A Lady of Talent (21 page)

“Cecilia, you
must
believe me.” Sebastian’s voice was desperate now, begging her, willing her to trust in him, but she remained as if frozen in stone beyond his reach, beyond all caring.

“We fell into conversation one night at Brooks’s. I do not even remember how it happened. He was an intelligent, thoughtful man who had but recently come from the Continent, and I was eager to learn firsthand what was happening there. He invited me to a game of piquet from which I emerged a winner. The next time, knowing how easily I had won, I declined his invitation. But he insisted, and it seemed paltry on my part to refuse. I had no idea of his situation, and it seemed churlish to deny a man the entertainment he so earnestly solicited.

“But he kept asking me to play, and he kept losing. When I remonstrated with him, he responded that I, at least, offered him intelligent conversation while he was losing, and that, as a connoisseur, he could not bear to lose except to the very best. Who was I to argue with the man?”

Sebastian read the question in her eyes. “No, he was not in the grip of the gambling fever the way my father was, for he suffered no illusions about his chances of winning against me, nor did he seek to repair his fortunes by more risky wagers. He was not, as so many are, driven by greed, but driven by despair. And who was I to sit in judgment on his despair?”

“But you did judge him.” At last she managed to get the words out. “You knew he was facing ruin, and you did nothing to stop him.” The hurt, the loss, the betrayal welled up inside of her and she could not go on.

“Cecilia, he was as bent on his own destruction as you are on being independent. To deny him would have been to deny him the little dignity he had left in life. The choice was of his own making; it was the choice of his own destiny, his own life. What would you have had me do, refuse him and let him become a victim to someone like Melmouth?”

“No.” It was the faintest of whispers, and she would not look him in the eye, but it was an admission, nonetheless.

Relief flooded his heart. She might never admit it to him, but she knew what he said was true.

“Cecilia.” Sebastian drew her into his arms and held her tightly, willing himself to drain away some of her pain and sadness.

But it was no use. She remained there motionless for only a moment or two before wrenching herself away. “But that does not absolve you of the guilt you bear for betraying my trust in you, not once, but three times. First, by your not telling me about my father, and second, by not telling me about owning my portrait. I can do nothing about either of those. But the third—your high-handed interference in my affairs without my permission—I can and will do something about. It may take me years to repay you, but I will do it if it takes me the rest of my days. And I will begin with the paintings in your ballroom. I shall complete them, and they will not cost you a single penny. They have, however, already cost you our friendship, and all hope of ever speaking to me again.”

And before she could lose the resolve bred by righteous indignation, Cecilia hurried from the room.

Chapter Twenty-four

Cecilia had been right to fear that her anger would not last, for she had barely gained the street when such a corroding sense of loss and despair washed over her that she was forced to grab hold of the slim iron railings outside of the Earl of Charrington’s town house for support.

The railings dug into her gloved hand as she clung for dear life, her vision blurred with tears that she refused to let fall, her breath coming in painful gasps. It seemed that she clung to the railing forever, willing herself to take a step forward, away from the loss and the pain, to put it all behind her and carry on as though Sebastian, Earl of Charrington, had never entered her life, never brought her the comfort of friendship and understanding, never introduced her to the exquisite happiness of being irresistibly drawn to another human being.

How she made it back to Golden Square, she never knew. She only knew that placing one foot in front of the other, again and again, took an act of courage that she never knew she possessed. All she really wanted to do was to remain clinging to the railings in front of his house, and weep until she was too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

Sleep was what she longed for—the sleep of utter and total oblivion—when she at last climbed the stairs to her bedchamber.

But such peace was not to be hers. No matter how Susan bathed her aching brow with lavender water, or carried up draughts of chamomile tea, nothing could bring her the peace or unconsciousness she craved.

