by Ash Krafton
Most interesting was the fact that the fan, once the ultimate female weapon, had been replaced by the ever-useful garter belt and the secrets they concealed.
The parties she attended were no longer elegant fetes of propriety and social scaling. Manners were looser, as were inhibitions. Senza remained aloof, unsurrendering to the pressures of completely fitting in. She was not one for gin, or cigarettes, or temptation to the point of regret. However, she had a part to play in this era, and chose to portray herself as temptation divine, rather than playful puppy.
Her cool elegance still acted the undeniable lure, and she never passed an evening without a healthy supply of admirers and their heartbeats in her orbit. The copious flow of alcohol allowed her thefts to go unnoticed. They seemed only too happy to oblige the captivating woman with the eyes that never stopped.
One evening, she came up against a person whose gravitational force matched her own.
Yet another gala at another wealthy home in London—she’d lost track of who was who, really. She had been standing at the far end of the great parlour, surrounded by no less than half a dozen aristocrats. A minister, his eager-faced wife, a handful of young businessmen, a new socialite or two. She’d developed a knack for identifying men and women and their station with rough estimates and stereotypical titles just for the sake of not having to remembering names.
This evening she was engaged in a rather lively debate with the minister who fancied himself a bit of an expert on life after death. Little did he know he was up against someone with an inside track on the subject.
She delighted in confounding him with her vast wealth of knowledge of classic philosophy, her ability to quote streams of poetry and prose from the greatest of literatures. More than once, she’d had to smile away his disbelief at her tender age.
When he seemed ready to pull out his Bible to try and conquer her once and for all, a man called Breckenridge arrived and the Bible was forgotten.
When he walked into the room, he took possession of every living soul within. Even if it were for only a moment, and at the greatest expense of pride on the part of those who did their best to resist turning their heads toward his approach—the moment Richard Breckenridge appeared, every single person in attendance knew it.
He did not draw attention with a boisterous laugh, or a clearing of throat; he did not take up a clattering conversation; rather, it was the act of every other person in the room momentarily holding a breath at his manifestation. A silence rippled outward away from him, a fluid pause that was imperceptible to anyone who did not notice such things.
Senza, on the other hand, noticed such things. Usually, it was she at the epicenter of such phenomena. Curious, to meet another with the ability to make so captivating an entrance.
For the first time in a long while, she showed an interest in someone other than herself and inquired after his name. She needed to know who was it that had stolen her spotlight, even for the length of a held breath, or a tilt of the head, or a sidelong glance.
A moment’s adoration had been purloined. Curiosity consumed her.
Senza’s cool arrogance never wavered, not even as she positioned herself to observe him without suspect of brashness.
She was the center of a web, and the flies were ever drawn to her. No one could as much as tremble that web without her being alerted. He would come to her. They always found their way to her.
“Ah, Breckenridge, old sport,” a man called from nearby.
“A northerner,” the minister said, seeming relieved that the great battle of philosophy had been abandoned, with him entrenched upon the losing side. “He owns factories, now that his father has passed. Successful ones, too. A wonder he tore himself away to come all the way down here.”
“He’s family here, as I understand it,” his wife added.
“A great family man.” The minister picked up with greater enthusiasm for the change in subject. “Respect for family always lends itself to respect for others. His reputation as a decent man is well known.”
“A decent man,” Senza murmured, allowing herself the opportunity to take in the sight of this stranger. Her first impression was that of granite—a flawlessness of profile, a proud smooth angle of nose, a solid jaw and serene smile, a quiet sense of strength that ebbed out like heat from a hearthstone. Granite, clean and simple.
But strength was not necessarily a positive character. Granite may be attractive, but stone was still stone, cold and solid and incapable of feeling. She should know. She’s spent decades seeking the secret of becoming granite.
The others in her party were downright fascinated by Breckenridge, unabashed in their admiration. At the sound of her voice, they came back to her, their expressions changing slightly. The admiration took on a slightly hungry edge, as if she were a boiled sweet.
She smiled and honeyed her voice, giving them the sugar they craved. “I would be curious to know exactly how one defines the term.”
“Only way is to experience it.” The minister called to Breckendridge, introducing himself and his party, leaving Senza for last.
No matter. Judging by the scant eye contact he made with the others during introductions, Senza seemed to be the only one he noticed.
A wave of satisfaction washed over her. There. That was more like it.
He barely left her side the rest of the evening, and together they became the center of the event, the royal couple. Murmurs of admiration declared them an ideal match, most well-suited to one another. It was only natural.
Only natural, as well, was his requesting her company for a carriage ride the next day, then a dinner party later that week. They began attending functions together, each using their mutual charms to their advantage—drawn to the beauty, businessmen had opportunity to seek arrangements in trade with him. Drawn by his handsome charm, socialites of all types sought pleasantries with the maid, each unknowingly donating a heartbeat to Senza’s ever-growing stockpile.
She no longer looked at it as stealing. Rather, she accepted offerings. So much better than calling herself a thief.
