Portrait of a Lady: The Gentleman Courtesans Book 1

by Victoria Vale

  While he pulled the drape from over the easel holding the completed Virtue and Vice, he reminded himself that this was forever. Art was his passion, his one true love. It was the one thing in his life that had always been constant.

  He stood back in silence while Crosby studied the painting, his heart pounding as he waited for a verdict. Submissions for the Exhibition were due next week, and while he was welcome to turn his completed work in early, Hugh hadn’t wanted to do so without a final opinion from Crosby.

  “I must say, Hugh, I’m quite stunned by the difference in this piece since I last saw it,” Crosby remarked, taking a step back to better observe the full tableau. “Where before I felt as if I viewed this scene through the eyes of one removed, I now feel as if I am a part of it...as if I know these people and recognize myself in them. You did a splendid job with the lanterns. What pigments did you use to achieve that look, as if they are glowing?”

  Hugh smiled. “I used a blend of orpiment and gamboge, then after it had dried I glazed over it with yellow lake. I was pleased with the effect.”

  Rubbing his chin, Crosby nodded his approval. “I can find no fault with it. The color composition, the movement, and most importantly, the perspective.”

  He pointed to the center of the canvas, to the masked goddess in the arms of her beau. “This woman...you changed her into someone else entirely.”

  His mind filled with memories of Evelyn at Vauxhall, the lanterns glowing off her white gown and mask, the seed pearls making her hair look as if it had been alight with a thousand stars.

  “Yes, well...you told me you wanted to know her, to love or hate her.”

  “So, you’ve chosen love then.”

  Crosby’s words stunned him for a moment. When he’d transformed the main subject of this painting, he hadn’t had love on his mind. Lust and desire, yes; a bit of enchantment, certainly. But love?

  “That is what I feel when I look at this painting,” Crosby said with a shrug. “She’s the epitome of innocence in a den of debauchery. She clearly does not belong there, but somehow fits anyway. She transcends the things happening around her, and I have the urge to reach into the scene and save her, protect her. Love, Hugh...the emotion you’ve invoked is love.”

  For a long moment, Hugh could say nothing, could do nothing other than stare at the image of Evelyn on the canvas. Of course he’d portrayed her in the light of love...he was her lover. But she was paying him to be that...so did that make his feelings any less real? Worse, would those feelings damn him in the end when they were forced to part ways?

  “I suppose this woman of yours, this muse, has been a good influence on you,” Crosby went on when Hugh remained silent. “This is, by far, your best work.”

  Will my work suffer when she is gone, then? What of my heart?

  “Thank you,” he managed aloud once he’d found his voice. “You know that your opinion means the world to me, and it was important that I got this one right.”

  “I would say you certainly have. You may submit this to the Academy with confidence. They are daft if they refuse you for yet another year.”

  Before Hugh could respond, Crosby’s attention shifted to the canvas in the center of the room before his stool, the one he’d put a few more hours of work into just yesterday with Evelyn. She hadn’t been able to come sit for him today, as she was accompanying her mother and sister to a dinner party, but he had plans to go on adding to the scenery tonight for lack of anything better to do. He was truly pathetic, needing to be close to Evelyn in some way while she was not near, even if it meant simply gazing upon her painted image.

  “What’s this?” Crosby mumbled, approaching the canvas with wide, assessing eyes. “A new piece? I did not see this one on my last visit.”

  Folding his arms over his chest, Hugh shook his head. “I hadn’t begun it then. It’s just a little something I’ve been working on in my spare time. I call it, Portrait of a Lady.”

  “Marvelous,” Crosby whispered, his voice low as if in awe. “God’s teeth, it’s magnificent.”

  Hugh furrowed his brow, running a hand over the evening stubble making his jaw itch. “Thank you, but it’s not even close to being finished. I still need to—”

  “The first painting didn’t need to be finished for me to tell you what it needed,” Crosby interjected with a wave of his hand. “And this one doesn’t need to be complete for me to tell you it’s sublime. This is the same woman, isn’t it? Your muse.”

