After Innocence

by Brenda Joyce

  “You’re crazy!” Suzanne had cried. “And everyone will say you’re crazy! They’ll say you’re a crazy cripple! You are not allowed to paint in such a manner, Sofie. I forbid it. Do you hear me? What’s happened to your fine portraits and sweet landscapes? Why don’t you do a new portrait of Lisa?”

  Sofie could not hide her anguish. She had wondered if they were right, if her attempt to emulate the great Monet was so monstrous, if it was so shocking, if it was as ugly as they said. She had thrown the painting away, but Lisa had rescued it and put it in the attic. And Sofie had gone to the Academy and continued to study the traditional use of line and form, shading and color, spending three or four hours every day after class at the Metropolitan Museum of Art copying one renowned artist after another.

  But she was no longer so alone. Midway into her first semester, Sofie made two friends for the first time in her life. Jane Chandler and Eliza Reed-Wharing were both young society women like herself, and they were both as fervently devoted to art as Sofie. Together the trio haunted museums and art galleries when they were not at class or at work. They took all the same classes, sitting together whenever they could, studying together for examinations. The next few years were the happiest and most exciting of Sofie’s life.

  But eventually she began to feel as if she had had enough. She was tired of copying the old masters. She had mastered female anatomy. The study of male anatomy was not allowed. Drypoint and etching did not really interest her. Sofie wanted to try her hand at something new and different. She wanted to explore color and light.

  It had begun as a dare. Sofie had voiced aloud her yearnings to her friends. But Jane was happy with the curriculum, for she planned to work for her father, an engraver, and so was Eliza, who intended to become a portrait artist; both girls attended all their classes dutifully without complaint. Indeed, they both planned to marry and have families as well. Recently both girls had become engaged to fine young men from socially prominent families. They never said anything, but Sofie knew they wondered why she did not become engaged, as well. Sadly Sofie realized that they did not really understand her after all.

  “If you want to do your own work so much, Sofie,” Eliza had said, “just do it. Or are you afraid?”

  Sofie was afraid; how could she not be? But she was burning with need, too. Her search for a suitable subject had finally led her to Third Avenue in lieu of her third-period class.

  So she had decided to do a genre work, but not as Millet might, nor as Rousseau or Diaz, but as she, Sofie O’Neil, preferred.

  “Miss Sofie, ma’am,” the coachman said gruffly, interrupting her thoughts. “It’s half past three.”

  Sofie sighed. “Thank you, Billings. I’ll pack up.” It was time to go and greet the crusty Miss Ames.

  * * *

  Sofie froze on the threshold of her mother’s salon.

  Edward Delanza stood on the other side of the room. His smile was warm.

  Eyes wide, Sofie could not look away. Finally she realized that Miss Ames was also in the room, seated on the sofa by the marble-manteled hearth. The old spinster was greedily observing both Sofie and Edward with her darting black gaze.

  Sofie felt a momentary panic. What was he doing here?

  Edward strolled towards her, his gaze taking in every inch of her appearance with unnerving intensity. “Good afternoon. Miss O’Neil. I happened to be driving by, and I thought to leave my card. When I realized you were due home at any moment—” he grinned, his blue eyes holding hers “—I knew I had to wait.”

  Sofie had yet to move. When his glance slipped over her clothing, she realized just what she must look like. Sofie was horrified. How different she must seem now than she had that night on the veranda, when she was carefully coiffed and clad in an evening gown. Far more eccentric than he had ever dreamed, and far more eccentric than she had ever wished to appear.

  For she was a mess. Her hair was escaping its thick, loose braid, a braid that was no longer coiled around her head. She could feel the heavy mass on her neck, and knew she was within a moment of having the plait burst free, allowing the unwieldy tresses to cascade down her back. Worse, her blouse and skirt were covered with paint, and she knew she smelled of turpentine. She had been more careless than usual with her appearance because she knew Suzanne was in Newport and that the house was empty—she had not been expecting a caller other than Miss Ames.

  A caller? Was Edward Delanza calling on her?

