by Joan Wolf
She was gone for longer than she had planned, and when she arrived back at the Sinclair house, it was to find that the senator had arrived. Simon practically beamed as he informed her of this fact, and she climbed the stairs to the second-floor drawing room valiantly trying to ignore the flutter in her stomach.
He was sitting and talking to his mother, but he stood as soon as Isabel entered the room.
“Leo, this is Isabel MacCarthy,” Mrs. Sinclair said. “Isabel, allow me to introduce my son.”
“Miss MacCarthy,” Leo Sinclair said as he came forward to take the hand she offered.
Isabel had been prepared for the Viking good looks. She had, after all, seen numerous photos of the senator. But she had not been prepared for the quality of his presence.
“How do you do, Senator,” she said, she hoped, calmly, and looked up into his face. His coloring was amazing, she thought. Thick blond hair was like a golden helmet; his eyes shone like twin sapphires. Unconsciously, her own eyes narrowed. He wasn’t at all pretty. Indeed, the impact he made on one was thoroughly male.
“Were you out seeing the sights of the city, Miss MacCarthy?” he asked. His voice was distinctly Southern: gentle, slow, and drawling. It also sounded faintly amused.
Isabel realized she had been staring and felt her cheeks grow a little warm. “Yes,” she said, and looked determinedly at his mother. “I’m afraid I rather lost track of the time.”
“That’s quite all right, dear,” Mrs. Sinclair said. “Leo and I have been so busy talking that the time quite flew. Have you had lunch? Shall I order tea?”
“I haven’t had lunch,” said Isabel, “but I’m not hungry, Mrs. Sinclair, really.”
“Well, I am, Mama,” said the senator.
“Didn’t they give you lunch on the plane?” his mother asked with a little frown.
He grinned, a slow smile that brought a look of lazy sunshine to his face. It was a marvelous smile, thought Isabel, her eyes once again on Leo Sinclair. “Yes,” he said.
Mrs. Sinclair laughed. “Sit down, Isabel, and I’ll order tea.”
Isabel complied, taking a wing chair by the beautiful carved chimneypiece, and Leo sat down on the sofa next to his mother. Isabel’s observant eyes noted that he moved with extraordinary grace for so big a man.
“You drove all the way down from New York, Miss MacCarthy?” He pronounced it “New Yawk.”
“Yes, Senator. I thought I’d see a little bit of the country while I had the chance.”
He smiled at her. I can’t wait to paint this man, Isabel thought and smiled back. “I don’t blame you,” he said.
Simon came in with the tea try, and as she poured, Mrs. Sinclair told her son that Isabel had decided to work in the library.
“Fine.” The deep soft voice took on a note of affectionate teasing. “Do you want me to dress up in eighteenth-century garb, Mama?”
“Of course not. You will wear ...” Mrs. Sinclair broke off and looked at Isabel. “Whatever shall he wear, Isabel? A business suit is much too dull.” She looked at her son doubtfully. “Your dinner jacket, perhaps?”
He gave her a reproachful look. “Mama. Please.”
His mother shrugged helplessly and two pairs of blue eyes turned to look at Isabel. Isabel didn’t think it mattered very much what he wore, really, but obligingly she put her mind to the problem.
“Something blue,” she said after a minute. “A sweater, I think. I’ll do you standing in front of the mantelpiece.”
“Standing,” said Leo resignedly. “Oh, well.”
“You can wear your blue V-neck sweater,” his mother said. “Isabel is right. It will be a good foil for your eyes.”
Leo looked amused and ate one of the sandwiches Simon had brought with the tea.
“Delicious,” he said, and held the plate out to Isabel. “Have one, Miss MacCarthy.”
Isabel accepted. The sandwich was crabmeat and it was delicious. Isabel took a hungry bite.
“I can stay until Thursday,” Leo said, and Isabel put her sandwich down abruptly and stared at him.
“Thursday? But today is Saturday.”
“Won’t that be enough time, dear?” asked Mrs. Sinclair worriedly.
Isabel was really upset. “Of course it won’t be enough time. I need at least two weeks of sittings if I’m to do a portrait.”
