Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 2 of 2 (49 page)

‘Maisie, this is Miss Cameo Ashe, my new model. Miss Ashe, this is Miss Maisie Jones.'

‘Hello,' Maisie drawled. ‘I don't think we've met, have we?'

‘No. I don't believe so. How do you do?'

Maisie crossed her arms, emphasising her breasts even more. ‘Been modelling long, have you?'

‘This is my first time.'

Maisie ran a finger up and down Benedict's arm. ‘And you got Benedict Cole? My, my. Not that you would have got him if I'd been still been—what did you call me, Benedict? Your muse?'

He smiled at the blonde woman who came up to his shoulder. ‘I don't think I ever used the word
muse
, Maisie, though you were perfect for my last painting. I've told you that before.'

She gave a pout of pleasure but her face hardened again as she returned to Cameo. ‘There's already plenty of models for all the artists round here.'

‘Now, now, Maisie.' Nicholas Trelawney wagged his finger. ‘Put away your claws.'

With a toss of her head the model flounced away. ‘I'll see you soon, Benedict. You know where I am for your next painting.'

‘I never knew what you saw in that woman, Cole.' Trelawney laughed. ‘Or perhaps I do.'

‘She's a good model,' Benedict vouchsafed as he sat down and tried not to stare at Cameo Ashe.

* * *

Benedict lit the lamp in his studio.

Ever since Trelawney's soirée a few nights before, sleep had proved impossible.

Mixing his paints, he brooded on the occasion when he became aware of the seriousness of his feelings for Cameo.

To put it bluntly, she fascinated him.

As they'd gone to leave the soirée, Trelawney had murmured to Benedict under his breath, ‘Take good care of your new model. She's charming.'

And he'd found out more about her. It had gutted him, but he'd had to know. After the gathering he had taken a hackney cab and followed the carriage that bore Miss Ashe away. It had rolled along to Mayfair, to a quiet, stately square that spelt money and class. The carriage had stopped outside the front of one of the houses and, with a furtive look over her shoulder as though she didn't want to be observed, Miss Cameo Ashe had alighted from the carriage and hurried into the house.

By the front door.

There could be no doubt. She wasn't a seamstress or a governess as she claimed. They would have entered through the servants' entrance.

Benedict had barely closed his eyes that night or for the few nights afterwards. He had continued to work, hour after hour, not only at her portrait, but also on other sketches and drawings of her until fatigue made it impossible to continue. He fell into bed satisfied with what he'd done, though sleep usually slipped further away, into the dawn.

Her face haunted him. Her face and also the story she'd told him, the inconsistencies in it. He frowned, yet again perplexed. What was she trying to hide?

He hoped more than ever it wasn't what he suspected. But why could he assume he was the only man who found her captivating?

Damnation
. This model was proving to be the most captivating of all. And the question continued to haunt him
.

Who was she?

Chapter Nine

‘The garden stretches southward. In the midst
A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.
The garden-glasses shone...'

—Alfred
,
Lord
Tennyson:
‘The Gardener's Daughter'

B
enedict threw down the paintbrush, his face white with exhaustion. ‘That's enough.'

Cameo released her pose and breathed out. Every single muscle in her body ached with tension. ‘Is the portrait going well?'

‘It's hard to say at this stage.' Benedict covered it up with the sheet. ‘It's absorbing me night and day. I've never worked so quickly.'

‘Oh.' Cameo's heart sank. She didn't want him to work quickly. She wanted her days in the studio to last for ever, but they were passing all too soon. Since the soirée at Nicholas Trelawney's house, Benedict hadn't seemed to stop working. She worried about him, seeing the lines around his mouth and the shadows under his eyes. She knew artists could be obsessed, as Trelawney had told her. She knew from her own passion for art. ‘Do you need me to pose any more today?'

‘No, Miss Ashe. I think that's enough.' He flexed his shoulders in a strong, leisurely movement from which she found it difficult to turn away.

‘You'll still want me tomorrow?' It was getting harder and harder for her to slip away, but Maud and George's engagement had proved to be a diversion at home. Still, it wouldn't last for ever and she wasn't sure how long she could keep it up.

He nodded.

‘Where do you live?' he startled her by asking as she went to collect her bonnet and coat, hanging over the armchair by the fire.

She couldn't say Mayfair. ‘Not far from here.'

‘Do you walk home after our sessions?'

‘Of course.' As far as the carriage hidden around the corner.

‘It's a beautiful day. I could do with some air. I'll accompany you, if I may.'

Cameo choked. ‘Accompany me?'

‘Is there some difficulty?'

‘It's just that... I'm not going straight home today. I plan to go to...Hyde Park.'

‘Perfect. We'll go to the park.'

Her first instinct, of sheer pleasure at the thought of being outdoors with him, was overcome by panic. She couldn't go with Benedict Cole to Hyde Park, the place where society gathered to walk or ride, or simply to see or be seen. She couldn't risk it. There'd be a scandal if she were spotted unchaperoned with a bohemian artist. A lady with no relations such as Miss Cameo Ashe might be able to take a promenade with an unknown male in the park, but for Lady Catherine Mary St Clair: unthinkable.

