“You paint, sew—what else do you do?”
“I don’t sing or play an instrument, but I make a mean pasta.” When his confused expression leaned more toward embarrassment, she said, “Mean is an expression of awesomeness. I’m sure in your travels you’ve had a pasta dish with a Bolognese sauce or pesto or cherry tomatoes and mozzarella with cheese sprinkled on top.”
“You mean macaroni.”
“Macaroni, ravioli, spaghetti, tortellini. Pair a pasta dish with a medium weight Sangiovese wine, fresh focaccia bread, and a green salad…” She kissed her fingers. “Delizioso.”
One eyebrow quirked up. “Delizioso. You speak Italian, French, English. Any others?”
“A few expressions in German. What about you?”
“I can read in several languages, but, I’m ashamed to say, I struggle with speaking French.”
“If you can’t hear how a word sounds, it’s hard to know how to say it. Êtes-vous d’accord? It means do you agree?”
“Êtes-vous d’accord?”
“Since you have an ear for music, foreign languages should be easy for you.” She gazed up at him, and the slow, rhythmic thump of her heart surprised her. There was an attraction here that couldn’t be denied.
Two weeks. It’s all the time I have.
“Your auburn hair is striking. At sunset in the vineyards, with rays of the dying sun beaming through your hair…”
Flushing, she jerked her eyes away from his face. The vision of him in the vineyard was too erotic. Had her erotic feelings been expressed in this sketch, too?
“May I take another look?”
He handed the sketch to her, and she appraised her work. Women would drool if she painted this. While there was nothing overtly sexual in the sketch, it was there in the undertones. The combination of tense cords of tendons bunching in his neck, eyes lingering hungrily on an object only he could see, and long-fingered hands caressing a bunch of grapes in one, dirt in the other, would have every woman believing she was the object of his desire.
She made a move to crush the drawing in her hands, but he caught one of her hands in mid-flight. “This is one artist’s depiction of a vintner. I’d like to keep it.” He slipped the sketch to the bottom of the stack of drawings he had collected off the floor.
She had to say something to break the tension reverberating in the room. “I’m glad your hair isn’t powdered and curled at the sides.”
Talk about lame.
“I do observe the fashion required at the French Court and use powder and pomade then.”
“Well, just so you know, I’d never paint you with powder and pomade. Two hundred years from now, a painting of you with hair au naturel will sell for a lot of money.”
He picked up a strand of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “This is like corn silk.” He brought it to his nose. “And smells like a crisp morning on a seaweed-strewn New England beach.”
“Very visual. Very descriptive. Hair blowing in the breeze, waves lapping at bare feet. I can see you there. Very swashbuckling. It would be a magnificent plein air painting, too. But the vineyard is more you, I think.”
William came to the door, glanced around the cabinet, then focused his attention on them. “What…happened here?”
Jefferson backed away from her and moved to the other side of the desk. “Mademoiselle Orsini has been sketching this afternoon.” Jefferson handed the sketches to William. “She’s especially pleased with the one of me in the vineyards.”
William thumbed through the pages, and when he came to the drawing in question he straightened and said, “But you’re dressed like a laborer.”
“The mademoiselle’s explanation is reasonable, although I would never agree to pose for such a painting.” He reclaimed the offending sketch from William and slipped it into a leatherbound portfolio. The rest he returned to Sophia. Then he saw the ones she’d done of the events at the Bastille and the one of her crutches.
“Are these sketches of the Bastille accurate?”
“To the best of my memory.”
“And this? What are these?”
“Crutches. Do you know a carpenter who could make them? I included the measurements, since he probably can’t make them adjustable.”
“What does this question mark represent?”
“The bottom tips need something soft so they won’t scratch the floors, but won’t be slippery, either. I’m not sure what’s available.”
“I’ve never seen this design before. Are you sure it will work?”
“Unfortunately, I’ve had a couple of injuries that required using them. They work quite well.”
Jefferson showed the design to William. “This is brilliant, and so simple. My carpenter could easily make these.”
