Chapter Eighteen
It’s a relief that Claude doesn’t disappear like he did the last time Ambrose visited.
In fact, he is more present than he’s been for weeks now, staying home instead of going out to his endless stream of parties.
He is there across the table at breakfast, there watching out the window when I sit on the back porch to read.
Like he’s afraid to let me out of his sight.
Yet at the same time he’s uncharacteristically quiet, his brow furrowed whenever I look over at him. And he never asks to paint. I watch him across the table at dinner, while he swirls blood-tinged wine in his glass and frowns into the distance, chin propped up with one hand.
I sigh. “Aren’t you going to paint today?” I ask. “It’s been more than a week.”
Claude shifts his arm aside. His eyes flash toward me, long lashes obscuring an irritated look. “I thought you said it didn’t matter if I painted again.”
I suppress a sigh, and a biting comment. The last thing I want to do is send him into another one of those sulks again. “It doesn’t matter to me, but it sounded like it matters to you. And isn’t that why you hired me? To inspire you?”
He groans, leaning back in his chair and shutting his eyes.
I study him, trying to gauge his mood, but the pale angles of his face are impossible to read. “I thought you wanted to paint.”
“I do,” he says. Then he frowns. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s not so simple.”
“I don’t see why it can’t be,” I say. “You don’t have to paint some masterpiece. Just paint… something. Anything.”
He sinks further in his chair, looking half melted and very dramatic. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Then help me understand. What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid?” he repeats. His eyes slowly open, fixed on the ceiling. “Indeed, what is there to fear? Aside from proving that I am and forever will be a failure. That I didn’t deserve the immortality they granted me. Disappointing my sire, my court, my valentine, myself…”
I sigh, pushing up to my feet. “Well, I’m honored I made the list,” I say, slowly walking down the length of the table to his side. “But I couldn’t really care less about all that. I like you despite the fact you’re an artist.”
His head lolls back as he gazes up at me, a slight smile curving his lips. “You like me?” But then his eyes go distant, his expression pensive. “Perhaps I should run away and become a… a farmer. A simple man living off the land…”
“Claude, you wouldn’t survive a day on a farm.
” I touch his chin, guiding his gaze back to me.
I’m not sure why I’m trying so hard at this.
My contract isn’t dependent on getting him to paint.
But… I want to see him happy. My mother was always happiest when she was working.
“Why don’t you try painting something fun? ”
He makes a face.
“Oh, does that offend the serious artist in you?” I ask, teasing. “Okay, it doesn’t have to be fun if that’s so against your principles, but it can just be… I don’t know. Just for you.”
His brow creases in thought. “Just for me…”
“It could even be temporary. You can tear it up afterward, or burn it, I don’t care. You don’t have to show me, or anyone.”
“Temporary,” he repeats. Then his gaze turns sly. “Mm… I have an idea.”
* * *
“This is not what I had in mind,” I say, standing in the middle of the room while Claude mixes paints on his palette.
I feel exposed in my white sundress, the hem skimming above my knees.
He’s donned a deep V-neck shirt and tight trousers that are about as close to casual as I’ve ever seen him.
But his hair is still in disarray, wild curls springing every which way.
His eyes are bright, almost wild, but shadows linger beneath them.
“You’ll have to trust my artistic vision,” he says, looking pleased with himself. “Personally, I think it’s brilliant. Maybe all this time what I really needed was a beautiful canvas to work upon.”
I roll my eyes and grit my teeth. I hate when he says things like that, because I know it’s the sort of line he must use with everyone. But most of all, I hate the way it sends butterflies through my stomach. My body reacts to his flirtations even though my mind knows better.
When he kneels on the tile, heat slowly creeps up the back of my neck, over my ears, until it consumes my entire face in red-hot fire. I try to think of something else, anything else to distract me from what’s happening, but it’s impossible when he’s on his knees in front of me.
“There has to be a better way to do this,” I mutter, averting my gaze and trying to take deep breaths.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” Claude asks, seemingly more focused on his paints. When I don’t answer, he looks up at me. “Nora?”
“No,” I say, my throat tight.
I should be glad I succeeded at getting him to paint again. I just didn’t think he would be painting on me. Or that it would feel so charged. The air is practically crackling between us.
Surely he can hear the rapid drumbeat of my heart, but he gives no sign of it. His expression is open and easy, unfazed. He’s probably done this a hundred times before, with a hundred women. Probably some men, too. Why should I affect him?
He reaches out and touches my ankle. I shiver at the coolness of his fingers against my skin as he leads my bare foot to rest on his thigh. Instinctively, I grab his shoulder to steady myself.
He shoots me an amused glance. “You can rest your full weight on me. I promise I can take it.”
“Right.” Sometimes it’s dangerously easy to forget how strong he is. Those long artist’s fingers could probably crush bone, yet he cradles his paintbrush with such gentleness.