  “Cat got your tongue, gel?” Miss Ames stood. “Don’t you care to say good day to the handsome gentleman?”

  Sofie went red. “Mr. Delanza,” she croaked. It was dawning on her that he had come to call on her. Then Suzanne’s words suddenly echoed in her mind: His kindness is a disguise for one thing, his intention to seduce and ruin you.

  “Where’s my painting?” Miss Ames approached, her cane thumping.

  Sofie was jerked to the present, paler now, her heart pounding. “Miss Ames,” she managed, acutely aware of Edward. “How do you do?”

  “My painting, gel!”

  Sofie took a calming breath. She did not dare look at Edward, who was smiling at her. He was toying with you, dear. “It’s here, Miss Ames. Jenson, do bring it in, please.”

  The butler entered, lugging the large canvas with him. He set it down facing the trio, huffing. And suddenly Sofie was anxious. Not because of Miss Ames, who would undoubtedly like it, but because of Edward Delanza.

  It was competent, but it was hardly exciting. It was run-of-the-mill. She had forced herself to do it. She found herself looking at Edward, not Miss Ames, awaiting his reaction. That was ridiculous, because she should not care what he thought of her work. Then she wondered what he would think of her genre painting of the two immigrant women.

  She shouldn’t care. She didn’t care, she corrected herself. He had no right even being there in her home. Why had he come? To toy with her, to seduce her? Was he tired of Hilary? Did he think her easy fodder for his mill? Why had he come!

  “That does look like me,” Miss Ames said grudgingly. She stared at herself on canvas. “A bit too real, don’t you think? Couldn’t you have prettied it up a bit, gel?”

  Sofie didn’t respond. Edward was gazing at the portrait, his brow furrowed, then he turned to look sharply at her. “You are very talented, Miss O’Neil.”

  Sofie’s jaw was tight. If she ground down any harder, she might crack a tooth. “Thank you, Mr. Delanza,” she said stiffly.

  “You claimed that you were passionate about your art,” Edward said, gazing at her as if perplexed. His glance went back to the portrait. “You have captured Miss Ames exactly.”

  Sofie felt herself flushing, because this portrait was devoid of passion, and she knew it. Did he? Was his comment a veiled criticism? “With photography one can do the same thing—even better,” Sofie said tartly.

  Edward started.

  “There, there, he’s complimented you, gel,” Miss Ames said suddenly, but Sofie could not regret her candor, even though it had been nothing short of rude. “You are a talent, that you are. Come, Jenson, bring it out to my carriage.” She looked at Edward. “I see you’ve got one of them damn fool motorcars, but as far as I can see, a horse and buggy was good enough for my parents and it’s good enough for me.”

  Edward smiled at the old lady. “I went to an automobile show in London last November. I’ve been hooked like a mountain trout ever since.”

  “Humph,” Miss Ames said. Then she winked. “Take her driving. All the young gels quite like it, it seems to me.”

  Sofie’s pulses rioted as she walked Miss Ames to the door. Whatever was the old lady thinking? Still, she had the unwanted image of herself in the front seat of some fancy black roadster, with Edward in cap and goggles beside her. She had never set foot in an automobile before, probably would die without ever doing so. To imagine herself in one, with Edward Delanza, no less, was romantic nonsense.

  But when she returned, she was terribly aware of being alone wi
th Edward, and her pulse had yet to quiet down. He had left the salon, and she found him studying a painting in the corridor, which she had done some years ago. He turned. “You did this one, too.”

  It was a portrait of Lisa as a child. Sofie had painted it from memory, with the aid of a photograph. “You are a connoisseur of art, Mr. Delanza?” She was uneasy with the thought, just as she was uneasy with him.

  “Hardly.” His smile flashed.

  “You have a good eye, then, Mr. Delanza.” She smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from her skirt. To her dismay, her hand came away streaked red. “I am afraid you have caught me somewhat en déshabillé.”

  His grin turned rakish, secrets sparked in his eyes. “Not precisely, Miss O’Neil.”

