Sixteen
Cam gazed around the small space in surprise, her hand still warm from his touch.
He had led her up a short flight that reversed at a landing, to a long but narrow room.
The space was lit by a row of windows angled above them, following the line of the slanted roof overhead.
Four bars, here we come, she thought. Through the diamond-paned glass, the orange-red rays of the sun spread like the layers of a tequila sunrise.
Across the room, a set of double doors were opened to a narrow balcony.
An easel stood against the south wall, next to shelves of brushes and jars.
In the center of the room a double-sided fireplace, beside which Peter now crouched, rose from the floor to the roof.
An upholstered chaise sat across from the easel.
“This studio is for my evening work,” he said. “We have light full west.”
The room’s sensibility differed immensely from that of the lower rooms of the house, partly because of the smaller scale of the elements—a lantern instead of sconces and chandeliers, shelves instead of a workbench—and partly, Cam realized when she turned, because of a low, wide settee that stretched out in the darkened space on the other side of the fireplace.
Covered in etched velvet, the settee’s cushion was perfectly flat and long enough to seat four with ease. Several plush throws lay folded near one arm, and a dozen or more cushions in various silks and Far Eastern prints camouflaged the settee’s odd depth and high-backed frame.
When she spotted the decanter of pale yellow wine and glasses on a low side table, she realized with a small gasp that it wasn’t just a settee. It was a seducing couch.
His evening work, eh?
She turned and crossed her arms. “My fiancé says he despises an evening light.”
As she’d hoped, Lely flinched at the word fiancé. Nonetheless, he continued his arrangement of dry grass and kindling beneath the grate.
“Why is that?” he said.
“He says it makes every brushstroke lie.”
Peter stopped and turned, and Cam instantly realized her error.
“Your fiancé is a painter?”
“He is…” The wheels of her mind spun but nothing came. “…a painter, aye.”
“Would he not prefer to paint you himself?”
Cam felt the familiar rush of embarrassment. “No. This is meant to be a surprise.”
He returned his gaze to the kindling. “What’s his name?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t know him.”
“I know almost all of them.”
“Jacob,” she said. “Jacob Ryan.”
“Ah,” he said, brushing his hands on his breeks and standing. “You’re right. I don’t know him. Irish, is he?”
“His father, yes. His mother’s from London.”
“And his work?”
“Portraits, mostly.” She thought of the fruit in Lucite.
“Some, er, still lifes.” Still lifes were what she had once painted.
She waited for Peter’s dismissal of the genre.
Portraitists were notoriously snobby when it came to still lifes.
Of course, in the 1600s, “historical” paintings—scenes from the Bible, mythology or history—were considered the highest form of painting, so Lely’s work was already a step down from the top rung of the ladder.
She wondered on what rung Restoration-era painters would put the sort of post-conceptual art Jacket did.
Probably a ladder in a different universe.
Lely made no comment, just picked up the lantern he’d brought from below, and used a stiff piece of paper to move the flame to the kindling. The room filled with a golden glow just as footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Who goes?” Lely demanded.
“Tom, sir.” The lad popped into view with a tray of food in one hand and a decanter of ruby red liquid in the other. “I have given your message to Miss—”
“Thank you, Tom. Put the tray there. Instruct Stephen to prepare my standard palette, with the exception of carmine and ochre. Four brushes. Not the boar’s bristle.” Tom nodded and placed the tray as directed.
Like an architect envisioning a cathedral, Peter appraised her form.
“A quarter-size, I should think,” he said, more to himself than anyone else, as he flipped through bare canvases leaning against the wall.
He untied his neckcloth and tossed it on a table.
“May I assume we have abandoned the notion of Athena, Mrs. Post?”
She wasn’t even sure she wanted a portrait, but the room appeared to be fitted for only one other potential occupation. “Aye.”
“Have the apprentices finished for the evening?” Lely asked Tom, who paused at the top of the stairs.
“Aye, sir.”
“And Miss Gwyn?”
“Gone.”
Cam, wondered if the dress had gone with her.
“Thank you, Tom. No interruptions. Let Stephen know. Handsomely, now.”
Cam gazed longingly at the cheese, olives, grapes, and rolls. She hadn’t actually eaten that hot dog.
Unbuttoning his waistcoat, Lely caught her look and smiled. “The cheese is from Gloucester. The rolls from my cook. She has a delicate hand. Enjoy. You can’t eat after I begin,” he said and disappeared into the area with the seducing couch.
