by Darcie Wilde
“And you are not alone,” Helene agreed. “You never were.”
V
“Hello, Pelham.”
“Windford!” Benedict looked up from the canvas he was fixing to a frame, surprised but not unpleased. He waved the hand holding the tack hammer toward the cluttered expanse that was his studio. “Move something and have yourself a seat.”
Marcus Endicott, the Duke of Windford, took off his hat before he ducked under the low threshold. Knowing full well the hazards of paint and charcoal that lurked in the artist’s studio, Windford had dressed for the visit in old breeches and a plain coat.
“I’m not interrupting a new masterwork?” he said, pausing to peer at the sketch of a lake that had been set on an easel by the windows.
“Not yet.” Benedict tapped the last tack into place and flipped the canvas so it lay faceup. “What brings you so far out of the stylish districts this morning?”
Benedict’s studio was in a half-timber house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields that had once belonged to a prosperous merchant. But fashions in neighborhoods as well as in dresses could change within the space of a season, and the merchant had left long ago. Now, it belonged to a canny old widow who had divided the rooms up into a series of flats that she let to artists and musicians and the occasional law clerk.
“I’m here on an errand.” Windford, against all expectations, found a cane-bottom chair that was free of brushes or paint pots or newspapers and sat down. “My sister has a request, an urgent one. In fact, she took utmost pains to impress upon me that it is a matter of life and death.”
“Yours?” Benedict quirked one eyebrow.
“Mine,” Windford agreed solemnly. “You may or may not know that Adele and a couple other girls have been taken up by Miss Deborah Sewell.”
Benedict found an unusual amount of his attention absorbed by the need to place the tack hammer in exact alignment with the worktable’s edge. “I did know it. One of the girls is Miss Valmeyer, is she not?”
“She is.” Marcus’s tone was studiously bland. “Are you acquainted with the lady?”
“I met her at your house party, briefly.”
Windford was watching him with unusual intensity. He wondered what exactly Lady Adele had told him. Had Madelene showed her The Prelude? Was Windford here with a message?
Benedict adjusted the hammer’s position again, suddenly not trusting himself to speak.
“Well, Miss Valmeyer, Lady Helene, and my sister are thick as thieves these days. Adele’s turned modiste for the crowd and is causing something of a sensation with her dresses.”
“You sound like you don’t approve.”
Windford shrugged. “Well, it’s not exactly an unexceptionable coterie. That Lady Helene is certainly a . . . surprise.” He paused, and there was a thoughtful and distant look in his eyes that caused Benedict’s brows to lift another fraction of an inch. “How such a mild little thing as Miss Valmeyer got drawn into her orbit, I have no idea. A man never quite knows what she’ll do next.”
“Miss Valmeyer?”
“Lady Helene.”
“Ah.” Benedict wiped at his face before Windford saw his smile.
“I’m not sure I entirely trust Miss Sewell as a chaperone either. Have you read that book she’s supposed to have written?”
“Yes,” Benedict said. “I’m a little surprised that you have.”
Windford shrugged. “It was recommended.”
“By Lady Helene?” Benedict inquired.
Windford didn’t answer, and Benedict very carefully did not smile. Instead he went over to the stove that served heat for the room and lifted the lid on the kettle. “Coffee?” he asked. “Or I think there’s a bottle around here somewhere.”
Windford waved, refusing both.
“If you don’t like the company your sister’s keeping, you could forbid her from seeing them,” Benedict said placidly. “You’re head of the family, after all.”
Windford’s smile was grim. “Oh yes, I could, and then I’d never hear the end of it. My aunt is entirely in Adele’s corner these days. Even Patience is arguing in favor of their little conspiracy.”
“Conspiracy?” Benedict said. “That’s a strong word.”
“Accurate, though. When Adele sent me out here, she swore me to secrecy about my errand. It seems the lot of them are engaged in some grand scheme to throw a magnificent party at the end of the season.”
“I wish them the joy of it. But what does it have to do with me?”
“They want you to paint them a picture for it. A new portrait in your famous classical style.”
“I don’t paint portraits anymore,” Benedict said flatly.
“Yes, I told Adele that. You’ve turned entirely to landscapes.” Marcus paused. “Except for that one painting that caused a stir at the exhibition.”
Benedict shrugged. “It was an experiment. I am through with portraiture.”
“Even of Madelene Valmeyer?”
Benedict’s quiescent heart skipped a beat. He also realized that Marcus was watching him closely.
“It’s Madelene Valmeyer who wants the painting.”
“Why Miss Valmeyer?” Benedict asked.
Marcus shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. But I am sent here upon pain of never having another moment’s peace to ask if you will accept the commission. I am to impress upon you that they can pay for a piece, that it is . . .” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a notebook. “And I’m quoting Lady Helene here—she made me write it down exactly—‘three-quarter length, includes the hands, rendered as a classical scene or setting and . . .’”
Benedict held up his hand to cut him off.
“Why is this coming from your sister? Why isn’t Miss Valmeyer’s father commissioning the portrait?”
Marcus’s mouth twisted abruptly into an expression of profound distaste. “Have you ever met Sir Reginald?”
“No.”
“Well, I have, and you may trust me that a portrait of Madelene is the last thing he’d be interested in.”
“Her stepmother, then?”
