She recited her questions with cool calm, but he was not fooled. There was a determination in her eyes that made him very wary. ‘I admit, there were things in my past—but they are exactly that, in my past,’ Giovanni said.
Cressie shook her head, just as he expected she would. ‘I will not be fobbed off so easily this time. You recognised my discontent, you saw the unhappiness at my core. I now see that you recognised it because you share it. You said you see a lot of you in me. You are not happy, Giovanni, are you?’
‘Cressie, this is arrant nonsense. I will not—’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ She dropped her pretended air of calm as abruptly as she had assumed it and grabbed his arm, pulling him bodily over to the easel. ‘Look at that! It’s damned perfect. It’s a polished, technically brilliant, mathematically beautiful painting, but it’s not art. You said that yourself. It’s cold, it’s lacking emotion and it’s utterly self-contained and sure of itself. Just exactly like you.’
She was right, but no one, not even Cressie, was permitted to take such critical liberties with his art. It was the one thing to guarantee his instant loss of temper. ‘How dare you to presume so!’ Giovanni snarled.
She flinched, but did not turn away. ‘I dare because I know you, I presume because I know you can be a truly great artist not just an extremely successful painter. You want to paint emotion. You want to capture passion. How on earth can you do that when you are so—what is it you called me?—buttoned-up! Well, you are so buttoned-up that it is just possible you will suffocate yourself.’
‘You are not even making sense. What has brought this on?’
‘You! Why did you kiss me, Giovanni? Why do you touch me, why do you look at me as you do? Yesterday evening, here in this very studio, you touched me, you kissed me, you were the one who started it. Yesterday morning, when you allowed me to paint with you, you deliberately provoked me into—you know what you did. And after that, in the whispering gallery. You initiated all of those things. Is it some sort of game, to show me that I cannot resist you, to prove that you can resist me?’
‘Stop it, Cressie! You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You’re right. In one sense I don’t, because you have locked the door on me. But in another—Giovanni, if we are so alike as you maintain, can you not trust me?’
He considered it. For a few seconds, he really did think about confiding in her. But to do so would be to admit that there was just cause, that his life, which he had worked so hard for, was not as perfect as he wished it to be. He was at the peak of his profession. He wanted for nothing and he wanted no one. He need explain himself to no one! ‘If you leave the dress up here, I can finish the portrait without your having to pose any further,’ Giovanni said starkly, turning back towards the easel.
‘You don’t even need me for that, then, is that it?’
‘That is it,’ he replied, picking up his brush and turning his shoulder.
The door of the attic closed behind her. Giovanni dropped to the floor and put his head in his hands. He didn’t want to think about what she’d said, didn’t want to consider the accusations she’d thrown at him. Yesterday morning, in the whispering gallery, it had taken all his strength of mind not to surrender to the urge to take pleasure in her pleasure, to take his pleasure with her. He wanted her in a way he had not thought possible, after years of abusing his charms, the subsequent years of denying them. It would be different with Cressie, he was sure of that, but that made him all the more certain that it would be wrong.
It would be wrong, even though every time he touched her it felt right. It would be wrong, even though he could barely sleep for thinking of her. It would be utterly wrong because he did not deserve her and she most certainly did not deserve to be tainted with his past.
Giovanni rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and got to his feet. She probably hated him now. The chances of her allowing him to paint the second portrait were slim. She would not be his muse, because he would not allow himself to feel the passion that smouldered between them, but she could not see as he could, the risk they would take if he cast off the artist and became the man.
He thumped the floor in frustration. His life was not perfect. Even before he’d met her, the sense of frustration, of suffocating, was there. And almost from the moment he saw her, he’d known. He needed to paint her. The urge was stronger than ever. He needed to reclaim himself with this painting, reclaim the artist he had buried inside the society painter. He could not bear this particular canvas to remain blank. But years of isolation, of deliberately cutting himself off, could not make him view even the smallest of explanations without a shudder of disquiet. He would have to think hard about how best to make good the damage he had done.
