Chapter 2
Two
“Just last week, a dun for my tailor had the impudence to approach me as I was leaving Lady Huxley’s ball.
It could have been a colossal embarrassment.
” Sir Francis Ffoulkes shook his head and paced the paint-splattered floor with a glass in his hand.
“Retrenchment is hopeless. I am doomed to the gutter. Or worse.”
Roger Siddons gulped from his own glass of wine and kept his eyes fixed on the canvas in front of him. “Let me finish this picture while I still have the light. I’ve been having a devil of a time with it.”
It was late in the day, and the studio had no west-facing windows.
Rooms that received light from the south and west demanded higher rents, and Siddons could only afford this place with transoms that faced the north and east. As it was, he had to eat, sleep, and paint in the same room.
However, if he hired an attractive model, the rumpled bed in the corner was very convenient. As long as he had a few extra coins.
Once, Roger Siddons had not required money for women, but now he found he had to pay for his pleasures more and more often.
He flattered himself that he was still a lean wolf of a man with his dark eyes, thin lips, and Roman nose.
True, his hair had grayed, and years of drink had led to pouches under his eyes, a softening of his jaw line.
And a middle-aged artist with no rich patrons would never be as attractive as a young, promising painter.
He moved his brush over the canvas as quickly as he could. An epergne filled with apples. Another uninspired still-life. He had barely been able to afford the apples, but at least he would be able to eat the fruit when he completed the painting.
Finally, he had no choice but to stop when the crimson hues on his palette faded to grays. He would finish tomorrow. One more picture to submit for next year’s Exhibition. One more chance to earn a fee. So that he could afford more paint. So that he could paint another picture. And so on.
He started to clean his brushes. “Now. Talk. Tell me.”
“What’s the use? I am ruined.”
Siddons gritted his teeth. “Really? Have you no other friends from whom you can borrow?”
“I can’t let my wealthy friends know my situation. There is a man . . .” Sir Francis hesitated. “Not really a friend, but someone I know, a distant relation. He lent me money. A good deal of money. But it has been spent, and I’m afraid he will ask me to do something unpleasant if I ask for more.”
Siddons looked at his boyhood friend. Everything about Sir Francis Ffoulkes reeked of respectability—his upright posture, his elegant clothes, his silver hair cut in the Titus style with the curls pushed forward over his balding pate.
The two of them had grown up together on the Ffoulkes estate with Siddons as the steward’s son and Francis as the heir to the baronetcy.
They had drifted away from each other when they had come of age but had become friends again in the last few years.
“I thought you had made thousands of pounds with all your years of provisioning the Royal Navy,” Siddons said.
“I had. I did. And then I spent it. And now there is peace and no profit to be made from the navy. I am overextended and bankrupt.”
“And your wife’s money?”
“Gone. All gone.”
Siddons poured himself more wine. “To the memory of Lady Ffoulkes,” he said, holding up his glass.
“Thank you, Roger.” The two men drank.
Siddons grimaced after he swallowed. “I’ll be glad when one of us is in funds again. I think I could use this dross to clean my brushes.”
Sir Francis looked down at his glass and held himself very still. “Roger.”
Siddons said nothing. He knew what was next.
“Roger, can I look at her?”
It was cruel, Siddons knew, to make Ffoulkes ask every time he came to the studio.
He could leave the painting out and let Sir Francis feast his eyes.
But he deliberately did not. He wanted Sir Francis hungry.
He wanted Sir Francis to ask. After all, the baronet might one day be of use, and Siddons wanted the man to remember how weak he had been, over and over again, in front of his friend.
Besides, Siddons had no compunction about being cruel.
He sighed and pretended reluctance as he walked to the rack holding completed canvases. Most were from the last year, but there was one that was older and shrouded to protect against what little light came into the studio. Roger Siddons did not want his most valuable painting to fade.
He took the shrouded canvas and unwrapped it and brought it forward. Sir Francis lit several candles as Siddons put the picture on an empty easel.
The large painting showed a golden-haired figure from the back. Naked from the waist up, caught while disrobing. Surrounded by trees and water. Head turned to look at the viewer. Big, blue eyes.
“Uhhhnh.” Sir Francis groaned as he exhaled.
Siddons laughed. “Such yearning! And all for a painting.”
“It . . . affects me.”
Siddons looked at the canvas and squinted.
“It’s not bad, considering I painted it over twenty-five years ago.
But it’s not my best. The perspective is not quite right.
” He put his hands on the corners of the canvas as if to remove it from the easel.
“Sometimes I think I should just paint over the whole thing.”
“No!” Sir Francis shouted. Then in a voice tinged with threat, “Don’t even consider it.”
Siddons laughed again, but he let go of the canvas and stepped away, turning to look at Sir Francis who was totally rapt, gazing at the picture. Damn, the man was practically slobbering.
“I only wish,” Sir Francis said, his eyes not moving away from the picture, not even for a second, “when I was still rich, I had convinced you to sell it to me.”
“We both know you are taken by the subject.” Siddons refilled his own glass.
“I am. I am. I don’t know why, but I am.”
“It’s the fear. In her eyes.”
Sir Francis blinked. “Is it?”
“The fear and the lust. It’s a heady combination.” Siddons chuckled. “She was the most wanton, wicked minx—”
Sir Francis stiffened. “I have no wish to hear anything more about her or your knowledge of her. It ruins the painting for me.”
The germ of an idea came to Siddons. “You must have occasion to meet her from time to time.”
“Yes. In fact, I danced the quadrille with her at Lady Huxley’s ball. I thought she might be like the painting, but she was not. She was distracted. She is a handsome woman, I grant you, but she does not enthrall me as the painting does.”
“She’s older, but I doubt she has changed much in the important particulars,” Siddons purred.
“Whether that be her hair or her skin or her desire. She could be the picture again, for you. I could teach you how to make her that way. And you are a widower now. She could be the answer to your problems.”
Sir Francis narrowed his eyes as Siddons went on, “Her dead husband was very wealthy, Sir Francis.”
“What are you suggesting?” Sir Francis licked his lips.
Siddons shrugged. “I just hope once you have a heavy purse again, you will remember your good friend Roger Siddons. And that upon the occasion of your marriage to Mr. Lovelock’s relict, you might be willing to buy an extremely expensive painting of your new wife as a wedding gift. For yourself.”