ColorMeBad (10 page)

John’s last feeble spark of hope winked out like a candle
dropped into the sea.

Aunt Pym’s wailing climbed several steps in pitch.

“What plans?” Uncle Pym demanded.

“I’m going to be a colorman,” said Hecuba. “Or woman as it
were.”

Even Aunt Pym went silent, at least for long enough to take
an uneven breath. “You’re going into trade?” she whispered with a shudder.

“I am going to make and sell pigments,” Hecuba confirmed.
“Mother always said I had a talent for it and she was right. I have been
practicing for some time now and feel confident in my skills. It will only take
a very little money to get me started—supplies and a space to work in.”

“And where are these funds going to come from?” her uncle
sneered.

Hecuba pressed her lips together and maintained a stony
silence.

“Shameless trollop,” gasped Aunt Pym.

Uncle Pym’s brow furrowed. “You take too much after your
mother,” he said. “I am ashamed to have treated you like a proper member of
this family. You will gather your things in the morning and be gone—I won’t
permit you to spend one more night beneath my roof.”

Anne leapt to her feet and her cousin’s defense. “This roof
was rented with money
he
gave you,” she said, pointing to John, “for
paintings you had no right to sell! And now you think you have the authority to
cast her out, when you are the cause of all these troubles in the first place?”

“Which of my daughters told me the thing they wanted most in
the world was a Season and a good match?” Uncle Pym replied in clipped tones.
Anne cried out in protest but her father remained adamant. “If we do not show
our disapproval swiftly and decisively, your prospects and your sister’s will
be sacrificed to your cousin’s feeble moral judgment.”

Anne strode over to stand beside her cousin. Hecuba looked
far more surprised by that than she had by John’s initial revelation. “Society
can be cruel,” said Anne, “but it would be crueler of us to treat its rules as
gospel.” She wound her hand around Hecuba’s and raised her chin. “If you throw
her out, I’m going with her.” Uncle Pym sputtered but found no words to counter
his daughter’s ultimatum. Hecuba smiled something very like a real smile.

John’s heart lifted to see it, hopeless though he was. They
made quite the pair—Anne dark and defiant, Hecuba shaken but stoic. His mind
was halfway done with the initial sketch before he shook the dream away.

The earl turned to John with a scowl. “Aren’t you going to
say
anything
?” Simon demanded.

Six pairs of eyes fastened themselves on John. It seemed the
very world was holding its breath, giving him a chance to make some stirring
proclamation, pull a white horse out of his sleeve, throw Hecuba over his
shoulder and ride away in search of the nearest clergyman. Or Scotland. Aunt
Pym would tell her friends how romantic it had been. Uncle Pym would grouse
into his claret about young men’s impulses but give the rascal credit for
owning up to his transgressions. Simon would consider it a fit punishment for
his lack of gentlemanly behavior and would no doubt find himself rather fond of
Hecuba, once he got to know her. As for the presumed bride herself…

Hecuba’s face threatened cold vengeance if he tried anything
of the kind.

Her decision meant there was no decision for him to make. It
was curiously liberating, though the relief echoed hollowly within him. “No,”
he said to the unimportant everyone. “I have nothing else to say. I will honor
our agreement and send your niece the last of her mother’s paintings.” He bowed
to Hecuba, who inclined her head in return. “Miss Jones, if you should ever
need anything, all you have to do is ask.” Then, ignoring the storm of curses,
shouts and horrified gasps, John turned on his heel and strode from the room.

When word of the scandal spread, the family was cut off like
a gangrenous limb. The world seemed very quiet without the constant round of
visitors and visits. Hecuba told herself this was for the best and spent as
much time as possible in the conservatory, away from her aunt’s dramatic sobs
and her uncle’s icy silences.

