Flirting with Forever

by Gwyn Cready

  It had hurt her, he knew, to admit this portrait was her first. He wished he had not made such an assumption, let alone voiced it, but now that he knew, it pleased him deeply that he would be the one to show her this joy.

  Peter had painted Ursula many times. His favorite was a painting in which she appears four times, once unclothed and with her back to him as a classical goddess, once in the maternal guise of a Madonna, once as the rich wife of a painter, and finally, with her breasts bared and looking straight at him, as the woman who had turned his bed into an inferno of pleasure and his heart into a willing supplicant.

  His eyes returned to the chaise and the woman, eyes closed, who lay there.

  She wasn’t Ursula. The carmine hair did not make her so, nor did the unfettered tongue, though he would be lying if he did not admit both captured his attention. No, this woman was unto herself. A proud, spirited woman, perhaps from a background like his, who had used her wits to insert herself into his diary, who had not hesitated to save his skin with the king, and who had now allowed him to witness her most private imaginings. It was a most provocative act—most provocative—and even if he could not be the man filling her head, to have witnessed the stripping bare of her desires was an aphrodisiac, in this case a very potent one.

  He gazed at the tightly quilted flesh of her nipples, and his brush, once abstracted, stopped entirely. God, he ached with desire, something he hadn’t felt in so long. If he weren’t so pained, he would laugh at the comedy of it. Lustful at last, but for a woman who could never be his.

  He tried to turn his mind to the painting, even going so far as to consciously draw the sable down the canvas, but he could not.

  He wanted to take those wild summer berries in his mouth and hear the noise she’d make, and suckle those glistening fingers to taste the melon there. He wondered if that hair would wrap like silk around his fingers, if he could draw a ringlet across that peaked, pinched flesh.

  The last vision flooded his head, and he was overcome. He couldn’t stop himself. He would command what he saw for his painting even if he couldn’t command it for his bed.

  Her eyes flew open as he drew near. Was she fearful? Modest? He no longer cared. If her fiancé could provoke so much wanton desire in a woman, he would have no objection to enjoying her exactly as Peter wanted to portray her. He pulled a pin from the mass of curls, and she gasped, which made the ache in his belly redouble. He caught the tendrils as they dropped and fanned them over her skin, cinnamon on porcelain, and where the ringlet caught her nipple, cinnamon on cinnamon. It was all he could do to keep from taking that silk-wrapped flesh and teasing it until she opened her legs to him.

  But he held himself in check. Slowly the burn receded, replaced by a tingling in his fingers. Now that he had her exactly as he’d imagined her, he wanted to paint.

  He took a deep breath, stepped to the easel, and realized that for the first time in years Ursula was miles from his thoughts.

  Eighteen

  Cam watched him work. The sun had set, and she knew there was not enough light to work, yet he continued. She could tell by the way his eyes shone when he peered over the top of the canvas that he liked her. He had watched her, and he had remained at his easel. Apparently he was not given to impulse when the impulse was to serve himself. He was the rarest of men: one she could trust.

  Which is not to say that if he had taken her in his arms and carried her off to that seducing couch on the other side of the fire she would have protested. No, she would have welcomed it and enjoyed every moment. But the fact that he had not taken advantage of her in her recent improvidence—when he clearly could have—meant he was willing to respect the fact she was involved with someone else, or as she preferred to think, he would court her until he’d driven the thought of her fiancé out of her head. Either way, it suggested he was an honorable man who put their relationship above his desire. It was surprising and attractive.

  His brush worked the canvas, still sending sparks to her fingers and toes. She had to admit she enjoyed posing for him, even now, after the foolish escapade, and as unrealistic as it might be, she found herself imagining an endless series of afternoons, nestled among these pillows as he painted, telling her she was beautiful.

  “It’s growing cooler,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  “Aye. Thank you. The wine, you know…” She lifted a finger toward the glass.

