Portrait of a Love

by Joan Wolf

  “All right,” he said calmly. “I reckon I can give you three hours every morning—from seven-thirty to ten-thirty. Will that be all right?”

  It would have to be. “Fine,” she said. She fixed level brown eyes on his face. “But you must be prompt,” she said sternly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, and her face broke into a smile.

  * * * *

  After breakfast Isabel set up her easel in the library, a beautifully wainscoted, book-lined room that had big windows facing the east. The early-morning light was marvelous.

  Isabel suggested poses for Leo, but ultimately decided he should simply stand in front of a wall of old, leather-bound books, with the light from the window illuminating his face clearly against the muted background of browns and deep reds and greens. She gave him a book to hold in his hand and turned him so that he would be looking toward her, his face slightly tilted. It was a distinctly old-fashioned pose that Isabel thought would please Mrs. Sinclair.

  Leo was not a problem subject. Isabel had never worked with a nonprofessional model who was as relaxed and unself-conscious as he. And it wasn’t just that he was accustomed to performing in front of thousands of people, either. There was something about him, a serenity she thought had always been a part of his nature; a beautiful ease that came from always being certain of oneself and of one’s position in the world. He was a “patrician.” That word had always left a bad taste in Isabel’s mouth, she associated it with snobbery and insensitivity to the needs of others. She associated it with Marie Antoinette and let-them-eat-cake. But this time it did not leave a bad taste in her mouth at all.

  In fact, it was the quality about him that she was most concerned to catch in her portrait. He was beautiful, certainly. She was painting him in the V-neck sweater his mother had suggested, his pinstriped shirt opened at his throat. The morning light played mercilessly on the strong bones of his face, on the thick gilt hair, and on the brilliant blue of his eyes. But it was not just his beauty that made him so striking. Nor was it the unmistakably masculine magnetism that Isabel admitted was there as well. It was a certain fortunate, brilliant, exceptional look—the look of a man of happy temperament and high civilization. It was that look, more than anything else, that provoked one to wish oneself, almost blindly, in his place. Isabel found herself hungering to get her brush in hand. There were hundreds of good-looking, sexy men in the world, she thought, and she had no desire to paint any of them. But Leo ... Leo was a rarity. She had known that, instinctively, when she had first met him. He had something his brother, for instance, who was very like him physically, did not have. It was that something Isabel’s fingers ached to catch on canvas.

  After Leo left for his office, Isabel worked for another hour and finally cleaned her brushes. Then she looked around the house.

  Compared to the Sinclair’s Charleston home, Leo’s house on Q Street was modest. Isabel, however, didn’t have any illusions about its being modest in price. Georgetown was the supremely desirable area for Washington urban dwellers, the most popular place to live for permanent government-oriented people with a taste for the capital’s social life. Real estate in Georgetown was probably through the roof, she thought as she peered out into the walled garden at the back of the house.

  “I’m just not an apartment or hotel person,” Leo had told her that morning during their first sitting. “The thing I hated most about my years in football were all those hotels I stayed in while on the road.”

  “Did you have a house in Dallas?” she asked, staring intently at the line of his shoulders.

  “No. I had an apartment. I hated it. I went home to Charleston every chance I could get.”

  Isabel began to paint. “I’ve never lived anywhere but an apartment. It depends on what you’re used to, I guess.”

  “I reckon.”

  “You’re used to eighteenth-century furniture and Oriental rugs, so naturally you would find a modern apartment uncomfortable.”

  “Let ‘em eat cake,” he drawled, and startled, Isabel’s hand stilled and she stared at his face.

  Then, after a brief pause, she grinned. “Vive la revolution,” she retorted.

  “Vive la revolution,” he repeated amiably. “The Sinclairs were poor as church mice for a century or so, you know. We lost our plantation in the war— the Yankees burned it. All that was left was the Charleston house and the furniture. It was pretty threadbare by the time my father inherited it.”