Helplessly, she watched as he pulled on his long brown coat and slung his scarf around his neck. ‘Come along, Miss Ashe. To the park.'

* * *

Benedict glanced at Cameo sideways as she sat on the park bench in her blue bonnet with its paler blue trimmings and her smart grey coat, cut away in a cape to allow for her layers of skirt. She appeared nervous, jumping like a frightened deer each time someone walked past.

When he stretched his legs beside her she flinched, as aware of his body as he remained of hers. She moved away from him, putting a bigger space between his thigh and her own.

He knew why. It was that kiss, still unspoken between them, and the growing attraction he found harder and harder to resist.

Balling his fist, he focused his attention on the ducks in the water opposite. It was driving him mad, the mystery of her. His fingers itched for a pencil, to catch the swanlike slope of her white neck as she leant back slightly on the bench. Instead he forced himself to focus on the lake in front of them and the sleek feathers of a mother duck, grey-brown with a flash of turquoise-blue on the underside, with her ducklings, three balls of feathered fluff, beside her. Nearby, a boy and girl with their nanny were throwing bits of bread, shrieking in delight, with the look of joy that only came after a long winter ended and the spring sunshine seeped into the earth. The cold still bit at his skin, but a hint of warm April air hovered. Already the park lawn was studded here and there with white flowers, the kind that came first in the spring time, the grass, after the winter rains, lush and vivid.

Next to him the sun seemed to be having an effect on his model. She relaxed somewhat, her fingers less clenched inside her kid-leather gloves.

He glanced sideways at her. ‘You're enjoying the air.'

As she lifted her face to the gentle sunshine, she gathered a deep breath that lifted her corset. ‘Spring is my favourite time of year in Hyde Park. Did you come here for the Great Exhibition last year?'

‘With half of London, yes. What were there, six million people, the newspaper said?'

‘The crowds were enormous. I don't think I ever saw anything as beautiful as the Crystal Palace. I liked the way they enclosed the trees within the structure. The displays were wonderful.'

He chuckled. ‘I agree with you, though John Ruskin certainly didn't.'

Cameo inched towards him on the bench. ‘What did he say?'

‘He created a furore. He bemoaned the fact that lesser works were being displayed at such expense in the Crystal Palace while in Venice the works of great masters were “rotting in the rain, without roofs to cover them, and with holes made by cannon shot through the canvas”,' Benedict quoted. ‘He had a point.'

‘I still liked the Great Exhibition. Do you ever work outside?'

He laughed and quoted Ruskin again. ‘“In the rain without a roof to cover me?”'

She laughed, too. He hadn't heard her laugh much before, that light, musical gurgle. ‘Just out of doors.'

‘I do. It's essential. I did most of the work for the background of your portrait outside.'

‘I thought you were working on it in the studio.'

‘Yes, but I already had done a lot of the preparatory process before I found you.' He ignored his swift pulse at the memory of first seeing her. ‘That's the time-consuming part. I made sketches and colour studies to make sure I got the setting as exact as possible. Nature trains the artist's eye, you see.'

He faced her squarely, his leg moving against hers, and saw her hold back a jolt. ‘Your sketch. The one you did the other day.'

She took another of those corset-filling breaths as her leg stayed against his. ‘What about it, Mr Cole? I told you I have an interest in art.'

‘Yes, you told me that, among many other things.' He let the note of disbelief ring in his voice. ‘Your sketch showed some skill. Do you only work in pencil and charcoal, or also in colour?'

‘I use watercolours and oils, too. Only once or twice, of course. They're expensive,' she added hastily.

‘You need to use oils to paint properly.'

She bit her lip. ‘What did you mean by the correct study of nature?'

Why had she changed the subject? ‘I'm not sure I'm in the mood for giving an art lecture today.'

‘Please.'

‘You're most persistent.' He pointed to a single flower blooming at the base of the trunk of an oak tree nearby. ‘Look at that daffodil. What do you see?'

‘I see a daffodil.'

‘Look again. Describe it to me.'

‘It's yellow.'

‘Is that all you see? Yellow? What kind of yellow?'

She swallowed hard. He guessed she was holding back one of her sharp retorts. To be honest he enjoyed them.

‘There are many yellows,' she said after a moment. ‘There's the more golden yellow at the centre of the flower, it's almost orange. And then there's the paler yellow of the petals. At the tip they are almost translucent.'

‘Good. What else?'

Two tiny lines formed between her fine eyebrows. ‘They're like sunshine. That's how to paint them. To try to capture their warmth and brightness, their golden life, not merely their colour.'

It wasn't often he shared such a sense of connection with a model. He felt strangely pleased by her answer. She'd grasped immediately what he meant. ‘Very good. Artists see in terms of light and shade. Even if we paint using dark colours we capture light by layering the darker colours over paler ones so the light is revealed. Titian, one of the greats of the Venetian school, was an expert at it. He used feather-light strokes to let the light come through.'

