Damn it, she was blushing again. She could feel the heat spreading across her face. Looking down at her dog, she said, as evenly and as unconcernedly as she could, “Papa doesn’t exactly approve of my painting. The only money I have is what I’ve earned these past few months. That’s why it’s taking me so long to find a flat of my own. Your aunt and uncle have very kindly offered me the use of your town house for as long as they’re in town—”
Jeremy was up and out of the chair before the words were completely out of her mouth. “What?” he shouted, so loudly that the dog’s floppy little ears pricked forward. “Old Herbert’s cut you off?”
She raised her chin defensively. “You needn’t sound so astonished. I earn quite enough to support myself. Or at least I will, after the exhibition—”
“Exhibition?” Jeremy had set the mechanical horse down, and now it stalked, stiff-legged, across the table, making a rather irritating humming sound. “What exhibition?”
“An exhibition of paintings,” Maggie explained tiredly. “Of my work up till now, what’s not already sold, I mean. It’s on Saturday. It’s quite a big to-do, actually. The more commissions I can get, the more—Jeremy, don’t let that fall. It will break, and I can’t afford a new one.”
Jeremy leaned down and caught the toy as it walked over the edge of the table. “I can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head. “Herbert cut you off because he doesn’t approve of your painting! The old scalawag.” Now Jeremy understood a little more of what lay behind Maggie’s tears for her mother. With Lady Herbert had died any hope she might have had of parental approval for the only thing she loved to do, and did well. How Jeremy understood that!
Then he remembered something. “What about all of those sisters of yours?” he wanted to know. “They’re all married now, and quite well off, too, if I remember correctly. Why don’t you beg for a few scraps from them now and then?”
“Goodness,” Maggie exclaimed mildly, “as attractive as you make that sound, I’m not about to stoop to it. You see, they all agree with Papa.”
Though she tried, she wasn’t able to keep a hint of pathos from creeping into her voice. Her sisters’ disapproval stung the most. It was one thing to be a disappointment to one’s father. It was quite another to be a disappointment to all five of one’s sisters, especially the eldest, whom the others unquestioningly followed. Anne had never approved of any of Maggie’s choices, from her relationship with the Duke of Rawlings to her decision to go to art school, but since their mother’s death, her patience with her youngest sister had worn especially thin. Anne could not forgive her sister for choosing painting over motherhood, the only occupation, according to Anne’s way of thinking, that was suitable for a woman.
Maggie thought she understood why her sister felt the way she did. Anne, always the most delicate of the Herbert girls, had suffered a recent miscarriage, the third she’d endured during the course of her ten-year marriage. Her four living children were all the more precious to her because of the babies she’d lost, strengthening her conviction that the only worthwhile occupation for any woman was motherhood. Maggie’s decision to be an artist—and the fact that their mother’s death had in no way altered that decision—had shocked her sister to the core, while her recent engagement only seemed to infuriate the rest of the family: Apparently, no husband was preferable to a French one.
Seeing Maggie’s distress, Jeremy balled his fingers into fists, and jammed them, impotently, into his trouser pockets. “Well, never you mind, Mags,” he said, with forced heartiness. “They were all of them a pretty pallid lot, I always thought. Except for you, of course.”
She managed a ghost of a smile. “Thanks, but I think this time they’re right. Honor thy father and thy mother, remember? It’s in the Bible.”
“True, true,” Jeremy said dismissively. “But isn’t there also something in there about whosoever amongst us has not sinned, let him cast the first stone? Your sisters might do well to keep their fingers in their own pies—”
Maggie couldn’t help laughing at that. “Oh, Jerry! I think you’re mixing Scripture with Mrs. Praehurst’s Yorkshire-isms.”
“Probably am,” Jeremy agreed, relieved to see that she could still laugh, anyway. “I’ll have a word with the old man when I get back home, though, don’t you worry.”
“Home? You mean … this isn’t just a visit?” She felt something very much like panic begin to creep into her voice. “You’re out of the Horse Guards for good, then?”