  “So it was your father who recouped the family fortune, then.”

  “Yes.” He grinned. “By selling property to rich Yankees who wanted some sun. Poetic justice, I call it.”

  Isabel chuckled. “Poetic justice it is.” She tilted her head a little to one side. “Can you raise your chin just a trifle, Leo? That’s it. Good.” She resumed her painting, and after twenty more minutes Leo had left for his office in the Senate Office Building near the Capital.

  But that conversation had made clear to Isabel why a bachelor would bother to buy a house like this rather than stay at the Watergate or the Mayflower Hotel. Leo wasn’t a transient sort of person, she thought as she collected the map he had given her and prepared to investigate the city. That was one of the things that made him different from the vast majority of modern Americans. He was a man with roots who still called Charleston home.

  * * * *

  Leo arrived home at five-thirty, took his jacket off, and relaxed comfortably in the casual sitting room which held the television and the newspapers and the bar. Isabel had been watching the news on TV when he joined her. He fixed himself a drink and Isabel a ginger ale before sitting on the sofa with her. He loosened his tie and leaned his head back against the cushions.

  “I had a desk full of reports to get through,” he said after a minute. He took a sip of his drink. “I had to bring a few home with me.”

  Isabel didn’t understand why she should feel so strange with him, but she did. She felt as if her skin were suddenly too thin, as if she could feel his every movement and change of expression in all the exposed nerves of her body. She sat up straighter. “What sort of ‘repawts,’ ” she drawled, hoping to disguise her unsettled feelings by falling back on familiar territory.

  He wasn’t even looking at her; his eyes were on the television. Isabel stared, fascinated, at his relaxed figure beside her. Leaning back, his drink held between his long, strong fingers, his long legs stretched out on the Oriental rug, he answered absently “Committee reports, mainly.” His eyes were still on the television anchorman.

  Isabel turned her own attention to the TV and tried to watch the show as well, but when it was over, she couldn’t have repeated a word the smoothly spoken, good-looking newsman had said.

  Leo turned to her with a smile. “I thought we’d eat out at a restaurant tonight,” he said. “Just the two of us. Tomorrow we go to dinner at the Stacks.” He took a last swallow of his drink and Isabel saw the muscles in his throat move.

  There was a moment’s blank pause and then Isabel’s eyes widened.

  “The Hamilton Stacks?” she squeaked.

  His blue eyes were full of amusement. “The Hamilton Stacks.”

  “Hamilton Stack, the former Secretary of State?”

  “The same.”

  “My, my, my,” she said then. “You do fly in high circles.”

  His eyes narrowed just slightly. “It’s my famous Southern charm.”

  Isabel’s dark eyes regarded him thoughtfully and then, all of a sudden, it was as if a shutter came down over her face. “It must be very wearing, such popularity.” Her tone was slightly caustic.

  He put his drink down and stretched. His muscles were obvious .even under the tailored fabric of his white dress shirt. He looked a little bewildered by her sudden change of tone. “I manage,” he said amiably.

  Isabel looked at him from behind a screen of composed reserve. She stood up. “What time do you want to leave?” she asked.

  “I have a reservation for seven-thirty.”


  “I’ll go change.”

  She left the room unhurriedly and went up the stairs to her room, but her thoughts weren’t nearly as calm as her outward demeanor. She had suddenly realized what was the matter with her: she was falling victim to that famous Southern charm.

  “Damn,” said Isabel out loud as she closed the door of her bedroom behind her. “Damn and blast.” She went over to the closet and opened it. “Half the females in America ...” she muttered. “Well, not this one, Senator. Forewarned is forearmed. I am here to paint your portrait. And that is all.”

  Chapter Six

  They went to the Sans Souci restaurant for dinner. Isabel was distantly pleasant in the car. Leo was serenely courteous. When they walked into the restaurant, Isabel noticed a distinct sway of heads turning in their direction. The heads moved with them as the maitre d’ escorted them across the floor to one of the booths under the rear balcony.

