An Experienced Mistress (2 page)

Will had told Coventry in a letter how his left hand became frozen because their friend Bennet hadn’t brought any gloves. Bennet was right-handed as well, and Will gave him the left glove to wear backwards on his right hand.

It had been the least he could do as Bennet’s commanding officer—and the person who had gotten him into that hell in the first place.

Ben had appreciated the glove. But he’d died anyway.

Will shoved these thoughts aside. The only thing he ever gained from thinking it over was the knowledge that thinking it over did not make it better. He found no comforting conclusion to reach.

Coventry refilled the glasses and lifted his own again. “God save the Queen.”

Will put his glass down. “The Queen be damned.”

Jack snorted at this unexpected sentiment and raised his glass high in the air. “God damn the Queen!” he toasted loudly.

A red-faced man with scrubby sideburns at the next table stood up, his chair scraping against the floor. “I beg your pardon.”

“You heard me,” Jack said with his signature lazy grin, whether out of loyalty to Will or stubbornness.

“Sir, I will not countenance such speech!” The other men at the next table, five in all, straightened in their chairs and glared at Will and his friends.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Coventry murmured.

Jack’s eyes glinted with mischief. “What, you want me to step outside?”

“I do, sir.”

The stranger irritated Will. Who was he to criticize? He’d no doubt been here throughout the war, drinking port and napping in the newspaper-room.

Jack shrugged. “Very well. But I will have my dinner first.”

“Worthless scoundrels,” the stranger grumbled.

“I beg your pardon?” Will countered. “Didn’t quite catch that.” He wasn’t usually the kind to seek a fight, but this man insulted him, and Will had put up with enough insult for one day. The stranger and his friends outnumbered Will and his, but that suited Will just fine.

“My friends mean no offense,” Coventry, his tone weary, said to the side-burned man.

“Oh, we mean it,” Jack countered easily.

A waiter reached their table. “Is there something amiss, sirs?”

“These men are insulting the Queen!” a man from the other table blustered.

The waiter raised an eyebrow. “Is this true, gentlemen?”

“What if it is?” Jack still seemed in relentless good humor.

“I am afraid I shall have to ask you to leave.”

“Indeed, we were just on our way,” Coventry said before anyone else could answer. He rose, drew a card from his waistcoat, and handed it to the offended gentleman. “My card, sir. If you demand satisfaction, you may demand it from me.”

The man knitted his brows. Will supposed there wasn’t much chance he’d give Coventry trouble, as Coventry had been conciliatory in the first place. He rescued them from a fight, although they were ready for one. It annoyed Will, yet he’d hardly insist upon a brawl.

Coventry motioned with a jerk of his head for his friends to depart. Will shrugged and got up.

“Damn you, Coventry,” Jack muttered, even as he complied. “I wanted some Yorkshire pudding.”

Once they stood outside the club, Will said, “Where shall we go now?”

“We can’t go to Brooks’s,” Jack said. “I owe too much.”

“Never mind,” Coventry said. “We will go to an art exhibition.”

“What?” Jack glared at him as if he suggested a jaunt to a nearby dust-heap.

Coventry smiled. “I realize I am the only one here who gives a damn about art. But it is one of the chief events of the Season. It’s becoming quite the thing—many of the eligible ladies will be there. I imagine Will would not object to such company.”

Naturally, this brought Will’s thoughts back to Violet Tudbury yet again, which was painful. He hadn’t the chance to adjust to the idea of being thrown over.

Jack snorted. “Ladies! It’s not a
lady
he wants, after two years away. Am I not right, Will?”

“Now, Jack,” Coventry said. “Will has no interest in your vices.”

“Do not be so sure of that,” Will muttered.

Coventry stared at him in surprise.

Jack gave a grin of childlike delight. “See there?” He clamped a hand on Will’s shoulder. “The man’s been to war. He needs some creature comforts.”

Will found that he agreed. Yes, before long he would marry. But right now, the idea of forgetting his troubles in some mindless pleasure was incredibly appealing. After all he’d been through, he deserved to enjoy himself.

“Well, I daresay fancy women may also be available. These things attract all sorts.” Coventry gestured with his walking-stick. “This way, gentlemen.”

The gallery was, as Coventry predicted, rather crowded. Refined couples milled about, greeting and gossiping with one another. Several young ladies, in their brightly colored silks and taffetas, promenaded at the sides of their mamas or other suitable chaperones. The girls feigned interest in the pictures while casting sidelong glances at the gentlemen. The young men, for their part, barely pretended to be interested in art.

