A Lady of Talent (13 page)

At last the fever that had gripped her broke, and she awoke from her trancelike state. Hardly daring to do so, she studied her drawing again. Yes! That was it! Not completely, perhaps, but she had begun to capture the essence of what she had been striving for in the drawing from the very beginning.

How had the Earl of Charrington understood all this? And even more unnerving, how had he been able to make her see it?

Cecilia resolutely thrust such dangerous questions from her mind. The point was that she
had
been able to improve her picture, and this revelation was going to improve her as an artist. How it would affect the rest of her life was utterly immaterial.

In the meantime, she had a large commission to look forward to—one that did not involve a portrait, but gave her the opportunity she craved to give her imagination full rein. It was time to put aside all thoughts of Cupid and Psyche and come up with ideas for her nine paintings of the muses, so that she would have at least some rough sketches to submit for the Earl’s approval when she met him in Grosvenor Square the next day. She might suspect that the Earl of Charrington was offering her this opportunity out of kindness and friendship, but that did not mean she was not going to respond to this offer in the most professional way possible.

The next day—having sent a footman with a note to Curzon Street, establishing a time for their meeting in Grosvenor Square—Cecilia dressed with more care than usual for her meeting with the Earl of Charrington, as she tried to present her most professional appearance. Her walking dress of French gray Circassian cloth was simple though elegantly cut, and devoid of any trimming except for bands of white lutestring at the hem. Even the severe cut of her bonnet of slate-colored silk more closely resembled a gentleman’s hat than the more extravagantly trimmed headgear of those who aspired to the highest kick of fashion.

But for all its businesslike air, her costume was extremely becoming, the soft gray highlighting the gold of her hair and the delicacy of her complexion, which, by the time she had completed her vigorous walk to Grosvenor Square, was glowing with her exertion and her pleasure in the fineness of the day.

Cecilia had been so occupied with her work for the past several weeks that she had barely stepped outside, and now she took great delight in the softness of the air, with its promise of spring, and the bright blue of the sky, broken here and there by fluffy white clouds.

The Earl of Charrington’s house in Grosvenor Square was an imposing mansion, with such an impressively wide facade that it made Cecilia think it had once been two houses now cleverly combined into one. It was filled with workmen—plasterers, painters, and carpenters—busily putting on the finishing touches throughout the building. A footman, who had been stationed at the door, opened it and led her up the broad marble staircase to the first-floor drawing room where the earl, bent over a table covered with plans, was busily conferring with a serious-looking gentleman.

At the sound of footsteps, he looked up. “Ah, Lady Cecilia.” Sebastian’s face lit up when he saw her. Excusing himself, he hurried over to greet her. “I am delighted that you could come today.”

It had only been yesterday that she had seen him, only one day since he had proposed his plan to her, yet the welcome in his smile and the warmth in his eyes made Cecilia feel as though she were returning home after a long journey. It had been years since anyone had made her feel that way. Not since Naples, when she had come home after a long day of sketching antiquities in Pompeii or copying masterpieces in the queen’s fine collection of paintings to have her father smile eagerly and hold out a hand for her sketchbook, had she felt that her presence was looked forward to.

“Mr. Wilkins here has come to consult with me about the design for the main reception rooms. Miss Wyatt, who knows a great deal about such things, has assured me that an anteroom and two drawing rooms on the first floor are quite sufficient, such that this third drawing room at the back simply must be turned into a ballroom that will rival any ballroom to be found in London.”

Sebastian had been walking as he was talking and he now ushered her into a magnificent room whose vaulted ceiling was decorated with exquisite plasterwork. “As you see, the space is beautifully proportioned, but it lacks color and warmth, without which—to my mind, at least—it remains dull and formidable. Formality is all very well in the main reception rooms, but it seems to me that if a room has been created for the purpose of dancing, then it should make one feel like dancing. Hence my idea for the paintings I proposed to you. But I see you have brought your sketchbook with you. Excellent.”