But she couldn’t avoid them forever. Dining together became
an ordeal. She didn’t know which was worse—Evangeline’s near-constant weeping
or Aunt Pym’s vicious speeches. Night after night Hecuba was treated to a
catalog of all the ways she’d failed as a niece, as a lady and as a Christian.
Even Anne, who had initially tried to rebuff these attacks, was soon reduced to
smoldering silently and waiting for her aunt’s energy to flag.

Hecuba bit her tongue until it bled and resolved to leave
the house as soon as possible. Her cousins’ situation would improve once she
was gone—she could have laughingly shaken free of all her aunt’s venom if she
hadn’t felt so guilty for what Anne and Evangeline were suffering.

One week later, the butler informed her that several parcels
had arrived addressed to her. “From the Earl of Underwood,” he said, pitching
his voice low.

Hecuba instructed him to take them upstairs at once.

Safe in her bedroom, with shaking hands, Hecuba opened the
first parcel.

Three figures lounged in a fire-lit room. A brown-haired gentleman
sat with his feet up, smoking a pipe, looking fondly at a dark-haired woman.
This lady had a book in one hand, but was not reading from it. Instead,
smiling, she was combing gentle fingers through the bright red hair of a little
girl whose knees were on the floor but whose head was pillowed in her mother’s
lap. Of course it was Hecuba, her mother and father.
A Winter Evening
,
it was called, and the spaces outside the family circle were chill with snow or
deep with shadows.

A second parcel turned out to be herself, nude, with a
cravat tied around her wrist. Hecuba’s throat ached at the happiness reflected
on her painted features. She remembered the slide of linen against her skin,
the tension of restraint, the feel of Rushmore’s body plunging into hers. She
remembered how he’d laughed at her irritation and soothed her worries. She
remembered how sharply it had hurt when she’d learned of this painting’s
existence—knives were ticklish in comparison. She’d imagined something lurid
and ridiculous or something too idealized and worshipful and therefore silly in
the eyes of onlookers. But this was warm, sweet and human while still being
beautiful and sensual. This was how Rushmore had made her feel.

Her whole body was one long ache of missing him.

When she went to open the third and final parcel, she
noticed that a letter had been attached.

My dear Jones,

I wish very much that I had the right to tell you all
that I’m feeling. But my feelings are not your obligations. Since you wish to
end it, all that remains is this—I wish it had ended differently. So wondrous a
beginning deserved a better coda.

Please accept not only the last painting of your
mother’s, as promised, but also your own portraits—including the fourth and
final one. They are yours to do with as you please. At first I thought of
keeping them, I admit, but it made me feel like some mad alchemist of ages
past, surrounding himself with lead in the hope that it might someday turn into
gold. But that’s your specialty, not mine.

The new painting is called
Thief of Hearts
.

Yours,

John

Hecuba pulled away the concealing paper.

It was a dark canvas, nearly black with hints of deep green
and a few splashes of vermillion that she recognized as her own concoction.
Moonlight flowed in from the picture’s left and outlined a tall window and a
figure in the process of leaping over the sill—a woman in black with red hair
bound tightly back from a pale and mischievous profile. A necklace of rubies as
bright as fire swung from one hand as she held open the window sash with the
other. The edges of the figure were blurred, as if caught briefly in the
process of a swift and unstoppable motion so quick and elusive that the eye
itself was barely fast enough to catch her.

But oh, it was the shadows that broke her heart.

As with
Circe
, the margins of this painting were
inhabited. But instead of tortured bodies and grasping hands, the figures here
were plain, dark and unvaryingly forlorn. Hooded and ghostly, they inclined
toward the fleeing thief like headstones in an ancient graveyard, their hands
imprisoned within the folds of their night-black robes.

It was the loneliest image Hecuba had ever seen.

He was letting her go.

The thought made her breathless, grateful and mournful all
at once. He had accepted her rejection as final without berating her, without
belittling her and without bullying. Her family was not willing to allow her
the luxury of refusal, but Rushmore offered it as a matter of course.

She loved him so very much.

