Chapter 7 #2
Caroline shifted a little. “I’m surprised you notice such things. But why would you think that meant pink was my favorite color?”
“Because you often wear a little of it. And when I was with Julia a few months ago, she was stitching handkerchiefs for your birthday and chose pink thread for your initials.”
Caroline swallowed hard. If she had been making a measure of Simone, it seemed this woman…this sophisticated, sensual courtesan who could have anyone in the world she wanted, had been doing the same with Caroline.
“I do like pink,” Caroline managed to choke out. “I’ve always thought it a happy color. It’s soft and sweet. I’m sure that seems silly to you.”
“The world is hard enough,” Simone said after a little hesitation. “It needs more softness and sweetness. Now, what do you think of the artist who is presenting tonight?”
Caroline could hardly think her head was spinning so much. The artist. Who was the artist? She looked to the front of the room and saw some of the works Lena and Harriet Smith were displaying there before the presentation began. Sloane. Emmerick Sloane, that was his name.
“He—he’s very good,” she said. “I like the—the composition of his landscapes.”
“Do you?” Simone said with a laugh. “You sound a little flustered.”
Caroline pursed her lips. Simone was teasing her and there was so much of her that liked it. It felt easy and playful, like she often saw between Arabella and Silas. Familiar, intimate. But she wasn’t those things with Simone, even if they had kissed twice. “I do. What about you?”
“His color work is fine, yes,” Simone said. “I’ve never liked the way he paints the dogs in the scenes, though.”
“The dogs?” Caroline lifted her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Next time you look at his work, examine their eyes. Almost human. It’s unnerving. Like a child trapped by a curse.”
Caroline lifted a hand to her lips and tried to choke back a guffaw that would have certainly brought every gaze in the room to them. “You are terrible.”
“No, their unblinking eyes are terrible.” As if to punctuate the opinion, Simone widened her eyes and tilted her head. “Please help me, Mrs. Banfield. Free me from the curse.”
“Stop,” Caroline giggled. “Oh, they’re coming to the dais. You must stop.”
Simone didn’t agree, but she stopped making the silly face and Caroline managed to get her giggles under control as Sloane was introduced and he began to talk about the genesis of his style and the influences.
She even kept herself composed when he discussed the importance of animals in his works and pointed out the dogs in one piece specifically.
From a distance, she couldn’t see the eyes, but she couldn’t help but bite back laughter.
All the while she felt Simone’s gaze on her.
She might have explained it as only being in her sight line to the art at the front of the room, but that wasn’t it.
Simone was watching her, leaning a little too closely sometimes.
By the time the gentleman was finished and the audience had asked their questions, Caroline was heated and fanned herself as she got to her feet and followed Simone away from the seating area and toward a more open part of the large parlor where refreshments were being served.
“May I ask you something?” Simone asked after she’d taken two drinks from one of the trays being circulated and handed one to Caroline.
She nodded. “Of course.”
“Why haven’t you ever pursued taking a lover? Or even marrying again?”
Caroline had just taken a large sip of her drink and she choked on the unexpected and very direct question. Somehow she managed not to spit madeira across the room and swallowed.
“Too much?” Simone asked softly, not allowing anyone else to hear what they were discussing.
Caroline dropped her own voice to match. “N-no. I’m simply uncertain how to answer the question.”
“Why is that? You must have had interest.” Simone’s eyes moved over her. “You are far too beautiful and fascinating not to attract attention.”
Caroline dipped her head. “I’m not sure I ever noticed any. But I admit I am not…I don’t have any interest in men. I-I never have.”
There. Now she had admitted that part of herself.
The one that was so different from her friends and nieces.
Everyone around her seemed to want to bask in male attention, sought it from their lovers and husbands.
Looked forward to it, even. And she had always been…
was it broken when it came to that? It didn’t feel broken, just empty.
Simone hadn’t responded, but was just staring at her as if she truly saw her for the first time. She shifted. “Do you see Lena and Harriet over there standing beside Mr. Sloane, probably cooing over his art?”
Caroline nodded. This seemed to be a change of subject, but perhaps that was for the best. “Yes. I see them.”
“What do you think they are to each other?”
Caroline blinked. “I…What do you mean? They’re friends, I think. Partners in the salon.”