While William studied the drawing over Jefferson’s shoulder, she asked him, “Were you able to sell any of my jewels?”
He pulled a pouch out of his pocket. “There’s a complete accounting in the bag, along with the proceeds and the rest of your pearls. Mademoiselle Rose Bertin, the queen’s dressmaker, was visiting the jewelers, and I asked her to call on you tomorrow. She said she would bring a mantua maker and milliner.”
“The queen’s gowns cost thousands of livres apiece. I can’t afford Mademoiselle Bertin. But I’ll meet with her and the pattern maker. Maybe we can collaborate on something appropriate. Then I’ll go to the market and purchase used gowns. I can remake them, add embellishments, and no one will know the difference.”
She yawned. The day had finally caught up with her. “How much do you think a pair of crutches will cost? And I will add a bonus if they can be made in the next few hours.”
“A few sols, I would think,” William said.
“Less if my carpenter can make them,” Jefferson said.
“Take what you think you’ll need.” William removed several coins and returned the pouch to her. “And I would like to pay for my lodging,” she said.
Jefferson’s chiseled features pinched in disapproval. “Certainly not.”
According to Meacham’s audiobook, money was always an issue with Jefferson. “I don’t want to be a financial burden, and I don’t want to use a bank. Money just sits in vaults growing restless and reproducing itself.”
She withdrew a handful of bills out of the pouch and slipped them into his desk drawer, enough to cover her lodging. After all, she’d be going home with dozens of sketches of him. She could paint a few portraits and more than recoup the money.
“If merchants show up at my door demanding payment for your purchases, I’ll use that money. Otherwise, it will remain right there.”
“Don’t be stubborn, Mr. Jefferson. It doesn’t suit you. I’ve used your paper and chalk. I’m staying in your house, eating your food, drinking your tea, using your cabinet. Take the money, please.” She slipped her jacket back on, but stockings and shoes were out of the question. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d love to take a nap. If you’ll tell me where to go, I’ll hobble there.”
He gave a deep, throaty laugh. “You’re calling me stubborn? To see what a stubborn person looks like, you needn’t look past your own straight-edged nose. You can’t hobble upstairs.”
“No, but I can sit down and climb up on my bottom.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Not in my house!” He picked her up and started for the door.
Willian rushed in front of Jefferson. “Let me carry her, sir.”
Jefferson brushed past him. “I carried her into the house. I can carry her up the stairs. If you want to be helpful, get her shoes, please.”
“Sir, if you’ll carry her to the stairs, I’ll carry her up.”
“I’m not a weakling,” Jefferson said.
She bit back a smile, finding it rather endearing that they were arguing over who was going to carry her.
William grabbed her shoes, then matched Jefferson’s stride as they hurried down the hall. “I’d never call you a weakling. If we arm wrestled, you’d beat me nine times out of t
en. I’m merely worried you might reinjure your wrist.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Her weight isn’t on my wrist.”
Sophia flashed a panicked look at William. He straightened his jacket, then blocked the first step of an ornately carved walnut staircase. “I’ll take her from here, sir.”
Arguing over her would have been flattering if it hadn’t been over something she could do for herself, albeit with some difficulty. Where was Mr. Petit when she needed him?
Jefferson huffed a sigh of frustration. “Have it your way.” Sophia was carefully transferred to William’s waiting arms, and Jefferson preceded them up the grand staircase. When they reached the landing, he reclaimed her.
“I appreciate your gallantry,” she said. “Both of you. Hopefully I’ll have crutches to assist me by the time I have to go back down.”
Mr. Petit appeared magically, as if summoned like a Genie from a bottle.
“The mademoiselle’s room is prepared. I’ll have a pitcher of hot water brought up.”
“Thank you, Mr. Petit,” she said. “Also, the ice has melted. Could you send up ice, too? I need to rewrap my knee.”
Jefferson carried her into a bedroom, and a servant girl came in behind them, carrying a pitcher of steaming water, the ice bucket, and several towels folded over her arm.
