Chapter 15 #3
“Do you want to know what’s more astonishing? The softness of your dress.” He bit his lip. “Sorry. Couldn’t help but notice.”
“Oh! I wore it for you,” she said, as though that was a perfectly ordinary thing to admit. “It’s stone-ground linen. The weavers send the textiles down mountain streams until the plant fibres become smooth. See what you make of the sleeves. The blue patches are the softest.”
At her urging, Vern ran his fingers along the length of one sleeve, nodding appreciatively.
“That’s even better than the lace you wore yesterday.” He rubbed the hem between his fingers. “How I envy the weaver who made this!”
“I thought you would like it.” Florrie could not help wondering what kind of fabric might tempt him to touch her even more. Maybe a velvet…
Suddenly, Florrie felt her arm cramp from the strain of modelling the sleeve. She winced and let it go limp.
“What’s the matter?” Vern asked, immediately letting go.
“Just my accursed wrist, after all the drawing I did this morning. I ought to be more careful.” She rolled her left hand in a circle. “Orchel taught me a trick earlier.”
“I saw.” He extended his hand. “May I?”
She nodded with mortifying haste.
Vern sent his fingers past the edge of her sleeve and onto the bare stretch of skin between her dress and her glove.
Just as when he was examining the fabric, his fingers travelled slowly towards her hand, stroking her wrist with his thumb.
His fingertips were astonishingly soft, and she couldn’t believe how gently he touched her, and she certainly couldn’t believe something so innocent could possibly—
“Did I do it properly?” he said. He eyed her intently, and Florrie felt reassured by how attentive he seemed to potential signs of her discomfort. Not that there were any.
“Well, I certainly do not find myself inclined to focus on the soreness of my wrist.”
“You need to take care of yourself when you’re sketching.” He placed her left hand on her lap and started up with the right. “I should know. Sometimes I can hardly move my arms when I’ve been at the loom all night.”
Florrie closed her eyes for a moment to focus on the sensations – and, she hoped, to calm herself. Without any other distractions, though, she noticed that Vern also appeared to be breathing remarkably quickly.
As though he had just noticed this himself, he suddenly cleared his throat. “Do people usually touch each other like this?” Vern asked in an unbelievably conversational tone.
“They do, yes. In certain contexts.”
“I rather like the sound of that. Though not quite as much as I liked the sound of your sigh just now.”
Florrie forced her critical faculties to return long enough to evaluate his tone. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound so terribly smug!”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Vern. “I’m feeling terribly, tremendously smug at the moment, in light of the discovery I just made.”
The whispery touch of his fingertips crept further up her sleeve.
“And what,” Florrie whispered, when she could manage it, “was that?”
“You didn’t sigh like that when your friend Orchel touched you. I find that very interesting! What’s different about the context now, I wonder?”
“The situations are not comparable in the least! Because, you see—”
Florrie finally dared to look at Vern, and noticed he was grinning. She thought he was asking with the same bright innocence he had demonstrated when first sampling stew, or marvelling at the wonders of Lord Mauve’s museum – yet even she could tell, now, that something was different.
“You’re teasing me,” Florrie realised. “Again. And I shouldn’t indulge you. I suspect you know precisely why it’s different.”
“I certainly hope I do.”
Vern traced along her wrist one last time before tragically, regrettably, letting her go.
“I don’t want you to misunderstand,” he said, withdrawing his hand. Florrie couldn’t hear any hint of smugness now, and she found she rather missed it.
“Despite my confident claims earlier, I haven’t much idea what I’m doing,” Vern continued. “I only know this is awfully special and I would rather like to see what happens next. But I also know you’re rather busy at present.”
Florrie sighed in a far less contented manner.
“I must finish those studies,” she said, “while also continuing my duties for Prince Ardant. Those might, at this point, also include assisting with a ball.”
“I can be patient, I promise.”
“I just hope it will be worth your while,” she murmured.
“Please let me be the judge of that.”
He bowed his head closer to her and smiled again. “I think we ought to say goodnight, Florrie. Be careful on the branches – they can be slippery going down. Won’t you let me help you?”
By the time she had descended the tree and left the painting, Florrie wasn’t even sure if she had remembered to bid Vern farewell. She felt giddy and energised, powered by an inexplicable lightness that would no doubt motivate her through a night of artistic productivity.
Unfortunately, she proceeded to waste this boon by simply lying in bed, imagining unhelpful portrait studies that all featured the same beguiling figure in the treetops.