“Look closer,” Simone encouraged. “Lena just brushed her fingers against Harriet’s lower back. They look at each other for a little too long sometimes. And they have all these private jokes that hang between them. The kind you can only form with someone you trust and care for deeply.”
Caroline did look, truly look, at the two women, and to her shock, she immediately saw what she had been blind to for so long. There was clearly a spark between them. More than a spark. There was emotion and connection and passion that sparkled in every look and laugh and smile.
“Oh,” she whispered. “You think they’re lovers.”
“I don’t think it, sweet,” Simone said. Caroline shifted at the use of the pet name. “If you aren’t interested in men, you are certainly not the only one.”
Caroline worried her lip. “You mean that I might be interested in…” She dropped her voice and looked around to be sure no one was listening. “…women.”
Well, now she’d said it, let it loose into the world the idea just sat in her chest. But it wasn’t heavy like a stone, it was something different.
Almost like a balloon that now filled with air and expanded everything inside of her.
Her mind flashed to various images, memories of moments that she’d shoved aside for years.
How she’d noticed a fellow little girl’s pretty hands when she was a child.
How the laughter of ladies had always given her a thrill of energy and excitement.
How she’d cried and cried when her closest childhood friend Lillian had married a man she fell in love with.
How she’d avoided seeing her after that because the sense of loss was too sharp.
She’d felt all those things in those moments and then found ways to explain them or ignore them or forget them.
But now they aligned themselves in sudden and perfectly readable formation.
Where she had no interest in any man she’d ever met, even the kind or handsome or attentive ones, she had occasionally felt that thrill of desire or interest with a lady.
Especially ladies she felt safe and comfortable around. Like Simone.
“Is that…” She swallowed. “Is that possible?”
“Only you know that.” Simone fully faced her again.
Caroline drew in a long, shaky breath. “But I’m nearly forty now, how could it take me this long to know this about myself? How could it be a secret?”
“Because Society doesn’t like it?” Simone said.
“It has only ever seen you as…as someone’s potential wife or mother.
A man’s wife, an heir’s mother. What else were you to do but follow the path set before you?
Luckily, it’s never too late to find another, especially you now have a level of independence that you didn’t at eighteen or twenty-five. ”
Caroline jerked her gaze to Simone’s face and met her eyes. There was panic rising in her but the calm certainty with which Simone reacted to this shared revelation eased that a little. She swallowed. “I-I feel a little overwhelmed and still uncertain.”
They were surrounded by people in the parlor but it felt like there was a bubble formed around them for this quiet and deeply intimate conversation. Simone leaned even closer. “Who do you picture when you touch yourself?”
Caroline jolted. “Simone!” she whispered harshly, and looked around once more. No one had noticed. No one was even looking at them.
Simone’s brow wrinkled. “Do you? Touch yourself?”
Caroline ought to have walked away. Stopped this conversation that ladies didn’t have.
Only she was a lady no matter what else had just changed in her life but she was still having this talk and she…
wanted to have it. She wanted Simone to know about that part of her no one else in the world saw or had ever seen.
“I…don’t,” she admitted.
“Hmmm.” Simone seemed not disappointed but sad for her. “Perhaps if you picture the right partner you might like it. Or not. It isn’t wrong, no matter what you feel or do.”
It isn’t wrong, no matter what you feel or do.
That sentence rang in Caroline’s mind like a bell someone had rung.
It echoed through every part of her. Had she ever been given such grace by anyone in her life?
Been made to feel that anything she felt or didn’t feel, was or wasn’t, wore or didn’t like…
that it was all acceptable and lovely? That she couldn’t be wrong if she was simply… Caroline.
“Simone,” she whispered, and reached for her, brushing her fingers against Simone’s.
Simone jerked like the touch almost burned and sucked in her breath. “Too many people, Caroline,” she whispered, this time harshly. “Some are looking already. You should…you should go.”
Caroline blinked and looked around. The room felt loud again, the people close even though no one was truly looking at them in more than passing.
But she had forgotten herself because of Simone.
Forgotten everything except for her, no matter what promises they’d made to return to nothing more than a friendly acquaintance.
“You’re right,” she whispered. “Good night, Simone.”