Chapter 8
Phaedra followed Nathaniel into a ballroom, the sight stopping her in her tracks.
Large windows lined the northern wall, the cream velvet drapes pulled aside to allow the muted light of morning to spill onto the white marble floor.
Veins of gold and lapis snaked beneath the gleaming surface, pulling her into the room like the current of some fairy-tale river.
Brass filigree sconces were affixed to the walls at intervals, and looming below a frescoed ceiling was a row of three grand crystal chandeliers.
They hung like burnt-out jewels over the empty space of the dance floor, reminiscent not of times more merry, but rather a fall into decadence—a reminder that even grandeur ends.
A shiver of delight passed over her, and Phaedra pulled her eyes from the glittering crystals swaying on a phantom wind to find Nathaniel standing by the marble fireplace at the far end of the room.
A large gilded mirror hung on the wall above the mantel, reflecting her solitary form in the grandness of the room.
She stood a moment, awed by this clear contrast of her own dark figure to everything else around her.
Yet instead of feeling out of place, she had the sudden sense that she was the only real thing there.
As if everything else had blurred together, their lines, their edges and forms fading until all that remained was nothing but ashen mist. And she, the only thing of substance left.
Her eyes slid to Nathaniel, who watched her with a curious expression, as if he too would be contemplating the same thing. But then she blinked, and the room slid back into its natural state, the strange lines melting from his face as if they had never been.
“If you would find it acceptable, I would like to offer you this space as your studio,” he said, motioning around himself. It was only then that Phaedra noticed the ballroom was not entirely devoid of furniture.
There was a plush wingback chair with a low table in front of the fireplace, as well as another larger table, an easel, and a stool set before the windows.
“I am told artists need a lot of light,” he continued. “And I believe the lay of the room would provide you with the most this house has to offer. But if it is not to your liking, I can make arrangements to—”
“No!” she interjected. “It’s perfect.” She flashed him a smile, then went back to examining the supplies he had already laid out for her on the table.
“It is not much as of yet,” he said, stepping to her side. “These are things I already had on hand that I thought may be useful. Please feel free to discard anything you find the opposite.”
Phaedra nodded, her fingers moving over a sketchbook, a case of charcoal pencils, some brushes, rags, and a few bowls. There were two metal pails under the table, one for water and one for waste. Then her eyes slid to the wall opposite the windows, and she froze.
Three portraits hung side by side, large and solemn, and the prickles that darted across her skin were no longer from the chill of the long unused room.
“Ah, yes,” Nathaniel said, following her gaze. “I did not wish to leave you entirely without assistance.”
There was a hint of a smile in his voice, but Phaedra only shook her head, not knowing how she could have missed this display when first entering the room. Or indeed their purpose there, instead of their original location in the drawing room.
Nathaniel seemed to have guessed at her unspoken question. “As far as I’m aware, you have not met my family in person.”
“No,” she murmured. She found it difficult to look away, the faces, somehow more stern than she remembered, capturing her attention in a vice-like grip. It felt as if they were watching her in turn, the expectation in their eyes eerie yet unmistakable.
“These portraits were commissioned in the last year of their lives, each for their respective birthdays. It is the closest likeness I can offer you, and I find them quite true. The ones of my parents, at least. My sister, I can only guess. But knowing my father, I am certain he would not settle for anything less than perfection.”
She nodded absently, her eyes glued to the grim expressions, no hint of smiles or good humor.
Flashes of the other paintings crossed her mind in blurred yet vivid color, and she tried to reconcile what she remembered to what stood before her.
And when her thoughts finally settled on the question of which rendering would reveal the true nature of their subjects, she felt she finally understood Nathaniel’s pursuit.
“They look so very solemn,” she said. “Is this how you remember them?”
The question left her lips before she could consider their propriety, and she clenched her teeth, stifling a groan. When Nathaniel did not answer right away, she added, “I apologize for my blunt question. I did not mean—”
“No, it’s quite alright,” he said, musing. “I was merely contemplating if that would be the most appropriate word to describe them.”
