The Portrait (15 page)

"An honest woman," Tremaine said, taking off his glasses and shaking his head as he tucked them back into his pocket. "My compliments, my dear." He looked at Jonas. "She is quite perfect, sir—I look forward to seeing her in paint."

And then, with a quick good-bye, Tremaine disappeared again through the crowd.

"Well." Anne turned with a smile. "Congratulations, Jonas, you've captured Davis's attention."

"An easy enough feat when you've any intelligence at all," Rico commented dryly. He smiled at Genie. "You've another fan, Miss Imogene."

She smiled back, but it was frayed at the edges, distracted and self-conscious. "Another fan," she repeated, the words so soft it was as if she spoke to herself. She looked at Jonas. "What do you suppose he meant—about seeing me in paint?"

And it was gone. In that second, the mystery fell away, and she was ordinary again, the colorless girl who had walked into his studio two weeks ago.

But that was the masquerade, and now he knew it— and knew what he had to do to find the mystery again.

"Perhaps some wine," he said, looking to Childs.

Rico smiled, a knowing light in his pale blue eyes. "Ah, yes, some wine." He held out his hand to Genie. "What do you say, Miss Imogene? Shall we have a glass?"

S
he watched him the way everyone in the room watched him, and for the same reasons—because it was impossible to look away. He was mesmerizing, intoxicating. A god, almost, Imogene thought, seeing the religious zeal in his expression as he talked and gestured. Though a group of people surrounded him, he stood out from them, tall and finely made, his intense green eyes and flashing smile hypnotizing. He gestured with his glass, but not a drop of wine spilled, and though he drank it almost as quickly as he spoke, his movements were graceful and alluring.

Tonight, the entire room seemed to spin around him. People flitted to him like moths to a flame, and he kept them there, circling his orbit, flushed and laughing. She could imagine their dazzling repartee even though she couldn't hear them, could imagine the sheer brilliance of their ideas, the sharpness of their wit.

She wanted to be one of them.

It was a ludicrous thought, she knew. She could not keep up with them. She was no Bohemian thinker; she was barely an artist. Her father was right, after all, when he told her she needed steel instead of milk and water. But still . . .

She forced her gaze deliberately to the women who stood beside him. Anne Webster seemed to sparkle beneath the onslaught of his gaze; her dark eyes were vibrant and shining, and her laughter rang through the room. How beautiful she was, flushed with his attention, alive in the sound of his words. And the woman on his left, a woman elegantly clothed in green satin and black velvet, was equally lovely. A woman who smiled into his eyes and hung on his every word. A beautiful, interesting woman.

Imogene's throat tightened. She was nothing like them. She'd already proved it once tonight, when she'd tried to charm Tremaine, when she'd tried to impress Whitaker, impress them all. She flushed with embarrassment when she remembered the way she'd stammered, offering her father's opinions instead of her own, mangling them in her usual way. When she remembered Tremaine's patronizing comment. "An honest woman. My compliments, my dear." He'd been laughing at her—even Childs's kind attempt to camouflage it hadn't hidden the truth.

She heard Whitaker's laugh across the room and winced. She wondered why he'd even brought her here. Earlier tonight, in the carriage, she had hoped maybe—just maybe—they were on their way to someplace special, that he wanted to show her something magical, to give her some insight into his art. And that hope had lasted until they stepped into the Websters' glittering parlor, and Imogene realized this was no special place at all. It was only a salon, like all the others she'd been to, like the ones her father had held when Chloe had been alive—a sparkling collection of literati and artists that left her feeling out of place and alone. She could not compete with their wit then, and she couldn't now.

This time the failing was more painful than ever. More disappointing. Because Whitaker had brought her here and she wanted to impress him, wanted that magnetic gaze turned on her. She remembered what Peter had said, how he'd told her that when Whitaker was in a certain mood, he was brilliant, a shooting star. She understood what he meant now. A shooting star. Yes, Whitaker was that.