“These pictures are damned odd,” Jack said, earning a nasty look from a man nearby. “This one’s bright as a church window.”

Will smirked. “When have you seen a church window?”

“They are by the Pre-Raphaelites,” Coventry told them.

“The Pre-what?”

“Pre-Raphaelites. They’re rebelling against the rules of the Academies, which have the students copy Raphael.” When Jack gave him a blank look, he laughed. “Never mind. All you need to know is that they’re becoming more and more dear. A few years ago they were scoffed at, but now they’re immensely popular.”

“They’re immensely peculiar,” Jack said.

“Coventry, what’s in the back?” Will asked. He saw a few men coming out of a door, but no women, as if it were a smoking-room.

“Why, the nudes, of course. They can’t be displayed out here. They would certainly offend ladies’ tender sensibilities.”

“Well, I want to see them,” Jack said.

Will smiled. Then the smile left his face as two women emerged from the back room.

Women, but perhaps not ladies. They were not dressed at all properly. Will’s attention immediately focused on the taller of the pair.

In a sea of black frock coats and gaudy gowns, she looked as out of place as a medieval Guineviere. Her thick, wavy red hair hung loose. She wore a long white dress that flowed to the floor, neither cinched in at the waist nor belled out at the skirts. Her heavy-lidded eyes and full, lush mouth bespoke a rebellious sensuality.

“Who are the women in their nightdresses?” Jack demanded.

Coventry laughed. “Why, they’re ‘Artistics.’ Friends of the painters. Models for them, too, I shouldn’t wonder. See, they’re dressed like the women in the pictures.”

“I’ll be damned,” Jack said.

“Some say they don’t even wear corsets. They are bohemian, don’t you know. I think they feel themselves terribly unique,” Coventry added, with more good nature than sarcasm.

The woman in white might very well be justified in thinking herself unique. As she carried on an animated conversation with her companion, Will couldn’t stop looking at her.

“The redhead is some sort of cousin to Micajah Visser,” Coventry added.

“Who?”

“One of the artists. He is quite successful these days. She’s his mistress, too, I understand. Very sordid.”

“Mmm.” Jack had already lost interest. “Is that Bolton coming toward us? He’s such an awful bore.”

The woman in white disappeared into the back room again.

“You two go on,” Will said. “I’m going to go in back for a moment.”

Jack laughed loudly. “Yes, tell us if there’s anything worth looking at back there,” he said as he and Coventry melted into the crowd.

Even as he made his way to the back, Will wondered what the Devil he was about. He could hardly expect to get a private word with the woman, and he had no business talking to some artist’s mistress. Still, he wanted a closer look at her.

Will stepped into the open doorway, then paused as he heard an angry female voice.

“How can you say that? You know I deserve more money!”

Startled, Will looked up to discover that the small room, hung with paintings, was deserted except for the woman in white and a slouching man in a stained greatcoat.

So this was the artist? The woman’s cousin—and her lover? Will drew back before he was seen.

“Percy told me what you were paid for that last painting,” the woman said. “I know you can afford to give me more.”

Will should leave. He had no right to listen to such a private conversation among strangers, but it fascinated him.

“But you must know that you could never
get
more.” The artist grimaced, clearly as shameless as she was about their financial arrangement.

“I should not be so sure of that, if I were you. Ida Keating earns twice what I do! I fancy that I could command that much myself, if I ended our arrangement.”

As Will listened, he stared at the large painting facing him.

A nude woman, shown from the waist up, her long flaxen hair only partially obscuring her breasts. One pale pink, life-like nipple poked out from among the tresses, looking erect and wet, as though it had been sucked. The woman gazed down with heavy-lidded eyes at the golden apple in her hand, like some irresistible Eve.

Looking at this painting, and overhearing the immodest conversation, Will felt as though he’d stumbled into a different world.

“Now, Genny,” the man soothed. He sounded a little worried by the woman’s threat to leave. “Don’t cut up so rough. This isn’t just a financial arrangement.”

“Is it not?”

“Of course not! You’re my cousin. Confound it all, we’re family.”

Strange family. One might marry one’s cousin, of course, but taking one on as a kept mistress seemed a bit bizarre.

“That doesn’t mean you can use me so ill. Think of all I’ve done for you. I gave you free lessons for a year, for Heaven’s sake!”

Now Will was astonished. What sort of lessons did one get from one’s mistress?

Well, he supposed he knew the answer to that.

