Portrait of My Heart

by Patricia Cabot

  “A marquis,” Maggie said. “And his baby brother.”

  “But of course. How proud their papa and maman must be. Little brats. You ought to have painted them with their fingers up their noses, where they undoubtedly are, the majority of the time.” Dismissing the painting with a shudder, Berangère strolled over to the windowsill, where Maggie kept a bottle of red wine for just such occasions. Pouring herself a glassful, Berangère went to a low divan, piled high with pillows, and sank down onto it with a delicate sigh. All of Berangère’s movements were deliberate and graceful, like a cat’s. In fact, that’s exactly what she reminded Maggie of: a sleek, sly little cat, not at all unlike the Princess Usha. While Maggie herself was nothing but a great, galumphing dog.

  “Now, princesse,” the older girl said, after taking a sip of wine. “Tell Tante Berangère what is making you look so positively malheureuse.”

  “Oh, Berangère,” Maggie said miserably. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Ah,” Berangère said. She looked down into her wine glass, noticed a piece of cork floating in it, and delicately removed it with a long index finger. “This would not have something to do with the fact that your precious Augustin got his nez bashed in last night?”

  Maggie gasped. “How did you hear about that?”

  Berangère waved a dismissive hand. “La, who has not heard of it? It is all over the hallways.”

  Maggie groaned. The building in which their studios were situated was an old one, run-down, and filled with other painters and the odd sculptor or two. Maggie and Berangère, being the only women renting studio space in the building, were sources of constant speculation by the other artists, their activities faithfully reported on by those who traveled in similar social circles.

  “Oh, Berangère,” Maggie said, dropping her face into her hands. “What am I going to do?”

  “Do?” Berangère sipped her wine. “About what, princesse?”

  “Why, about Jerry, of course!” Maggie lifted her head, smoothing back a tendril of hair that had come loose from her coiffure, and leaving a streak of violet across her smooth white forehead.

  Berangère smiled tolerantly. “And what is the problem with Jerry, now, princesse? He is making water behind the divan again?”

  “What?” Then Maggie started to laugh, in spite of her misery. “Oh, no!” she cried. “No, not that Jerry. Not Jerry the dog. I mean Jeremy Rawlings!”

  Berangère knit her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “Jeremy Rawlings? This is the soldier who broke the nez of Augustin?” At Maggie’s nod, a knowing look spread over Berangère’s pointed face. “Ah,” she said. “Things become clearer to me, now. Jeremy Rawlings. I have heard this name before.” Berangère tapped her front teeth thoughtfully with a long, manicured fingernail. “Where have I heard this name?”

  “In this morning’s paper, I wouldn’t doubt,” Maggie said with a sigh.

  Berangère raised a fine blond eyebrow. “Pardon?”

  “His engagement to the Princess Usha of Jaipur was announced in today’s society page.”

  “Ah,” Berangère said knowingly. “Yes. Now I remember. That is the Jerry for whom you have pined all these years I have known you?” At a hesitant nod from Maggie—she didn’t like admitting to being in love with Jeremy, let alone having been pining for him—Berangère went on. “I see. No wonder you look so triste. He has come back from India with a royal bride, broken the nez of your fiancé. and you do not know what to do?”

  Maggie nodded again.

  “Pfui!” said Berangère, a curious noise she always made when she was incredulous about something, a small explosion of lips and breath that invariably sent the golden curls of hair upon her forehead flying. “I always thought you were too polite for your own good, princesse, but I never thought you were stupide.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Maggie said defensively. “I just don’t know what to do. I’ve never been in this situation before.”

  “Never had two men fighting over you before?” Berangère looked shocked. “Ma pauvre princesse! Then, truly, you have not lived. It is the most delightful thing in the world, to be fought over. You must try to prolong it as long as possible.”

  “Are you insane?” Maggie glared at her friend. “Berangère, this is serious. Someone … someone tried to stab Jerry last night, and I think he suspects it was Augustin.”

  Berangère sat up, her pretty features alight with excitement. “Really? Très romantique!”

  “Romantic?” Maggie shuddered. “Berangère, it was awful.”