Cressie paced the empty schoolroom. The boys were outside with Janey. For the second day in a row, she had forced herself to stay away from the attic studio. Two days of being coldly polite to Giovanni downstairs in the gallery while she taught her brothers and he painted them. Two days, alternating between fury and frustration that she had so signally failed to break down his reserve. Two days of waiting it out in the vain hope that he would change his mind, in the slightly more likely hope that he would say he needed her to sit for the completion of her portrait.
She tried to work on her second children’s primer, taking the invaluable experience she had gained in teaching from the first into account, but she could not concentrate. Work on her thesis was impossible, and even when responding to written questions raised by readers of her articles, she found her mind wandering.
There were two globes standing on top of the cupboard where she stored the boys’ books, slates and chalks. One celestial, the other terrestrial, they were beautiful objects made by Carey’s. Cressie’s enthusiasm for the stars meant that the former was put to much more use than the latter. She rubbed at a fingerprint with the cuff of her gown. She really must persuade her father to invest in a telescope. Perhaps if she could get James to write him a letter …
‘Cressida! Here you are. I have been looking all over for you.’ Bella burst into the schoolroom, her face crimson.
Cressie ushered her stepmother towards a chair. Bella sank down, fanning herself with the letter she held in her hand. She was now quite pale, with perspiration beading on her brow, and looked to be on the brink of a swoon.
‘Why did you not send a servant to fetch me?’ Cressie asked, wondering if she dared leave Bella to search for smelling salts.
‘I could not—I wanted you to see—here, read this.’
Bella thrust the letter at her. With a sinking feeling, Cressie recognised her Aunt Sophia’s spidery scrawl. ‘Cordelia?’
Bella, somewhat recovered and breathing more evenly, managed to nod.
Retiring to the window seat, Cressie read her aunt’s missive. Cordelia, it seemed, was setting the ton alight. Already, Aunt Sophia had had to reject five completely unsuitable requests for her hand. My personal belief is that Cordelia is set upon amassing as many offers as possible, Aunt Sophia wrote. Rumour has it that she has actually had her name entered in White’s betting book, in competition with Valeria Winwood’s daughter. The scandal of such a wager pales in comparison to the very low birth of her adversary. Everyone knows exactly how Valeria Winwood acquired her husband.
There was worse to come. Cordelia’s penchant for fast company had resulted in several minor scandals, including her attendance at a boxing match of all things. Aunt Sophia, that stalwart of society, seemed to be genuinely afraid that Cordelia’s vouchers for Almack’s would be withdrawn. Reading between the lines, Cressie was much more concerned that her sister might, whether of her own volition or not, make a dreadful misalliance.
‘She demands that I come to town,’ Bella said waveringly. ‘She says that she cannot be responsible for the consequences if I do not. What am I to do, Cressida? Your father has only just departed for Russia—why did Sophia not raise these issues with him?’
Cressie scanned
the letter again. It would be a mistake to underestimate her aunt, who was one of the few people capable of outmanoeuvring Lord Armstrong. Which meant that this letter was a deliberate ploy. ‘I wonder,’ she mused, ‘do you think that my aunt simply wishes to be rid of the burden of Cordelia’s come-out?’
Bella pursed her mouth. ‘Sophia has the gout, and she is past sixty, for she is several years older than your father, so it would not surprise me if she was a reluctant chaperon—especially given the friskiness of her charge who, as I know all too well, would wear out a whole battalion of chaperons.’
‘I must confess that I’m still surprised that Cordelia would take such advantage of the situation.’
Bella looked sceptical. ‘Really? I am not.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Cordelia is no more interested in marrying a man of your father’s choice than any of you have been, save for Caroline. And I suppose Celia—that foolish man who was her first husband, the one who got himself killed, he was your father’s choice I believe. But as for the rest of you …’ Bella made a sweeping gesture. ‘First Cassie, then you, and it seems obvious to me that now Cordelia too is set on defying your poor father, though why, I do not know.’
