Twenty
As Peter fiddled with the paints, waiting for her return from the privy, he found himself almost nervous. “Good God, man,” he muttered, smiling, “you can’t even hold a brush.”
He heard her steps on the stair and watched as those beautiful blue eyes found him.
“You’re back,” he said.
“Indeed.”
He couldn’t help but remember a time before Ursula, when the measure of a good time had been guiding whatever lady-in-waiting had met his eye that evening to the closest private wall, where he’d loosen her gown, hook her leg over his arm, and plow her until she cried, dry mouthed, for more.
Ursula had taught him the value of soft bedding and long-drawn-out afternoons, but looking into Camilla’s eyes now, the thought of those rough walls and incandescent joinings seemed very, very appealing.
Did she see his longing, feel him stripping her with his eyes? He hoped not.
He dropped his gaze. “I do apologize for the king’s intrusion.”
“’Twas nothing. Really.” She darted to the chaise and dropped her bag before returning to his side, a tentative smile on her face. “I take it he requires a lot of attention.”
Peter laughed. “Aye, like an underdisciplined child with the army of Hannibal at his command.”
“Not a promising combination?”
“No. He is a most demanding patron.”
That ringlet still hung loose. His fingers burned as he remembered pulling the pin.
She caught him gazing at the tendril and tucked it over her shoulder self-consciously.
He wanted her—in every way a man can want a woman.
He had been moved at the beginning by her resemblance to Ursula, but now his desire had many sources—her courage, her wit, her wild, untamed spirit.
There wasn’t a woman in a hundred who would have inserted herself into Nell’s spot to save him, and there wasn’t a woman in a thousand who would have bared her desires before him the way she had.
He said, “Shall we rest a bit before I begin painting again?”
“Yes. That would be good.”
“Perhaps something warm to eat or a—”
“Is this yours?”
She had stopped in front of an unfinished canvas.
It was of little Jane, the daughter of Viscount Harrison.
The day had been warm, and the girl, no more than ten, had found the long period of enforced stillness difficult.
He had said he would allow her to move the rest of her body if she would keep her hand still.
She agreed readily, and he placed a peach in it.
Jane’s image, therefore, was barely started, though the hand and especially the thick impasto of fruit and its green-brown leaf represented a nearly finished passage.
“Aye. I do not normally start on the hand”—he flushed again, thinking of how the movement of Camilla’s hand had drawn his eye earlier—“but it helped the girl sit still.”
“And me. How do you do this, the shade just under the leaf? My God, it’s as if an actual leaf sits there. I can see the sides.”
He chuckled. “’Tis nothing. A trick my teacher taught me. Only a bit of incising.” When her forehead creased, he added, “Come. Let me show you. ’Tis easier than explaining.” He reached for the palette and offered it to her. “You said you paint, aye?”
“Oh no. I couldn’t.”
“Of course you might.”
He guided the wood over her thumb, ignoring the flicker of heat, and handed her a brush. “Start with the ocher and a bit of the black.” He watched as she mixed the paint, diffidently then with greater assurance.
“That’s right,” he said, “only a touch. Now, I want you to let go and just guide the brush as if the painting were yours and the leaf a mere impediment to your objective.”
“My objective?”
“Aye. You have to keep your objective in mind.”
* * *
Cam’s objective was growing unclear, even to her.
What she should be doing is asking him all the Van Dyck questions she could think of, as quickly as possible, then buying a one-way “Surprise Me!” ticket straight back to Pittsburgh, assuming she could ever sneak past Peter’s nosy relative.
But a part of her just wanted to be with Peter and enjoy the fine night.
She could feel him willing her to try her hand at painting. He had no idea that she’d once fancied herself a painter, nor how long it had been since she’d worked upon a canvas with anything more than halfhearted interest. The small still life on her desk didn’t count.
“Where?” she asked. “Where do you want me to paint?”
“There. You shall add a second leaf.”
“What? No! Large or small?”
“Your choice. The canvas is yours, milady.” He bowed.
She gazed at the stem he had begun and was surprised to see the new leaf form clearly in her head.
“Layer it on like silk,” he said, “with just as much texture. This is the underlayer, you see, the part that will be hidden.”
She drew the brush along the canvas, letting the bristles flip upward. It left a perfect leaf shape on the blue background.
He cocked his head and, after an instant, nodded his approval. She smiled. She’d been damned good at this once.
“Now,” he said, handing her a thicker brush, “the verdigris.”
“Shouldn’t we let it dry?”