No doubt the woman was within her rights to demand more pay. A year’s worth of lessons in lovemaking from an enchanting creature such as herself, for free? Certainly the artist owed her a great deal.

Just the fact that she provided enough lessons for a whole year staggered the wits. Will wasn’t sure that even his considerable imagination extended that far.

She must be an expert in the art of love: a temptress of the highest order. When she entered the gallery, in her flowing white gown, she’d looked so innocent, so dreamy. Of course, that was part of her appeal.

Will stared again at the painting of the lush, enraptured nude. After more than two years of pointless chastity, he’d enjoy some lessons himself.

“I’m only asking for fifteen more pounds,” the woman said, exasperated.

“And why make a row about such a trifle?”

“If it is a trifle, why not pay it?”

They argued about fifteen pounds? Will hardly believed it—especially if what Coventry said was true, and the artist did well. Perhaps the woman’s anger was only a result of being undervalued for too long. For God’s sake, the man should give it to her.

Yet part of him hoped that the artist would not.

“I cannot,” the artist told her.

“Very well.” The woman’s voice grew quieter. “Then you and I are finished.”

“Genny, don’t be so hard,” the man whined.

Will slipped out of the doorway and back into the crowd.

From this safe vantage point, he watched as the woman came out of the other arched doorway. Her eyes were downcast and her cheeks flushed pink with anger. As if short of breath, her full lips parted.

She was the woman in the painting.

No, impossible. This woman had waves of coppery hair; the hair of that Eve was straight and pale.

Will studied the woman’s face as she scanned the crowd, spotted the friend with whom she’d arrived and rushed up to join her. Then he cast another backward glance at the painting that was just visible beyond the arched doorway.

It’s her.

Will felt something primal thrumming inside him, like the first distant rumblings of a wild storm. She was fascinating, available—and he would have her for his own.

Chapter Two

“I would not be so provoked if he had not lied to me!” Genevieve Bell ranted to her friend in the carriage. “Telling me he got twenty pounds for my painting, when he got fifty.”

“Fifty pounds,” Ruth marveled.

“Well, it’s worth at least that much. I worked my nails off on it. I was particularly pleased with the expression in the eyes.”

“It may be you’re right,” Ruth said. “But I daresay no one would pay that much if they knew a woman painted it.”

“No. But they might pay thirty.”

Ruth’s silence was an eloquent expression of her doubt.

Genevieve recalled, with painful clarity, the time she’d tried to sell a painting of Maid Marian. Percy Wentworth, a friend of hers who did portraits, very generously told a wealthy client about “his colleague’s” picture. The woman expressed some interest, telling Percy to bring his friend and the painting along on the next visit. Genevieve had thrilled at the prospect.

But as soon as the lady saw Genevieve, she’d said that she was so sorry, but she was no longer interested in the subject of Maid Marian. Genevieve had felt as pathetic as a beggar girl at the back door, trying to sell her wilted watercress.

And she later learned that the lady had commissioned a Maid Marian from another painter. A male one, naturally.

The carriage wheels hit a rut in the road, jolting them both in their seats. “Well, I don’t care if they won’t pay much,” Genevieve said. “I’m tired of no one knowing the work is mine. If Ida can hang her paintings in the Royal Academy, why not I?”

Ruth smiled sadly. At twenty-three, she was two years younger than Genevieve, and rarely offered unsolicited advice.

Ruth seemed to already regret telling her the news about Ida, their mutual friend. Few women were chosen to exhibit at that prestigious institution, and now Ida Keating, no older than Genevieve, was one of them. And all Genevieve could think was it ought to have been
her
.

“It isn’t just the money, you know,” she told Ruth after a few minutes. “He has injured my feelings. When he first wanted to paint like me, I did try so hard to help him. For him to deceive me, after all I’ve done for him...it’s the cruelest thing in the world.”

“I know,” Ruth murmured sympathetically.

“I used to say Cage was like a brother to me. We spent summers together in Yorkshire when we were children.” She sighed. “But it seems the truth is he doesn’t care a straw about me.”

“He’s not himself. It’s the opium. You remember how Mr. Ruskin was almost certain that Micajah had stolen money from him. He doesn’t act as though he cares about anyone.”

“I suppose that is some comfort,” Genevieve grumbled, but it wasn’t.

“He truly is fond of you. Doubtless he’ll come around soon, hoping you have changed your mind.” Ruth smoothed back a strand of her black hair with a slender hand.

