by Gwyn Cready
“Who goes?” Lely demanded.
“Tom, sir.” The lad popped into view with a tray of food in one hand and a decanter of ruby red liquid in the other. “I have given your message to Miss—”
“Thank you, Tom. Put the tray there. Instruct Stephen to prepare my standard palette, with the exception of carmine and ochre. Four brushes. Not the boar’s bristle.” Tom nodded and placed the tray as directed.
Like an architect envisioning a cathedral, Peter appraised her form. “A quarter-size, I should think,” he said, more to himself than anyone else, as he flipped through bare canvases leaning against the wall. He untied his neckcloth and tossed it on a table. “May I assume we have abandoned the notion of Athena, Mrs. Post?”
She wasn’t even sure she wanted a portrait, but the room appeared to be fitted for only one other potential occupation. “Aye.”
“Have the apprentices finished for the evening?” Lely asked Tom, who paused at the top of the stairs.
“Aye, sir.”
“And Miss Gwyn?”
“Gone.”
Cam, wondered if the dress had gone with her.
“Thank you, Tom. No interruptions. Let Stephen know. Handsomely, now.”
Cam gazed longingly at the cheese, olives, grapes, and rolls. She hadn’t actually eaten that hot dog.
Unbuttoning his waistcoat, Lely caught her look and smiled. “The cheese is from Gloucester. The rolls from my cook. She has a delicate hand. Enjoy. You can’t eat after I begin,” he said and disappeared into the area with the seducing couch.
Cam dropped reluctantly on the chaise, still clutching her purse, and cut a slice of cheese. She gazed at the knife, steel with a narwhal and mermaid entwined in the carved wooden handle. It was a fine detail, and she was determined to add it to her manuscript when—if—she returned. Distracted, she chewed without thinking, but the cheese’s smooth, buttery flavor was hard to ignore. She wondered if she could hide the extraction of the phone in another movement, like the filling of her glass.
She adjusted her body so that her back was between the purse and Lely, and popped the flap open. She turned to check on him. He was out of sight. She’d ease the phone out and walk to the window, and she’d be golden. She turned back, slid her hand forward—
Lely lifted the bag from her knee.
Oh.
“Try this,” he said, the purse and the decanter of white wine in one hand, a glass outstretched in the other.
“Um…” She took the glass. It was filled with the same white wine as the decanter. “You don’t care for the red?”
“Not for our work.” He placed the bag on a table by the easel.
Out of ideas, she tossed back a gulp. The wine was cool and velvety. Unlike a Pinot or Chardonnay or, in fact, any other white she’d ever had, this wine boasted the intensity of a brandy or sherry. Prickles of warmth stung her cheeks. Yowzah! It was heavenly. The Macallan of whites. She took another sip and suddenly the wool of Lely’s coat began to feel warm. She flipped it off her shoulders and caught him observing her.
He looked away but not before another round of warmth rose up her neck. She liked the way he looked at her. It was neither intrusive nor surgical. It was warm and admiring.
“Won’t you pour one for yourself?”
“I don’t drink while I work.”
Cam wished she had something on which to take notes. Lely was emptying powders and liquids from different jars into tiny ceramic bowls. She thought it might be alcohol, but when the scent reached her nose, she knew it was turpentine. The techniques of Lely’s time were the subject of a certain amount of conjecture by art historians. She watched his preparations with interest. She watched his face with even more interest.
“That’s quite a selection,” she observed, gesturing toward the shelves stacked with supplies.
He shrugged. “Tools of the trade.”
“I thought you asked for Stephen to prepare your palette.”
“There are a few colors I prefer to make myself.”
The fire began to do its job, and he loosened a button under the hollow of his throat. The linen fell open and a narrow swath of chestnut hairs came into view. Cam took another long sip and watched them sparkle in the firelight.
“This is really strong wine.”
“Rhenish,” he said without lifting his eyes from his work. “Finish it and pour yourself another.”
