Undoing One's Enemy

by Camille Oster

  “Perfect.”

  “I’ll be right back.” She went upstairs. She really wanted to know what went on in his head, how he saw the world. White dresses must have some kind of meaning for him if it was important enough to ask for it. Then she wondered if all men placed such meaning to dresses or if it was just artists.

  She’d actually stopped wondering what men saw when they looked upon her, because for a long time she knew that they saw her father’s wealth. She had grown unaccustomed to men who saw other things. Now she was very curious as to what Henry saw.

  She changed as quickly as she could, but she was a little concerned because her white muslin dress was for summer temperatures and it was not quite warm enough for spring. Hopefully she would be in a sunny spot.

  When she returned Henry was waiting inside the vestibule. He looked up when she came down the stairs and she saw appreciation in his eyes; it made her feel giddy and she was sure more than a little flushed. That was how she wanted to be seen, how she wanted to feel when a man saw her, actually not any man—her man. It also made her feel a bit awkward as she stepped out on the street and Henry followed her. There was no carriage waiting as she had expected; it was a long way to the river bank that he was painting.

  “We are walking,” he said as if he was able to read her mind. He picked up his bag with an easel strapped to it.

  “Oh,” Amelia said and did some re-calculations in her head as to how long they were going to be gone.

  “As Hyde Park is nearer, it will do. A park bench is a park bench after all. I am only painting you today, so any park will do.”

  “I see.” Amelia followed when he started walking. It didn’t take them long to arrive. They walked around the park for a bit passing several empty benches.

  “This one,” he said and pointed to a bench. Amelia wasn’t sure what made this bench any more special than the others, but again it must have been the artist eyes which saw the world very differently.

  Amelia sat down on the bench. She took her coat off and waited. Luckily it was a sunny spot, so she wouldn’t suffer too much. He crouched down in front of her and took her wrist. She felt excitement shoot through her; it was the first time she had touched him. His eyes rose to meet hers. “Here,” he said, placing her hand on her lap. He then repeated with her other hand. He stepped back and surveyed her; his eyes were on her form now, measuring, evaluating for purposes she couldn’t quite understand.

  “Maybe a flower,” he said and looked around. He walked over to the base of a tree and picked a small daisy. He brought it back and gently placed it between her fingers. He adjusted her fingers slightly and then withdrew to quickly set up his easel and prepared the paint. Amelia watched him, he seemed to know his trade so well, whereas she knew very little about the things that he were doing. He brought a wrapped canvas out of his bag and placed it on the easel.

  He kept a paintbrush in his mouth and he mixed the paints to the consistency he wanted, then his eyes perused her form again. She couldn’t help blushing when he started. She had never been studied so, every detail absorbed to be translated onto the canvas. He worked in silence for a long time, stroking paint on the canvas, watching her, and then mixing paint. A process he repeated over and over again.

  “So what is your purpose in life?” he asked after a while. Amelia had settled her mind into contemplation and the question startled her a little. It was similar to the question he’d asked her when they’d first met.

  She didn’t quite know how to answer; it was such a direct question, honing in on her hopes and aspirations. The very thing she had been grappling to understand over the last few months. “Family, I guess.”

  “Shouldn’t prove difficult. It is a typical desire, isn’t it?”

  “I not sure I agree, finding the right person to have a family with seems to be most difficult.”

  “That depends on your definition of a right person. All you require for a family is someone willing.”

  “Maybe I want more than someone willing.” She felt like she was being challenged. His eyes were boring into her, making her feel exposed.

  “So, you want passion,” he said returned to his work. It was disconcerting that he seemed able to read her so readily.

  “Who doesn’t want passion?”

  “Not as many as you’d think. Passion destroys as readily as it creates; it’s the infallible trade off—not conducive to a family environment.”

  Amelia didn’t know how to respond.

  “The highest highs and the lowest lows. It is a cruel mistress—as changeable as the Greek gods.”

  “Surely people manage to find a medium.” She was trying to understand, but she didn’t and she felt unsure what to say. She didn’t have much experience with passion in any form. Well, her father did get angry a fair bit, but that is not what they were talking about. The only experience she had was with Lord Eldridge, and that was …, she couldn’t quite describe it, it was compelling and scary, and she had always thought that love would be a different thing. “What is an artist’s purpose, then?” she asked.

  “Inspiration.”

  “Is that all?”

  “All?” he said with a laugh. “It is the most elusive creature—more temperamental than passion and maybe even more heart breaking when it leaves you.”

  “You speak like it’s a person that comes and visits.”

  “It feels like that sometimes,” he said with a smile. His eyes were sparkling. She truly didn’t understand him. “An idea is like this thing inside you and you need to bring it out, which you can’t without inspiration. It just sits there and burns. Don’t you ever feel that way?”

  “I don’t have any talents to inspire,” she admitted.

  “Then I pity you, or envy you depending on the day,” he said and added some more strokes to the canvas.