“Well, I cannot give you two weeks.” The senator’s voice was quiet but firm. “Congress is in session and I must be in Washington.” He turned to his mother. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
Hell, Isabel thought explosively. Bloody bloody hell. Her face, however, showed none of her agitation; when it came to concealing feelings, Isabel was an expert.
“I was not aware, when I accepted this commission, that your time would be so limited, Senator,” she said now in a cool, clipped voice. She looked directly into the astonishing blue eyes of the man seated opposite her and thought, you bastard. You’re just like the rest of your kind. What do you care that I’ve come all this way for nothing? It’s not convenient for you to sit for your portrait, and that’s that.
“You don’t work from photographs?” he asked her.
“No.”
The blue eyes moved from her face to his mother.
“This is all my fault,” Mrs. Sinclair said in obvious distress. “I should have thought of this sooner.”
Leo shrugged, his big shoulders moving easily under his expensive jacket.
Damn, thought Isabel.
Leo looked at her. “Well, Miss MacCarthy,” he said in his soft voice, “I reckon you’ll just have to come back to Washington with me.”
Isabel’s dark eyes widened. “Washington!” she said in astonishment.
“Yes, Washington. I have a house in Georgetown and there’s plenty of room. I can give you a few hours every morning.” He cocked a golden eyebrow. “What do you say?”
Isabel took a deep breath. She had not realized how much she wanted to do this portrait. “I say it seems I don’t have a choice in the matter,” she answered.
He grinned at her. He was a devastatingly good-looking man. “Not if you want to paint my portrait, you don’t.”
He probably mowed down women by the dozens with that smile, Isabel thought. She looked back at him a little austerely.
“Really, Leo, will it be proper?” Mrs. Sinclair asked worriedly. “I’m afraid I simply cannot accompany you at this time.”
“Mama,” said Leo affectionately, “how I love you. It will be perfectly unexceptional, I assure you. Of course, I reckon I could always hire a duenna ...”
Mrs. Sinclair laughed as she was meant to. “How absurd you are, Leo. Well, if you’re sure ...”
“I’m sure,” he replied firmly, and Isabel realized with a flash of amusement that Mrs. Sinclair was far more worried about her son’s reputation than she was about Isabel’s.
Leo met Isabel’s eyes and divined, instantly, what her thought was. His blue eyes laughed at her, although his face remained grave. “Well, Miss MacCarthy? Are you willing to chance it?” he asked.
Isabel leaned back in her chair. “I want to paint your portrait, Senator,” she said pleasantly, “and, so I will come to Washington with you.”
* * * *
Over dinner that evening Isabel got a chance to see the entire Sinclair family in action. Leo’s father, she knew from her reading, had been killed in a plane crash three years earlier, so it was just Mrs. Sinclair and her three children.
Isabel sensed very clearly that the four of them were indeed a family. It had been a long time since she herself had experienced anything like the casual, comfortable family atmosphere that prevailed at the Sinclair dinner table. They sat there, blond and beautiful, rich and privileged, and Leo, at the head of the table, outshone them all. It was difficult to relate to people who had been so blessed by the gods, Isabel thought wryly.
“We’ll have our coffee in the drawing room,” Mrs. Sinclair said as she rose gracefully from the table.
“
Cal and I are going to a party at Kathleen’s,” Paige reminded her mother.
“Ah ha,” said Leo good-naturedly. “Cal. Now that’s a new name. Who is he, Paige? And what happened to Johnny Montgomery?”
Paige laughed at her big brother as they left the dining room, and for a moment Isabel felt a stab of sharp envy for this lovely, self-assured girl who had brothers to tease her and protect her. When Cal, a slender, brown-haired, polite boy, arrived, Leo left the drawing room to see them out. When he returned, there was a slight frown between his brows.
“What’s the matter?” his mother asked imperturbably. “I’ve found him to be a nice boy.”
“He is nice. I just hate to see her getting into a car with a teenage driver, that’s all.” He gave his mother a half-humorous look. “I’d be a terrible father. I hate to let go.”
Mrs. Sinclair sighed. “I know. But Paige is a sensible girl. She knows she can call anytime, and either Ben or I will come and get her. I think she has enough sense not to get into a car with a boy who’s been drinking.”