When Cage first came to Genevieve asking her to introduce him to her artist friends, he had a real passion for painting. For months, she personally taught him: about color, about composition. Within a couple of years, he had exhibited and received some positive reviews, from Mr. Ruskin and others, too.

But the more Cage used opium, the less he’d painted. Eventually, he wasn’t picking up the brush at all. Then Cage suggested to Genevieve that he could sell her paintings as his own and they’d split the money.

At the time, Genevieve had supposed the arrangement would benefit both of them. After all, few would take a woman artist seriously.

But now it seemed this was changing. And in any case, Genevieve refused to let Cage profit more from her paintings than she did. She pitied her cousin, but she did not pity him that much.

“Are you still going to try painting an Adonis?” Ruth asked after a small silence, punctuated by clopping hooves. Genevieve had told Ruth before that she wanted to try her hand at a male subject. Cage would have been able to sell it. But few people would purchase a painting of a scarcely clad hero from a female artist. It could be considered indecent.

“I’m not sure. I have been thinking of doing an Ophelia.”

“Well, just in case you ever do your Adonis,” Ruth said, reaching down to her carpet-bag, “I did bring you that book Ida gave me. I’ve marked that illustration I thought would be a good reference.”

Genevieve looked at the worn leather cover. The coach was too dark to make out the title. “What is it called?”

“
The Altar of Aphrodite
.”

“Ah. A novel, is it?”

“I suppose one might call it that.” Ruth lowered her tone, though there was no one to hear. “It’s perfectly scandalous.”

Genevieve’s eyebrows rose. “You mean the story?”

“And the illustrations. Well, there are a couple that are a very good guide for the masculine form, but most of them...”

“What?” Genevieve demanded.

“They are completely obscene.”

Genevieve laughed. “Good Lord. Wherever did Ida get such a wicked thing?”

“I daren’t ask,” Ruth said. “I shouldn’t read it, if I were you. I read a little and it was most disturbing.”

“Well, I shan’t be reading it, then. But I do appreciate your remembering it, Ruth. I’m certain the illustrations will be helpful.” Genevieve trailed her hands across the tooled leather binding, and fingered the ribbon that marked a page. She’d have to hide the book when she got home. Heaven knew she didn’t want her maid coming across such a thing.

She’d be polite and take it. The truth was she’d probably give up on her Adonis.

The carriage drew nearer to Ruth’s home. Genevieve’s friend lived in cheap, gloomy rooms in Fitzroy Square above a noisy boys’ school run by the landlord. The place always smelled of over-boiled cabbage, but Ruth lived and worked there with what seemed an improbable amount of cheer.

Genevieve found that she didn’t want to say goodbye yet. She always felt better after talking to her old friend, whom she’d met several years ago in her first painting class.

The class had been taught by Adam Forsythe. Ruth’s friendship seemed the only good thing to come out of that period in her life.

Genevieve asked her, “Are you quite sure you won’t come out and visit?” She rented a cottage just outside of London, in Hertfordshire.

“No, I had better not.”

“The fresh air will do you good.”

The air of London, filled with black bits of soot and smells best left unidentified, didn’t agree with Genevieve at all. She wondered that her friend could bear it. It might drive a person mad to breathe those vapors all the time.

Ruth laughed. “You wouldn’t mind the air so much if you didn’t insist on wearing white.” Her own short frame was swathed in dark blue, like a sensible city girl.

Well, Genevieve was not a city dweller, nor a girl, nor sensible, and she’d wear whatever she pleased.

“Besides, I’ll be out this Saturday,” Ruth reminded her. Genevieve had invited Ruth and a couple of their other painter friends to join them in the country. There, they could all take advantage of the lengthening daylight and paint from the same model, a shop girl whom their friend Percy recommended.

The cab rounded the corner to Ruth’s street. “Write to me in the meantime. Let me know if you still have that commission from the Italian.”

“Of course I shall still have it.” Genevieve felt a flutter of nervousness in her stomach at the thought of it. She counted on the money to pay some long-overdue bills. And it was her cousin Cage, not she, who procured the commission.

But she’d explain the circumstances to Mr. Valerio. He could never claim not to like her work. He already owned another of Genevieve’s paintings, although he didn’t know she was the artist. By all accounts, Mr. Valerio was a connoisseur, a forward thinker. He might even be amused to learn that he was the patron of a female artist.

Still, after Genevieve said good-bye to her friend and continued to the rail station, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d done the right thing in ending her agreement with Cage.

Maybe her passions led her into making a terrible mistake.

Lord knew it wouldn’t be the first time.