  “Indeed.” He smiled. “At some point it might be easier if you told me your name.”

  She stirred, flustered. “Cam.”

  “Cam,” he repeated, nodding his approval. “As in the Aeneid?”

  “The Aeneid?”

  “Cam, well, Camilla, fought the Trojans. Though she was a mortal, Virgil described her as having mythical powers. She was so fast she could run across the sea without getting her feet wet. It was as if she could be in two places at the same time.”

  Cam thought of her office and that Amazon screen. She hoped she could get to that phone soon.

  “Does he live in England, your fiancé?”

  She did not want to think about her would-be fiancé. It seemed intrusive in this interlude she was sharing with Peter, and she shifted guiltily. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer not to talk of him. It feels strange. Until we’ve finished here, you understand?”

  He bowed.

  “It’s only that we have not had an easy time of it,” she added.

  “Is that so?”

  “He has not exactly proven himself to be faithful and true.”

  He shook his head. “Men change.”

  “Aye. They can. I think it’s better, though—safer—when they are born faithful.”

  “Safer?” He scoffed with a smile. “Who wants that?”

  She watched the way he approached the canvas. It was confident, precise, controlled—very different from the disorganized chaos of Jacket. But it was also guarded. She wondered if Ursula had departed because Peter withheld a part of himself from her. Had he known the breakup was coming or had he been blindsided, just as Cam had been?

  “Did you paint Ursula?”

  He stilled. “Who mentioned Ursula?”

  “Nell. She said I resemble her.”

  She saw the muscles in his cheek contract. “You do, in truth. The hair and…” He made a vague gesture that seemed to encompass most of the features above her shoulders and cleared his throat.

  More footsteps on the stairs and Peter yelled, “Dammit, Tom, I said—Oh!” He dropped into a formal bow.

  Cam covered herself, but it was too late. The king’s eyes, as well as Stephen’s, had raked her. Stephen’s gaze dropped instantly, ears reddening. The king’s lingered considerably longer. Cam jumped to her feet and grabbed the dressing gown before curtsying.

  Peter, who looked horrified at the intrusion, said, “Your Majesty. What a great surprise.”

  “Aye. I see that.” Charles nodded at Cam. “Good evening, Countess. ’Tis a pleasure once more. I wanted to thank you for the masquerade earlier. It was most helpful.”

  Cam resummoned her inner Penelope Cruz. “’Twas nothing.”

  Charles looked around the room. “Peter, is this your private studio? I’ve never seen it.”

  “’Tis the quietest.”

  “Quiet being an uncommon virtue. I should like to have a word.”

  Stephen, who looked pained to have been part of this interruption, said, “His Majesty said it was quite urgent.”

  Cam understood her removal was being requested. “I could—”

  “No. Stay,” Peter said. “There’s a painting I wish to show His Majesty downstairs, in any case. Though it is nearly six, I do believe the light will still do for viewing.”

  Charles nodded and began down the stairs, followed by Stephen.

  Peter gave her a deep bow. “Until I return.”

  Nineteen

>   Mertons watched Stephen bustle into the larder and gather glasses, with the cook—a full-bosomed Scot named Morag with raven hair and sparkling eyes—directly on his heels. Mertons, who’d been rerunning the calculations this last hour, trying to narrow the window of time in which the writer might arrive, found the spare amenities of the Restoration period charming—like camping for time-jump accountants. He clutched his ale with a happy smile.

  “How many times can we expect Himself in a day?” Morag said with a huff of irritation. “I barely got my floors swept from the last visit. Does the king have nothing better to do? Not that one, you great gowk!” She waved Stephen away from an intricately carved decanter. “That’s for special guests.”

  “He is the king, madam,” Stephen said.

  “Your king. We Scots have set our sights a wee bit higher, thank ’e. He may have that one,” she said, pointing to a far simpler vessel, “and the second-best brandy.”

  Mertons dabbed the corner of his mouth with his fist. “Did Peter finish with that last sitter, then?”

