Douglas had arrived in Whitby about two days previously.  His home in Scotland was in good hands with the butler and housekeeper, and he had needed a change.  He had almost gone to London to see some of the museums, but on the train, to the city, he had overheard someone in the dining car talking about some of the lovely areas around Whitby.  Being not having rocked down scheduled meetings or commissions in London, Douglas had gotten off the next station and made arrangements to go to the smaller town.

He had rented a carriage and as he had passed through the landscape, he was glad he had made the spontaneous change in locations.  The area was lovely indeed.  His fingers were itching to put the visions on canvas.  First though, he had arranged for a place to stay in a local hotel and set up for his trunks that had been sent ahead to London be brought to Whitby.

Now, he was finally able to get out and find a location to start enjoying himself.  He wore a deep blue pair of slacks, a white shirt, and a matching jacket.  He was not concerned about what he wore, he was more interested in getting out to paint.  The abbey he had seen from in town had gotten his main focus.  Packing up a couple of canvases, his painting kit, and a backpack with some food and water, he had headed out there.  It had taken him a bit of time walking around the abbey to figure out what view he wanted to capture first.  Then the full view overlooking the ruins with the field before it and the sky beyond not seeing the town below, just the abbey this time.

Setting up his kit, with the canvas on the easel there waiting to share the view with the world.   Tossing his jacket off over his backpack, he rolled his sleeves back and opened his kit.  He pulled out his pallet and started mixing the paints to create the tones he would be using.  His eyes going before him at the view often and then adjusting the shades he was creating until it was just where he wanted it to look.  Finally, he began.  The field and the sky creating the setting for the treasure the ruins had become.  He was focused on the way the light fell across the grasses and how the wind did its own painting of the scene.

What in the world had possessed her to climb 199 steps? Nesah cursed herself. She was out of breath, her corset not allowing her to fully expand her belly. It was self-torture. That was what it was. She was so bored and miserable that she had now turned to self-torture to feel somewhat alive. Nesah was certain that was it. She had snapped at last. Of course she had. She knew it was going to happen. Hadn't she told herself she would?

Perhaps it was because another university had denied her application to take the entrance exam. She had had several such rejections now. All the others would refuse her as well, Nesah thought gloomily, as she caught her breath at last and started walking towards the Abbey. And then she would be forced to either depend on her brother's charity forever, or go home and marry some idiot.

So yes! Actually! Climbing 199 steps was almost pleasant when placed in perspective!

Nesah reached the Abbey and walked around under its arches. She wore a green dress, a brown coat, lined with fur, and a large hat. The coat was rather warm, considering that the weather was gentle today and she had just had a climb. But here on the cliff the winds could be cold and Nesah knew that if she would take it off, she could soon come to regret it.

Suddenly, she spotted the artist from the corner of her eye, stopped, and looked over. He was clearly preparing to paint the Abbey, and she was probably in the way. Nesah put her gloved hands in the pockets of her coat and continued walking around there, right in the man's view. If she was having a bad day, everybody was going to have a bad day.

The weather was a bit cool but used to the highlands of Scotland, he was a bit tougher than some there in England.  Though earlier he had lowered the sleeves and button the cuffs once he had gotten past the warmth of walking around to find the right place to start painting.  Feeling the weather though also helped him "feel" the look he wanted to portray on the canvas.

Douglas looked over just as he was starting to put in the shape of the abbey.  Seeing the woman in green and brown, he frowned.  He had not planned on this painting to have people in it.  The isolation and emotion he had felt from it from this angle had called to his muse.  He continued to get the shapes in the dark tones, adding in the shadows with another dap of his brush into another pigment. 

Watching her over there though, the isolation of the woman in the ruins actually added to it.  He could use that.  With a change of focus, he pulled out a different shade of green and started grabbing that image of her there before she left.   He worked a bit longer, then put down his brush as he was ready for a bit of food. 

Glancing at the woman, he wondered who she was and why she was here in this lonely location.  Putting his jacket back on, he dug into his pack and pulled up a canteen and a package of a chunk of cheese, a half loaf of bread, and polish sausage.  He looked again at the woman.  It was quite a climb up there, he was not someone that would normally just go up to a stranger or even a friend if he was out painting.  However, he was new to the area, and figured she might want something to drink.  He figured it wouldn't hurt to be a gentleman.

