Chapter Three #2
Sandrine shot to her feet, excitement, tingling life flooding through her. ‘He is here? Now? Oh, I must change my gown! And my hair…’ She touched her hair, so carefully dressed earlier, now sadly tousled. Oh, why hadn’t she been more careful?
Justine shook her head. She rushed forward to try and unknot the ties of Sandrine’s painting apron. ‘There is no time, mademoiselle. He is coming up here now. Your mother could not stop him.’
‘Here?’ Sandrine gasped. He truly was eager to see her, be with her!
But oh, the room was a mess, a tangle of canvas and paints and rags, and she had quite tumbled apart herself.
She ran around, shoving things under chairs, until she heard someone on the stairs outside.
She went perfectly still, smiling, trying to stay calm, to be elegant.
She heard the door open and spun around to see Alain standing in the doorway. Her doorway. It was stunning, like one of those fantastical dreams dropped into real life. He looked even more impossibly gorgeous, windswept, his eyes glowing. She stared and stared, utterly frozen.
‘Do forgive me, Mademoiselle Jaubert,’ he said, and raked his hand through his hair.
He seemed quite embarrassed at his impetuousness.
He wouldn’t quite look at her, and she felt a tiny touch of cold doubt.
This wasn’t quite how she pictured the scene.
‘I have come to see if you would care for a drive this afternoon. I am not sure how long this sunshine will last.’
Sandrine swallowed hard, praying she would find her voice. ‘I should like that very much, Monsieur d’Alency,’ she squeaked out. ‘I fear I am a bit, er, untidy, though.’
Justine slipped out, and Alain glanced at Sandrine, then glanced away again, his study taking in the whole room.
She wasn’t sure he really saw it, though, he seemed so distant.
‘You look most charming, I assure you, mademoiselle. Are you quite sure I’m not taking you away from your work?
Your mother said it can be hard to pull you away. ’
Sandrine laughed. ‘Only because she wants someone to sit and admire her embroidery for hours on end. I hardly lock myself in here all the time. It’s merely my little art room.’
Something seemed to spark in his eyes, and he moved around, taking in a sketch, a scene, a paintbox. She nudged the wedding-gown sketchbook deeper beneath a cushion. ‘You truly are an artist, then?’
‘Oh, no, not an artist, though I dare say I should like to be one. It’s a dear dream, an escape, more than anything.’
‘An escape into this room?’
‘Yes. My very own little space. Also an escape into my own mind, where no one can see what I’m doing, thinking.
Where I am free. The colours and lines, the emotions they create, they take me there.
I cannot travel as I would like, so I go in my mind.
’ Sandrine was astonished; she’d never said such things to anyone, never told anyone her deepest hopes and dreams. What was it about Alain?
He glanced at her, very still and watchful. ‘I envy you that. What a marvellous gift it must be. I, too, would like to see new places.’
He sounded so wistful, Sandrine’s heart ached for him. ‘You have no place where you can escape?’
‘Once I did, I think. But life makes demands.’ He turned back to the painting he examined, an image of the sea at evening, everything holding its breath as if it waited for something very profound. ‘This is quite good. Very good.’
‘Do you think so?’ Sandrine said, feeling ridiculously pleased by the little compliment. ‘I wasn’t sure I quite captured that quiet sense I wanted…’
He stepped to the easel where she had just been working, and reached for the canvas cover. ‘And what is this one?’
She stepped forward, frantic to stop him looking. ‘Oh, no, that one is very rough still! Far from ready for anyone to look at it.’
The cover had already fallen away though, and he took in the sweep of the unfinished lines, the roiling, passionate emotions she was so desperate to let out. ‘How extraordinary,’ he said quietly. ‘Where is this? Cornwall?’
Sandrine bit her lip. ‘Yes. I have never been there, but my father says it makes him think of Normandy. I do read a great deal, and I think I can see it all in my mind. A place of such wild drama, such human truth. So many fierce, real emotions. I do so wish I could find a place that reflects all that I feel inside. That accepts it.’
‘You have captured that perfectly. I would never have imagined the colours of a sky could show such longing,’ he said quietly, and she wondered if he, too, yearned for that freedom and authenticity. If maybe, just maybe, they could look for that together.