Cecilia walked over to a small side table that still remained in the empty room and opened her sketchbook. “They are very rudimentary, of course, for I had not seen the room itself, but I took the liberty of making some preliminary drawings.”

She held her breath as the earl leaned over to examine the sketches. He was so close that his shoulder touched hers, and she could see the muscles in his cheek tighten as he flipped silently from one drawing to the next, pausing every now and then to consider it carefully, then flipping back to the previous sketch and on to the next.

At last he turned toward her and smiled. “Perfect. Just what I had hoped for. They all capture a sense of lightness and grace. And Terpsichore, especially, as the center of them all makes one feel that one cannot help but dance.... May I?” He bowed and held out his hand to her.

And so, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she took his hand and allowed him to swing her onto the floor in a silent waltz. Her first thought as they swirled around the room was that Barbara was wrong; he was a superb dancer, with all the grace, the strength, and the rhythm of a natural-born athlete.

Her second thought was that Barbara, if she ever took the time to recognize her fiancé’s skill, would enjoy a lifetime of waltzes with him under Cecilia’s painting of Terpsichore. This thought made her feel as though someone had just opened up a window in the middle of winter and let in a blast of cold air.

But then Sebastian’s hold tightened on her and he smiled down at her conspiratorially, warming her, making her feel once again as though she were specially welcome there. “If I had not been assured repeatedly by your brother that the case is otherwise, I would say that you loved to dance, Lady Cecilia. You are as light and graceful as Terpsichore herself.”

With you I am. Only with you,
she could not help thinking. “Perhaps that is because there is no one else around.” Cecilia felt her face grow hot as she realized the full implication of her words. “I mean that with no one else around, it is purely movement—dancing and nothing else—no social competition, no indication to the world at large where one stands in the hierarchy of the
ton
according to one’s choice of partner.”

“Ah.” He looked down at her, his dark eyes unfathomable, but she felt as though he could see into her very soul, and knew that she reveled in the way they moved together as easily as if they were one. She longed for him to hold her closer, so she could feel the strength and reassurance of him as she felt the strength and reassurance of his understanding and appreciation. What would it be like to be the wife of a man such as this? To finish an evening of dancing secure in the prospect of retiring to the intimacy of one’s own private rooms to share…

Cecilia’s cheeks grew hotter. She could not believe she was thinking such thoughts—she who had always been too busy for men and marriage. How could she be feeling something so perilously close to envy toward a woman whose insipidity and superficial values she despised?

“So you think it a project that could interest you, then?”

Cecilia gulped and brought herself back to the present—to the comfortably reassuring world of the professional artist. “Oh yes. Most definitely. And indeed, I am most grateful to you for thinking of me.”

“No need for gratitude. Lady Cecilia. The pictures you showed tell me that I will be getting the very best for my ballroom. As someone who strives for the very best in all that I do, I am both pleased and relieved to have found someone of your skill and talent to realize my vision. However, there is one more request that I would make.”

“Yes?” Cecilia could not imagine why—with artists, architects, and builders at his command, all eager to do his bidding and to gratify his slightest whim in the decoration of a truly impressive mansion—the earl should sound so tentative. Here was a man with a fortune at his disposal, not to mention a title and a formidable reputation, who suddenly seemed remarkably unsure of himself. What was it that he wished to ask of her?

“I should like ... I mean, I wonder if you could see your way to using this particular face as the face of Terpsichore.” He walked over to an alcove where he retrieved a small oval picture wrapped in Holland cloth that had been propped up against the wall. “It is a picture I have treasured for some time now, since I found it in a print shop in the Strand some years ago. It caught my eye then as the picture of someone I would like to know—someone who possessed both intelligence and character, but someone who could still laugh at the absurdities of the world. I like to think that the Greek deities were very much like this girl: inspired, yet human.”

He unwrapped the picture and turned it around so she could see it.