  Hugh studied the near-nude form of Evelyn on the canvas. He still had her hair to finish, as well as several parts of her body, but thus far he’d finished her torso and legs as well as the gossamer fabric that revealed just enough to offer the perfection of her figure and add a dash of sensuality to the portrait. He’d finished her profile, but wouldn’t be satisfied until he got the rosy tint of her cheeks and her pink lips just right. Her eye, however, he’d finished on the first day, tirelessly mixing pigments until finding the blend that perfectly captured her chocolate-hued irises.

  “It is,” he replied. “She was reluctant to sit for it but seems to be enjoying the experience. She is the consummate subject.”

  Crosby turned to him with a disbelieving laugh, his eyes twinkling merrily. “Hugh, don’t you see it? That is not your painting for the Exhibition.”

  Hugh frowned as Crosby pointed to Virtue and Vice, before turning his blunt finger toward the portrait of Evelyn.

  “This is.”

  Now he was the one grappling with disbelief. He’d worked his fingers to the bone finishing Virtue and Vice and had done everything within his power to make it worthy of the Exhibition. Now, Crosby was telling him he ought to submit one he’d only begun a fortnight ago?

  “You cannot be serious.”

  “Not only am I serious, I am insistent. I cannot allow you to submit Virtue and Vice knowing you’ve got a far more superior work up your sleeve. This painting is everything...it’s light and air, it’s love and beauty, and yes, it is even sex and sensuality. More than any of that, it’s the work you are most connected to. I look at this woman and cannot help but feel as if I love her, as if I know her. This is a gift, Hugh, a rare thing. I can promise you that while all the paintings submitted for the Exhibition will be technically proficient. But, very few of them will evoke the sort of emotion that turns a painting into a piece of art.”

  Hugh studied the canvas in silence for a long while, mulling over what Crosby had said. His reticence had nothing to do with whether or not he liked the piece. He loved it and had wanted to spend his every spare moment working on it this past two weeks. That Evelyn was the subject made it all the better for him. But, there was the fact that he’d placed all his hopes on Vice and Virtue, a painting he’d worked on for months. He felt certain about it, about its ability to earn him a place in the Exhibition.

  If he took a chance and submitted the portrait of Evelyn, would he find himself once against shut out of the showcase?

  “That feeling in your gut,” Crosby said. “The one that registers as fear and makes you feel as if you are going to be ill...I know it well and so do you. That is the feeling of your instincts leading you somewhere important. If you ignore it and submit the first painting, you will still likely make the Exhibition. The piece is one of your best, as I said. But this...this has the potential to give you what you really want, and that is more than having your work displayed.”

  Damn him, the man was right as always. Hugh didn’t want to merely be accepted and showcased. He wanted his work to draw clients to him, to make them clamor to sit for him in droves. This painting had the power to do that. Every man looking upon it would want the woman portrayed, would perhaps remember their first loves or the women they loved now. Every woman would want to be her, to be depicted as beautiful and desirable.

  But, only if he could finish it in time.

  “The deadline for submissions is in a week,” he groaned, running a hand over his weary face.

  Where he’d been prepar
ed to work an hour or two on the painting this evening, it now looked as if he’d be at it all night.

  Crosby began removing his jacket, moving toward the coat tree where Hugh hung his smocks. “I am here and have no plans for the evening. Whatever I can do to help you finish, I will. Think of me as your apprentice for now.”

  Hugh gave his mentor an appreciative smile. “The esteemed Hector Crosby apprenticing for a nobody like me? My classmates at the Academy would never believe it.”

  “Which is exactly why I have no problem doing it,” Crosby quipped while removing his waistcoat.