“I hope so,” said Leo, and for the first time there was a look of grimness around his firm, well-cut mouth.
Ben put down his coffee cup. “Well, I’ll be on my way too,” he said, and stood up. He grinned down at the relaxed figure of his brother. “If Paige calls, you’re on duty tonight. I have a date with Susan Deboise.”
“Well, well, well,” Leo drawled. “You’re more faithful than Paige, little brother. Am I going to be called on to be best man one of these days?”
“I’m thinking about it,” Ben said. “If I wait for you to make the jump first, I’ll be old and gray.”
Leo’s blue eyes glinted. “Give my regards to Susan,” he said.
“I’m not letting you near Susan,” his brother retorted. He bent over to kiss his mother and smiled at Isabel as he left the room.
“He sounds serious,” Leo commented to his mother after Ben was safely down the stairs.
“I think he is. Susan is a lovely girl, and she’s good for Ben.”
Leo nodded absently and his eyes focused on Isabel, who was sitting next to the chimneypiece. She was wearing a soft wool dress of pale gold, and his eyes lingered for a minute on her long, elegant legs before moving thoughtfully to her face. Isabel saw the look and, to her own surprise and discomfort, felt blood come into her cheeks. Annoyed at herself, she sat up straighter in her chair. Good God, she thought, you’d think a man had never looked at my legs before. It was a moment before she realized he was smiling at her.
“I’m so much older than my brother and sister that sometimes I get fits of paternal instinct,” he said.
“There must be ten years between you and Ben,” she managed to say.
“Yes. And sixteen years between me and Paige.”
“I had quite given up on having another child when Ben came along,” Mrs. Sinclair said. “And Paige was a complete surprise.”
Leo put down his coffee cup and leaned back on the sofa, stretching the muscles in his back. His darkly clad shoulders looked enormous against the paler upholstery of the sofa. “What about you, Miss MacCarthy? Do you have brothers and sisters?”
Isabel had never realized how charming a Southern accent could sound. “No,” she answered simply, though her own voice sounded unpleasantly nasal and clipped in contrast to his. “I was an only child.” The blue eyes were steady on her face and she found herself continuing, “My mother died when I was thirteen.”
“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Sinclair in quick sympathy.
“And your father?” asked Leo.
Unknown to her, Isabel’s face took on the bleak look it always wore when the subject of her father arose. “My father died three years ago,” she said, and looked at her hands.
“That’s when my father died,” Leo said quietly.
Isabel took a deep, steadying breath. “It was not a good year,” she said, and looked up from her lap and met his eyes. They were the most absolutely blue eyes she had ever seen. It was not until Mrs. Sinclair spoke that she was able to look away from him.
“Do you want to start painting tomorrow, Isabel?” the senator’s mother asked.
“How can I?” Isabel asked in genuine bewilderment.
“Can’t you start the portrait here?”
“Oh, I see what you’re thinking.” She shook her head. “The light would be different.”
“Then you’ll have to wait until you get to Washington.”
“I’m afraid so,” said Isabel a little apologetically.
“Good,” said Leo Sinclair unexpectedly. “That will give me a few days to show you around the area.”
Isabel tried to speak coolly. “You needn’t worry about entertaining me, Senator.”
His smile was warm and his slow voice held a hint of amusement. “It’s not a worry,” he said easily. “It will be a pleasure.”
“What Mass do you want to go to tomorrow, Leo?” asked Mrs. Sinclair.
“The ten-thirty, I reckon.”
Mrs. Sinclair nodded and looked at Isabel. “Would you like to come with us, Isabel?”
Isabel hadn’t been to Mass in years and she looked in surprise at the two Southern aristocrats in front of her. “I thought Sinclair was a Scottish name,” she said, following her own line of thought.
“It was originally Saint Claire—French,” Leo replied. The lamp on the table next to him had been lighted and a soft glow fell upon the smooth golden wing of his hair. “My ancestors were Huguenots fleeing from religious persecution, and for centuries the Sinclairs were staunch Protestants. Until Mama came along and subverted the whole lot of us.” He turned to smile at his mother, and his hair shimmered in the light. “Lady Marchmain,” he said to Mrs. Sinclair in a gentle, teasing voice.
