Flirting With Forever (20 page)

“And me. How do you do this, the shade just under the leaf ? My God, it’s as if an actual leaf sits there. I can see the sides.”

He chuckled. “’Tis nothing. A trick my teacher taught me.

Only a bit of incising.” When her brows knitted he added,

“Come. Let me show you. ’Tis easier than explaining.” He reached for the palette and offered it to her. “You said you paint, aye?”

“Oh no. I couldn’t.”

“Of course you might.”

He guided the wood over her thumb, ignoring the flicker of heat, and handed her a brush. “Start with the ochre and a bit of the black.” He watched as she mixed the paint, diffidently then with greater assurance.

“That’s right,” he said, “only a touch. Now, I want you to let go and just guide the brush as if the painting were yours and the leaf a mere impediment to your objective.”

“My objective?”

“Aye. You have to keep your objective in mind.”

Cam’s objective was growing unclear, even to her. What she should be doing is asking him al the Van Dyck questions she could think of, as quickly as possible, then buying a one-way “Surprise Me!” ticket straight back to Pittsburgh, assuming she could ever sneak past Peter’s nosy relative. But a part of her just wanted to be with Peter and enjoy the fine night.

She could feel him wil ing her to try her hand at painting.

He had no idea that she’d once fancied herself a painter, nor how long it had been since she’d worked upon a canvas with anything more than halfhearted interest. The smal stil life on her desk didn’t count.

“Where?” she asked. “Where do you want me to paint?”

“There. You shal add a second leaf.”

“What? No! Large or smal ?”

“Your choice. The canvas is yours, milady.” He bowed.

She gazed at the stem he had begun and was surprised to see the new leaf form clearly in her head.

“Layer it on like silk,” he said, “with just as much texture.

This is the underlayer, you see, the part that wil be hidden.”

She drew the brush along the canvas, letting the bristles flip upward. It left a perfect leaf shape on the blue background.

He cocked his head and, after an instant, nodded his approval. She smiled. She’d been damned good at this once.

“Now,” he said, handing her a thicker brush, “the verdigris.”

“Shouldn’t we let it dry?”

“We should,” he said. “But I would not sacrifice this moment of teaching to the perfection of the viscount’s painting. He has an unskil ed eye, and if he does not care for the paint cracking on this glorious leaf in twenty years’

time, he may rot.”

She laughed. The verdigris was thicker than the other colors, like a smal blob of Jel -O on the palette. She pushed it left and right, automatical y feathering in a daub of yel ow.

Peter’s brow went up.

She considered an addition of blue.

“I might try the red madder,” he said.

She looked at the red, but the resultant gray-brown would deaden her green. She flicked the tip through the blue.

She could feel the corner of his mouth rise. “The student rebels.”

“I am no man’s thral ,” she said, and the look that fol owed sent a pleasurable shiver down her back.

“Now for the shadow you admired so fervently,” he said.

“Turn your brush.”

Uncertain, she flipped the sable from left to right. “The other way,” he instructed, then gently slid the brush from her hand and returned it with the wooden point down.

“You use the other end?”

He picked up a clean brush from the shelf, as thick and wide as the one she used for her facial powder. “A brush has many uses. A good artist does not limit himself to just one. Take the point and draw it along the left there, flipping the edge of the verdigris up as you go. Go on. Do not hesitate. Exactly! You see, you have not only exposed a trace of the yel ow below, but created a tiny hil ock of verdigris as wel .”

The suggestion of contour made the image leap from the canvas. “Amazing!”

“Just a trick. There are dozens and dozens. I could teach you al of them if you had time.”

If you had time
. The offer warmed her heart, but more than that, it unleashed a longing for artistic connection in her that she’d had no idea existed.

“I wish I did,” she said truthful y. “I cannot stay much longer.”

“Of course. Tonight of al nights. I don’t wonder you have an obligation. But you wil return? Tomorrow, aye? Then every Wednesday? Say three o’clock? You would be my last sitter of the day.”