  Within minutes, he was garbed in a smock, following Hugh’s directives on which pigments to mix for his palette. Settling before his canvas, Hugh experienced an excitement he hadn’t felt in a long time while setting about his work. If Crosby believed so strongly that this painting was the one that needed submitting to the Exhibition, Hugh would do everything within his power to have it finished in time.

  Chapter 10

  “It is my opinion that the male sex must be the single most oblivious creatures on the planet. Whatever would they do without the wisdom of women to guide them?”

  -The London Gossip, 8 April 1819

  Hugh pulled his brush away from the canvas with a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping as he stood back to take in his finished work. For six days he had worked tirelessly to complete Portrait of a Lady, pushing himself through his fatigue and only taking meager meals when his hunger became too great to ignore. He knew he must look a fright, his hair a tousled mess, his eyes bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles.

  But, he’d done it. With Crosby stopping in to assist him whenever he could, and Evelyn sitting for him an hour each day, he had finished the painting. Gazing upon it now, he could not help but agree with his mentor that it was the best thing he’d ever created. Evelyn sat upon the pillar turned coyly away from the viewer, presenting her body from the curve of one smooth shoulder to the fall of her legs hanging over the edge of the pedestal. He was even proud of the execution of her hands, one of them hanging at her side, the other rested at the curve of her waist. He’d taken hours to shape them perfectly, wanting to get the set of her slender fingers just right. From every strand of sable hair, to the smooth porcelain of her complexion and the mystery of one brown eye gazing off into the distance, she seemed as whole and as real on the canvas as she did when sitting right before him.

  The bright blue slash of her shawl hung from her arms, falling in silken folds to the ground, while the moon overhead bathed the entire scene with a luminescent glow.

  Setting his brush aside, he sank down onto his stool and allowed relief to wash over him. Last week, he had been uncertain that choosing to finish this painting for the Exhibition was the right thing to do. Now that he’d finished, he could clearly see that it was the superior work. He could not, in good conscience, submit Virtue and Vice with Portrait of a Lady before him, completed as a testament to his hard work as well as the beauty of his subject.

  She did not know yet that he’d decided to submit her portrait instead of his original piece for the Exhibition, having sat for him all week thinking that he was simply anxious to finish it. He planned to surprise her with the finished piece in the morning, then tell her his intentions. While he expected her to be a bit resistant to the idea at first, he would strive to make her see that the painting simply must be displayed. That she wouldn’t be recognizable to those who did not know her ought to sooth any anxiety she might have, and perhaps she might even come to feel excitement over it. More than anything, he wanted her to be there to witness the stir her image would cause so that she could finally fathom what he’d been trying to make her understand. Perhaps she would finally see herself the way he saw her.

  He glanced up at the ceiling, his mind carrying him upstairs to where Evelyn lay sleeping in the bedchamber above him. After she’d sat with him for the final session, he’d whisked her upstairs and straight to bed. He’d taken his time, leisurely undressing her while kissing every bared inch of skin before laying between her legs and joining their bodies. She’d clung to him, her own fervor a match for his desperation. Their time was almost at an end. Neither spoke of it, and because he was loathe to cast a dark shadow over the sweet perfection of having her in his arms, he had actively avoided bringing it up. His mind accused him of denial, while his heart urged him to cling to these last weeks with everything he had. There was no reason to dwell on it, not now while he could still call Evelyn his.

  His damned stubborn heart had also begun to make him believe that perhaps there could be more—if he made his true feelings known to her they could be more than just courtesan and keeper. Without his income as a paramour, he had no means of supporting a wife, but the Exhibition could change all of that. He could earn himself the sort of living that made room for a wife and children, and when he allowed himself to think of such a future it came far too easy for him to think of Evelyn as that wife, as the mother of his children.

  But, she had not come to him looking for a husband. She’d come to him looking for a lover, and that was what he’d become. She’d never expressed a desire to marry, and because of her inheritance had the means of supporting herself. Hugh had nothing to offer her other than the things he’d already given...and she’d never indicated she wanted anything more than that. The fantasy playing out in his mind regarding any sort of future was just that...a fantasy.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door, making him realize he’d sat here daydreaming for some time.