  His words stirred up fantasies she had thought securely shoved aside. Her body seemed to tighten. Defensively she folded her arms across her breasts. “Why are you here?” she asked hoarsely.

  “Why do you think I’m here, Sofie?” he returned softly.

  Sofie felt a rush of unwanted longing, felt the blood heat in her veins. She reminded herself that he was a rake, an unprincipled one. Did he really think to seduce her? It hardly seemed possible.

  Yet why else would he be there—why else would he call her by her given name in such a seductive manner? Sofie stiffened her spine, and with it, her resolve. She had almost fallen for his looks and charm once before; she would not be so foolish this time. He could do what he wanted, say what he wanted, but she would remain rational and in full control of any unwanted desire. “I cannot fathom why you are here, Mr. Delanza,” she heard herself say briskly.

  “I’m calling on you, of course.” His dimples were deep, his teeth very white and bright. His bold blue eyes locked with hers.

  Despite her determination, Sofie felt herself begin to fall inexorably under his spell. His magnetism was overpowering. “Mr. Delanza, I do not understand,” she said stiffly. “Why are you calling on me?”

  “Do you ask the other gentlemen why they call upon you?”

  She flushed with genuine embarrassment. “I believe I told you that I do not have admirers.”

  He stared, his smile gone. “You do not have callers?”

  Her chin lifted. “Not gentlemen callers, no.”

  His gaze was wide, incredulous. Then his dimples reappeared. “Well, now you have one—me.”

  She inhaled. Her pulse still pounded recklessly. “You are a man of the world,” Sofie said, choosing her words carefully. She was determined to learn his intentions. Determined to end this hopeless charade once and for all.

  His left brow rose in a high, inquiring arch.

  “And I am, as you can see, a dedicated but eccentric artist. And …” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t bring up the real reason he could not find her interesting.

  His eyes had darkened. “And what?”

  “Why would you call on me?” she cried, losing her precarious control, and with it, her temper.

  He loomed over her. “So you’re eccentric, are you? That’s funny, because I don’t find you eccentric. Original, talented, intriguing, yes. Eccentric? No. Whose words are those, Sofie? Yours or your mother’s?”

  Sofie gasped.

  He moved towards her—Sofie backed away. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Sofie licked her lips. He had backed her into the wall. She was shaking and afraid—she stared at him, stubbornly mute. She wondered if he might take thorough advantage of her now and kiss her. Then what would she do?

  It flashed through her mind that, as she had never been kissed before, she could enjoy it.

  His eyes had turned storm blue. “I don’t give a damn that you’ve got a bad ankle, Sofie.”

  Sofie did not believe him. “Then you are the only one.”

  “Then everyone else is a pack of damn fools.”

  Sofie stared, acutely aware of the fact that mere inches separated their bodies. She could feel his heat. Worse, she could feel herself heating up, too, in ways she had never felt before. “What are you saying, precisely?”

  He lifted one hand. For a heart-stopping moment, Sofie thought he was going to touch her. His hand seemed to linger near her shoulder, and then he placed his palm against the wall, just to the side and over her head, and leaned his weight on it. “I’m saying that I’ve come to call on you like any other man might. All nice and proper-like. Because I find you intriguing. Yet you, you act as if I’m a leper.”

  “I did not mean to give you that impression,” Sofie said thickly. The sleeve of his jacket was so close that she could feel the soft fibers of fine blue wool against her cheek.

  Edward stared at her. “Why are you afraid of me?”

  “I’m not.” But she was—oh, she was. What on earth would she do if he kissed her?

  His smile was twisted. His blue eyes held a bitter light. “I guess I don’t blame you. But I promise, Sofie, I wouldn’t hurt you. I want to be your friend.”

  He had spoken that last sentence in a soft, seductive murmur. Sofie’s response was immediate. Her heart rate tripled. She could not breathe, could not even swallow. What kind of friendship, she wondered, did he have in mind?