Cressie’s jaw dropped, making Bella titter. ‘You think because I am fat and frumpy that I notice nothing. You think because you are all so clever that I am incapable of simple observation. Despite appearances, I do see what goes on under my nose, Cressida. I am aware, for example, that you are allowing that charming and rather delicious portrait painter to take your likeness. I hope you know what you are doing?’
Cressie was too dumbfounded to speak. Her cheeks flooded with colour. She was mortified, not that she had underestimated her stepmother, but that she had judged her so callously, and had indeed assumed her foolish as well as fat. ‘I did not know—we did not mean—indeed, Bella, it is simply …’ She stuttered to a halt under her stepmother’s critical gaze.
‘Let us at least have some truth between us, Cressida. We will never be bosom friends, and I have no interest in playing the mother to you any more than you are interested in allowing me to. It would suit me very well to have every one of you married and gone, for then perhaps your father would pay a little more attention to me and my boys. I don’t care who you marry. I don’t give a fig whom Cordelia marries either, so long as you both marry.’
‘And if I don’t choose to find myself a husband?’
Bella shrugged. ‘Then choose to find a way of quitting my household.’
‘Would you support me if I asked my father for an annuity?’
‘My dear Cressida, you may play the bluestocking spinster with my blessing, but you must know how little real influence I have with my husband. He wants nothing from me save a succession of sons. You will have to find your own way of persuading him, if that is the road you choose to take.’
Cressie examined her ragged thumb. Deciding it was quite bloody enough, she tucked her hand out of reach under her skirts. Her stepmother’s candidness had excused her from some of the guilt she felt, for she knew deep down that not even a desire to make amends would bring about a genuine attachment between them. It was a relief to know that Bella felt the same, though not such a relief as to make her feel anything other than dreadful about her own behaviour over the years since her father’s second marriage.
She got to her feet, folding her Aunt Sophia’s letter up. ‘I am glad we had this talk, Bella.’ Cressie kissed her stepmother’s cheek. The skin was cool, with some of the bloom of youth upon it still. Bella was not so very much older than she. Lost somewhere in the layers of fat and insecurity, there must be a Bella who regretted what she had become, who perhaps longed for escape, just as Cressie did. ‘You look better today,’ she said. ‘Has the sickness eased?’
‘Not really.’
Bella placed a hand on her stomach which, Cressie noticed, was not nearly as distended as it had seemed a few days ago—nor nearly so swollen as it ought to be. From the very earliest days of her previous pregnancies, Bella had been vast. ‘You know that my father has insisted that Sir Gilbert Mountjoy visit?’
‘I shall not see him, and your father is not here to make me do so.’
‘But perhaps—forgive me, Bella, I know very little of these matters, but surely you should not still be so sick?’
‘It is a girl, that is why. Everything about this confinement is different, and I am sure it is because it is a girl.’ Bella heaved herself to her feet. ‘What am I to do about that letter?’
‘Obviously, you cannot go to town. I believe my aunt exaggerates matters in order to try to goad you into action. My father has only recently left London. If Cordelia really had been so outrageous, he would have heard about it. I shall write to my sister and demand the truth from her. Until we hear back from her, I think the best thing we can do is ignore this.’
‘Very well, but if something happens in the meantime …’
‘It shall be on my head,’ Cressie said with a wry smile. ‘I have nothing to lose in terms of my father’s goodwill, but you do. I understand that.’
With a satisfied nod, Bella sailed out of the schoolroom. Left to her own musings, Cressie stared out of the window, where her brothers were fishing from the bridge. She would write to Caro as well as Cordelia. Since her marriage, Caro had become quite withdrawn, visiting Killellan Manor only rarely, London even less. But of the five sisters, Caro was the most intuitive. It would be interesting to read her views on Bella’s revelations.