Ah, so that’s how it worked, was it? The wine loosened the tongue, then the inhibitions, then the dress. She thought of the woman with the peony and that pale, unfettered breast. Had that been the gleam of Rhenish in her eye? Is that what those finishing touches of white in the iris had captured? And what had come after the finishing touches? Or in an artist’s garret like this, were the finishing touches something quite removed from the canvas? Cam turned her gaze to that low, cushioned settee and drained the glass.
She had been seduced a handful of times—not that she intended to allow Lely to seduce her, of course—but she didn’t think she had ever been so acutely aware of the machinations of seduction in a man who had not touched her and who, in fact, had barely spoken to her. It was unusual and intriguing.
He finished his table work and gave her a long, considering look.
“The blue,” he said. “It will not suit.”
She almost laughed. If he intended to strip her of the dressing gown, it would take more than a simple declaratory sentence.
“I don’t know what you mean.” She refilled her glass and stretched out on the chaise. “It’s stunning.”
“It brings out your eyes,” he said, raising the tray of the easel a few inches, “which are stunning. But in this portrait your hair will predominate. We need a paprika or an olive. If you do not mind, find something pleasing in the wardrobe. There’s a mirror. Make certain it puts flames to your curls.”
Cam was flattered he had chosen to pay homage to her hair. She knew exactly the colors that set off the lustrous red-blond best, and she made her way to the choices.
“Mr. Lely? Are you there?”
A thin, quavering voice rose on the stairs. A woman. Not Miss Kate.
Lely’s eyes narrowed. Rubbing his hands on a clean rag, he stepped to the top. “Aye?” Immediately he clapped a hand to his forehead. “Dear heavens. My poor Miss Quinn. Has someone not attended to you?” He hurried down the stairs to the small landing.
Miss Quinn of Sir David and the canceled portrait. Oh dear, Cam thought, this is going to be awkward. Had Miss Quinn not been sent to Sir David’s place of business for the brush-off from his secretary?
Cam had been the recipient of more than one undeservedly harsh brush-off in her time—what woman of thirty-four hadn’t?—and none had been quite so crushing as finding Jacket and the ring designer settling their creative differences in her bed. Her heart went out to Miss Quinn, but she had to admit it amused her to imagine the squirming Lely would have to do.
“Miss Quinn,” she heard him say, “I am most sorry. Did Stephen—my clerk—not explain to you about the portrait?”
Stephen, Cam thought, had only been instructed to provide her with the address.
“No,” Miss Quinn said. “I have been waiting since you moved me.”
“Come. Step up to the landing, where we shall be a little more private.”
“Why?” Her voice quavered. “What have you to tell me?”
He cleared his throat and said in a tone Cam had to strain to hear, “I understand you and Sir David have ended your acquaintance?”
“Aye.”
Cam heard the hitch in the woman’s voice. Lely would soon have tears on his hands.
“And the painting was to be a final gift to you?”
“Aye. I am not a bitter woman, Mr. Lely, but I would like to leave this friendship with something.”
“I see. Well, I’m afra
id I must inform you of a change in plans.”
Oh, Peter, don’t…
“Sir David made it clear to me today—”
Cam wanted to yell “Fire!” or “Man overboard!” or “Justin Timberlake!” or something—anything—so that Peter would not finish the sentence.
“—that he cannot part with such a value, that he wants you to pose, and that he begs that you will consider sending it to him when it is complete.”
“He did?” The woman’s voice filled with joy.
Cam collapsed against the wardrobe, amazed. Jake Ryan lives.
“He did,” Peter said, “though he did not want to impose by asking you himself.”
“Oh. No, I understand. His wife—” The woman caught herself. “His circumstances make it difficult.”
“Ah.”
“But how can he…? Mr. Lely, where would he put it?”
“You ask an important question. Have you heard of a private gallery?”
“No.”