At last, admitting defeat, Cecilia rose and went down to her studio, hoping against hope that if she could not achieve forgetfulness, she could at least find distraction. But no distraction came. Every stroke of her pencil in her sketchbook reminded her of the ballroom in Grosvenor Square and the man for whom she was creating the pictures—reminded her of waltzing in his arms, looking into his eyes, and knowing that somehow, in spite of his being engaged to marry another woman, she, Cecilia Manners, belonged there.

With a cry of anguish, Cecilia threw down the pencil in despair and dropped her head into her hands. How could this be happening to her, the woman who had so proudly rejected all thought of love and marriage in order to be able to devote herself to her art? Let the others who craved such things suffer the pangs of unrequited affection and desire; she did not deserve it, had never sought it out, had never wanted it in the first place.

Sighing, Cecilia at last raised her head and looked around her studio at her books and her paints, her antique vases and shards of mosaic from Pompeii. Slowly, painfully, she reached under the sofa to retrieve her pencil. She should be grateful to Sebastian for his betrayal, not angry at him: By destroying her trust in him, he had set her free from a dangerous attraction that had threatened to take over her life and her work.

Now he had released her from the spell he had cast over her. She was once again her own independent self: cool, unattached, unaffected, with nothing to do but work to make herself the most important artist in the Royal Academy. And there was no time like the present to set herself back on that path.

She would put aside the pictures for the ballroom, just for the moment, and begin a picture of her own, just for her, the picture she had wanted to do for so long, but had been afraid to start—the prisoner Samson breaking down the pillars in the house of the Philistines.

Slowly, tentatively, Cecilia began to draw, willing her mind to empty itself of everything but the picture before her. Then, faster and faster, with growing assurance, her fingers took over; the swift, rhythmic motion of her hands gradually soothed the ache in her heart and the emptiness in her soul. At last, she was completely immersed in her work—so immersed that she was not even aware of Susan creeping in to light the candles or place a tray of food on the table beside her, so immersed that she would have worked until she dropped, had not Neville appeared in the doorway hours later fussing impatiently.

“What ever are you doing, Cecy? You are not even dressed.”

“Dressed?” Dragging her eyes from the sketch before her, she goggled blankly at her brother.

“For the opera. Tonight is the night we are joining the Lievens at the opera.” He stared at her incredulously. “Even you could not forget a thing like that? You always enjoy the opera.”

“Oh my! Oh dear! Sorry. I shan’t be a moment.” Hastily shutting her sketchbook, she scurried to her bedchamber where Susan hurried her into her pink satin frock, and did her best to tidy her mistress’s hair, clustering the curls around her forehead and coiling it smoothly in the back.

Cecilia reappeared not a quarter of an hour later looking charmingly presentable, though not so exquisitely a la mode as her brother could have wished.

All the way to the opera, she did her best to compose herself, knowing full well that the sharp eyes of Dorothea Lieven, which missed nothing and no one, would notice immediately if she appeared to be the least bit indisposed. But fortunately for Cecilia’s peace of mind, they arrived at the beginning of the first act, and the countess was far too distracted by the presence of more noteworthy members of the
ton
to pay much attention to her guests, beyond acknowledging their appearance.

Countess Lieven might be distracted by the wide variety of members of the beau monde who saw fit to show themselves at the opera that evening, but poor Cecilia was not so lucky. There were not a great many members of the
ton
whom she recognized, and far fewer in whom she evinced the slightest interest, so it was not surprising that the first familiar face her wandering gaze encountered as she entered the Lievens’ box was that of the Earl of Charrington, who was seated directly opposite them, so that there was absolutely no avoiding seeing him or being seen by him.

Seated next to him, his fiancée was her customary picture of elegance in a gown far more becoming and a la mode than Cecilia’s. Her rich dark hair was parted in the latest Parisian style. Susan had enthusiastically described to Cecilia the style earlier that evening, when she had begged her mistress to allow her to dress her hair in a manner that was more fashionable than Cecilia’s customary coiffeur.