She leaned
Thief of Hearts
against the wall beside
A
Winter Evening
. The two paintings complemented each other perfectly—reds
and blacks, motion and peace, light and shadow. They belonged together, one on
either side of the mantel. Depending on how you arranged them, the thief could
either be leaping toward or running away from the family and their cozy
fireplace.

Hecuba had chosen leaping toward.

She sighed. That was telling. It was not the mystical
properties or prophetic nature of oil paint that spoke to her, but the
realization that she was looking for reasons to change her mind.

It was galling to think that she felt the need for reasons.
Rushmore hadn’t asked for hers when she’d refused his proposal. Her refusal had
been reason enough—and none of the pressures their families brought to bear had
been able to change his mind.

He’d been strong enough to give her up merely because she’d
asked.

Would he be strong enough to give up his way of life if she
offered herself in exchange?

Perhaps not. Perhaps he’d found it easier to let her go than
to lose his comfortable existence and the pleasures of aristocratic society. It
was a daunting thought. But Hecuba Jones had never yet backed down from a
challenge.

It was time to tell Rushmore everything.

* * * * *

How strange to go through the unfamiliar front door and find
herself in a very familiar room. How strange to feel her skirts tangling around
her ankles and her stays hampering the easy in and out of her breath. “What?”
said Rushmore’s voice when she knocked.

She opened the door to the earl’s study, pulling in as much
air as she could against the rushed beat of her heart. A servant walked behind
holding four rolls of canvas.

Rushmore slouched in the armchair on the hearth, legs
stretched out on the ottoman. One hand was gripping a pencil, the other a glass
of whisky. Neither hand had moved in quite some time, it seemed—the whisky
glass was full and the page beneath the pencil was barren and blank.

His eyes widened when they fell on Hecuba but he said
nothing.

Hecuba relieved the servant of his burden and dismissed him
with a simple “Thank you.”

She turned back to Rushmore, arms wrapped around the bulk of
canvas, trying to untie her tongue. His coat was tossed negligently on the
chair beside him, his waistcoat hanging open and unbuttoned. “You haven’t
shaved,” she said.

He shrugged. “I haven’t cared to.” He raised the glass of
whisky and toasted her with it. “Even getting drunk was too much work—I doubt
I’ve had more than two sips from this and I’ve been sitting here since noon.”

“May I?” Hecuba put the canvas rolls aside and took the
drink. She downed half the spirits in a single swallow and returned the glass
to him, catching her breath a little when his fingers brushed hers.

“Feeling in want of courage, Jones?” he asked, one corner of
his mouth lifting briefly though his shoulders remained stiff and his eyes
wary.

“Somewhat,” Hecuba replied. “It isn’t every day I propose to
a gentleman.”

Rushmore choked on his drink, whisky perfuming the air
between them. He set the glass aside and put his feet on the floor, giving her
his full attention. “Maybe I’m drunk after all,” he said. “Are you really
planning to propose? To me?”

“To you,” she confirmed. “But you are allowed to refuse if
you wish.”

He held himself very still. Hecuba felt the distance between
them like a gap in her own flesh. “Why the change of heart?” he asked.

“Not heart,” she said. “Merely a change of circumstances.”

He waited.

She gathered her strength and went on. “Here, at this
moment, there are no hysterical aunts, no sympathetic cousins, no upright
brothers to tell us what to choose. If I’d accepted you the other day, we would
have married to prevent the worst thing from happening. There would have been a
pall over the whole business right from the very start. If I were to change my
mind about marriage, Rushmore, then I could only do so for the best reason.
None of those reasons were good, let alone best. But now the worst has already
happened and we have survived it. We are free.”

He was unconvinced. “You think being ruined is the worst
possible thing?”

“I think making a choice for the wrong reasons is the worst
possible thing. I think choosing other people’s comfort over my own
satisfaction is the worst possible thing.” She realized her hands were
fidgeting and made them keep still. “I refused you not because of yourself, but
because no one else in that room would have believed I’d said yes because I
wanted to marry you.” She sighed. “It is equally possible that stubbornness is
my most overriding flaw and I dislike being dictated to.”