Cecilia gasped and gripped the table for strength and support as the world spun around her. She felt hot, then cold, and slightly dizzy all at once.

“I beg your pardon.” Sebastian took her firmly by the shoulders and led her to an abandoned chair in the corner of the room and tenderly helped her into it. “I had no idea it would affect you this way.”

“Whe... where did you say you got this?” Cecilia clutched the arms of the chair in the vain hope that it would stop the world from spinning.

“In a print shop in the Strand. The proprietor said he usually sold only prints—etchings and engravings—but the gentleman who sold it to him was so desp... er, insistent, that he made an exception, and—”

“How dared he!” Entirely forgetting her surroundings, or her previous weakness, Cecilia leapt up and began pacing the room.

“I
gave
it to him. I
gave
it to Papa. I would
never
sell such a thing. It was but a childish piece of art, done when I was only twelve years old. How could he have sold it! Put it in a shop window for all the world to see! The wretch! Oh what am I do? How could he? How could he?”

Then, utterly exhausted by her outburst, she sank back into the chair again and buried her face in her hands.

“Cecilia, my poor girl. Please do not take on so.” Heedless of the dust and his spotless biscuit-colored pantaloons, Sebastian knelt on the floor in front of her and took her hands in his.

“It has
not
been in a shop window all these years, but in my library, as a treasured possession, and an inspiration to me for all the time I have owned it. Please do not distress yourself so. I beg you.”

Gently he drew her hands away from her face, forcing her to look up at him. “The owner of the shop swore to me that he had only just received it the day before, and that he would never have purchased it if he had not thought it excellently done.”

“But how could he have sold it?” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears and her lips trembled so much she could barely form the words.

His heart ached for her. In truth, it
was
like selling your child to give its portrait over to a print seller, and Sebastian had played no small part in that sale. What was he to do? How ever was he going to make it up to her?

“Listen to me.” He gathered her hands into his. “I do not know precisely how or why that picture got into the shop, but believe me, since it came into my possession, it has had the tenderest care and concern lavished upon it that anyone could wish. That face has been my constant and closest companion since the moment I brought it home. It has been my strength and inspiration, the friend I never had but always longed for, my ideal person, my ideal woman—which is why I want that image immortalized in my ballroom.

“Cecilia, please believe me. I never meant to distress you.” He smiled a crooked smile. “I suppose that, in essence, what I want to say is that you have always been my muse, whether you knew it or not. And I want you to continue to be my muse, enshrined forever in this ballroom.”

Too overwhelmed by it all, Cecilia pulled her hands away. “I... I must think about it. It has been rather a shock to me. I cannot—I mean, I must have some time to think it over.”

“Of course. Take all the time that you wish. I understand, and I apologize most sincerely for upsetting you. I suppose I should never have shown it to you, but somehow, after I realized that my girl in the portrait was also C. A. Manners, the artist whose pictures I so admired, it seemed the height of dishonesty not to tell you that I had that picture. The only question was how.”

“I thank you for telling me, but now, if you will excuse me, I must go.”

Cecilia rose and, clutching her sketchbook to her like a talisman, she hurried out of the room, down the stairs, and into the street where she paused to gulp deep, steadying breaths of fresh air in a desperate attempt to regain her composure. Then, chin held high, she marched off in the direction of Golden Square.

Chapter Fifteen

By the time Cecilia reached her studio she had calmed herself to some degree—enough, at least to tell herself that in spite of Sebastian being the owner of her self-portrait, he had had no part in its sale. That had been solely her father’s doing. As such, she relegated this new betrayal on his part with the other betrayals and failures he had committed after they had left Italy and returned to London: the money he had lost, the nights he hadn’t come home, his utter lack of interest in anything but the gaming table. In short, the slow disintegration of a once vital and loving man. All this she had done her best to forgive or ignore until that last rainy night when he had struggled home, soaked to the bone, and nearly dead with the cold and the wet.