“And have you arrived at a satisfactory conclusion?” she asked, peering at him. Her effort of finally tearing her gaze from the portraits was rewarded with a half-smile, quick and sharp, one she knew could snare the heart of any naive young girl in the blink of an eye.
“Maybe,” he said. Then his smile faded, his brows drawing together in thought.
“My mother,” he motioned toward the painting on the left.
“She was often… fretful. Jittery. As if she would always sense some kind of danger looming just outside our view. And whatever she did, however calm or collected she tried to appear, it always seemed… feigned somehow. But in a way, I understand. At least, I do now. Did you know my father was not her first husband?”
Phaedra blinked, the question catching her off guard. “I… did not.”
“Nor did I. It is astounding what comes to light when one inherits the family solicitor.” He cocked his head, his eyes moving over the delicate features of his mother.
“Apparently, she had already been promised to another by the time she met my father. I am told he was smitten, but there was nothing to be done. But to what must have been his great delight, the marriage did not last long, for she was widowed soon after.”
Phaedra shot him a glance, perplexed not by the revelation, but rather the detached manner in which he had delivered it. As if the pleasant manner and the flash of smile from before had been nothing but a play of the light.
“He was actually there when it happened,” he continued, his face entirely devoid of emotion.
“They were all on their way home from a function at my grandfather’s estate when the carriage of my mother and her husband was set upon by robbers.
The man was murdered on the spot, and it was my father who saved my mother from a similar fate.
They wed soon after. I imagine my mother did not need a lot of persuasion to finally give her hand to the man who had saved her life.
Yet even so, I suspect an ordeal of that sort would leave a mark, no matter how much someone is loved. ”
Phaedra’s eyes slid back to those of Mariana, searching for any lingering sign of the horrid event.
And as the former mistress of the house looked on in the very same way she had the day before, seemingly unburdened by the dark veil of the experience, a thought stirred in the dormant depths of Phaedra’s mind.
A half-formed notion about a man with a way of always getting what he wanted.
“And he did love her,” Nathaniel said, folding his arms over his chest. “That much I can attest to. I sometimes think he may have exhausted all his resources at emotion on her, leaving nothing for the rest of us. Well… Nothing of the pleasant sort, at least.”
“I’m sorry,” Phaedra said, her own gaze following Nathaniel’s onto the portrait in the middle.
She was struck again by the extent of their similarities, especially now, as the cold severity on the young man’s face displayed a perfect match for that of his father.
She wondered if she would, in time, become accustomed to it.
If Nathaniel himself had done so. She could not imagine it easy, to wear the face of someone he so clearly despised.
He shrugged. “Thankfully, I did not have to bear it for long. Once he found that he could not cure my state, he realized he could not send me to any of the schools he had planned to, because I would only bring disgrace to his name. So he found something else, something more… suited to my deficiencies.”
His thumb pushed against the gleaming band of the signet ring, turning it in a slow arc.
“It was farther than I expected, and when he said that no precious time should be wasted on arduous travel to visit home, I finally understood my standing. That in his eyes, I had been reduced to nothing but a shameful secret that needed to be kept out of sight. So I did as he told me. I stayed away.”
He was quiet a moment, his features pensive, and Phaedra could not help but admire the easy lines of his face, the way he buried even the faintest sign of emotion that should have rushed beneath his skin like a burning current.
She could feel nothing—see nothing—of what moved inside his head, and she knew the realization should have left her with leaden unease dripping into her limbs.
That she should have been wary of a man whose pain was rooted so deep within his being that he could talk of cruelty and death with the cold detachment of a scientist dissecting a specimen.
But, instead, she felt a dull ache spread within her, its growing vines reaching into the past, yearning to shield the boy he once had been.
The child cut off from his home. The brother torn away from his sister.