Fiercely dismissing these lowering observations as the evil product of an unoccupied mind, Cecilia immediately focused her attention on the stage, as the four settled into the box. Soon, blessedly enough, she was lost in the drama of the story and the beauty of the music.

Not so the gentleman opposite her. Far from being able to forget himself in the magnificence of Mozart’s score or Metastasio’s libretto, Sebastian—wedged in between his fiancée on one side and her great-aunt Letitia, who served as her erstwhile and utterly powerless chaperone on the other—was forced to endure a running commentary .on every member of the Upper Ten Thousand who had happened to attend this particular performance, as well as the idiosyncrasies or downright defects of the costumes they had chosen to wear.

For a little while, Sebastian had been naive enough to imagine that this trivial chatter would cease the moment the music began. He was soon disabused of that ridiculous notion, when there was an insistent
psst
in his ear just as the overture was beginning, as Barbara announced that the Duchess of Rokehampton’s gown was at least three years old.

Realizing that by focusing his attention on the stage, he was simply inviting interruptions from his fair companion, Sebastian allowed his gaze to wander idly over the boxes just as Barbara’s was doing.

It was then that he saw her. And, having seen her, he wondered how he could have missed seeing her in the first place. That expressive face, vibrant and electrified by the music and drama taking place onstage stood out among all the bored, expressionless countenances surrounding it. How he longed to be near her, to watch the story unfold through her eyes, see them catch fire with the idealistic tale of the legendary emperor, and watch her lips part in exquisite enjoyment of Mozart’s ineffable music. Instead he was trapped alone in his box with a shallow, self-centered beauty and her stolidly silent companion.

And thus it would be for the rest of his life. What had he done? What prison of banality and mediocrity had he condemned himself to, all in the name of friendship and gratitude, all in the comfortable belief that there was no such thing as love?

But there
was
such a thing as love. He knew that now. It was sitting across from him in Countess Lieven’s box at the opera. And he had destroyed that too, along with the trust that Cecilia had had in him.

What a fool he had been ever to contemplate marriage to a woman like Barbara, ever to think that all one needed was the most distant of relationships to make a marriage—-the more distant, the better.

How could he, who had entrusted his most intimate thoughts to a picture for all these years, imagine that he would be satisfied with someone who had less interest in him than a sympathetic-looking oil painting? At least the girl in the painting had always listened, had never been patently bored or uninterested in anything that did not directly revolve around her, which was more than could be said of his fiancée.

And now, in addition to having irrevocably alienated the original, he no longer even had his picture for consolation. Sebastian sighed inwardly. At least he should be grateful to Barbara for unwittingly proving it to him that he was in love with Cecilia, and had been from the moment he had seen her picture. He had just not known what to call that special feeling, but now he did. It was called love.

Now having discovered that he was in love, he should be equally grateful to Cecilia for having ended it before it had even started, before he was forced to overcome the urge to tell her that she was the light, the hope, the comfort, and the love of his life. For how could he in all honor have told her that when he had pledged his word to Barbara?

No, it was far better to have it end this way. This way, he would not be forced to live a lie, because he had never told her the truth—that he did believe in love, but had simply never dared to hope that it could actually exist for him. And now that he knew it did, well, he would just have to forget he had ever known it. He would have to bury himself even deeper in his work.

After all, he had lost everything once before and recovered: his home, his father, his mother, his good name. But this time, he would be starting all over with nothing particular to look forward to, except the gray banality of endless years stretching before him with Barbara.

Chapter Twenty-five

Sebastian was not the only one looking forward to an empty future without the alleviating presence of either color or life—an existence devoid of energy or hope. Cecilia awoke the next morning to the patter of rain drops upon the window and a thick gray fog that hung around her as shapeless, cloying, and impenetrable as her future.

She had no reason to go out, no reason to go anywhere at all, so she remained immured in her studio the entire day, not seeing or talking to anyone, burying herself in her work—or trying to—taking her meals on a tray, and only looking up from her sketching from time to time to take the odd bite of food.