‘Have you been there? You’ve probably seen so much more of the world than I have.’
He was still looking at the painting, examining every inch of it. ‘It has always been my great hope to travel. To test myself, make my own way.’ He said nothing more, studying the painting rather than looking at her.
‘I understand.’ And she did. She, too, wanted so much more than the little corner of London she was allowed.
‘I’m sure one day you will. How have you not…
?’ She broke off, embarrassed. He had no money for such travel, of course.
That was why he was here today. She’d been a fool to forget that for even a moment.
‘I think you must suit a place like Cornwall, or Normandy.’
He glanced at her over his shoulder, a bemused little smile on his face. ‘How so?’
‘You have that freedom inside of you.’
He laughed. ‘Do I?’
‘Yes. Maybe you should travel to Spain. El Greco is one of my favourite artists. So dramatic and full of expression. You remind me of one of his princes or saints.’
He laughed humourlessly, and she sensed he distanced himself again. ‘I am no saint, I promise you, Mademoiselle Jaubert.’
Sandrine knew that must be true, in the worldly sense of the word.
She’d heard of his love of cards and horses, probably of women, too.
His easy, confident way through the London world.
But she knew now that so many other things lurked beneath.
If only he would let her see them, let her show him all of herself in return!
If only she could bridge that distance between them.
‘One needn’t be a saint in deed to pose as one.
I am sure no one believes the models in his Madonna and Child with Saint Martina and Saint Agnes were actually virgins floating above the rest of the world.
Imperia Cognati, who was Raphael’s favourite model, was a famous courtesan, I think. ’
‘What a surprise you are, mademoiselle.’
She could read nothing in his cool tone; it was quite maddening.
‘I told you, I do read a great deal. But don’t tell my mother that.
’ She tilted her head to examine him more closely, that sharp line of his cheekbones, the tumble of his hair, the shadows behind his eyes.
‘I really would like to paint you. The light seems to love the angles of your face.’
He shook his head brusquely. ‘I’m sure I would prove most unsatisfactory to your vision. Shall we go out before the daylight has faded? I borrowed a carriage, and should hate for it to go to waste.’
Sandrine felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment, at how easily she’d let her guard down with him.
She was glad he couldn’t see the stacks of her sketchbooks, all those gowns and hats!
How silly he would think her. She tugged the cover down over her painting.
‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry I kept you so long.
Let me just change my frock. I shall only be a moment. ’
The day was still quite bright when Sandrine emerged from the house to find Alain waiting with a dashing little curricle, sunny yellow and black. If they couldn’t escape London, couldn’t fly off on travels, at least they would see it in style that day.
He held out his hand to help her up onto the high seat.
She studied it for an instant before she dared take it, resting her fingers on his.
That heated spark she remembered when he had touched her before shot through her all over again, like a dash of warm water, a flash of light through a storm, and she shivered.
She hated to lose that startling, amazing sensation when she was seated and he let go to climb up beside her.
She sensed the weight of attention on her, eyes watching avidly from the drawing-room windows, as she smoothed the skirts of her smoke-blue dress around her.
Her mother, no doubt, watching anxiously, hoping her odd little daughter would do nothing to ruin those aristocratic dreams just as they seemed so close.
Alain gathered up the reins, his arm brushing hers before he quickly drew away.
Sandrine smiled up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet, taking in that beautiful profile she still itched to sketch, the pale glow of his eyes. He slanted a little smile down at her, too quickly gone.
‘Thank you for taking me out today,’ she said. ‘It was all feeling rather—close indoors.’
He guided them smoothly, expertly into traffic.
‘I know the feeling. You should try sitting in a drawing room with my two sisters. Ribbons and fashion papers and slippers everywhere. And the shrieking. Mon Dieu! One moment they will try and tear each other’s hair out, and the next they are laughing and whispering as bosom companions.
’ He moved around another vehicle, and she couldn’t help but admire his elegant, long-fingered hands in their dark gloves, the easy control he had on the horse, on his surroundings. Driving seemed like breathing to him.
‘I should like to have had a sister. Or a brother. It gets rather quiet and lonely being the only one.’ The one with all the hopes on her. She wondered again if maybe, possibly, she and Alain could be something else together, find a new way.