Breckenridge was the ideal conversationalist. They shared many of the same interests—or, rather, she had become fluent in so many areas of art, literature, technology, and science that she could contribute to any conversation with the practiced ease of a studied aficionado. After so lengthy and varied an education, Senza would be anyone’s perfect match.
He had the potential to be hers.
Breckenridge had a particular interest in art and offered to show her his private collection. It was an invitation she accepted without hesitation. So attracted to his personality was she that she would have gone with him had he offered a view of his childhood attempts at watercolors.
Senza enjoyed the trip to his home, her first ride in a Bugatti. Sleek black with a red velvet upholstery…she stroked the cushion next to her. Familiar, somehow. Was it? Yes, yes, Knell’s phaeton. She pursed her lips, emphasizing their pretty red cupid’s bow pout, and smoothed her skirt against a breeze, lest her hem be upturned and too much revealed.
How long had it been since she’d seen Chancery Lane? So much had changed, yet the essentials still stood, stately and unchanging. She remembered details no one else could, and pointed out places of interest along the way.
Breckenridge nodded and smiled and agreed with every delectable thing she said, obviously enjoying the resonance of their company.
The car slowed to a standstill in front of a great portico, where a dapper man stepped off the porch to open the door and help her out. The home was old, but very well-kept, and luxuriously appointed. Senza looked around with great interest, her eyes alight with prospect. This was a place she wouldn’t mind spending a decade in.
Breckenridge led her toward a grand hallway, the main concourse through the home. Both sides were decorated with a series of colorful canvases that spanned the length of the home. He paused in front of the first painting and allowed her to view it in silence.
A
pastoral in oils, a country manor in all the splendor of summer’s florals. It struck a chord within her, stirring the memories of her childhood. It was so much like her home near Surrey that she was, for a moment, transported back in time.
“I see you have not misrepresented yourself, Richard.” Her voice was faint, so great was the impression. She could almost smell the roses along the gate, as solid a memory as the painting that invoked it. “Your collection is impressive.”
“I suppose you can say that it runs in my blood.”
“You are an artist, too? My how accomplished.”
He laughed and bowed his head, scratching his nose. “No, not in the very least. I have only an appreciation for art. I suppose my bloodline has thinned somewhat through the generations. My great-grandfather had an admirable talent. These were his.”
He stepped nearer to the wall, gesturing with two fingers. “This is part of a series he composed as a young man, summering in the countryside. I’ve always gotten a certain impression from these paintings, as if he tried desperately to capture something he knew he’d never possess, but for the moment he was fortunate to glimpse it.”
Senza rocked back on her heels and nodded. “I know that feeling. Desperate, yes; but…a certain joy, even in the despair. To have loved and lost. One cannot regret loss when the love was so perfect.”
“Yes, yes.” He looked at her in the way she loved to be looked at—shining eyes and parted lips. “I think you are quite right. Love and loss. Well, that would certainly explain his subject matter.”
“Was it a childhood home? A trip back to a place he might never see again?”
“Nothing so shallow,” he said. “See the figure at the edge of the gate?”
She peered along the line of his fingers, spying the shape of a young woman, her face turned away from the artist, her attention far elsewhere.
“Ah.” Senza chuckled, throaty and knowing. “A woman. I should have guessed.”
“Not just any woman. See, this next painting…”
Breckenridge led her along the line of canvases, pointing out the details one could only have learned through years of study, through tutoring.
“My father told me something new about these paintings every time we viewed them together. They are not simple pictures to me; they are stories, captured in strokes of paint. And at the heart of every story is that girl.” He paused and pointed to a figure in one of the pieces, wearing a gentle smile and a musing in his eyes, as if he knew her. “She is always the focus, even when not the center of the composition. See the tiny details captured in her dress, the color of her hair.”
Senza peered more closely. The figure was well detailed, even when her surroundings seemed blurred, out of focus.
“I suppose that is why I wanted you to see these paintings. You somehow remind me of this mysterious girl who’d captured my great-grandsire’s heart so long ago. You seem to be the only thing in a room, perfect and detailed, when all else is a blur of chaos. In fact...”
He peered at her as if seeing her for the first time. The intensity was almost physical.
“In fact,” he said, “I think you may well like to see the last one of the series. He painted it long after that summer, several years later, in fact. My grandfather said he returned from a business trip quite possessed by a notion. He would not speak to my great-grandmother about it, and locked himself away in his conservatory while he painted. Exorcising the spirit, he’d called it. When my great-grandmother saw the painting, she ordered it stowed in the attics.”
He shook his head as if still unable to fathom her opposition to the painting. “She could not bear to look at it, or to allow others to look at it, but neither would she order it to be destroyed. My great-grandfather did not protest her reactions in the least. All he would say was that he needed to purge something from his blood and, the painting completed, he considered it cured. Neither spoke of it as long as they lived. When he passed, my father had this painting and several others brought down from the attics and displayed. Thus, my art education began.”
They rounded a corner. “Ah, there she is.”
And there she was.