“Well,” Jeremy said, suddenly uncomfortable. He didn’t want to reveal too much, in case she caught on to the reason behind his sudden return. “Not exactly.”
“Oh,” Maggie said. “They transferred you back because of your illness, did they? It was that serious? What did you have, anyway, Jeremy?” With another bright laugh, she said, “Not malaria, I hope! Your aunt would die of worry!”
“No, it wasn’t that,” Jeremy said thoughtfully. “I just decided, all things considered, a trip back home was called for. There appear to be some … loose ends that need tying up.”
His voice trailed off, and Maggie, who’d been waiting for him to make some reference to what had happened in Jaipur, had to be satisfied with that one. While it wasn’t very flattering to be called a loose end, she didn’t suppose he was referring to her. Certainly not! It was quite clear he’d forgotten all about Maggie Herbert, except perhaps as an old friend. The loose end he spoke of could only be his aunt Pegeen, who, Maggie knew only too well, had been livid over the announcement of the reward he’d received for the part he’d played in liberating the Palace of the Winds. Well, and who wouldn’t be? The whole thing had been shocking, completely shocking. And yet they’d never heard a word about it from Jeremy. Not a single word.
Jeremy watched Maggie closely, wondering how kindly she’d take to being referred to as a loose end. But if he’d hoped for a flash of guilt, or even a sigh, he was disappointed. Maggie’s face did not change one bit. She only said, “Oh,” and looked back down at her ridiculous, curly-headed mop of a dog. No mention, he noticed grimly, of the fiance. No mention of that change in her life at all. Had she simply forgotten—the bloke was obviously not worth remembering—or was she purposely avoiding the issue?
Clearing his throat, Jeremy glanced at the frost-tinged windows. He saw that the sky outside was lightening over Hyde Park. Barely perceptibly, but lightening just a bit. He said, “Well, I suppose I ought to go and see if Peters has got in yet. He was following me from the docks with my things.”
Things. Maggie felt a little sick. Even though she knew it made her sound a jealous fishwife, she couldn’t help asking, cattily, “Do those things include the Star of Jaipur?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. But as much as she might have wished them unsaid, it was a topic that simply had to be broached. A part of her—a very small part of her—was still hoping against hope that the reports they’d received via The Times were incorrect, that there was no Star of Jaipur, that the maharajah, in his gratitude to Jeremy for saving the Palace of the Winds, had given Jeremy a horse, or something.
But she was disappointed.
Jeremy looked at her in surprise. “Well, of course! You don’t think I’d leave it behind, do you? You and Evers, you’re two of a pair, both asking the same thing like that.”
Maggie simply stared at him. She could not, simply could not, believe he could be so cold. How could he have changed so much? Granted, it had been five years. And yes, he’d spent those five years fighting, killing people, destroying things. Still, it seemed impossible that a human being could become that cold, that unfeeling.
But then, five years was a long time. Things changed. She knew that only too well.
Feeling more sick to her stomach than ever, Maggie said, “Well, you’d better hurry, then, hadn’t you? You wouldn’t want to keep something as precious as the Star of Jaipur waiting, now would you?”
Jeremy glanced at her curiously, but f
inally rose, and said, “I suppose not. I’ll see you at breakfast, then?”
“I hardly think we’ll be able to avoid one another,” Maggie said, more miserably than sarcastically, which was how she’d meant to say it.
Jeremy raised his eyebrows at this, but decided not to comment. She was clearly upset about something, though for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine what that could be. If anyone had reason to be upset, it was he. He was the jilted party, after all.
Still, he tried to keep his tone light as he reached out to ruffle the fur on her dog’s head. “Good night, then, Fido.”
To Maggie’s astonishment, her little dog actually growled at that approach of Jeremy’s hand. “Jerry!” she cried, remonstrating her pet before she stopped to think what she was saying. “Stop that! Shame on you!”