  “I’ve never been out with a celebrity before,” she remarked coolly as she slid into her seat.

  Leo gave a wine order to the waiter, and when the man had left, he looked gravely over the table at Isabel. The dim table lamp underlit his hair and his eyes and his cheekbones.

  “People look at you all the time,” he said quietly. “You should be accustomed to it by now.”

  His remark startled her, and her dark eyes widened. “People don’t stare at me!”

  An odd expression, half-understanding, half-rueful, rested for a moment on Leo’s face. “Haven’t you noticed?” he asked gently.

  Isabel’s eyes held his blue gaze for a moment and then dropped to regard the salt and pepper shakers with great intensity. “It’s you they were looking at,” she said.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then, astonishingly and seemingly utterly at random, he said, “Some man sure did a job on you, didn’t he?”

  Isabel felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her stomach. Her head jerked upward, color flamed in her cheeks. “How did you know ...” she began, and then broke off. His blue eyes were full of sympathy and tenderness. Southern charm, she thought abruptly. She brushed a nonexistent strand of hair away from her temple and said, hardly, “Do you do this sort of thing for your own private entertainment?”

  There was a flicker of some emotion in his eyes, but his voice, when he answered, was undisturbed. “What do you think?”

  She stared at him, half in hostility and half in uncertainty. She forgot that they were in a restaurant, forgot everything but the look in that steady blue gaze. Then someone passed by their table and stopped to say something to Leo. His attention was distracted as he spoke to the man courteously, although a thin line appeared between his brows. The conversation was brief, but it gave Isabel a chance to collect her composure. When he turned back to her, she gave him an impersonal smile and said, “I’m hungry. Shall we order?”

  “All right,” he answered after a moment. “I think I’m in the mood for fish tonight. What about you?”

  They ordered, and when the salad had been brought, he began to talk about one of the reports he had found waiting for him that afternoon. It wasn’t long before Isabel was absorbed in what he was saying. By the time coffee was served, she was sitting with her elbows on the table, relaxed, unself-conscious, discussing the merits of a particular bill that was to come before Leo’s committee that week as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Leo looked with understanding at the young face across the table from him.

  “Do you want some more coffee?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  Leo glanced up and their waiter approached instantly.

  “Check please.”

  “Certainly, Senator.”

  Then Leo and Isabel were in his car and driving through the quiet Washington streets.

  “Would you like to come for lunch in the Senate dining room tomorrow?” he asked after a few minutes.

  “I’d love that.” She grinned and said, “Bob is going to be green with envy when I get home.”

  “I just hope he’s not green with jealousy,” Leo returned easily. “He wasn’t upset that you were staying with me?”

  “Of course not.” There was a pause and then Isabel said, a little gruffly, “We don’t have that sort of a relationship.”

  Neither of them said anything else until Leo stopped the car in the narrow driveway next to his house. Then he turned to her, slid a little way across the seat in her direction, and with perfect and natural authority took her in his arms and bent his head to kiss her.

  Isabel was stunned—so stunned that she was quiet in his embrace for several long seconds. His kiss was gentle, not demanding, and she had a sudden, overwhelming desire to nestle into his arms, to close her eyes and let him hold her, kiss her, love her. It was her own impulse more than his embrace that made her stiffen against him. He released her immediately.

  “That is not professional behavior at all,” she said, and hoped he didn’t notice that her breathing wasn’t quite under control.

  He didn’t answer and she opened the car door and walked steadily to the front door of the house. Unfortunately it was locked and she had to wait for him to come and let her in.

  Leo turned the key in the lock and quietly opened the door. She was agonizingly aware of his closeness, of his size, of his hair shining like gilt in the glow of the doorstep lamp. She carefully avoided brushing against him as she walked into the front hall.

  “I’ve never raped anyone in my life,” he said humorously, “and I promise not to start with you.”