  “Awfully romantique! Do you think it was Augustin?” Berangère looked perplexed. “I would not have thought Augustin was the murderous type. Duel, yes. But murder? Non. Still, with that red hair, one cannot be sure of anything … .”

  “Berangère!” Maggie buried her face in her hands. “It isn’t funny, and it isn’t romantic. Someone tried to kill Jeremy last night, and I can’t help thinking—”

  But Berangère interrupted her. “Nom de Dieu,” she said, and something in her throaty voice caused Maggie to raise her head and eye her uncertainly. Berangère was staring at her, round-eyed with astonishment. “You and this Jerry. You made love.”

  Maggie’s jaw dropped. “Berangère!”

  “I cannot believe it. Ma petite princesse! No wonder Augustin tried to kill him.” Berangère applauded enthusiastically. “How was it? Did you like it very much? Isn’t it lovely?”

  Maggie stared at her, round-eyed, not even attempting to deny it. “How did … How could you … tell?”

  Berangère shrugged elegantly. “You glow.”

  Horrified, Maggie gasped, “I don’t!”

  “You do, princesse. I am sorry to tell you so, but you do. Only a fool—or a fiancé—would fail to notice.”

  “It just happened,” Maggie cried, covering her face with her paint-spotted hands. “Oh, God, Berangère, it just happened! I didn’t want it to. I never expected it to. And he told me he wasn’t engaged!”

  Berangere snorted. “Don’t they all?”

  “But Berangère, I believed him! He told me the Star of Jaipur wasn’t a woman. He said she was a rock!”

  “Now,” Berangère said incredulously, “I have heard everything.”

  “Oh, I’ve made such a mess of things!” Maggie couldn’t stifle a sob. “Oh, I know I brought it all upon myself, and I don’t deserve anyone’s sympathy. I was so sure—so very sure—that he meant to marry me! I don’t—I just don’t know what came over me!”

  “I do.”

  Maggie looked up, blinking back tears. To her surprise, Berangère was standing beside her, a glass of newly poured wine in either hand. She handed one of the glasses to Maggie before gently guiding her over to the divan, and then sitting down beside her—a move that took some maneuvering, due to the size of both their bustles.

  “I know exactly what came over you,” Berangère said. “L’amour. Let us drink to it, shall we?” She clinked the edge of her glass against Maggie’s, and then downed a good third of its contents.

  Maggie took a hesitant sip from her own glass, though she’d never in her life drunk wine before teatime. But she’d never lost her virginity before, either, so she supposed the occasion warranted it. To her astonishment, the hearty burgundy felt quite nice going down, warm and nourishing. She took another sip.

  “Then you …” she asked carefully. “Then you don’t despise me utterly, Berangère?”

  “Despise you?” Berangère, thoroughly surprised by the question, came as close to spilling a drink as Maggie had ever seen her. “Why should I despise you?”

  Maggie sniffled forlornly. “If my sisters knew—about what Jerry and I did, I mean—they would never speak to me again.”

  “Your sisters are already not speaking to you,” Berangère reminded her, “and your only crime has been that, like a good many women before you, you are trying to make a living on your own, using the talent that God gave you.” Berangère shook her head until her blond ringlets swu
ng. “You are an artist! There is no disgrace in being an artist. It is not as if you were a … a …” Berangère struggled to think of a truly shocking occupation. “A prostitute!”

  “No,” Maggie admitted reluctantly. “But I suppose, in their minds, painters lead scandalous, sordid lives. And now they’ve been proven right, you know, Berangère.” She heaved a miserable sigh. “I am a fallen woman.”

  Berangère’s lips quirked into a wry smile as she leaned back down upon the couch. “Ma chérie, if you are fallen, I shudder to think what I am. I should truly like to meet these sisters of yours, princesse. How is it that you grew up in a home so bourgeois, yet paint the way you do?”

  “I don’t think my home was bourgeois,” Maggie said defensively. “At least, no more than anyone else’s. I think I was just cursed with a more … carnal nature than anyone else in my family. I can’t imagine, for instance, that any of my sisters made love with their husbands before they were married. Especially not Anne. She is so very proper. Although, when Mamma was alive, Anne was a good deal more … tolerant. Now, it is as if, with Mamma gone, Anne seems to feel that it is her duty to bring me to task.”

