Chapter 6 #3
She watched and listened, honed her fighting skills, made friends with some of the lesser servants, and slowly, but slowly, built a refuge within her prison.
Perhaps it was Monsieur David’s fiery rhetoric, fueled by the Revolution happening beyond the walls of her home-like prison.
Perhaps the artist’s determination and belief that one should rule oneself, that no royal family or clique had the right to impose control over another, had given Narcise hope.
After all, if an entire city, no, a country, could overthrow its reigning family and weaken the grip of an entire privileged class, why could one woman not overthrow her own personal dictator?
By the time the maid Monique had helped Narcise with a simple day dress and covered it with a painting smock, she had hardly enough time to plait her mistress’s hair in a fat black braid.
The knock on the door to her adjoining parlor heralded Monsieur David’s arrival and Narcise followed her maid into the next room. Monique answered the door to the artist as Narcise began to sort through her canvases, but when she turned to greet her teacher, she faltered.
Confused, but recovering, she turned to her maid.
“Monique,” she said in a brusque tone, “you may go. Bonjour, monsieur.” Something was not right, and awareness teased her consciousness along with an odd mixture of scents lingering in her nose.
She swallowed, tasting and smelling a familiar presence.
The artist, wearing a low-brimmed hat that showed his dark brown curls, strode into the chamber with his familiar satchel of paints, brushes, and palette.
He appeared to have had his hair trimmed since she’d last seen him, a week earlier.
His long coat, perhaps one too long for the summer, swirled about his powerful, breech-covered legs as he placed the bag on a table.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he said. His words were thick and oddly pronounced due to a tumor that deformed his cheek and mouth, but were perhaps a bit deeper in tone today.
“Shall we begin? But no, you are not yet ready for me.” His disgust at the delay was clearly apparent in his voice and stance, and Monique, intelligent girl that she was, beat a hasty retreat.
David was not known for his patience nor his tact.
By now, Narcise’s palms were damp and her stomach had filled with swirling, fluttering emotions. Was it possible?
“Of course, Monsieur David. I am nearly ready; I was only looking for the camel hair brush that you insisted my brother have made for me.”
All of her paintbrushes had handles made of bamboo or light metal, for Cezar would not allow anything resembling a wooden stake into her chambers. Her rooms were regularly searched for such contraband as well.
The door had closed behind Monique, and for the first time, the man’s eyes, still shadowed by the wide brim of his hat, met Narcise’s. The irises were brown, flecked with blue and ringed with black, and the last time she’d seen them, they’d been hot with desire.
Narcise’s stomach did a quick flip, leaving her unsteady and weak. It was him. She’d scented Giordan Cale beneath the cloak, hat, and satchel that also smelled of Jacques-Louis David, but until their gazes locked, she wasn’t certain.
She gave a little warning shake of her head even as she turned to gather up her painting accoutrements, trying to keep her suddenly nerveless fingers from dropping the brushes and palette.
“Ah, here it is,” she said, producing the brush in question.
She could see, now that she actually looked at him, the way his right cheek bulged—just as Monsieur David’s did.
It changed the shape of his face, and along with the heavy brim of the hat, there was little to see unless one looked very closely.
“So now you are at last ready for me?” he asked, still in that thick voice of disguise, still managing to make it sound annoyed. “But you will not need that brush today.”
You are at last ready for me….His words held the most subtle of underlying meanings that made her cheeks warm like that of a schoolgirl’s.
“But of course, monsieur. I believe that our last lesson was in relation to perspective.” As she spoke the words, Narcise wasn’t certain whether Giordan Cale was at all familiar with the particulars of drawing and sketching, and she hoped she wouldn’t inadvertently expose his masquerade.
For, although at least in her chamber she had privacy from prying eyes and ears—she knew this because she examined every inch of wall, floor, and ceiling every month to ensure it, Narcise also knew that at any moment—
Ah. There it was. The knock on the door.
“Come in,” she called, trying not to sound breathless as she dug through her paints. Cale removed his coat to lay it over one of the chairs, but he still wore his hat, and she was suddenly nervous that it would cause comment, or that he would need to remove it.