She didn’t realize what she’d done until she looked up and saw the bewilderment sketched across Jeremy’s face. She looked away just as quickly, but it was too late. Heat began to pour into her cheeks.
“Good God,” Jeremy said in a strangled voice. He had never, not once in his life, actually felt emasculated, but he did just then. “You named your dog after me, Mags?”
Maggie was blushing crimson now. There was nothing to be done about it, though, since he would have found out anyway. She said, indignantly, “Jerry’s a nice name.”
“Yes,” Jeremy choked. “Well. Good morning, Mags.” Turning stiffly, Jeremy stalked, with all the grace of the mechanical horse, from the room, closing the door quite firmly behind him.
Chapter 13
Well, she told herself, as soon as he was gone. That hadn’t been so awful, had it? As far as first interviews went, it had gone quite smoothly. She’d behaved with a modicum of composure. She certainly hadn’t swooned or done anything else foolish. She hadn’t, she thought, with a feeling of self-satisfaction, done or said anything at all that might make him think she still had feelings for him.
Except for the dog.
But that was all right. She’d see him at breakfast, and explain.
The whole thing was really rather silly. The truth was, when she’d first arrived in Paris, Maggie had felt … well … lonely. Wretchedly so. Madame Bonheur, though a celebrated artist, honored with a medal from Queen Victoria, no less, turned out to be a bit alarming: She dressed in waistcoat and trousers, and smoked little cigarillos. Maggie had been rather shocked by her appearance, and was quite glad neither her parents nor her sister Anne had met Madame Bonheur beforehand … she surely wouldn’t have been allowed to attend her school!
Her fellow pupils hadn’t made things any easier. Few of Madame Bonheur’s students had any actual talent, and even fewer of those had any desire to improve upon that talent. The others appeared to be there because their parents hadn’t known what else to do with them. Too old, too unattractive, or too poor to expect any marriage proposals, they had been sent to art school either in the hopes that they might learn a marketable trade, or simply to get them out of the house a few days a week.
Therefore, the girls with real talent ruled the school. They led the critiques, they set the tone of each class, they received the bulk of the praise and precious little criticism. Their leader, Maggie observed her very first day, was a wealthy, attractive young Frenchwoman named Berangère Jacquard, exactly Maggie’s age, but her opposite in every other way. Berangère was light where Maggie was dark, dainty where Maggie was large, and cruel where Maggie was kind. The only thing—besides age and social status—that the two girls had in common was their talent. Berangère was an excellent draftswoman. She could render anything in startlingly lifelike detail, so that the results might almost pass for a daguerreotype, they were that accurate. Only in Maggie’s dreams could she have hoped to draw so well.
And so Maggie was miserable. She was alone—well, except for Hill—in a foreign country. She missed her family. She had no friends. She was often the object of ridicule by her fellow classmates, for her accent and odd English habits. She was, for the first time in her life, not even the best artist in her class.
And then one day she arrived at the painting studio early and was sitting at her easel, waiting for Madame Bonheur’s assistant to set up. the still life they were to paint, and trying to decide whether she ought not to simply pack it all in and return to England, when Madame Bonheur herself entered the studio. After looking around to make sure everyone was paying attention, Madame plopped a tiny white thing on the pedestal before them.
“From the latest litter of my niece’s bitch,” Madame Bonheur explained in her gruff voice, lighting one of the brown cigars she habitually smoked.
Maggie looked down at the squirming ball of fur in the center of a still life of fruit and harvest vegetables and quite totally lost her heart.
“But you cannot expect us to paint that, Madame,” Berangère Jacquard said laughingly, from behind her easel.
Madame Bonheur exhaled a thin stream of blue smoke. “Why not?”
“Why, because it’s … moving!”
Madame Bonheur looked at the puppy. “Yes, it is moving. What do you want me to do, Mademoiselle Jacquard? Kill it?”
Maggie let out an exclamation that caused the painting instructress to swivel her head to look at her. “Never fear, Mademoiselle Herbert,” Madame Bonheur said with a faint smile. “We French love our pets quite as much as you English do. Now, girls, stop squabbling, and paint.”