“Sometimes it is no more than a secret panel upon which a painting sits behind a false front. Sometimes it is an entirely hidden room. The king himself has one.”
“He does?”
“Aye, to mark the friendships whose remembrance would bring the queen pain.”
“And Sir David has such a thing?”
“If he is the recipient of such great joy, he said, he would build one. Now, make arrangements with Stephen downstairs. I apologize for abandoning you. The events of this afternoon seem to have gotten away from us. You will return tomorrow, though, aye? It will take five or six sittings.”
“Five sittings?”
Miss Quinn’s words were filled with concern, and Cam heard the sound of a purse snapping open.
“I suppose I can secure a room for the week at my laundress’s house,” she said uncertainly.
“Oh, Miss Quinn! How can you forgive me? I have forgotten the most important part of the message. Sir David left an envelope for you, a token of his affection. I cannot be certain, and you will pardon my coarseness, but he gave me to believe it contained money.”
“Money?” Miss Quinn was crying now.
“Aye, and no little amount. Desire Stephen to fetch it for you. Tell him that if he does not remember where we put it, he is to come to me and I will remind him. Do you have that? If he does not remember, he is to come to me.”
“I have it. Thank you, Mr. Lely.”
“’Tis nothing, nothing at all. I am glad of it. I would hate to see a friendship end on an unhappy note.”
He started up the stairs, and Cam flung herself at the wardrobe, trying to digest the discovery of such surprising generosity in a man she had taken for an egocentric painter. She stole a glance at his profile as he rounded the top of the stairs, and wondered what other of her assumptions might be incorrect.
“Who was it?” she asked casually.
“What? Oh. The cook. Something about tomorrow’s menu and a leg of lamb. I told her I can’t concern myself in such matters. I do wonder sometimes at the want of initiative in the servant ranks. Did you find a gown?”
Cam hadn’t even looked. With reluctance, she pulled her eyes away from Peter, opened the wardrobe door, and gasped. Another treasure trove of dresses. This man liked to dress women. Which, of course, probably meant the reverse was true as well.
A dozen gowns hung here, each of thick, raw silk and each in a color more brilliant than the one before—ruby, emerald, sapphire, aquamarine, topaz, amethyst. But Cam had no eyes for jewel tones. She pulled out a burnished olive green that flattered the pink of her skin and the cinnamon-blond streaks in her hair.
“There are undergowns there as well,” he said.
In the drawers below, laid out like the petals of a pressed ivory rose, were linen and muslin shifts, as intricately detailed as wedding gowns, with falls of ruffles and lace and beading.
“Choose something ethereal,” he said. “I like the Flemish lace. ’Tis the one with the lilies.”
She dug until she found it. A beautiful pattern of interlocked flowers ran around the skirt and throughout the lace at the sleeves.
She stole a look at Peter, who was busy laying different colors of velvet on the chaise, pulled the undergown out, and let it drop.
Ethereal, eh?
The fabric was as thin as gossamer, and the front of the undergown lacked any means of closure. There were no hooks, no ribbons, no fasteners, only a narrow V that yawned almost to the waist, like a floor-length dress shirt with all the buttons removed.
Nonetheless, Cam found herself longing to put it on, to feel the cool weave glide across her skin, and hear the glissando of muslin under silk.
She heard a knock at the stairs and then Peter’s deep “Aye?”
Stephen announced himself, and Peter beckoned him to the landing.
“I am to see you about the matter of an envelope?” Stephen said, perplexed. “Apparently I have forgotten where we put it.”
Cam grinned.
He added, “It pertains to Miss—”
“I know to whom it pertains,” Peter said gruffly. “Take twenty crowns out of petty cash, place them in a pouch, and see that they are delivered.”
Stephen, who clearly didn’t need a brick heaved at him to take a hint, said, “To the person in question?”
“Aye.”
“Five sittings and twenty guineas?”
The look Peter gave him must have ended the discussion for Cam heard only the quietly muttered “We’ll all be in a sponging house by Whitsuntide” as Stephen returned to the floor below.