Cezar’s trusted steward, Belial, entered the chamber.
“Bonjour, Monsieur David,” he said with a bow.
“What is your desire today?” His sharp eyes scanned the room, and Narcise held her breath, praying that Cezar’s sired vampire wouldn’t notice that this David was several inches taller and with broader shoulders than the previous one had been, and that there was another scent mingling in the room with them.
Cale didn’t pause in his action of moving a stool to the center of the room, and perhaps his half-bent, facing-away position helped to camouflage his physical appearance.
“I shall have the usual, of course,” he said in that clumsy voice, and with the same peremptory tone David always used.
He fussed with the stool as if needing to position it just perfectly in the light.
“Mademoiselle, I shall act as your model today to continue your lesson on perspective. The very brim and angle of this hat, which I have borrowed for such a purpose, will be an excellent study in the aspects of perspective. You will need a charcoal and several soft lead pencils. Put away the paints, mademoiselle. I have already told you you won’t need the brush today.
How many times have I said that you must start with the drawings and sketches before you can think to paint? ”
Narcise forced herself to relax slightly. He sounded just as Monsieur David would have. Cale had obviously planned this well—but what was he planning? “I am sorry, monsieur. It is just that I ordered new paints and hoped to be able to use them today.”
“Always so impatient, the women, no?” Cale said to no one in particular, but Belial gave a soft knowing chuckle.
“I will shortly return with your refreshments, monsieur,” the steward said, and left the room as Cale ordered, “Mademoiselle, please. You are wasting my time.”
The door closed behind Belial, and Narcise turned to face Cale. “What are you doing here?” she demanded in a low voice.
“Can we be heard or seen?” he replied in matching tones, looking around the room. It was clear he had something in his mouth that caused the deformity of voice and face, but now his tones at least sounded familiar.
“No, but Belial will return shortly. How did this come about?” Narcise’s hands were shaking, trembling furiously, and she could not understand her reaction to this. What did it mean? Why was he here? And why did she suddenly feel such warmth and light inside her?
“I told you you could trust me, Narcise,” he said, sitting on the stool. “Get your papers ready and begin to draw, or I fear Belial will be suspicious. Once he is gone again, I will tell you more.”
She did as he bid, feeling his eyes on her as she pulled out the rough papers that curled from being rolled for storage.
A hunk of burned coal and her Italian pencils—too slender and short to be used as wooden stakes—joined the parchment on her drawing table, a few stones anchored the paper from rolling up, and then Narcise got to work.
She noticed that Cale had arranged his position on the stool so that he wasn’t directly facing the door, nor the table where Belial would place the tray of coffee and sweet breads when he returned.
And once she acknowledged that added attention to detail, along with the deliberate tilt of his head to shadow his face even further, she concentrated on her own work.
Despite his disguise, what a pleasure it was to draw the man she’d previously had to sketch from memory.
She saw, too, that he’d affixed some sort of false, papier-mache nose to his elegant one, widening it slightly, and as she looked even closer, she noticed faint markings on his face, smudges to emphasize lines and nonexistent dimples.
Narcise had become so engrossed in her work, drawing the angled guiding lines for the hat that would give the sketch depth and an accurate sense of space, that she was startled when the door opened and Belial strode in.
But she felt his sharp eyes scan the room, and her drawing, and was pleased that she’d accomplished as much as she had.
The steward set the tray on the table then approached her as if he were master of the place, looking over Narcise’s shoulder—something that he occasionally did, but never in the presence of Cezar.
She heard, and felt, him test the air about her in a soft, long intake of breath.
The fine hairs at the back of her neck lifted and prickled, but she didn’t move except to continue her work.
“You are very talented,” he said, low and much too close to her ear and Narcise tensed. “Perhaps you will give me some private lessons?”
She resisted the urge to spin and shove the dog away for his boldness. Cezar had left three days ago, and had named Belial head of the household during his absence. Apparently, this expression of trust had given the man an unwarranted sense of entitlement.
“Perhaps you will leave me to my work,” she replied from between tight jaws. “Your smell is disturbing me.”