“Sally, would you please help Mademoiselle Orsini? She hurt her knee and can’t walk.”
Sally set the pitcher on the washstand, smiled what could have been her best smile, and curved her best hip. “Yes, sir.”
“I can manage just fine,” Sophia said, yawning.
Sally held onto the doorknob, and if looks could growl… “If I’m to help the mademoiselle, you and Mr. Short need to leave us be.”
Sophia fell back on the bed. Noticing details of a setting were second nature to her, and even though her eyelids would only stay open if propped up with toothpicks, she noted the position of a full-length mirror with a gilt frame standing next to a stunning marble-top commode with bronze doré pulls and key plates. A chair upholstered in blue silk stood between two open windows with pale blue silk draperies. A four-drawer chest was inlaid with delicate medallions of porcelain, and the trundle daybed she was lying on had the lower portion extended, and the coordinating cotton counterpane was thick and soft.
“Mr. Petit told me about the ice on your knee. It’s probably melted now. Do you want me to wrap more ice in a dry towel?”
“That would be very nice, Sally.” Sophia reached into her pocket and handed over a stocking. She had removed both and used one to wrap her knee. “I’m sure the wrap I made out of the other stocking is soaked through, so you can use this one.”
While Sally unwrapped her knee, Sophia sat up and removed her jacket, blouse and stays, and unbuttoned her skirt.
When Sally finished wrapping a fresh ice pack around Sophia’s knee, she asked, “Is it too tight?”
“It’s perfect.” Sophia yawned. “You must have done this before.”
“No, ma’am. Mr. Petit showed me how to do it in case you needed help. I’m glad you did. It would have been a shame to waste such good learning. If master ever has a hurt knee, I’ll know how to wrap ice around it.”
“It has to be right after the injury. Starting an ice treatment days later won’t work as well.”
Sally nodded thoughtfully as she hung Sophia’s clothes on pegs mounted to the wall next to the washstand. Sophia scooted out of her skirts and handed them to Sally to hang too, but before Sally hung them, she used the clothes brush to remove the mud at the bottom of the skirts.
“This fabric cleans up so fast. Never seen that happen before.”
Sophia tried to listen but she was too tired, and within minutes fell into a deep sleep.
9
Paris (1789)—Sophia
A nightmare of being burned alive woke Sophia, shaking and sweating profusely. Heat engulfed her in a world surrounded by chaos. A glaze of sleep encrusted her brain and held it captive in the gloomy darkness of her subconscious. A place she didn’t want to dwell.
Instinctively, she flung her arms out as she struggled to punch through the crust toward safety. But where was that? She didn’t even know if it was yesterday or tomorrow.
In that limbo moment she didn’t know if she cared. But then, unexpectedly, the events since she arrived in Paris charged into her consciousness, hauling a horde of memories—Storming the Bastille. French Revolution. Almost killed. Thomas Jefferson.
She cracked her eyes open to find moonlit darkness with a single burning candle. She rolled over, forgetting about her knee. “Ouch!” she hissed. How could she forget her freaking injured knee? The intense, shooting pains melted the glaze of sleep.
She rolled onto her back again. The cover of sleep might be scary, but it was less painful than the reality of being awake. When she’d been carried into the room earlier, the hooded blue of dusk had fallen. That’s how she thought of dusk when painting en plein air. Now the inky-colored sky had a full moon and a blaze of stars. How long had she been asleep? Without a watch, there was no way of knowing.
She pulled herself up, propping a couple of pillows behind her, her limbs stiff and ungainly. What should she do now? Stay in bed? Go back to sleep? Sleep wouldn’t be possible without a couple of ibuprofens, which required getting out of bed. Besides, the icepack had melted and soaked the wrapping around her knee. She removed it and used another towel to dry her leg.
As much as she hated doing it, she hobbled over to where her skirt hung from a peg and dug into the pocket for her pouch of goodies. Dry-swallowing pills was never a good idea, especially ibuprofen, but she did it anyway. Then she dropped the wet towels into the wash bowl.