“Wednesdays, huh?”

“You smile. Why?”

“I don’t know. Wednesdays always seem to be the day for weekly meetings.”

“Liaisons, you mean?”

“Yes, actual y.” She giggled. “Especial y the afternoons.”

“Is that an aye, then?”

The guileless look of hope on his face sent her back almost to her teen years. She would be courted. First, out of her gown for the painting, then, after many long weeks of laughter and wine, out of the chaise and into his bed. His reward for winning her trust. She wondered what it would be like for a man to seek her heart first, not her body—to be slowly won, not claimed. She was a castle, and Peter was wil ing to lay patient siege to her.

“Aye,” she said softly. “I should like that very much.”

“How much time do you have?”

“A bit. Why?”

“I’m glad. I think we have two choices, then—”

A boom sounded in the distant night. “What’s that?” She looked out the windows.

He smiled in surprise. “Do you not know?”

When she shook her head, he took her hand, fetching his coat from a hook on the wal . “Come. This is one of the choices.”

Mertons col apsed on a chair in the scul ery. The woman was odd. There was no doubt about it. Was it possible she was an al y of Campbel ’s? The calculations had not shown the presence of a second conspirator. And yet …

Morag brushed by. He saw a smidgen of ankle as she stepped onto the hearth to reach a high-hung pot.

“Morag,” he said, hoping the movement as she turned might provide another flash, “are you aware of Mrs. Post’s origins at al ? Was she recommended by another patron?

Have you ever seen her in Peter’s studio before?”

“First, Mr. Mertons, ‘Mrs. Post’ is not her name.”

“Not her name?”

“No. ’Tis
Miss
Post. Miss Eugenie Campbel Stratford Post. See the note from Miss Gwyn there.” She picked it up and read. “‘Attached is a sketch done by Francis Conley at Peter Lely’s studio. It is of a dress owned by Miss Eugenie Campbel Stratford Post. I should like it duplicated in a charcoal moiré. Please note the lining.’ I am to have it delivered to her tailor on Half Moon Street in the morn—”

Campbell!
He snatched it from her hand, horrified. “Mr.

Mertons
!”

“My apologies.” He ran.

At the first turn, he came face-to-face with Stephen and two large apprentices. Stephen carried a salver fil ed with cheese and broken glass.

“Is he upstairs?” Mertons demanded. “Peter, do you mean?”

“Aye, of course. I need to speak to him.”

“Impossible.”

Mertons snorted. “It’s urgent. Is he upstairs?”

When Stephen failed to reply, Mertons turned to find out for himself, only to find his egress halted.

“Take your hand from my sleeve, sir,” Mertons said sharply.

“The master is not to be disturbed.”

The apprentices, approximately the size and tensile strength of marble columns, spread to fil the hal .

“This is a matter of extreme urgency.”

“If it don’t involve blood, it can wait until morning. In fact, even if it do involve blood, it can wait until morning.” And when Mertons attempted to shake the hand loose, Stephen added, “Do not make it involve blood, sir.”

The apprentices stepped forward.

“You’l regret this,” Mertons said.

“Please usher the master’s cousin to his room in the cel ar. See that he rests there until morning.”

* * *

Peter’s hand was warm and dry, and her own felt like a child’s within it. He opened the double doors and led her to a smal balcony. The sun was gone, replaced by a blue-gray black, and a field of stars adorned the sky. The balcony stood high above the street, and they had a clear view across the roofs of the city. The vastness of such a vista, as always, sent a pang of awe through her. She loved the way the southern hil s of Pittsburgh looked from the windows of her loft—there was something about the way the sky enveloped you when you had the long view that real y took your breath away—but this was even more spectacular: squat chimneys, unknown spires, glimpses of cobbled streets abuzz with Londoners and, on a far hil , even a windmil silhouetted black against the sky.

“Oh
my
.”

He smiled, slipping his coat back over her shoulders. “I know. I love the feeling of gazing over the city. It’s as if one has been transported from one’s problems.”