  “Finish with her?!” The cook’s eyes darted worriedly to Stephen’s.

  “Well, I hope not, though the king could not have arrived at a worse moment. They had clearly, er, come to some sort of understanding.”

  Mertons’s gaze went from Stephen’s private smile to the hand Morag now flung over her heart. He had made no calculation for a love affair, though if this was a continuation of something from the past it would be of little consequence. “Is the woman Peter’s mistress?”

  “Mistress?” Stephen laughed. “I can barely get your cousin to converse with a woman, much less”—he stopped, evidently remembering Morag—“court her. The man is a monk. Has been, ever since Ursula’s death.”

  Ursula? Who was Ursula?

  Stephen lifted the salver and headed toward the hall. “Say a prayer the king’s visit is short.”

  “The cheese has turned,” called Morag. “Start him on that.”

  Mertons tapped a finger. How had the intelligence failed to include any mention of Peter’s wife? Such an oversight undermined an operative’s performance and added significant risk to the plan. The Executive Guild must have known, had to have known. They had probably been too concerned with stopping the tube hole to worry about an operative issue. The specifics of travel-craft were hardly their long suit. It certainly explained Peter’s dourness this past week, and it might also explain his disappearance this afternoon. He might have gone to her grave, for example, or another place important in their relationship—and neither of those were within spec, of that much Mertons was certain. Neither, of course, was a new love affair, though the log did show Peter holding weekly sittings with a number of women, and who knew what went on in those private rooms. It wasn’t as if the log was that specific. Nonetheless both the wife and lover were of considerable concern to Mertons, especially if the lover were not from his old life. Romantic intrigue was one of the hardest factors to forecast in time science. It emerged spontaneously, even in the most controlled environments. It could swamp a smoothly running calculation in a matter of seconds, and it left anywhere from a 3 to 19 percent wobble in even the most airtight forecast.

  Which only corroborated what he knew from his own experience, since he himself had dropped like a ton of time-tube liners when he’d met his dear Joan, and what a trial by fire that had been.

  “This woman upstairs,” he said to Morag. “Is she a new client?”

  “So I’m to understand. I haven’t seen her, though Stephen says she’s the saint’s own image of Ursula.”

  Mertons had to smile. He himself had a soft spot for a fine ankle, and he understood what it meant to follow type, even against reason. “It would be a good diversion for him, I suppose.”

  “Oh, aye. A man needs a woman’s touch. Though I could have wished her an Englishwoman.”

  Mertons felt a disconcerting twinge. “Oh?”

  “Aye. Stephen says she has the oddest accent.”

  Oddest accent?

  Mertons heaved himself to his feet. It wouldn’t hurt to give this new woman a recheck.

  * * *

  Cam grabbed her purse and flew to the stairs.

  She didn’t know where Peter and the king were heading, but when she heard their footsteps fading in one direction, she padded down the hall in the other. Past the staircase, past Mercury, and down into the models’ room, which—yes!—Peter had left unlocked.

  She closed the door behind her and ran to the windows. She pulled out her magnificent, butler-in-a-pocket iPhone and called up the screen.

  No Service.

  Her heart fell.

  * * *

  “How do you intend to paint her?”

  “Pardon?” Peter rolled down his sleeves, still lost in the heady reverie of the sitting. He felt as if he had been transported to the moon and back. With a silent sigh, he brought a hand to his nose and drank deeply of the scent of her hair. A hairpin was tucked safely in his pocket.

  “The Spanish countess,” Charles said. “Will it be mythological?”

  “Mythological” was the king’s term for unclothed. The king’s question cleared the fog from Peter’s head like an icy wind. “’Tis a portrait,” Peter said coolly. “For her fiancé.”

  The king’s eyebrow lifted, and Peter saw his gaze travel to the gray silk dress hung carefully from a hook on the wall.

