly the sort of property Evander yearned for and spoke of with longing that bordered on avarice. It was also the kind of place where, as Evander always managed to suggest through word, look and gesture, Stephen would never manage to fit in.
    He shoved his hands in his pockets, then guiltily pulled them out again. How many times had Evander lectured him on the importance of cutting a proper figure?
    Damn him, anyway. He was as much a child of poverty as Stephen, if not more so. He was the youngest of a full litter of children, while Stephen’s parents had only been burdened with two to clothe and feed. Where did he get off putting on such grand airs?
    It was hardly Evander’s fault that he had such a keen and critical eye, mind you. He hadn’t grown up in a large house, but in a cottage on the edge of an estate much like this one. He had learned, watching little quirks and habits of the wealthy, and been generous enough to pass those tricks on to Stephen in turn. They were able to pass among the proper folk now, be lauded and loved for their talents and not judged on their poor family names.
    Stephen had taken advantage of all of it with little qualm before. Why did it stick in his throat now?
    He should find Coventry’s conservatory and see what sort of arrangements he could make for practicing. He had not been able to do anything of the sort in the coach, naturally, and had been too drained and ill at the halfway mark to do anything more strenuous than drink some broth and fall into uneasy sleep. His fingers ached from lack of use; his knuckles cracked when he curled them.
    But his violin was back in the suite, and returning meant making conversation again.
    It could wait.
    Noises sounded from the first floor, murmurs of conversation and the swish of silk skirts, and Stephen turned into the open archway on his left rather than go downstairs just yet. The portrait gallery stretched out before him, long rows of paintings hung along the facing walls. Shadows clung to the walls, the sconces not yet lit.
    The images were mostly of the standard sort: prettily posed ladies with various small dogs, simpering children, doughty-looking gentlemen with swords on their hips. Some of them were rather more dubious, a weedy-looking, young man with a highly unfortunate chin, chief among them. One good stiff wind would knock him flat on his arse, and that chin would act as a sail.
    A handful of portraits in a newer fashion looked like more recent additions. The paintings themselves fit the mold of the others—delicate brushwork, the sitter looking off to the side or down in modesty or up to glory, depending on nature, sex and inclination. All but one. The palette was still muted, but the straightforward pose and the natural life in the expression of the sitter stopped Stephen in his tracks.
    The man in the portrait was not classically handsome. His mouth was too full and his hair too red for that, his jawline perhaps a little too soft. But his eyes crinkled at the corners with secret mirth, as though sharing a very private and personal joke with the viewer, and those lush and generous lips curled up at one corner. He sat in a smock and his shirtsleeves, a palette on the table behind him. His head tilted very slightly to the side, like he was listening to some secret, lively song. His eyes caught and held Stephen,