“We should,” he said. “But I would not sacrifice this moment of teaching to the perfection of the viscount’s painting. He has an unskilled eye, and if he does not care for the paint cracking on this glorious leaf in twenty years’ time, he may rot.”
She laughed. The verdigris was thicker than the other colors, like a small blob of Jell-O on the palette. She pushed it left and right, automatically feathering in a daub of yellow.
Peter’s brow went up.
She considered an addition of blue.
“I might try the red madder,” he said.
She looked at the red, but the resultant gray-brown would deaden her green. She flicked the tip through the blue.
She could feel the corner of his mouth rise. “The student rebels.”
“I am no man’s thrall,” she said, and the look that followed sent a pleasurable shiver down her back.
“Now for the shadow you admired so fervently,” he said. “Turn your brush.”
Uncertain, she flipped the sable from left to right.
“The other way,” he instructed, then gently slid the brush from her hand and returned it with the wooden point down.
“You use the other end?”
He picked up a clean brush from the shelf, as thick and wide as the one she used for her facial powder.
“A brush has many uses. A good artist does not limit himself to just one. Take the point and draw it along the left there, flipping the edge of the verdigris up as you go. Go on. Do not hesitate. Exactly! You see, you have not only exposed a trace of the yellow below, but created a tiny hillock of verdigris as well.”
The suggestion of contour made the image leap from the canvas. “Amazing!”
“Just a trick. There are dozens and dozens. I could teach you all of them if you had time.”
If you had time. The offer warmed her heart, but more than that, it unleashed a longing for artistic connection in her that she’d had no idea existed.
“I wish I did,” she said truthfully. “I can’t stay much longer.”
“Of course. Tonight of all nights. I don’t wonder you have an obligation. But you will return? Tomorrow, aye? Then every Wednesday? Say three o’clock? You would be my last sitter of the day.”
“Wednesdays, huh?”
“You smile. Why?”
“I don’t know. Wednesdays always seem to be the day for weekly meetings.”
“Liaisons, you mean?”
“Yes, actually.” She giggled. “Especially the afternoons.”
“Is that an aye, then?”
The guileless look of hope on his face sent her back almost to her teen years.
She would be courted. First, out of her gown for the painting, then, after many long weeks of laughter and wine, out of the chaise and into his bed.
His reward for winning her trust. She wondered what it would be like for a man to seek her heart first, not her body—to be slowly won, not claimed.
She was a castle, and Peter was willing to lay patient siege to her.
“Aye,” she said softly. “I should like that very much.”
“How much time do you have?”
“A bit. Why?”
“I’m glad. I think we have two choices, then—”
A boom sounded in the distant night.
“What’s that?” She looked out the windows.
He smiled in surprise. “Do you not know?”
When she shook her head, he took her hand, fetching his coat from a hook on the wall. “Come. This is one of the choices.”
* * *
Mertons collapsed on a chair in the scullery. The woman was odd. There was no doubt about it. Was it possible she was an ally of Campbell’s? The calculations had not shown the presence of a second conspirator. And yet…
Morag brushed by. He saw a smidgen of ankle as she stepped onto the hearth to reach a high-hung pot.
“Morag,” he said, hoping the movement as she turned might provide another flash, “are you aware of Mrs. Post’s origins at all? Was she recommended by another patron? Have you ever seen her in Peter’s studio before?”
“First, Mr. Mertons, ‘Mrs. Post’ is not her name.”
“Not her name?”
“No. ’Tis Miss Post. Miss Eugenie Campbell Stratford Post. See the note from Miss Gwyn there.
” She picked it up and read. “‘Attached is a sketch done by Francis Conley at Peter Lely’s studio. It is of a dress owned by Miss Eugenie Campbell Stratford Post. I should like it duplicated in a charcoal moiré. Please note the lining.’ I am to have it delivered to her tailor on Half Moon Street in the morn—”
Campbell! He snatched it from her hand, horrified.
“Mr. Mertons!”
“My apologies.” He ran.
At the first turn, he came face-to-face with Stephen and two large apprentices. Stephen carried a salver filled with cheese and broken glass.
“Is he upstairs?” Mertons demanded.
“Peter, do you mean?”
“Aye, of course. I need to speak to him.”
“Impossible.”
Mertons snorted. “It’s urgent. Is he upstairs?”
When Stephen failed to reply, Mertons turned to find out for himself, only to find his egress halted.
“Take your hand from my sleeve, sir,” Mertons said sharply.
“The master is not to be disturbed.”
The apprentices, approximately the size and tensile strength of marble columns, spread to fill the hall.
“This is a matter of extreme urgency.”