  “And you will not be,” Berangère said. “Being far too … how did you say it? Oui, carnal. That is a very good word. It is fortunate that you managed to find a man to marry who is equally carnal.”

  “Augustin?” Maggie finished off her glass of wine. “Augustin isn’t a bit carnal.”

  “Not Augustin, imbécile,” Berangère snorted. “This Jerry you speak of.”

  “Jeremy?” Maggie blinked at her. “But I can’t marry Jeremy.”

  Berangère blinked right back. “And why not?”

  “Why not?” Maggie echoed. “Why not? Haven’t you heard a word I just said? He’s engaged to someone else!”

  “Pfui!” was Berangère’s skeptical reply to that.

  “Berangère, the Star of Jaipur is a beautiful, exotic woman. You haven’t seen her. She’s like …” Maggie stopped herself just short of saying She’s like you. Instead, she said, “Well, nothing you could ever imagine … .”

  “Oui, chérie. But with whom did this Jerry spend the night last night? This rock—this Star of Jaipur—or you?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Oh, Berangère. Don’t you see? Even if by some miracle Jerry did want to marry me, I couldn’t marry him … .”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m engaged to Augustin, that’s why not! I can’t just break off my engagement to him like that—” Maggie snapped her fingers. “It wouldn’t be fair, not when he’s been so kind … .”

  “So?” Berangère clasped her hands behind her head and leaned back against the pillows, gazing up at the skylights that revealed a cold and gray winter sky. “You did not ask Augustin to be so kind. He was kind of his own volition. You do not have to marry him for it. You can merely thank him and walk away.”

  “But it would be wrong! I let him believe I returned his feelings, when all the time, I was in love with someone else!”

  Berangère rolled her eyes. “You are a stupid, stupid girl. Marry the soldier and be done with it. If you like, I will take care of Augustin. Though I cannot abide red hair on a man.” She shuddered expressively.

  “What do you mean,” she inquired suspiciously, “you’ll take care of Augustin?”

  “What I said.” Berangère shrugged.

  “You mean …” Maggie straightened. “You mean you‘ll—” She broke off, suddenly extremely embarrassed. “Oh, Berangère,” she murmured. “You really oughtn’t—”

  Berangère’s laugh rang out through the studio, bouncing off the skylight and crashing back down upon the wooden floor like glass. “Ma pauvre princesse!” she cried. “I’ve shocked you!”

  “But that’s just it, Berangère,” Maggie said sadly. “I’m not a princess. I never could be. You’re the only one who thinks so. And Jerry—the soldier—isn’t just a soldier. He’s a duke. Even if he asked me to marry him, I don’t think I could, because then I’d have to become a—”

  “A duchesse?” Berangère sat up and clapped her hands, clearly entranced with the idea. “Oh, Marguerethe, c’est magnifique! What a lovely duchesse you will make! You will invite me to all your dinner parties and balls, and I will meet many handsome, rich men!” Stars shone in Berangère’s eyes. “Oh! How perfect! The princesse will be a duchesse!”

  “No I won’t, Berangère,” Maggie insisted. “I’m only a princess in your eyes. I’m actually a social disaster by English standards. But this woman—the Star of Jaipur—she really is a princess. She’d make a much better duchess than I ever would.”

  Berangère, on her divan, narrowed her eyes, much in the way a cat, eyeing her prey, will take aim before a particularly daring pounce. “I see,” the French girl said slowly. “So you are willing to give him up so easily, because you would not make a suitable duchesse?”

  “I—it’s not just that, Berangère. I told you, he hasn’t asked me—”

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. Berangère had left the door to Maggie’s studio wide open. There were only two studios on the top floor of the building, her own and Maggie’s, so whoever was approaching had to be coming to visit one of them.

  “Well?” Berangère persisted. “And if he asked you? Would you?”

  But Maggie’s reply dried up in her throat. Because just then, Jeremy himself walked through the door of her studio.