She turned her mind to the matter of changing.
The fireplace rose to the ceiling in the center of the space, and since it stood between her and Peter, it screened her both from the stairs and from the side of the room in which he stood. The fire was open on both sides, but the opening rose to no more than knee height. Nonetheless, it was mildly unnerving to imagine herself naked, as she’d certainly be, if only for a moment, standing in the middle of Peter’s studio.
Peter appeared to have no sense of the upheaval, for he remained busy with the adjustment of the chaise. She took a deep breath, snuggled as close to the hearth as the heat of the fire would allow, and let the robin’s-egg blue gown drop.
* * *
Peter had heard her gasp as she opened the wardrobe. It pleased him immensely that she was so delighted. The gowns were made for him by a seamstress in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He’d rarely had a sitter who did not marvel over the workmanship.
He wondered if she’d choose the lily-embroidered one as he’d recommended. For a moment he was taken back to that house, his father’s house in Soest, with the heraldic lily over the door. It was the name Peter had chosen when he cast his lot with the English. How he had missed his parents when he’d come here. It seemed his whole life, except for one short period, had been about missing one person or another.
Another knock sounded. “Sir?”
Dammit. “What is it, Tom?”
“The palette, sir. As you requested. May I come up?”
“Leave it on the landing. I’ll fetch it in a moment.”
Peter could see the pale blue of her gown through the lens of fire. Then he saw it fall. Her calves were slender, and each movement stirred a part of him that he had thought was unstirrable.
You old fool. He’d painted many women, possessed even more. The notion of the calf of a woman he hardly knew sparking his desire was beyond imagining. Her shadow stretched across the wall like some Stygian shade. He could see the easy fall of her breasts as she lifted the gown over her head. He would have given many ducats to see the muslin slide down those shoulders. He could imagine the rosy nipples catching the thin fabric and the inviting triangle of curls below.
He put a hand on the railing and caught his breath. Idiot. She was a c
ustomer, and what’s more, she was newly engaged. Nonetheless, he hurried down to the palette, scooped it up, and returned, two steps at a time, in order to not miss her as she emerged from the shadows.
She came out like a new queen—regal, uncertain, rising to the weight of the occasion. The color of the gown made her hair sparkle and flash as if she wore a crown of candles, and his heart soared to see the glimpses of lilies. They crept around her neck and followed that long, glorious line southward into the valley between her breasts. He wondered if her skin gave off the same lily-of-the-valley scent as her hair had when he’d been sketching her.
He loved the look of women in dishabille, as they called it, and he certainly loved the look of this woman in it. It was fresh, natural, and bewitchingly erotic without a whisper of impropriety.
“Are you ready?” he said.
Her fingers worked the edge of a sleeve nervously. “I feel like a bride on her wedding night.”
“Oh dear. Whatever minor confidence I’d had in approaching this painting has now officially taken its leave.”
They both laughed.
* * *
Despite an education that included seven long years under the fastidious eye of the monks at Saint-Étienne, Stephen felt his mouth, still in possession of that last morsel of ham and bread, fall open.
Peter’s cousin, who had long since pushed his plate away and awaited a piece of the cook’s fine gooseberry pie, cocked his head. “Was that laughter?”
Stephen swallowed and let out a satisfied smile. “We must let the cook know to keep the kitchen fire lit. I do believe it’s going to be a long evening.”
Seventeen
Without a way to get to her phone, Cam was stuck. No alternate next move presented itself. She could run, but to what end? She had arrived after an earthshaking mouse click, and now she felt like a mouse caught in a trap, in a painter’s studio that had closed for business three hundred years before she was born. There were no rules for the situation in which she found herself. At some point, Lely would either return her purse or leave the room. Until then, she would soak up some color. After all, if wasn’t every day a historical biographer landed in the same century as her subject, and with a man who succeeded him as royal portraitist and presumably knew him well.