  Suddenly, humiliatingly, Isabel felt tears stinging her eyes. “Hell,” she said violently, and she turned to run up the stairs.

  A strong arm reached out and circled her shoulders and she found herself being walked steadily down the hallway and into the sitting room.

  “You’re not going to run away,” Leo’s voice said above her head. “You’ve been running away for long enough, I think.” He put his hands on her shoulders and made her sit down on the sofa.

  “What do you know about it?” she said shakily. A drop fell from her eyes onto her clenched hands. “I’m not a candidate for a Big Brother,” she added, and disregarding the tears she could no longer hide, she stared up at him defiantly.

  He sat down beside her. “I know. You already have a big brother, I think. Isn’t that what Bob is?” He put his hand into his pocket and handed her his handkerchief.

  Isabel took it, dried her cheeks, and blew her nose. “You don’t do much crying, do you?” he asked noncommittally.

  She laughed a little unsteadily. “The last time I cried was the day I graduated from Cooper Union. I came home to find we had been evicted from our apartment—Daddy had neglected to pay the rent.”

  Thank God he didn’t offer her pity. The one thing she did not want was pity. “Surely you had learned by then not to trust him with paying the bills,” Leo said.

  “Of course I had.” A strand of black hair had come down from her chignon and lay coiled like silk on her shoulder. “The end of the term was frantically busy, though. I put the exact amount of money into an addressed envelope and told him to get a money order on his lunch hour and mail it. He didn’t drink in the morning. And he told me he had bought the money orders. I did that for four months and then came home and found all our belongings out on the street.”

  Leo sighed. “That’s an alcoholic for you.”

  For some strange reason, she began to feel better. “I suppose so.”

  “Drugs are the same. I knew a few fellows who were on cocaine.” He shrugged. “You lose them. There’s nothing left: no dignity, no honesty, no love. Nothing. Just the drug.”

  “But why, Leo? Why would someone do that to himself?”

  He grinned crookedly. “Honey, if I could answer that question, I’d be more famous than Freud.”

  She gave him a shadowy smile. “I guess you would be.” She turned her head then and stared straight ahead, at the blank television set.

 
; “You were right about Bob,” she said quietly. “He has been a big brother to me. I would never have been able to get as far as I have as a painter if it wasn’t for him.” She seemed to realize for the first time that her hair had loosened, and she raised her hands to try to push it up again. He watched the deft movements of her fingers, her sternly beautiful profile. She bent her head a little forward and then raised it again. Her neck was long, slender, and delicate, and the line of her breasts under the fine wool dress was emphasized by the movement of her arms. Some of the peacefulness left Leo’s face as he studied her.

  “I could never have afforded to live on just my salary,” she continued. “When Daddy died, I would have had to get a second job, but Bob let me move in with him. He pays the rent and the utilities. I just buy the food.” She raised her hand once more to smooth back her hair. “There are two bedrooms,” she added a little awkwardly.

  “I see. So you have financial security and time to paint. What does Bob get out of this arrangement?”

  “He gets his meals cooked, his house cleaned, and his laundry done,” Isabel said tartly.

  “I see.” Leo stretched his legs out in front of him. “Does he also get a little professional camouflage?”

  Isabel’s mouth dropped open. She stared at him. “How did you know?”

  “Isabel, honey, there is no way in this world that a heterosexual man could live with you for three years on the terms you have just described to me.”

  Isabel closed her mouth. “Oh.”

  “I believe you said he works for a very stuffy architectural firm?”

  “Yes. They think our living together is racy and modern and slightly scandalous. I get speeches at every dinner about how I should let him marry me. But they would not accept the truth at all—or at least Bob doesn’t think they would.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think they’d want to lose Bob, whatever his sexual preference may be. He’s tremendously talented. And he’s a super guy. Everyone likes him because it’s impossible not to like him.” She turned her face back to the empty television. “He’s been an absolute Rock of Gibraltar for me,” she said flatly.