He walked over to where she was leaving his food there with the backpack.  The canteen though he carried with him.  Once he got close enough to her, he raised a brow.  "I saw yu o'er 'ere and thought I wood see if yu wood like a drink."  His Scottish accent was strong, but not so badly that it was unclear in what he said.

Nesah walked in silence. She got bored with the Abbey pretty soon. She had been here before. But she was bored in every other part of town as well, and this way she was at least ruining someone else's day and it was not her brother or their maid for a change. And so she walked around, staring at the ground in front of her and lost in own stream of consciousness.

But when she looked up, she jumped a little. Oh God. He was coming over. Nesah looked around. She was all alone. She began walking away, firmly, but not running. She did not want to give him the impression that she was running away from her. He might give chase. What had she been thinking, coming here alone? How she hated being a woman. Hadn't she told herself it would be her undoing?

He was a tall man, and had already been quite close when she had noticed him approaching, and so he had soon caught up with her. Nesah turned. Adonai save her, he was tall indeed, and looked strong. She stepped back and looked at him with her chin up, as if daring him to come closer - and also kind of praying he wouldn't. When he spoke... she frowned.

"What?"

She was not a native speaker, and accents were difficult. She never understood what the fisherfolk in town were saying (not that she cared; she walked away fast when they addressed her, probably to ask for money).

But she had caught the word 'drink' and looked at the canteen. "No... no. I'm fine." She too had a strong accent, but it sounded... German? Certainly not British.

He gave a shrug and looked at the woman before him.  He had noticed her tense manner when she turned to him and found her face had an expression that he'd like to capture in charcoal.  He opened the canteen and took a drink himself and looked up at the ruin.  Up close it was just as lovely as it had been from distance.  He decided to do a few paintings from various points of view.  A series.  He would have to arrange to stay for a longer time.  Perhaps rent something bigger than the hotel room he currently had.  He would want to have space to put up various easles to work on things inside.

He gave her another look.  "It just thought yu might as it is quite a long climb up 'ere.  I will leave yu tae yurself."  He gave her a polite nod and turned to head back over to where he was set up to paint.  He didn't see her with anyone and didn't want to cause her any problem with her reputation.   He didn't need that kind of problem either.  Ruining some young woman was not in his plan. 

Once his paintings and drawings had started getting attention and people paying to buy them or commission him, there had been some young foolish very young girls finding it romantic to fall in "love" with him.  It was just the idea of "love" that had caused it.  He was far too realistic to fall into that kind of trap.  Though some had caused him some trouble with their fathers or older brothers before he had learned to make sure there was someone there for the younger lasses.  Older young women were still a problem at times but took more care of their reputations than the ones just out of the schoolroom.

The woman he had spoken too seemed beyond her debut, and so more likely were not as foolish as the younger ones could be.  Her face though, that expression.  If she were not alone, he would ask if she would allow him to draw her.  Once he was back at his backpack, he picked up his meal package and sat down on the grass near his set up and opened up the food.

Nesah frowned, not sure what to think. It was clear now that he was not going to assault her or anything, but she still wasn't sure whether he was to be trusted. But he left and she slowly breathed out. Strange fellow. But then again, most artists were a little bit strange.

Nesah continued to pace, casting glances in the artist's direction occasionally. She was slightly curious about the painting, but dared not go over while she was alone with him. However, when a group of tourists approached the ruin, Nesah wandered around the field, moving in the direction of the artist in half a circle, until she was behind him and could see the painting.

It was surprisingly good. The town was full of mediocre writers and artists and Nesah had expected him to be just another one. But what really caught her attention was the fact that she was in the picture - or it was probably her - a small figure wandering under the Abbey's arches alone. The audacity! And yet a tiny part of her was flattered.

She crossed her arms. "Do you always paint people without their permission?" she inquired, speaking rather slow, so that she could pronounce the English correctly and clearly.

As she moved over to where he was working, he had eaten some of the polish sausage, bread, and cheese with pauses to take a sip of his canteen.  He had noticed the other people exploring the ruins.  They did not have the look that that pop of color had added to the scene, so he continued to eat.  Leaving some of the meal for later, he wrapped the items back up and put them back in his backpack.