She must have drifted off to sleep, perched on the window seat with her cheek resting on the pane, because Cressie woke with a start, to find Giovanni standing in the schoolroom doorway, a most forbidding expression on his face. She jumped up, automatically putting a hand to her hair, which was pressed flat on one side, a tangled mess on the other. ‘You startled me. What do you want?’ Her voice was flat and unwelcoming, to compensate for that unchecked moment of being pleased to see him.
‘I came to apologise.’
It was as she expected—he wanted to finish his painting, nothing more. ‘This is quite a day for unparalleled events,’ Cressie said coolly.
Giovanni flinched. He was, as usual, dressed entirely in black, save for his white shirt and a waistcoat of alternating navy and sky-blue stripes. ‘I was unforgivably rude. I lost my temper. I said things I should not have—I am very sorry, Cressie.’
‘What you mean is, will you please still pose for me.’
‘That is not what I mean. I want to explain why it is so crucial to me to paint you,’ Giovanni countered. ‘Will you listen?’
Cressie sighed. He seemed genuinely contrite, and she was genuinely pleased to see him. The silence between them these last two days had made her realise how much conversation they normally shared. She’d been lonely without him. ‘Yes, of course I will. Indeed, with the ample evidence I have just been given of my lack of perception and quickness to judge, I would be happy to listen. No, don’t ask for I have no intentions of explaining right now.’ She sat back down on the window seat and patted the cushion beside her.
Giovanni, however, chose to remain standing. He seemed unsure of himself, less composed than usual. And now that she looked at him closely, which she had not permitted herself to do since their quarrel, she saw that there were dark shadows under his eyes. ‘You have been working too hard.’
‘Not at all.’ His denial was automatic, but he caught himself almost immediately. ‘Yes, I have. I often work at night when I cannot sleep. I have been trying—experimenting with form.’
‘Thank you. For not brushing me off, I mean.’
‘You are welcome. You see, I do listen, but it does not come naturally to me, the urge to explain.’
Cressie laughed. ‘Nor to me, as you well know.’
As he sat down beside her, she was granted one of his rare, true smiles. ‘I did not mean to be so—overbearing. I must have seemed to you every bit as much of a tyrant as your father at times, trying to browbeat you
into my way of thinking.’
‘Good grief, Giovanni, please, you are nothing like my father.’
‘I am extremely relieved to hear you say so, but …’ He took her hand in his, and kissed her wrist. ‘I am sorry. I wanted only to help you.’
His lips had the usual effect on her pulse. Only now that he was here, actually contrite, did Cressie allow herself to admit how upset she had been by their disagreement. ‘You have helped me, but now you must allow me to help myself, if I can.’
‘And to help me too, if you will. I want to prove that I can produce something more than just a polished, technically brilliant, mathematically beautiful painting.’
‘Did I say that?’ Cressie made a face. ‘Sorry.’
‘It is the truth, that is what I do paint, but I am capable of more. With your help.’
Giovanni leaned over to touch her face, tracing the line of her forehead, her cheek, her throat. Such a familiar touch, one she had not thought she’d feel again. It made her skin tingle, it roused memories of all the other times he had touched her, and it brought with it too a melancholy, a prelude of the time when he would not be here, when her portrait would be done, and Giovanni would be done too, with her. But for the moment, he was still here. And that was enough. ‘When will we start?’
‘You are still willing to sit for me, Cressie?’ She laughed at his eagerness, at the way he clapped his hands together and leapt to his feet. ‘We can begin tomorrow. I have finished the other portrait, the first one, save for the final glaze.’ His smile faded. ‘But I need to tell you first—explain something.’
Frowning, Giovanni began to spin the Carey globes, just as she had done earlier, first one then the other. ‘You asked me why I must always retreat from you, why I am so buttoned-up, as you put it. You’ve awoken in me what I thought was dead, Cressie, the desire to create, to paint from the heart. You have rekindled my passion. And the reason I cannot—the reason I will not—I am afraid. No, I am terrified that if I allow myself to …’
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