  “Come,” he called out, rising to his feet and removing his smock.

  The door opened to reveal a footman, who informed him that Benedict and Aubrey had arrived for a visit. The hour was late, but his friends knew him to be prone to stay awake late into the night in his studio. As they were ushered inside, he went about cleaning up behind himself, finding a bowl of water with which to wash his brushes. He wanted nothing more than to join Evelyn in bed and indulge in his first good night’s sleep in an entire week. But, he hadn’t seen anyone but Evelyn and Crosby in days, and isolation had made him crave the company of others. He was actually glad to see them.

  “You’ve arrived just in time,” he murmured as Benedict took a seat in an armchair while Aubrey leaned against the closed door. “I only just completed my painting for the Exhibition.”

  “I thought you’d finished that weeks ago,” Benedict remarked.

  “There’s been a change of plans,” he said, pointing a handful of clean brushes at Evelyn’s portrait. “This is the piece I’ve decided to submit.”

  Aubrey rounded the canvas, his eyebrows shooting upward as he observed the piece. “Well...now I know why we haven’t seen hide nor hair of you in days. You’ve been creating a masterpiece.”

  Benedict came to his feet and joined Aubrey, one hand at his chin while he looked the painting over. “He’s right...it’s a beautiful piece. I’ve always believed you to be talented, but this...it’s your best work yet, Hugh.”

  “That’s what Crosby said,” he replied, neatly arranging his brushes on the table to dry. “He’s the one who convinced me to finish and submit it instead of Virtue and Vice.”

  “This is the year, I can feel it,” Benedict said. “The committee will not be able to pass this one over. Congratulations are in order, I say.”

  Hugh pressed a hand to the small of his aching back as he stretched and yawned. “Let’s not be hasty. I haven’t gotten in yet.”

  “You will,” Benedict insisted. “And I suppose the Gentleman Courtesans can now say good-bye to you. You always said you’d only do it until you could make a name for yourself as an artist.”

  “That’s right,” he replied, going to work on cleaning his palette. “I suppose you lot will have to figure out how to get on without me.”

  “What about Evelyn?” Aubrey asked, his assessing gaze resting on Hugh without wavering.

  Hugh stiffened, the reminder of what he stood to lose once he’d finally gained
his greatest wish dropping inside him with the weight of a frozen boulder.

  He cleared his throat and focused his attention back on the palette. “Our arrangement is as temporary as all the others have been. She understands my intention to be done acting as a courtesan after the Exhibition has passed.”

  Aubrey’s expression became knowing as he continued staring at Hugh as if studying a specimen under a microscope. “And you have discussed the end of your arrangement? You have both come to terms with parting ways?”

  Aggravation made Hugh’s movements jerky and abrupt, his teeth now on edge. Damn them, he did not want to have this conversation. He’d been perfectly happy carrying on as he had been, and purposely not thinking or speaking of this.

  “Of course they haven’t,” Benedict said with a scoff. “It’s written all over his face. Dash it, Hugh...you’re going to have to start thinking about it. If Evelyn isn’t ready for this to end and you are, then arrangements must be made to keep her happy.”

  Bile rose up in the back of Hugh’s throat as he thought over what a new ‘arrangement’ would entail. If he could no longer act as Evelyn’s lover and she still desired one …

  “And just what sort of arrangement would that be?” he rasped, bracing both hands on the surface of the table.

  Benedict shrugged. “I’m not certain, though we do have a few gentlemen who are between keepers at the moment. You know her well enough by now, don’t you? Who do you think would be the best match for her?”

  Hugh curled one of his hands into a fist on the tabletop, his ire rising faster than he could stop it. The urge to break Benedict’s nose came over him with a startling ferocity.