  Chapter 25

  Jeremy was not in a particularly good mood. Nearly getting killed did that to a fellow. Well, nearly getting killed as well as having one’s engagement announced in The Times, by someone to whom one was not engaged.

  Not that Jeremy was brooding, or anything. He had completely gotten over the first attempt that had been made to murder him. In fact, what with all the other disasters in his life, he had forgotten all about it. It wasn’t until he was storming out of the offices of The Times—where he’d gone to demand a retraction—that he was nearly run down by a chaise-and-four.

  Now, it was one thing to get stabbed, in the dead of night, in front of one’s own home. That could easily be blamed upon the increase in urban crime. It was something else entirely, however, to be nearly trampled to death in front of the offices of The Times. Jeremy, getting up from the slush, into which he’d dived to avoid being killed, decided that it was time to take action. He dispatched his valet with instructions to find Augustin de Veygoux, follow him, and determine whether or not he was, in fact, the man responsible for these murder attempts … not because Jeremy feared for his life, but because, well, it was getting to be a damned nuisance, this diving about the street, dodging knives and flying hooves. And if de Veygoux was the one trying to kill him, Jeremy would have a perfect excuse to call him out. A duel would kill two birds with one stone: Jeremy would be rid of his annoying assassin, and Maggie would no longer have a fiancé.

  “And at your peril,” Jeremy warned Peters, “do you let Maggie see you. The only way we’re going to convince her that this bloke’s the one that stabbed me is if we catch him in the act. But if she sees we’re following him, she’ll think we’re just trying to harass him, and that’ll only make her feel sorry for him.”

  Peters saluted. “Never fear, Colonel. You can count on me. This is one mission I shan’t fail.”

  That done, Jeremy returned to the town house, where he changed out of his ruined clothes, and into something more presentable before heading straight out again. His first stop was the Dorchester, where he found the Princess Usha in deep consultation with a number of dressmakers and milliners. It seemed the Star of Jaipur had decided saris were passé; she was intent on purchasing a Western trousseau. Her efforts at doing so were hampered, however, by the absence of her translator—he had apparently slipped out some time earlier to send another letter to the maharajah. This made it exceedingly difficult for Jeremy to make his feelings concerning the announcement in that morning’s Times understood … at least by the princess. The dressmakers understood him well
enough, though, if their nervous looks at one another, as Jeremy was leaving, were any indication. Providing a trousseau for a bride with so reluctant a groom was not good business practice, and everyone in the room, with the exception, perhaps, of the princess, knew it.

  Having failed to impress upon Usha his unhappiness with her behavior, Jeremy decided to concentrate instead on the equally difficult job of finding Maggie and repairing whatever wounds the announcement might have inflicted. His fervent hope—that she had not seen that morning’s paper—had been dashed shortly after breakfast, when he’d gone to her room to speak with her about it, and her maid had answered the door.

  “Good morning, Your Grace,” Hill had said icily. “I’m afraid Miss Margaret has already left for her first appointment. But might I wish you joy? I am certain you and the princess will be very happy together. Your aunt and uncle must be so pleased … .”

  Jeremy knew good and well that his aunt and uncle would be anything but pleased. Oh, he supposed if he’d really loved Usha, they’d have accepted her willingly enough … at least until she managed to alienate them with her complete and utter disregard for anyone’s feelings but her own. That they might take exception to … .

  Jeremy’s interrogation of Maggie’s maid had proven disappointing. The only thing he’d been able to get out of Hill—and he’d nearly had to wring it out of her, stubborn old woman—was the address of her mistress’s studio. Still, that was better than nothing.

  But when he arrived at the address in which Maggie’s studio was housed, he suffered yet another shock. He had never seen a more dilapidated building, with the possible exception of some attempts at European architecture he’d witnessed in Bombay. Was this, he wondered, the best that Maggie could afford? Now he had a new reason to resent Sir Arthur. His pomposity was forcing his daughter to rent in a clearly uninhabitable building. No wonder the flats in this particular structure had all been converted to artists’ studios: The only people who could be convinced to inhabit them were painters and sculptors, who lived in worlds of their own making, anyway.