“But I did miss her,” he said, as if he had gleaned the direction of her thoughts. He raised his head to the portrait of Ana, something straining behind his gaze. “Terribly. I knew that if only she were there with me, I—”
He stopped short, averting his eyes, and Phaedra finally saw it—the proof that he was indeed still alive underneath the wreckage of his life.
Unbidden relief flooded her in a way that was almost unkind as she beheld the shimmer beneath the shield of his lashes, the muscle working in his jaw.
Because in the end, there was something—someone—here who he had loved. Someone he grieved for.
She felt it move into her bones, wander to the very tips of her fingers, the urge to hold a brush to this arresting picture of loss unmistakable. The yearning to recreate it in a medium that would be less painful to behold. And even then, she knew it would be nothing short of devastating.
“To this day I do not understand how two people like them,” he nodded to the portraits of his parents, “could have created someone like her. Someone so… different. All heart and curiosity and passion and delight. A force that could not be contained. Try as they might.”
Phaedra curled her fingers into her palm, and turned reluctant eyes on the girl’s portrait.
She remembered noting the contrast the day before between Ana’s image and that of her parents, but now, here in the dreary light of the open space, it felt much more defined.
And it could have been but Nathaniel’s words heightening the aura of his sister, but Phaedra could see what he had meant.
How she had been more. A being of light and joy caged in lifeless grandeur.
“She was beautiful,” she said into the silence stretching out between them.
“Yes,” he said, his hands falling to his side. “She was. And oh so very clever.” He leaned back against the worktable, a fleeting smile passing through his face. “It was her idea, actually. What I intend with this endeavor.”
Phaedra turned to him in surprise. “How do you mean?”
“Well, you see… The summer before I was to leave, Ana devised a plan so we would not be separated entirely. She composed a sort of code that we might use to write to each other. It was a list made of numbers and pictograms—things she knew I would understand—combined to form the words or expressions she thought we would need. Their meanings ranged from the most mundane to things verging on poetic. And although I told her there was no need for the latter, she insisted. She always believed that one day I would appreciate the value of… abstract notions. That I could somehow evolve beyond my limitations.” His smile lingered this time, the pain in it undeniable.
“But even if that belief turned out to be unfounded, she was right in the general assumption of her attempt, because it worked. I could understand her letters.”
He paused, but in a moment the glazed look was gone from his eyes. He pulled in a breath, his posture straightening. “And when I came back, it was this same idea that guided me through the mess of what awaited.”
To her questioning look, he nodded.
“The family solicitor—the one who told me the story of my parents—he was kind enough to use my sister’s method for things I could not understand.
And when that was not enough,” he shrugged, “he drew them out. Plainly, I might add, but it made me realize that this could work for what I had in mind. I only needed the right person.”
He leveled his gaze at her, but Phaedra could only stare back, his words slow to sink in.
The strange nature of his condition, and more so her utter inability to fully grasp its meaning surprised her anew, and she wondered again what his life had been like back then.
In this house, with the people now looking down on them from their immortalized states.
Could Bartholomew Hawthorn truly be so cruel to his own son for something he had had no control over?
Something that quite clearly had a solution, however unconventional? What had he done to—
A shadow moved over his eyes, as if he could once more discern the direction her thoughts had taken, and he pushed away from the table, the softness gone from his tone. “I wish to start today.”
Phaedra’s eyes widened. “Today? But the supplies—”
“Will be here at latest tomorrow morning,” he interjected. “Do you sketch before painting?”
“If the piece calls for it, but—”
“Then we have everything you would need for the moment.”
She blinked. “I… suppose we do.”
“Perfect. I do not wish to waste any more time.”
Phaedra stared at him, her eyes searching his for the source of this sudden urgency, the intensity of his whole being so different from mere moments ago.
And she saw the need, whatever it was, churn within the emerald of his gaze, twisting his frame into forms it should not take, edges poking through where soft curves should be, and she wondered, aloud, “What is it you are looking for?”
His lips turned up in a smile that was anything but warm. “The truth.”