Cam dropped reluctantly on the chaise, still clutching her purse, and cut a slice of cheese.
She gazed at the knife, steel with a narwhal and mermaid entwined in the carved wooden handle.
It was a fine detail, and she was determined to add it to her manuscript when—if—she returned.
Distracted, she chewed without thinking, but the cheese’s smooth, buttery flavor was hard to ignore.
She wondered if she could hide the extraction of the phone in another movement, like the filling of her glass.
She adjusted her body so that her back was between the purse and Lely, and popped the flap open. She turned to check on him. He was out of sight. She’d ease the phone out and walk to the window, and she’d be golden. She turned back, slid her hand forward—
Lely lifted the bag from her knee.
Oh.
“Try this,” he said, the purse and the decanter of white wine in one hand, a glass outstretched in the other.
“Um…” She took the glass. It was filled with the same white wine as the decanter. “You don’t care for the red?”
“Not for our work.” He placed the bag on a table by the easel.
Out of ideas, she tossed back a gulp. The wine was cool and velvety.
Unlike a Pinot or Chardonnay or, in fact, any other white she’d ever had, this wine boasted the intensity of a brandy or sherry.
Prickles of warmth stung her cheeks. Yowzah!
It was heavenly. The Macallan of whites.
She took another sip and suddenly the wool of Lely’s coat began to feel warm.
She flipped it off her shoulders and caught him observing her.
He looked away but not before another round of warmth rose up her neck. She liked the way he looked at her. It was neither intrusive nor surgical. It was warm and admiring.
“Won’t you pour one for yourself?”
“I don’t drink while I work.”
Cam wished she had something on which to take notes.
Lely was emptying powders and liquids from different jars into tiny ceramic bowls.
She thought it might be alcohol, but when the scent reached her nose, she knew it was turpentine.
The techniques of Lely’s time were the subject of a certain amount of conjecture by art historians.
She watched his preparations with interest. She watched his face with even more interest.
“That’s quite a selection,” she observed, gesturing toward the shelves stacked with supplies.
He shrugged. “Tools of the trade.”
“I thought you asked for Stephen to prepare your palette.”
“There are a few colors I prefer to make myself.”
The fire began to do its job, and he loosened a button under the hollow of his throat. The linen fell open and a narrow swath of chestnut hairs came into view. Cam took another long sip and watched them sparkle in the firelight.
“This is really strong wine.”
“Rhenish,” he said without lifting his eyes from his work. “Finish it and pour yourself another.”
Ah, so that’s how it worked, was it? The wine loosened the tongue, then the inhibitions, then the dress.
She thought of the woman with the peony and that pale, unfettered breast. Had that been the gleam of Rhenish in her eye?
Is that what those finishing touches of white in the iris had captured?
And what had come after the finishing touches?
Or in an artist’s garret like this, were the finishing touches something quite removed from the canvas?
Cam turned her gaze to that low, cushioned settee and drained the glass.
She had been seduced a handful of times—not that she intended to allow Lely to seduce her, of course—but she didn’t think she had ever been so acutely aware of the machinations of seduction in a man who had not touched her and who, in fact, had barely spoken to her. It was unusual and intriguing.
He finished his table work and gave her a long, considering look.
“The blue,” he said. “It will not suit.”
She almost laughed. If he intended to strip her of the dressing gown, it would take more than a simple declaratory sentence.
“I don’t know what you mean.” She refilled her glass and stretched out on the chaise. “It’s stunning.”
“It brings out your eyes,” he said, raising the tray of the easel a few inches, “which are stunning. But in this portrait your hair will predominate. We need a paprika or an olive. If you do not mind, find something pleasing in the wardrobe. There’s a mirror.
Make certain it puts flames to your curls. ”
Cam was flattered he had chosen to pay homage to her hair. She knew exactly the colors that set off the lustrous red-blond best, and she made her way to the choices.
“Mr. Lely? Are you there?”
A thin, quavering voice rose on the stairs. A woman. Not Miss Kate.
Lely’s eyes narrowed. Rubbing his hands on a clean rag, he stepped to the top. “Aye?” Immediately he clapped a hand to his forehead. “Dear heavens. My poor Miss Quinn. Has someone not attended to you?” He hurried down the stairs to the small landing.