“You have problems? Wel , the king, I suppose. But I should think there are many rewards to being the royal portraitist as wel .”

“There are. Look around. The house, the staff, the line of patrons. I am very grateful.” But his hand went to his ring, and there was something in his voice that didn’t quite ring true.

She was torn. She was tempted to pursue a line of questioning related to this ambivalence, but she knew she had a job here.

“I, uh, know there’s a lot of rivalry in the art world. You must have dozens of unpleasant stories of other painters trying to insinuate themselves with the king to take your place. I mean, how did you come into the position yourself

?”

He laughed. “I hope, milady, I am not reading an implication of misconduct into your question.”

She flushed. “No, of course I did not mean you. Stil , the story of how you got your start would be most interesting.”

“Wel , of course, the position had been Van Dyck’s for many years. I was a great admirer of Van Dyck. He has certainly had a profound influence on my work. And you are right about rivalry. I do not think he cared o’ermuch for me, and he would certainly not have considered me an equal, with me being half his age and he being a man of preternatural y large pride.”

“So rare to find that in an artist.” This was exactly what she needed.

He smiled.

“And … ?” she prompted.

“And I suppose I find myself in his shoes now. His age.

Past the peak of my career. And yet I find myself far less eager than Van Dyck to cling to what I have.”

There it was again. That note of sorrow. She had the next Van Dyck question on the tip of her tongue, and a dozen more after that, but somehow the woman in her was more curious than the writer.

“You have problems? I mean, apart from the king?”

An uncomfortable quiet came over him. She waited, wondering if he’d say more. He lifted his chin, as if to reply, but he must have changed his mind, for al he said was

“Come.”

He led her to the edge of the balcony, and she took a place along the wide, low balustrade by his side. He splayed his fingers on the marble, elbows straight, abstracted. She held her tongue, waiting for him.

“There,” he said.

She turned. In the distance, toward the river, tiny streamers of white fire rained down on the river, il uminating for an instant the decks and yardarms of several tal -

masted ships. Muffled cheers from a crowd rose over the night.

“Fireworks!” she cried.

“The usual for Guy Fawkes, I should think.”

The Guy Fawkes celebration in England was akin to Hal oween, she knew, and had something to do with the defeat of a plot to blow up Parliament, though her knowledge of English history was more than a little hazy, and she had not been aware the holiday had been celebrated as early as the seventeenth century.

“It’s stil a bit early. Another quarter of an hour wil see the start of something more organized. I take it you’re meeting someone?”

Meeting someone? Then it dawned on her. He thought she had a date for Guy Fawkes, which is why he had said

“tonight of al nights” when she’d mentioned she couldn’t stay much longer. “No, I … It is something else. But surely you had an engagement?”

He smiled. “No, I am practical y chained to the studio.”

Stil he maintained his rigid grip on the railing. What haunted this man?

“Your ring is quite unusual.”

His hands came up as if he’d been burned. He nearly tucked them under his arms, but at last he brought the ringed one forward with evident wil . “It is my mark.”

“In an emerald?” She could see the
P
and
L
etched backward in the surface.

“Not just an emerald. The Kingfisher of Istanbul.”

“Oooooh,” she said, impressed, for the only named jewelry she owned was a Joan Rivers bracelet from QVC.

“Does it come with a curse?”

“It did for me.”

She held her breath.

“I bought it six years ago, after a particularly large commission from the Duke of Silverbridge. Once I saw it in the jeweler’s hand, it was the only thing I could think about. It cost a king’s ransom, but to me it represented reaching the height of my profession. The woman I loved—Ursula—

laughed when I told her I planned to buy it. She thought I was making jest with her. When I told her why I wanted it, she told me that if I depended on the adulation of gemstones, I would never be fulfil ed. We quarreled. I bought the emerald, had it engraved and we never spoke of it again. It wasn’t until years later that it dawned on me I would have been far happier if I had given her the stone, and watched it blaze away the rest of our days on her finger.”