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suspiciously at the girl standing before a half finished bust on a pedestal. Afternoon sunshine poured through the tall windows, setting fire to Cicely’s chestnut hair. Her coarse white apron looked incongruous against the turquoise striped silk of her gown, and clay smeared the lace at her cuff. Unlike the earl, Lady Cicely Ware’s appearance was closer to average than perfect. Her features were symmetrical but unremarkable. All that saved her from the ordinary was a mischievous smile and thick lashed eyes the color of lapis lazuli.
    At the moment those eyes were avoiding Elizabeth. “Who, Nicholas?” Cicely said, as if she had a dozen brothers instead of just one. “Oh, pooh, of course he knows I’m here.”
    She walked quickly to the unkempt boy perched on a wooden box in the center of the room. “Might I bother you to turn a bit to your right, Kipp?”
    With ill concealed boyish awe, the urchin regarded Cicely. His face was filthy beneath a misshapen bowler hat, his feet bare beneath tattered knickers. “Be glad to, yer ladyship, ma’am.” Obligingly Kipp Gullidge shifted position.
    “Not quite so far, please. There, that’s perfect. Thank you.”
    Cicely returned to the pedestal and studied the bust. “Now perhaps I shall get this right.”
    Half amused and half exasperated, Elizabeth refused to be distracted. “Back to your brother. If Lord Nicholas knows you’re here, he must have changed his way of thinking over the past four days.”
    Cicely’s hands froze on the day. “Four days? How did you… oh.” Her voice dropped to an abashed murmur. “He came here to see you, then.”
    Elizabeth nodded.
    Cicely’s blue eyes were big with guilt. “Oh, pooh. And I was hoping I’d convinced him I’d given up art.”
    “You should have told me he disapproved of your working with me, Cicely.”
    Her lips pursed into a pout. “It’s none of his concern. If I’m old enough to come out into society, then I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”
    “Yet he is your brother. Like it or not, that does give him something to say about your behavior.”
    “All Nicholas wants is to see me married off to some stern faced prig.” Wrinkling her patrician nose in disgust, she added, “He thinks I ought to spend my time snaring a husband, then devote the rest of my life to pleasing him. How terribly tedious!”
    Elizabeth agreed, though she kept the opinion to herself. “Regardless, you should have been honest with me.”
    “I’m sorry,” Cicely said in a subdued voice. “If you tell me not to come here any more, I’ll understand.”
    The proud set to her chin brought a stinging reminder of the earl. “No, I won’t say that,” Elizabeth said. “I couldn’t bear seeing your talent wasted.”
    Cicely dubiously eyed the bust. “Do you really think I have talent? Looks rather out of kilter.”
    Kipp craned his neck. “Blimey, it looks like me all right!”
    “Let me see,” Elizabeth said.
    Setting aside her sketch pad, she rounded the table, her Turkish trousers swishing. Though only roughly shaped, the highlights and hollows of the face were unmistakably Kipp. Yet somehow the impish quality of his personality was missing.
    “These lines here are a bit out of proportion,” she said, indicating the jaw and chin. “You used a penknife, didn’t you? To breathe life into the clay, you’re better off relying on your fingers.” Elizabeth swept her thumb across the malleable clay. “See how free, long strokes give freshness to the surface? And remember what I told you — you want to create more than a mere likeness. You must look beneath the outer features and express the inner character.”
    “You always make it look so simple,” Cicely said
dolefully. “I don’t understand… I was always good at
drawing, yet I don’t appear to be making any progress
at sculpting.”
    “It takes lots of time and work. Don’t get discouraged.”
    “But how much time? I want to become as skilled as