Standing back up, he took his jacket back off and laid it down over the backpack.  He liked his arms free as he painted.  Chilly or not, he was usually too focused on the image he was creating than the temperature.  Rain, that would cause him to pack it up, but a little cool weather was not a worry for him.  He did leave the sleeves down though as he was not completely impervious to it.

He began to add paint to the surface of the canvas when he heard the woman behind him.  Glancing over, he saw it was the woman he had offered the canteen to earlier.   He turned back to his creation.  "If that wee flash of green there is yu, then aye." 

People often would go to parks, beaches, and other places to paint the scenery and people around with much more detail in the face than he could in this distant capture of her there.  He was not going to worry about it. 

"If yu are wanting a commission, then I will be in the area for a while."  That is what most people came up to ask him like this.  Though he doubted who he was had been spread out in Whitby.  In London or Scotland, it would have been spread among art collectors and other artists.  He had even been invited to the Colonies to show some of his works.  He wasn't sure if he wanted to go that far away, maybe one day, but not yet.

Nesah observed the painter. The scandalously exposed sleeves! From that and the strong accent, she conjectured that he was a working class man, at least by birth. But he had probably managed to raise himself above his former station thanks to his painting. His clothes didn't look all worn and torn. And she couldn't smell him from where she stood. Not the common pauper from the town below, then?

The young woman looked at the painting again, irritated that he seemed to be denying to have painted her. She scoffed when he talked of a commission. "What? For a painting of the town? It's a miserable sight." She knew that he would probably disagree. Many artists came to town to paint it because it was considered picturesque. Nesah considered it to be dull, full of annoying people, and smelly. At least the smell would be absent from a painting.

Douglas chuckled as he continued to paint.  "Nae, the painting will be for a new showing in London.  I am thinking a series.  What yu see as miserable, others see full of texture and color.  A place to visit or wish tae when living in a busy city full of much more crowded streets and crowded full o' people.  Most people want to be where they are nae, rather than enjoy where they are."  He shrugged. 

"For me, this is a lonely location full of stories of an aging building that may nae 'ave a living person that can tell of all it has seen.  Sae I paint it sae that one day when it is nae more, there is a recording of what once was."  He had been called to it.  He could almost 'feel' it had a story, or many stories, that it wanted to tell, if only it could.

He glanced over at her.  "Nae, the comment aboot the commission was what I thought yu might be in the mind of.  Many ask me of such requests.  Apparently, yu are nae."  He gave her an impertinent wink and went back to painting.  "Sae, what brings a lass like yurself out in this, 'ow did yu call it?  Oh, yes, miserable sight.  And alone at that?"

He had not introduced himself, as he didn't figure it mattered.  It was actually nice just talking with someone that didn't know who he was.  Between his paintings and being an Earl, he rarely got to just meet someone without previous impressions or wanting something of him when in London or back home.  One of the reasons he liked traveling out when he sought out new places to do some painting, was that the first few days of people not knowing who he was.

As she got used to his accent, it became easier for Nesah to understand the man. Or at least what he was saying. Not that she tried very hard. She did not care much what he was going to do with his paintings, and she cared even less for the London people who might be inspired to come here. As if there were not enough tourist having their mediocre seaside holidays here.

She looked over at the Abbey ruin as he spoke of it. Nor did she care much about the rubble of what was once a cathedral. There were plenty of cathedrals and churches in their original state in Bohemia, and the only redeeming quality of this structure was that it lay in ruins.

He was right: she was not interested in commissioning him, although now the thought did cross her mind to ask him to paint her brother, Zech. Zech would hate it, but that was the point. She could tell mother that the painting was coming her way and then tell Zech. He couldn't refuse anymore if mother already expected it. How he would hate sitting still for hours. Perhaps then he would finally understand the smallest tiniest bit of the boredom she faced every. single. day.

Nesh frowned offended when he winked at her. Such liberties he took. Just who did he think he was? But it gave her some temporary entertainment to be annoyed with this man, and so she stuck around. "Promenading on the parade or terraces becomes boring after several months, believe me, sir. And I am not a 'lass'." Lass was what fishermen called the fisher women and girls, was it not? She had heard them use it. And she was not some ordinary smelly fishwife.