“Well, I’ll be…” Leaning against the washstand were a pair of crutches. She snugged them under her arms and did another turn around the room. The sticks were solidly built, with both handgrips and shoulder rests padded and covered with soft leather. The carpenter had done an awesome job.
The first time she was a walking tripod, she hadn’t figured out how to maneuver through the world and had a miserable experience. But after a broken foot, two twisted ankles, and now a bruised knee, she pretty much had the sticks figured out. Stairs and crutches were mortal enemies, though. She had her own strategies for going up and down, but not in an eighteenth-century dress.
She put the crutches back and returned to bed, accompanied by a rumbling stomach. Just a piece of fruit or bite of cheese would hold her until breakfast. She could pull the bell cord, but if the servants had all gone to bed, she didn’t want anyone having to get up on her account. Save for a few creaks and pops and an occasional chirp, the house was silent, inside and out.
If she intended to go downstairs for food, she’d have to get dressed, as unappealing as it sounded. What were the chances that someone was still up? She opened her door and listened. No sounds came from the hall, the other bedrooms, or the salon below. Everyone must be in bed. Maybe she could get away with wearing her Tai Chi uniform.
After dressing, but before tackling the stairs, she centered herself and visualized climbing down one step at a time. Was going downstairs worth it? Her stomach chose that moment to growl, at which point she had to agree, it was. She set the crutches on the first step.
Each time a floorboard creaked she cringed, but kept going down the winding stairs, lit by limited circles of flickleaering brightness. Somewhere a door swung open, the creak echoing through the silence. When she didn’t hear voices or footfalls, she continued, descending slowly to the first floor, where more candles cast weird shadows on the walls.
The door to Jefferson’s cabinet stood open, and the soft yellow light of a single flickering candle flared from his office. The scratching of pen on paper enhanced the eerie ambience. He must be writing his report to John Jay about the events of the day. He was a prolific letter writer, signing each one—TH Jefferson.
TH. She let the initials play on her tongue. Did they all use initials? A. Hamilton, A. Burr,
G. Washington. No, James Madison used his whole name.
She hobbled on her crutches toward the door, where she watched him move away from the desk to stand alone, a specter in the semidarkness, a motionless silhouette facing the window, the breeze whipping through his unbound hair. His shirt was open at the collar, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and the stark white of the fabric glowed in the lamplight.
He must have sensed her there, because without looking her way, he asked, “Was it your ordeal with the mob or the afternoon sketching that tired you?”
She was so taken with the mise-en-scène, with the man, with the moment—she couldn’t speak. And when she finally did, her voice sounded raspy from sleep. “The ordeal.” She crutched her way into the room without waiting for an invitation. The fresh, intoxicating scent of lavender and citrus filled the air, and she glanced around for its source until her eyes settled on him.
“I can paint all day and never get tired.”
As he stepped back from the window, he slipped his index finger in the book in his hand and closed the pages over it. He gestured toward a large blue chair that earlier had books and papers stacked high on the seat. Then he appraised her in a long intense gaze: her hair draped loosely about her shoulders, her shirt, pants, and probably even the exact state of her circulation.
“What are you wearing?”
She raised her chin and crutched over to the chair. “Chinese shirt and trousers. I may not be appropriately dressed, but I am sufficiently covered.”
His expression was one of utter disbelief. “I’m not so sure.”
She held out her injured leg. “I’ve heard it said I have golden antelope legs, but if I were you, I wouldn’t believe the rumors.” She dropped it slowly. “Actually, in China women wear loose trousers.”
He continued to stare, his eyes flashing some emotion bordering on more than disbelief. “Mademoiselle, you are not in China.”
“True,” she replied, her tone measured, “but I am hungry, and I couldn’t descend the stairs in layers of skirts.” She collected her crutches in one hand, sat, and propped them against the windowsill next to the chair. “You would expect me to take reasonable precautions while staying here. Right? If a crutch had caught on my hem, I would have tumbled to the bottom of the staircase.”
The Pearl Brooch Page 11