“I know that,” he said, his voice as soft as firelight. “I
know you, Jones.”

“Oh,” said Hecuba. Fluttering hope awoke and stretched its
wings. “Then you probably already know as well that I love you.”

Statues were less still than Rushmore was at present. “No,
Jones,” he said. “I had no idea.”

“Well,” she said. “I do love you. With all my heart.” She
took a deep breath. “I would be very honored, Rushmore, if you—”

She never had a chance to finish the sentence. Rushmore had
finally shaken off his stillness and had yanked her into the chair with him.
She fell in a froth of petticoats, gasping against his mouth as he kissed her
with enough fire to combust what remained of the glass of whisky. She tried to
move closer, to straddle his hips, but her skirts were too cumbrous, pinned beneath
her knees and snagged on the heel of her shoe. His hands struggled alongside
hers until he gave up, lifted her bodily and sent them both to the floor in a
controlled hurtle.

From there it was easier—her skirts rose beneath his hands
while she tugged at his hair and begged him to hurry. His rough fingers found
the heat of her cunt and plunged inside, teasing her with sweet thrusts. She
pulled open his shirt and spread her legs, arching up to rub against the hard
cock she could feel beneath his trousers. “Marry me,” she said, pressing her
mouth to the side of his neck. “Please.”

He groaned, wrestled with his trousers and plunged his cock
into her. Her gasp was ragged at the edges—if it felt any better, she would die
here and now with a smile on her face. He fucked her hard, desperately, a horde
of keening sounds falling from his throat. One of his hands plunged between
them and unerringly he found her clitoris, stroking fast and hard. Hecuba bit
his neck to keep from crying out as she came, clenching and shuddering around
him, tightening deliciously around his plunging cock. He held himself deep and
gasped aloud his own climax, shaking and throbbing and pouring himself into
her.

“If that is how you say yes,” Hecuba sighed, “then I shall
propose every day until the wedding.”

Rushmore rolled to the side with a laugh. “That is one way
to say yes,” he said. “Here is another.” His hand grazed her cheek as he
smiled. “I love you, Hecuba Jones. I love you more than words. I love you more
than life. I love you more than painting, if you can believe it.”

Hecuba laughed, rose to one elbow and kissed him. “That
reminds me,” she said. “Perhaps you should not say yes until you know precisely
what you are getting into.”

“I’m getting into trade, aren’t I?” he said. “You’re not
giving up the idea of being a colorman just because you’re marrying me, are
you?”

“Does that bother you?”

“It certainly does,” he said. “It bothers me very much if
you give up so good a plan for so paltry a reason.”

She smiled, but this was important. “It might make things
very different for you.”

He shrugged—as much as one can while lying on one’s back.
“My family won’t disown me if that’s what you’re worried about. We’re a small
group—just my brother, my sister and the aunt she’s travelling with in Italy. I
won’t miss the social whirl, either, especially as I intend to be very busy
with my own work. Besides,” Rushmore went on archly, “if my wife is a colorist,
I expect to get a discount on paints.”

“Help fund this enterprise and you can have all the paints
you ever need,” Hecuba said. “But I really ought to tell you where the other
funds are coming from.” She pushed herself to her feet, shook out her skirts
and began unrolling the four paintings she’d brought with her. Amiably Rushmore
buttoned himself up and joined in. Soon all four C. F. Jones canvases were
spread out along the desk. “Can you give us more light?” Hecuba asked.

Rushmore lit a taper and set it on the edge of the desk. By
this time, Hecuba had aligned four of the paintings’ corners so they met in a
cross in the middle.

Rushmore sucked in a breath and leaned closer. “How…?” he
asked. The brushstrokes that had seemed mere abstract filler when the paintings
were separate were now revealed to form shapes together—a blue circle here, a
winding brown snake, gray-green squares and at one point a bright, vivid X.
Made of Hecuba green.