Maggie needed no further urging. Though the puppy did squirm—and even walked about, eyeing the edge of the pedestal trepidatiously, and whining because it was too high for him to jump down from—she managed to produce a lovely portrait of him. So lovely, in fact, that at the end of the class four hours later, Madame Bonheur approached, stared, and then wordlessly removed it from its easel.
Placing the painting on the edge of the windowsill, so that it leaned up against the glass, Madame Bonheur then went to Berangère’s easel, removed her painting, and leaned it side by side with Maggie’s. And that was when Maggie made an amazing discovery.
Her painting was better than Berangère’s. A lot better.
Oh, it wasn’t perfect. The grapes were a little too green, and the background needed work, and she’d muffed the peaches, making them a little too large in the foreground. But that, as Madame Bonheur was quick to point out, didn’t make any difference. What was important in this painting was the dog. The dog that Mademoiselle Herbert had managed to render not so much as he actually looked, but as he actually was. Maggie had captured the dog’s soul. One could tell, Madame Bonheur explained, simply by glancing at this painting, that its object was a slightly silly, highly excitable, but very good-natured little dog. A dog quite unlike anybody else’s dog, with his own personality, his own likes and dislikes, his own doglike qualities.
Moving to Berangère’s painting, Madame Bonheur pointed at the cleanly executed animal featured on the large canvas. This dog, she explained to the class, could be any dog. He had no personality. His eyes could have been made of glass. There was nothing behind them. He was painted without emotion, without joy. A stranger, Madame explained, would pay money for this painting, and hang it above his fireplace, and be pleased to own it, for it was a thing of beauty. But anyone who knew this dog would prefer to own Maggie’s painting. And in the world of portrait painting, where the public commissioned an artist to render a family member, animal or human, it was the personality of that pet or person they wanted captured, not just his or her looks.
And that was why, Madame Bonheur went on to say, Mademoiselle Herbert was going to be a great portrait painter, while Mademoiselle Jacquard was only going to be an average one.
Berangère, outraged, exclaimed that if the dog hadn’t been moving around so much, she might have been able to capture it better, to which Madame Bonheur replied that it was unfortunate that not many people commissioned works of the dead.
And then, without another word, Madame Bonheur went to the still-life pedestal, scooped up the puppy, deposited it in Maggie’s la
p, and left the room. It wasn’t until four years later, when Maggie had established herself as the school’s star pupil, and had become one of Madame Bonheur’s closest confidantes, that she finally asked the illustrious painter how she had known that Maggie had wanted that dog. Madame Bonheur only smiled and said, “My dear, anyone who looked at that painting could tell that you were already in love with him. I only gave you what, in your heart, you already owned.”
That reply had struck Maggie as ironic considering that, almost upon her first moment of owning the dog, she’d started referring to him as Jerry. Not that Jeremy Rawlings in any way reminded her of a small, fluffy white dog. God, no. It was just that, those first few months away from home, hardly a moment seemed to go by when she was not thinking about Jeremy. She found herself constantly wondering what he was doing, how he was feeling, what he was thinking. She worried about him. India was a long way away. His family never heard from him at all. Only Lord Edward’s connections in the Horse Guard kept him informed of his nephew’s well-being, and since Maggie was not at Herbert Park, just a short way away from Rawlings Manor, but all the way across the Channel, very little of this information trickled her way. Certainly her mother and father went out of their way never to mention the Duke of Rawlings to her, considering the subject something of a taboo.
And so she was left to wonder about the dangers Jeremy must necessarily be facing in that far-off land, dangers like exotic foreign princesses, with jewels in their navels; the attractive wives of his fellow officers; even a passing Hindu peasant girl, bearing a water pitcher upon her head. Whenever she entertained thoughts of this kind, sleep, which to Maggie had always come easily, evaded her for the night, and she was left bleary-eyed and testy the following day.
Portrait of My Heart Page 12