‘I think I understand.'

‘By paying attention to the natural world we can see what truly is. In this I agree with the Pre-Raphaelites. Truth from Nature is their motto. I, too, paint what I see. Truth is of great value to me. If there's one thing I cannot abide, Miss Ashe, it's a lie.'

He could see he had hit home with that comment. Her lips quivered and then parted. He hoped briefly she might choose to tell him the truth about herself. It had become so important to him. Continuing to paint her with his need to discern her soul was becoming unbearable. The portrait would be a masterpiece if his passion for her was unleashed, he knew it.

Yet again she changed the subject. ‘You're not a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, though? You seem to know them well.'

Benedict hid his disappointment at her continued deception. He had hoped she'd started to trust him. Didn't she realise he would never judge her, no matter what she told him about her circumstances? Did she realise what was happening between them? Instead he answered her question. ‘I'm friendly with them. We share an interest in the same techniques, especially to do with the natural world. We aim to reproduce it as exactly as possible.'

Her lower lip took another bite. ‘You achieved that in the painting of the girl with the wheat. The one of Maisie Jones.'

‘You've seen that work?'

She gave a quick nod.

‘You're a woman of constant surprises,' he drawled. ‘I'm beginning to wonder what you'll come up with next.'

She flushed pink, always a giveaway with Miss Ashe.

‘My work does draw on the Pre-Raphaelite ideas about nature, among other things,' he went on, when she said nothing more, though the colour in her cheeks continued to deepen. ‘But no other painter taught me. I learnt that from my parents.'

‘Your parents?'

He'd surprised himself. He so rarely discussed his family background. He hesitated for a moment. Then he said, ‘Before I came to London, my...my father, Arthur Cole, was a gamekeeper on a large estate. We lived in his cottage. He knew every inch of the estate, every wood, every lake, each animal and each tree. He was also a wood carver and he taught me to carve. You have to be precise, detailed. I still carve my own frames for my paintings.'

‘And your bed.'

‘My bed?'

‘Your bed in the studio. That's carved, isn't it?'

‘I didn't realise you took such an interest in my bed.' He enjoyed making her retrieve another of those deep breaths as she flushed even rosier.

After a moment she rallied. ‘Where is he now? Your father, I mean. Is he still on the estate?'

Tightness formed in his throat. ‘He died.'

‘I'm so sorry. And did he teach you to paint, as well?'

His mouth twisted. ‘Not Arthur Cole, no.'

‘Your mother?'

The warmth of her memory flooded back. He could almost feel himself back indoors in their cottage. ‘My mother possessed a gift for colour. Our home was humble, but she made it beautiful. It didn't look like the other cottages on the estate. She didn't leave her furniture plain. She painted it with simple designs of flowers and fruit in reds, yellows, blues and greens.' He paused for a moment, found it hard to go on. ‘Colour surrounded her. At night, before I went to sleep, I'd lie awake, soaking in those designs as they glowed bright as jewels in the lamplight, my mother, in her red dress, the most colourful sight of all. My father...my father used to tease her. He said she looked like a gypsy.'

‘She sounds beautiful.'

‘She was. I painted my first-ever portrait of her sitting at the door of our cottage in her scarlet gown.'

‘Where is she now?'

The pain inside him became almost unbearable. He clenched his fists and forced himself to say evenly, ‘She died not long after my father. Because of the way she was treated, no doubt.'

‘What happened to her?'

‘She was cast out,' he replied, unable to keep the rage from his voice. ‘The lord of the manor forced her to leave our cottage, our home. All the loyalty...it was not returned. Just broken promises. But that's how some members of the aristocracy behave.'

She opened her mouth and closed it again, as if she meant to speak but changed her mind. She waited a moment before she asked him another question. ‘That's terribly sad. Then what happened? How did you become a painter?'

He shrugged, trying to cast off the memory of those years. ‘I came to London. I studied. I painted. Through my art I am determined to be accepted on my own terms.'

Terminating their conversation, he stood. ‘I think that's enough air, Miss Ashe.'

* * *

Stones crunched under Cameo's boots as she tried to keep up with Benedict's fast pace as he strode away. She barely noticed her surroundings as they headed away from the lake towards the gates of Hyde Park.

While she'd listened to him talk about the way his beloved mother had been treated she had longed to reach over and erase those bitter lines bracketing his mouth. Yet ever since their kiss, he'd made it clear they needed to keep their distance.

Cameo frowned slightly. He said he had grown up in a cottage, but that didn't explain his cultured voice, his obvious education. He had vision and a God-given talent, and passion, so much passion. He was an enigma, yet there was no doubt about his hostility towards the aristocracy and their broken promises.

She could never tell him the truth about herself.

Her heart ached as he strode away ahead of her. As if sensing her gaze, he stopped and turned. Her pulse skipped a beat. His long brown coat hung open, his red scarf tied carelessly, his dark head bared, for he didn't bother with a hat. He pushed his hair from his forehead in what had become a familiar gesture as he waited for her. She stepped towards him, her heart seeming to lift—and froze on the spot.