How did one capture a shooting star?

She wished she knew. She had the feeling that if she could get close enough, if she could wait for just a little while, he might be able to help her understand the things the rest of them all took for granted. Maybe he could make her feel—for even a moment—the sheer exaltation of philosophies and ideas, or give her again the vision, the blinding passion, she'd felt the other day. The vision she had always wanted, the vision that everyone but she seemed to access so easily.

She saw him lean close to Anne Webster, whispering something in her ear, and Imogene felt a longing so strong it took her breath—and then the quick, hopeless drop of resignation. She would never get that close to him. He would never whisper in her ear that way, or laugh with her the way he was laughing with Anne now. What a silly wish it was. What a silly, stupid wish.

Still, she couldn't help thinking it, couldn't help the enticing little voice murmuring in her ear,
Oh, I wish he would smile at me that way.

Imogene turned away, taking a desperate sip of wine before she started through the crowd again—away from him, though every step putting distance between them felt painful. She heard snippets of conversations, the glib and abstract flood of thought: "But as Swedenborg said ...""... he claims to be a Transcendentalist, but I have my suspicions ...""... if all men are capable of divine inspiration, then shall we consider that 'sin' is simply a lack of spiritual development ..."

She maneuvered around the crowd, smiling a smile that felt pasted on, murmuring hellos to people who were nothing more than strangers, drifting away again before they could involve her in a conversation she could not maintain. She drank her wine until her first glass was empty, then a second, until her smile was no longer such an effort to keep up even though the room felt too close and too hot.

But she could not ignore him. In this mood he was too irresistible. She searched for a place where she could watch him surreptitiously, without interruption, and found it—a corner where the musty-smelling, heavy drapes were pulled back from the entryway. She settled into the shadows and glanced toward him, expecting to see him gesturing enthusiastically to one of the others.

He was gone.

Anxiously Imogene glanced through the crowd, looking for his tall form, for Childs's bright blond hair. They had simply disappeared. She stepped away from the curtain to scan the room more closely.

"More wine, Miss Imogene?"

She jerked around so quickly her head spun. Childs was standing beside her, a smile on his face as he held out a bottle of wine. Right behind him stood Jonas Whitaker. They'd come from nowhere; it was impossible that she hadn't heard them. It disconcerted her that she hadn't, but her confusion faded in the sharp, soaring joy of their company.

Childs poured more wine into her glass. "You'd best drink up," he said, nudging it toward her. "God knows you'll need it. Tremaine's readying to torment us with a poetry reading."

She looked down at the glass, trying to keep from grinning like an idiot over the fact that they'd searched her out. "A poetry reading?" she asked.

"We're hoping Tremaine knows more about literature than he knows about art," Whitaker said. He leaned close, smiling at her, his green eyes warm and beguiling. "How about you, Genie?" he asked. "Do you like poetry?"

He was teasing her; it made her feel strangely giddy. "Some poetry," she managed.

"That's a greater appreciation than Tremaine has, I'll warrant," Childs said dryly. "The last rhyme I heard him read began 'There was a young lady from Nice.'" He grinned audaciously at her. "And he mangled that."

Whitaker laughed. "Your polish is slipping, Rico."

"Says the man who never had any to begin with." Childs lifted his glass in tribute. He nodded at the goblet in her hand. "Miss Imogene, you're falling behind."

Obediently she took a sip. The wine tasted better than it had all night, rich and spicy and dusty on her tongue. It relaxed her now, and along with the light in Whitaker's eyes, and Childs's quick tongue, the wine took away her isolation, made her feel warm, as if she suddenly belonged. She wanted to stand here and talk with them all night—in fact, she wished she could. Because in this moment, the specter of her father's words, her own inadequacies, faded away. Standing beside them, she was touching the star.

She laughed at the thought.

Whitaker's smile broadened. He curled his fingers around her arm, and then he was bending close, whispering in her ear. "Come with me."