“Don’t link me with that horrible woman.” Mrs. Sinclair shuddered. “Did you see Brideshead Revisited on television, Isabel?”
Isabel shook her head, and her own black hair shimmered against the pale gold of her dress. “No. But I read the book.”
“Amazing,” Leo said. “She read the book. No one reads the book anymore, Miss MacCarthy. They watch the movie or the TV show.”
“I’d rather read the book,” Isabel said.
“Why?”
Isabel looked at him thoughtfully. “A movie can only show you characterization through action— what a person says and does. A book can open up the whole interior life of a character to you. It’s a question of depth.”
“I see. And is that what you try to capture in a portrait, something of the interior life of your subject?”
Isabel was startled. “Why, yes.”
“I shall have to watch out, then, or you will discover all my deep dark secrets.”
“Do you have deep dark secrets, Senator?”
He smiled at her faintly. “Ah,” he said, drawling a little more than usual, “now that is something you will just have to find out.”
Chapter Three
Isabel excused herself from Mass the following morning but the entire Sinclair family got into Ben’s car at ten-fifteen and left for church. They did not return home until almost twelve-thirty,
“Leo was holding court,” Paige told Isabel with a laugh.
“More people wanted to know my thoughts about the trade Dallas just made than wanted to consult me on senatorial matters,” Leo said good-naturedly as he held the door for his mother.
“My, but it’s warm,” Mrs. Sinclair commented as she entered the drawing room, where Isabel was sitting comfortably with a book.
“I know.” Isabel put her book down. “And it was so cold and damp when I left New York that I didn’t think to bring any warm-weather clothes with me.” She was wearing her tan corduroy pants with a pin-striped man-tailored shirt. “A heat wave must have rolled in overnight.”
“It feels marvelous to me,” Paige said.
“After lunch,” Leo told Isabel, “I’ll take you out to Island Views, if you like. The beach there is lovely.” He was wearing a lig
htweight gray suit and he looked healthy and distinguished, masculine and elegant, all at once.
“It’s super,” Paige said enthusiastically. “May I come too, Leo?”
Her brother looked at her. “Did I ask to come along with you last night?”
Paige looked nonplussed and Isabel felt the color sting her cheeks. “I told you not to worry about entertaining me, Senator,” she said quickly.
“And I told you I never worry,” Leo replied serenely.
Mrs. Sinclair chuckled. “Do go with him, Isabel. If you’re going to paint his portrait, you’re going to have to get to know each other.”
This was indisputably true, and after a minute Isabel nodded. But when Paige said wickedly, “Look out, Miss MacCarthy, he’s broken half the female hearts in America,” Isabel thought to herself, Not this heart he won’t. Her heart had been given away long ago—to a stretched canvas and a palette of oil paints. So she merely smiled slightly at Paige and accepted Mrs. Sinclair’s offer of another cup of coffee.
* * * *
An hour and a half later they were driving down the coast in Mrs. Sinclair’s Buick. “It’s about an hour’s drive to the beach,” Leo told her comfortably.
Isabel turned her head to look at him. He had changed out of his suit into a navy Izod shirt, khaki pants, and sneakers. The short-sleeved shirt made him look very strong. Isabel stared for a moment at his bare arm and then focused on his profile.
“Are you active in the development office as well, Senator?”
“Please call me Leo.” He gave her a quick, sideways glance. There was a look of humor about his mouth. It was a wonderful mouth, thought Isabel. She would have to try to catch that feeling of humor. “After all,” he continued, “we’re going to be living together for several weeks.”
Ah, thought Isabel, I’d better get this clear straight off. “In one sense only,” she replied calmly but firmly.
There was a brief silence. Then, “Of course,” he said, his voice slower and softer than usual. “I’m sorry if you thought I meant to imply something more.”
All of a sudden Isabel felt very silly. “Sorry if I seemed to overreact,” she said a little gruffly. He smiled but made no reply. “And please,” she went on carefully, “won’t you call me Isabel.”