  “I know the king’s time is valuable,” Peter said, “and Stephen says your need is urgent. How may I serve you?”

  “’Tis about the paper you asked me to sign today.”

  “My solicitor assures me it is a mere matter of your official stamp, and the marriage will be entered upon the record.”

  “And the fact that Ursula is dead and buried is not a deterrent?”

  “According to the law, if you make it so, the marriage will be as if it had existed from the first. It is entirely legal, I assure you.”

  “So with a scratch of the quill I make you a widower without your having ever been a groom.”

  “Aye.”

  “Peter, I don’t know—”

  “Your Majesty was most generous to offer to do this for me. As I have explained, ’tis a wish I hold most dear.”

  “It will not bring her back, you know, my friend.”

  “No…but it might let her rest in peace.” And me, he might have added.

  The king clasped his hands behind his back and gazed out the window into the street below. “Peter, I should very much like to borrow the countess for the evening.”

  Peter felt a chill in his bowels. “She’s not mine for the lending. And there is the matter of the fiancé.”

  The king smiled. “’Tis a minor matter. And you will explain to her the benefits of befriending the English king. Why, if she actually happens to be Spanish, she’d be looked upon as a national hero.”

  Peter’s vision darkened. “You are kind to offer your friendship, but this woman will decline it, I fear.”

  “My advisors tell me that this writ you wish me to sign, it is an unusual matter. There is the potential for embarrassment to the Crown, the king gratifying the request of a friend.”

  Peter thought of the endless series of grants and titles Charles made, and his bile rose. Charles had granted his lovers duchies. He’d made their sons dukes.

  “What I’m saying, Peter, is that I should feel far more accommodating after a relaxing evening with the countess.”

  “It will not be possible,” he said through gritted teeth. “Not with this woman.”

  The king swiveled, the cunning on his face replaced by joyful surprise. “Peter, my dear fellow! Have you yourself fallen?”

  Peter’s face grew hot. Charles had seen him in his darkest despair and had used every resource at his command to divert Peter after he’d emerged, lifeless and wan, from his bed after U
rsula’s death. But despite an offer to make any sort of eligible or even ineligible match, Charles had never been able to convince Peter to bury his sorrow in another woman. “I-I—”

  “I should never stand between you and such an opportunity, my friend, even if it means dashing my own hopes on the rocks, and I might fairly add that you are the only man for whom that could be said. Do you intend to claim her?”

  The king regarded him closely, an uncomfortable mixture of regard and titillation on his face.

  Peter swallowed his disgust at having to reveal so personal a feeling. “Aye.”

  “Excellent. A fine catch. I have only one request, then.”

  “What?” Peter had had his fill of the king today.

  “I should like a painting of her.”

  A dark tide swept over Peter. “Your Majesty?”

  “Venus, perhaps. Or Athena.”

  Peter’s violent opposition to this suggestion must have been evident on his face.

  “I am the king, aye? You acknowledge my supreme authority over you, her, and every other soul on this island, do you not?”

  Peter gurgled an affirmative.

  “I want a painting of her for my collection—my private collection. Once you have bedded her, ’twill be no hard rub to get her to pose. Tell her it is how you should like to remember her. Tell her she will make a sublime Athena with that hair streaming down—and she would, you know, you must admit it.”

  Peter could make no reply. It took every ounce of fortitude he possessed to keep from launching his fist into the king’s nose.

  “Do you not see her as Athena?”

  “I believe her time in London is quite short. We would not have time.”

  Charles paced to the window and gazed upon his subjects hurrying through Covent Garden. “The writ makes me uneasy,” he said after a pause. “I am not certain I will be able to overcome my objections.”

  Peter felt a sickening lump in his gut. He saw that headstone in St. Paul’s yard. He knew what he owed Ursula. It was the only reason he’d agreed to return to this place. He also knew what he owed Camilla. But he had no choice. Peter forced himself to lower his chin in a poor substitute for submission.