  “Do you want a family?” she asked out of curiosity for her own purposes, but it was also in line with the conversation they were having.

  He put the brush stem between his lips and used some kind of tool on the paint. “As you say,” he answered after he grabbed the brush again, “doesn’t everybody?”

  She felt no closer to understanding him. She did get the feeling that there might have been some relationship in his past, one that went wrong. She wanted to know more, but didn’t want to be crude by interrogating him.

  A business meeting was sheer torture with a hangover and he would allow himself to give into any suffering caused by the previous night’s events. He would not lay in bed and pity himself as he had brought this on himself and if he could not manage his drink then he deserved all the suffering it caused him. He could easily have cancelled this meeting, but he insisted on keeping it, even if just to spite himself.

  Control was of supreme importance, what was a man without it? It is the reason he dragged himself out of bed and continued with his day as planned, even if he was wilting on the inside, supplemented by his complete inability to attempt his breakfast this morning. It was also what kept him from knocking Lord Hariston’s lights out last night. Losing control would have served him no purpose whatsoever, it was immature and frankly, beneath him.

  He hadn’t strictly lost control with Miss Hessworth, only given into temptation. It had proven embarrassing, but he deserved that as well for allowing the weakness that she had exploited. He still couldn’t quite understand why she’d done it. Why would she tempt him into bed if she had no intension of gaining support from him? Maybe she really did have delusions that he would be so overcome with awe for her that he would let her tie him into marriage. If so, her delusions must be quashed by now. Perhaps that was the source of her anger and the reaction to his proposal.

  He would put the whole incident behind him if he could get rid of the memories that kept on floating to the surface of his conscience. It was his punishment, to not forget the sweetness of the act. This he deserved as well, he thought.

  Mercifully the meeting ended and he bid his goodbye to the esteemed
men of the Public Railworks Committee. They were a powerful group, made up on men from the most influential families in all of London, each with a seat in Parliament.

  As he rode toward the end of Hyde Park, he saw Miss Hessworth sitting for a painter, in the open before all of London to see. Didn’t she understand how bad this made her look? There was also the small matter of it making him look bad as well. Men of his standing didn’t usually let their mistresses be painted in public.

  He rode over to them. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  Her mouth formed a surprised circle before she composed herself. “I am here with my friend, Henry,” she said and indicated toward the man who sat on some strange fold-out seat considering him.

  “Have you no shame?” he said and swung his leg in front of him before sliding down the side of his horse. “Do you have no comprehension of what kind of women model for paintings?”

  “No, why don’t you tell me,” she challenged.

  He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off the seat. “Women with little decorum.”

  “Well, maybe that is what I am, a woman of little decorum,” she said and pulled her arm out of his grasp. “It is none of your concern.”

  “Really? What would your father say?”

  “My father? You are concerned with what my father would think?” she uttered disbelievingly.

  “A daughter should show due honor to her parents—that doesn’t including going off with strange men to the park.”

  “Since when has honoring my parents been a priority of yours? Actually it seems to be quite the opposite of your motives. You’ve done everything you can to dishonor his memory.”

  “Doesn’t mean you should,” he spat back. This had not gone as intended, in truth he had not thought at all, he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. He stepped forward and grabbed her by her elbow again. “And if you don’t recall, you are living in my house and I’ve been pretty clear from the beginning that you are not to engage in questionable activities.”

  “Questionable activities?” she demanded. “That is rich coming from you.”

  He was pulling her toward the street his house was on. She leaned back, but he refused to let her go. “I’m sorry Henry, it seems something has come up, can we finish another time?”

  “You will not be finishing some other time.” He knew he was over-reacting, he was just so angry, with a number of grievances compounding into an explosion of anger. “May I remind you that while you are living under my roof you are not allowed to associate with men like that.”

  “Men like Henry? He is an artist.”

  “I’m not blind. Don’t you understand what he wants from girls like you.”

  “He wants to paint me.”

  “You’re so naïve. Are you sleeping with him?”

  “What? No. Not that it is any of your concern.”

  “I told you that you would not be a toy for men as long as you’re under my roof.” He recognized his own hypocrisy, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

  “Except you.”

  He refused to reply and instead kept up the brisk pace toward the house. He despised himself for the lack of control he’d just shown; it was the suffering from the prior night that made him so unreasonable. On the other hand, he had a right to ensure that the persons living in his house did not impinge on his character and reputation. If he was completely honest, which he in this instance refused to be, he’d have to admit that there was hurt as well that she’d chosen the company of such a base man over him. The thought of her giving her affection to someone unworthy was infuriating.

  “You want me to make a future for myself and my aunt, but you impede me from doing so.”

  “You’re not going to do so with a man like that,” he said through clenched teeth as quietly as he could as a man was passing them.

  “And why not?”

  “A man like that lives on commissions, he starves in between—not exactly well placed to support a woman, are you really that impractical?”