  Sofie looked into his brilliant blue eyes. And an image leaped into her head, of a man and woman entwined. The man was Edward, the woman was herself. Surely there was another, deeper, more sophisticated meaning to his words; Suzanne would insist that it was so. But Sofie could not decide. For she recalled how protective of her he had been on the veranda in Newport that night. And she did not know if she would be relieved or disappointed if he was speaking with utter sincerity now.

  He commanded her gaze with his own. “Are we friends, Sofie?”

  Sofie trembled. She knew he could feel it, because her cheek brushed his arm. And if he leaned just a bit more on his hand, their knees would brush, too.

  “Sofie?”

  She tried to think of how to answer him. There was no way to avoid the trap of a double meaning. “Of course we are friends, if that is what you wish.” She knew she was blushing.

  He appeared pleased. And then his next words truly undid her. “Would you paint something for me?”

  “What?”

  “Would you paint something for me, Sofie?” he repeated.

  She stared, unmoving. Inside her chest, her heart thundered anew.

  “Paint something for me,” he cajoled. “Anything. Whatever strikes your fancy.” He spoke in a tone and manner that Sofie imagined he had used many times before, to many women, when he was intent on coaxing his prey into his arms and his bed.

  Sofie pressed her back into the wall. “No. I don’t think so. No.”

  His smile faded. “Why not?”

  “It’s not a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  Sofie wasn’t sure herself. Instinct warned her against yielding to his request. Perhaps it was because she found him so irresistible, and because she wanted his approval even though it was irrelevant to her work and her success. Somehow she sensed that to bring Edward into her world of art was a very dangerous thing—far more dangerous than being alone with him right now, or than agreeing to be friends. “It’s a great deal to ask.”

  “Is it? You painted the portrait for Miss Ames.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  “Why not?”

  Sofie could not answer. She was not about to tell him that Miss Ames was an old but likable crone, while he was every woman’s prince of dreams. That her own mother had insisted on the one commission, not a gorgeous, threatening male stranger. “I am very busy,” she finally said, her tongue tripping on the truth that was, as an excuse, a lie. “My classes and my studies take up almost all of my time.”

  “I see.” He appeared hurt. He dropped his arm from the wall. “I thought, being as we are new friends, you might make the time—for me.”

  Sofie was frozen. What if he really was gallant? What if he really wanted to be her friend? What if they succeeded in forming a platonic yet warm bond? Sofie’
s heart twisted with yearning. With a start, she realized that she was loath to see him exit her life. That already he had become a part of her world, despite his having hardly entered it. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

  “Because it needs to be done,” he returned as softly. His gaze was bold. “You need me, Sofie. You need shaking up.”

  Sofie could only stare.

  Suddenly both of his hands were on the wall, just above either side of her head. “You need shaking up,” he said again, this time roughly, and suddenly his thighs closed in on hers. “Badly.”

  Sofie was frozen, agonizingly aware of the weight of his muscular thighs against her own soft ones, and of the heat that his flesh engendered in her own. She was lost in the brilliant, gleaming depths of his eyes, which had begun to glitter wildly in a manner that Sofie had never witnessed before, not in man or woman. She licked her lips. Her heart beat wildly. It did not seem possible, but … Sofie had the absurd idea that he was going to kiss her. And if her instincts were right, then she should send him away, in no uncertain manner. Sofie tried to summon up the words to do so, and failed.

  “I’m going to shake you up, Sofie,” he murmured, eyes blazing, and he leaned even closer until his chest was just grazing her breasts.

  Their glances locked and something sizzled between them, something so strong and so bright that Sofie forgot propriety and all of Suzanne’s warnings and every decent inclination that she had. She thought “yes” with all her heart. He knew and his lips curved slightly and he bent his head. Waiting for his kiss was the most wonderful, and the most painful, moment of her life.

  Sofie forgot everything then. Fire rushed along her veins, burning up her skin, swelling the softness at the apex of her thighs, making her ache with a strange and new sexual awareness. She heard a small, breathy sound escape her own lips, just before his full weight touched her. Sofie gasped as the entire length of his swollen, steel-hard manhood was pressed against her belly, and she was paralyzed.