Senza Fyne, standing in her garden, wearing her robin’s egg blue dress, her hair in a hasty pile, Della’s desperate attempts at a coif with only two minutes to dedicate toward the endeavor. The hair, the green eyes, the paleness of her hand upon the roses. The wrought-iron F of the gate beyond.
Senza went rigid and cold. There was only one time in her life when she wore a dress such as that, only one time she was innocent enough to wear that expression. And it was plain to see there had been no jeweled locket painted upon her breast.
That meant there was only one person who could have painted her.
“We call this painting The Fire That Consumed Him. Dramatic, I know, but the passion of the stories would have it no other way.”
The details were not perfect; the subject had a fuller bosom, a more slender waist, a more inviting smile. But it was as accurate as any heart could recreate from memory—the image of a girl during a six-week stay in the country, a prospect too good to be true, a would-be-but-not-as-yet failed courtship.
Senza chewed her lip and stared up at her former self. Was she truly so different then? What emotion had he captured on that canvas? Was it an emotion she’d ever experienced or was it, like every year that had passed since that summer, a fiction?
“You seem alike, somehow. Despite the difference in hair. Your eyes, your face. I wonder, could she have been a relative?”
Senza fingered the tips of her wig, the black strands close against her cheek. “She seems spirited. Lively. It wouldn’t take a great stretch of imagination, would it?”
She played out the last words as a coy flirtation, keeping with her pretense, but all the while the gears in her mind were spinning, spinning. “Your great-grandfather, the artist. Did he ever speak of what became of her?”
“Not at all. She was a mystery, even to him, I think.”
“What about his wife? Did your great-grandfather ever paint her?”
“Actually, yes, although she hangs in the parlor. We could not pair the women, staring each other down through painted eyes while the rest of the world went on as if nothing ever happened.”
“Intriguing,” she murmured, careful not to let her voice betray her. “What, exactly, happened?”
“We will never know. All that was said was that great-grandmother never spoke about what she knew of the red-haired woman. Her vehement objection to the painting was great cause for speculation. I dare say we all took turns, coming up with theories and stories and scandalous suppositions.”
He bowed to admit her into the parlor. Senza went at once to the portrait, one of Aggie shortly after the wedding. Thomas had painted her carefully, had caught every detail of the young woman, now some seventy years passed.
Senza felt not a single one of those years. Seeing that face made the past disappear, along with all the insulation that had weaved itself about her most precious memories.
“Oh, Aggie,” she whispered, reaching up to press her fingers to the bottom of the frame as if it were a relic. “I never meant for you to be second. You know I loved you too well.”
From her vantage on the wall, Aggie stared down her nose at her, eyes bright with fierce condemnation.
“How did you know?” Breckenridge had quietly come up behind her, his tone a mix of curiosity and suspicion. “You went right up to the portrait as if you knew.”
“Oh.” She pressed the corners of her eyes, stifling the sting, before turning around. “I didn’t know, I just found this one so…compelling.”
“Yes, there is something distinctive about her eyes.” He stood next to her and looked up at the canvas. “And it is well-featured, well-displayed. Father wished her to have a place of honor.”
“And Winnie? Did he ever do a self-portrait?”
Richard turned sharply to her. “What did you call him?”
Senza st
ammered, trying to play it off, but it was to no avail. He took her arm, not unkindly, but a no-nonsense tug to command her attention.
She slipped her arm free. “It was a mistake, is all. My brother’s name is Winston. We call him Winnie and I suppose it was just a slip, a habit of speaking.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I do not remember telling you his name.”
“Of course, you didn’t,” she said, putting steel in the wilt of her voice. “The night we were introduced. I believe it was the minister who mentioned it. Everyone was talking about you, you know. How else could I have known?”
“I suppose.” He chuckled and dropped his gaze. “I apologize, I—I admit, I have been going along somewhat in a daze since we met. To answer your question, no. He never composed a self-portrait, but we do have a commission from the firm in the library, if you’d like to see it.”
Voices from a distant room caught their attention. Breckenridge lifted his chin to listen a moment, his expression brightening. With a decisive nod, he captured Senza’s hand and tucked it under his arm. “She’s awake, I believe. Come. I want you to meet her.”
“Who?” Senza batted her long lashes, trying to stall him. She wanted to know who. But more than that, she dreaded it. These paintings, these connections, it was too much, all at once.
He strode off in a confident march, trailing his prisoner alongside him.
Shock. Mind-numbing shock, pure and simple. How else could she account for the ease with which he carried her off, unsuspectingly, toward what could only be a doom-inspiring event? She couldn’t even stammer a polite refusal. She, the very art of detachment, having spent more than half a century avoiding every sort of social confrontation, every unwanted advance, each perilous opportunity to be a moment alone should intimacy be in the intentions—
Down one cavernous hallway, through a series of drawing rooms and parlors, along a bright window-filled breeze-way. Senza bobbed along in his wake, barely registering his happy chattering.
“Gran will be delighted. But you need to know—she’s not one hundred percent. The old girl is ninety, now, and the last twenty have been especially difficult. Poor dear suffered a stroke, they said, and she’s not been able to communicate in any appreciable way since.”