Come with me.
She would not have refused even if he'd given her the chance, and before she knew it, Childs was at her other side, and she was being led through the crowd so quickly the flickering lights of the candles made her dizzy, the hot, fragrant smells of beeswax and perfume stole her breath. It took her a moment to realize everyone was moving, the little social cliques were breaking up, heading toward the far end of the room. The piano music grew louder, the chattering voices sang in her head.

Then Whitaker stopped so suddenly she stumbled. She felt his hand tighten on her arm to steady her. They were standing at the front of a half circle of chairs, and she realized the room was already set up for the poetry reading Tremaine had promised. Five minutes ago, she would have taken a seat in the back and listened in silence, feeling out of place and alone. But now everything was different. In five minutes, Whitaker had changed it, and his hand on her arm, his smile, was such a startling acceptance she felt dazzled and a little winded.

"That's the way." Whitaker spoke in her ear, the words sounded strange, breathless and shivery. "You know, you're beautiful when you smile."

The comment startled her. Imogene looked up at him, sure she was hearing things, sure he could not have said the words. It was the wine. It was all illusion.

He laughed and motioned to a huge chair covered in burgundy brocade.

"Sit, Genie," he said, and his voice was deep and smooth and tantalizing. The room seemed to sway to the sound of it, the smooth, deep reds of the furniture and the drapes seemed to shimmer and pulse with light and dark shadows.

You've had too much wine
, she thought, sitting, but it felt good—decadent and somehow enlightening. It reminded her of how she'd felt the day she modeled for the class—that powerful, seductive feeling, and when Childs came to stand at the other side of her chair and poured more wine into her glass, she didn't protest. Nothing felt real. It was as if she were in a dream, a beautiful, enticing dream. She watched the people taking their seats, their exaggerated gestures and expressions, the fine satins and velvets of their clothes glimmering, their skin golden and beautiful in the light. The vision elated her, embraced her.

A laughing Anne Webster tore herself away from a group of people and moved to the front. "We've a special treat tonight," she said, beaming. "Mr. Davis Tremaine has offered to read from Walt Whitman's new poetry collection. It's a stunning achievement, I understand."

"Quite stunning," Tremaine said, ambling over to stand beside Anne. "And quite shameless, I might add."

"All the better." Anne laughed. "Please, Davis, the floor is yours."

Tremaine smiled. His frock coat was unbuttoned to reveal a gold-embroidered waistcoat, the shiny threads glinting in the glow of the candles. He reached into a pocket and took out his glasses, settling them on his thin, pointed nose before he reached for the book lying on a nearby table. Though the intricate, tendriled lettering was hard to read through her unfocused eyes, Imogene made out the words
Leaves of Grass
stamped onto the dark green leather cover of the thin chapbook.

"Which one shall you read, Davis?" Anne asked. "I must confess I've barely read it myself, but I've heard such scandalous things."

"Which is precisely why you decided you had to own it," Leonard Webster teased from his place against the far wall. He toasted his wife with his glass. "Find Anne the most decadent poem, won't you, Tremaine? If you don't, tonight's conversation could be most dreary."

"The one thing Anne isn't is dreary," came a voice from the crowd. "Scandalous poems or no."

Laughter greeted the remark. Imogene heard Childs's chuckle just behind her. He was leaning against the right side of her chair, with Whitaker flanking the left, and the two of them made her feel oddly safe—her own archangels, guardians of the gate. She laughed at the thought.

Far too much wine,
she thought, looking down into her glass and knowing she should put it aside. But almost as she had the thought, Childs poured more, and there was such a sense of companionship in his gesture, such an engaging smile on his face, that she took another sip just to please him.

"Perhaps this one," Tremaine said, pausing as he leafed through the pages of the book. He read a few lines silently and then looked up at his audience with a smile. He adjusted his glasses and spread the volume wider and cleared his throat.