“Just try to stay still,” he murmurs. He dips the paintbrush into his green paint and brings it up to my leg.
He hesitates for a moment and then the brush drags over the skin of my calf in one long stroke.
Cool paint, cooler fingers gripping me to help keep me in place.
Goose bumps shiver over every inch of my body, and I resist the urge to squirm, staring fixedly at a wall behind Claude’s head.
Watching him do this feels oddly sensual…
yet after a few seconds I can’t resist a glance.
There’s a furrow on the normally smooth skin between his brows, and his eyes are narrowed in concentration beneath his long lashes.
After a little while, though, that furrow disappears. His eyes soften. His expression of concentration fades into something different, something open and vulnerable.
I realize I’m staring and look away. There’s a glowing warmth in my chest. I’m just happy for him, I tell myself. He’s finally painting.
Once he starts, he’s like a man possessed.
He paints around my calf, my knee, my thigh, all the way up to the hem of my dress.
Then he switches to the other leg, pausing only for me to find my balance again.
Once I get used to it, the brush of paint becomes pleasant, a delicate tease of sensation over my skin.
Claude’s fingertips, too, ghost over my body, here and gone again, maneuvering me with an ease that would be disconcerting if it weren’t him.
When he sets my foot on the floor and stands, I expect him to be finished.
But instead he takes one of my arms and continues painting on my skin.
Here it is easier to see his work, to watch as vines dance over my skin and petals bloom, a bouquet of flowers spreading over my body.
It’s so lovely it makes my breath hitch, yet my eyes keep wandering back to his face instead of his work.
He seems lost in his art, his face so relaxed and open, his lips holding the slightest curve.
When he reaches my collarbone, he pauses. His eyes drag up to meet mine. Then he releases me and steps back, walking in a slow circle around me.
I stand still, flushed under the scrutiny but trying to tell myself it’s not me he’s staring at. He’s admiring his work, that’s all.
When he comes around to the front again, he nods once, approving. “You need to see the full effect.” He takes my hand, stepping backward as he leads me. “Come, come.”
He takes me to the parlor and poses me in front of a full-length mirror, gently brushing my hair back behind my shoulders. “Look,” he says, and steps aside.
I lift my eyes to my reflection, and my breath hitches.
I thought of the painting as a bouquet earlier, but it’s more than that; my skin is transformed into a garden in full bloom.
Red and purple and white petals burst across my skin, along with crawling green vines and leaves ripe with springtime life.
Lush and vivid and wild. It seems to slide over my skin as I twist and turn to observe myself, giving the effect of a breeze rustling the petals and leaves.
I turn slowly, craning my neck so that I can see the back of my arms and legs. Every time I look, I seem to find new details.
“That’s ivy,” Claude says, finger tracing along the green leaves climbing my arm. “Red roses, of course. Myrtle, and dahlias…”
Dahlias. I think back to my dress at the Valentine’s Day Ball, and Claude’s words to me: They symbolize eternal love, in the Victorian language of flowers. What do the rest mean? I wonder. The words stick in my throat; I’m almost afraid to ask.
Claude steps up behind me, gazing over my shoulder. Our eyes meet in the mirror.
“It’s incredible,” I say. “You’re incredible.”
His eyes widen slightly and then crinkle at the corners as he breaks into a smile wider than I’ve seen from him before.
I flush, studying the art on my skin again as an excuse to avoid eye contact. Surely he must hear compliments like that all the time; I didn’t expect mine to have such an effect on him. But I suppose it’s been a long while since he’s created something new.
“It seems almost a shame that we’re the only ones who get to see it,” I murmur. “You could take a picture.”
“Mm, no.” He steps closer, one hand brushing against my lower back as he gazes at me in the mirror. “It was created to be private. We’ll let it remain private.”
There is something fitting about it. Flowers on my skin, as temporary and beautiful as in life. We’re both quiet for a while as we look at his work.
Eventually, I clear my throat. “I hate to ruin the moment, but it’s starting to itch…”
Part of me expects him to argue, or to fall into one of his melancholy moods at the thought of losing his newest artwork so quickly, but Claude throws back his head and laughs. “We should get you cleaned up, then.”
“We?” I ask, flustered.
“It seems a pain to wash yourself, no?” he asks. He tilts his head to one side, a mischievous glint in his eye belying his innocent expression. “It will be easier if you let me help.”
I think of him kneeling in front of me. His fingers gripping me as the paintbrush whispered over my skin. Dangerous.
“Fine,” I say, before I can think better of it.
His eyes widen, but he quickly covers the look of surprise as he bows and offers his arm like a gentleman at the ball. “Allow me to show you to my bathroom, mademoiselle. The biggest and best the house has to offer.”
My lips quirk. “Ridiculous,” I huff, but I take his arm anyway, and let him lead me toward the bathroom.