  “Maybe I just don’t agree with what you call impractical.”

  “Oh really, do enlighten me,” he said and stopped. He actually was curious to know what was going on in her deluded brain.

  “Not everyone cares for wealth and position; some find other things that are more important in life.”

  “That is what poor people say,” he accentuated with a sarcastic chuckle. Then more seriously, “you’re swayed by some ridiculous notion that there are other things that matter. What? The dignity of poverty? I’ve been poor, truly poor; there is nothing dignified about it. There is hunger and aching need, nothing more.”

  “What about love!” she challenged.

  “Love?” he said with astonishment. “You are a child.”

  “I’m not a child, I just have different priorities.”

  “You priorities should be to take care of your aunt. Running around with starving artists isn’t going to do that for you,” he said, letting his thoughts just flow out of his mouth. “I am the one taking care of your aunt. She is not going to tolerate living in some drab artist’s studio. I am the one you should focus your attention on, I have the means to take care of you and your aunt, but being the unreasonable creature you are and compounding indignity on top of indignity, you spurn me.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” she said quietly. “I want a husband and opposed to what you think, I am not stupid enough to not realize that he will not come out of your ranks. And not just any husband, I want someone who loves me.”

  The conversation seemed to have run dry, leaving nothing but silence and the sounds of the street. This was not an appropriate conversation to have on the street; it wasn’t a conversation that was appropriate in polite society under any circumstances.

  “You couldn’t have harbored any hopes that I would offer for you, why did you come to my room? What exactly led you to my bed?”

  “Practice,” she said and looked down the street avoiding his eyes. “I needed someone to practice on.”

  Her answer hit him in the gut, leaving something nauseating behind.

  “Practice what exactly?” They were talking freely; he might as well get it all.

  “Intimacy. I’ve been advised that I would be better placed to achieve the kind of marriage I want if I am more experienced with men.”

  “So you were using me,” he said, finally with clear understanding. It wasn’t an outcome he had expected, but its bitter meaning seeped into his consciousness.

  Chapter 13

  She should have lied, she told herself as she paced around the space in her room. She had been honest and she’d upset him. Now her immediate world was at risk, her aunt’s happiness and her own life in familiar circumstances. She’d been so angry and she’d just blurted out the truth to defend herself against the accusation he’d laid at her feet.

  She had to recoup; think of what to do. She knew she had help if she needed it. Celeste had said clearly that she would help her if she needed to extricate herself from this situation. It wasn’t so much that she had to extricate herself, it was more like she was going to be thrown out.

  And he hadn’t been reasonable or even correct, far from it. He was in no place to dictate to her, even if he was lending her support by allowing her to stay here. He had been hypocritical, brutish and irrational. The whole idea that she should accept being a mistress, but only if it was with him was nothing but two-faced. And then the ridiculous idea that she harbored hopes that he would offer for her, like she would accept him if he did.

  On no level did he understand her, even as she had blatantly laid it all out for him. He belittled and bullied her, not to mention he acted to her detriment without a qualm. There was absolutely no way in the world she would ever marry him. He might have all the means, wealth and status, but that didn’t mean she’d lost her standards. He just didn’t understand that they didn’t include the things that he valued.

  She was riling herself up
again. How was she expected to co-exist with such a man? It was an impossible task. She threw herself down on the bed and squashed her pillow beneath her head. He was probably preparing to throw her out as she lay there. Maybe she could appeal for clemency for Edna. She could beseech him to let Edna stay, and she would only visit her aunt very discreetly when he was away from the house; she could wait down the street until such time as he departed the house. She could even use the servants’ entrance. That way, the likelihood of him even seeing her if he returned before she was gone, would be even less.

  She hated being in his power. She’d never questioned being in her father’s power and she’d grown up expecting being in her husband’s, but he was neither, yet he had complete power over her. Things would be different if it hadn’t been for Edna, she would walk away and never look back.

  She also smarted from his assessment of her care for her aunt—that she was neglecting her by pursuing her own happiness and future. It didn’t matter how she twisted it, the grain of truth in the sentiment stood firm. Taking care of Edna should be her priority, no matter how uncomfortable her situation was. Instead she had gone out and sought a happy future for herself, and in the process jeopardized the only happiness that Edna had left. She was a terrible person.

  The dark liquid he was swirling around in his glass was doing nothing to calm him. He had left the house immediately and sought out the all-male company at his club. He was sick to death of females and their deceitful ways. The chit had driven him out of his own house too—and not for the first time—but he had to leave; he didn’t trust himself at the moment. He needed to restore control; it had been sorely tested today and he couldn’t say he’d been the master of it.

  It was good this had happened, he told himself. He had grown too soft, too considerate of others, to his own detriment. He had lost his way, and the chit had gotten the upper hand. Inexcusable. He had no one to blame but himself. He should have known not to dally with her when she’d first come to his room. She had picked her moment well; he’d been drunk and pliable.