****

Two days later, Genevieve sat at the little writing-desk in her dining room, reading a letter from her father.

Augustus Bell was not only a lawyer but an enthusiastic Unitarian and social reformer. For almost a month now, he’d traveled in the United States, invited by some American anti-slavery leaders with whom he had a regular correspondence. Most of the letter described the abolition meetings he’d attended in Boston. He made some inquiries about Genevieve’s younger sister Christine, who was comfortably married and raising two sons in Bath.

He also touched on the issue of her yearly allowance from him. When Genevieve’s father first got the idea to go to America, he hadn’t been certain he could afford it. Knowing how badly he wanted to go, Genevieve convinced him to reduce the amount of money he gave her that year. She couldn’t help but regret that now.

Her father wrote:
I know it’s not much, and indeed I wonder how you manage. But you have always been very clever, and no doubt that helps you to be thrifty.

Genevieve smiled ruefully. How lucky she was to have an understanding father. Many parents would have disowned a daughter who shamed herself in a short-lived affair.

Genevieve was not an extravagant woman, but neither was she as frugal as she ought to be. Not even her kind-hearted father knew that for three years now she’d supplemented her income with the paintings her cousin sold as his own.

Genevieve sighed and got up to clear the breakfast dishes from the table. She had a maid, Flory, who also did the cooking, but one person was hardly enough to manage all the work. At the moment, Flory was busy building the fire in the adjoining drawing-room, after she’d cleaned out the grate.

A real lady wouldn’t have done any cleaning, but a real lady could afford more help. Genevieve didn’t have the least pretension of being a lady, and it didn’t bother her to do some chores herself. Now and again, she got a good idea for a painting while making her bed or dusting the furniture. And when in a bad mood, she found it quite satisfying to beat a rug.

She carried the teacup, teapot, plate and silverware down to the basement kitchen. The white china was monogrammed with her mother’s initials. Genevieve’s sister Christine hadn’t wanted the china when she married: a few of the pieces were chipped, and Christine had understandably wanted her plates monogrammed with her own initials. Genevieve was happy to have the dishes. She liked the reminder of her mother, who died of influenza when Genevieve had been fourteen.

As she came back up the narrow stairs, she thought she heard someone knocking on the door. Immediately she dismissed it: it must be Flory, banging around at the hearth. Very few people visited her cottage in the country, and no one dropped by unannounced.

Flory met her at the top of the stairs.

The maid’s white cap was askew on her curly dark hair liberally peppered with gray. Her brown eyes were wide, and her raised eyebrows emphasized the lines in her forehead. “Miss Bell,” she said in a loud whisper, “there’s a gentleman here to see you.”

“A gentleman? What, do you mean Mr. Visser?”

She’d wondered if her cousin would show up, pleading for a reconciliation. Maybe he’d even give in on the matter of the fifteen pounds. If he did, Genevieve might give him another chance. Despite her brave words to Ruth, the truth was a part of her would be relieved if Cage made amends.

“No, a real gentleman. Of quality.”

What in the world would a gentleman want here? A friend of her father’s, perhaps?

She pushed her hair away from her face as she crossed the dining room and into the little drawing-room.

A man stood, hat in hand. A gentleman of quality indeed.

Genevieve blinked at his proper attire. Excepting her father, most of the men she knew were also painters, and they didn’t tend to dress well. This man looked as though he might be calling at a grand old country estate instead of her cottage.

Not only did the fine clothing astonish her, but the man himself.

The keen alertness of his dark-eyed gaze and the clean, perfect lines of his face made her imagine him as a classical hero in a painting. As she approached him, he nodded courteously.

She felt awkward. Her hair was undressed and tumbled down her back. As usual, she wore a loose gown of her own creation. A style she liked and found convenient, but no doubt looked odd to him, this stranger.

“Miss Bell.” He favored her with a slight bow.

“Yes.”

“Thank you so much for receiving me, Madam. My name is William Creighton. I saw you at the Sambourne Gallery the other night.”

Genevieve scrutinized him. He was older than her, perhaps by five years or more. Though his face was unlined, the set of his mouth and his straight dark brows suggested hard-won insight and self-possession. With his pronounced cheekbones, she might have thought him thin if not for the broad bulk of his shoulders.

He glanced around the room. Her mantel boasted only a handsome but ordinary clock and a pair of silver candlesticks, her grandmother’s. No doubt he’d never been in such an austere parlor, but he seemed at ease. His self-confidence reminded Genevieve to be wary.