Marcus shook his head. “The stepmother doesn’t think any better of Miss Valmeyer than her father, or her stepbrother.” Marcus tucked his notebook away in his pocket. “Well, Pelham? What’s your answer?”
What was his answer? He knew what he wanted it to be. He wanted to say yes, loudly, immediately. He wanted Miss Valmeyer here, with him. He wanted to see her smile, at him, for him, and with him. He wanted to know what she looked like when she was relaxed and happy. He wanted to see her in the sunshine. Hell, he wanted to see her in the rain with her dress plastered against her. Emerging from the fog like a spirit and opening her arms to him. He wanted her naked as a Grecian goddess, lounging in a meadow with nothing but a wreath of flowers in her red gold hair.
He wanted to see her a thousand different ways, and wanted it so badly his hands had begun to shake, and it was a good thing he was standing up and facing the windows so he could look over the rooftops until his cock subsided.
I can’t. He pressed his fists against the windowsill. I don’t dare.
“I’ll have to think about it,” he said, although he had to drag the words out one at a time. “You can tell Lady Adele I’ll let you, and her, know shortly.”
He half expected Marcus to get to his feet then, but his friend stayed right where he was.
“How long has it been, Benedict?”
“Since what?”
“Gabriella.”
“A year,” Benedict answered, but he stopped. That couldn’t be right; it had to have been longer. Some of it was lost time, lost to drinking and dosing and rage. “Two.”
“Four,” Marcus said.
“No. Not that long.”
Marcus nodded. “That long.”
Benedict stared across the roof
tops, leafing through the calendar in his mind. Yes, Marcus was right. Four years. God in Heaven, how had that happened? The wounds were still as raw as they had ever been.
Except they aren’t, murmured a treacherous voice in his mind. If they were, you wouldn’t have been able to paint such a thing as The Prelude. You wouldn’t be ready to plant your fist in Lewis Valmeyer’s smug, drunk face because of the way he treats his sister. You certainly wouldn’t be standing here panting after another woman.
“It doesn’t matter,” Benedict said to Marcus, and himself.
“It does.”
“Not to me.”
“I worry about you, Benedict,” Marcus said. “It isn’t good for a man to stay mired in his past, however much he blames himself for what happened there.”
“Someone could say something similar about you, Marcus. You’ve kept yourself at least as alone as I have, and for longer.”
Marcus laughed, but it was forced. “I wish I was more alone. Household full of women and an estate full of worries. I can barely move for all of them.”
“It’s not the same as a wife’s companionship.”
“No,” he agreed quietly. “But that’s not an option for someone with my entanglements.”
They were silent for a moment. Benedict was one of the few men who knew the full extent of the mess the previous duke had left behind for his son to cope with.
“You don’t really believe that anymore,” Benedict said. “At least you don’t want to.”
“What makes you say that?” Marcus asked sharply.
“You’ve mentioned Helene Fitzgerald at least three times since you got here. I’ve never heard you talk so much about a woman you weren’t related to. Or entangled with.”
“You should stick to your brushes.”
“Probably.” There had been a time when Benedict would have looked at a man such as the Duke of Windford and smiled and offered up witty flattery. But that had all been washed out of him in the tide of feeling that mingled grief with cold, hard truth.
“Well, I’ve done what I came for.” Windford climbed to his feet. “Don’t take too long in making up your mind, Pelham, or Lady Helene might just come pounding on your door herself.” He realized what he’d said a moment later, and his face twisted. “Have you . . . ever met someone who got under your skin for no reason you can understand?”
“Yes,” Benedict replied. “As it happens, I have.”
Marcus retrieved his hat and pushed open the door, but he paused on the threshold. “You should take the commission, Benedict,” he said. “Let yourself live.”
Benedict made no answer. He did not even turn to look at his friend but kept his eyes on the rooftops. He heard Marcus sigh, and he heard the door close, and his boots clomp down the bare wooden stairs.
Only then did Benedict turn around. He didn’t go back to his worktable and the canvases. Instead he crossed the room to his older paintings, most of them failures waiting to be scraped down and rubbed with turpentine so the canvas could be reused.
Most, but not all.
He moved these aside to reveal one set of canvases, hidden by a great spill of oilcloth. Benedict pulled this off.
Gabriella.
They were all scenes from Greek or Roman legend; Clytemnestra preparing for her final bath with the shadow of the son who would murder her falling across the tiled floor. Demeter standing before Zeus in a bleak winter landscape, demanding the return of her daughter Persephone. Last and most striking was the witch-queen Medea, wearing a bold purple dress and a black cloak. She held aloft the magical golden veil that she would use to murder Jason’s new bride. It was the expression on her face, though, that held the eye. It was triumphant, almost transcendent.
He’d known. His artist’s instincts had seen she could not be trusted before his conscious mind did. He’d painted her as a dozen different classical figures, but never the laudable ones—always the dangerous, even deadly, women.
Not that Gabriella had objected. She loved them all. Even Medea. He remembered how she’d laughed and leaned over his shoulder, her breath and her perfume filling his senses. Yes, that’s it exactly. You make me great, you make me feared! You make me look like queen of the world!
You are queen of the world, he’d answered. And queen of my heart.
And then they’d laughed and toasted her new image with champagne.
Now Benedict stood in front of this final picture and stared at the transcendent triumph that lit the painted face. He waited for the knife-sharp pain. He waited for the guilt, and the slow, sick, ever-present understanding that he was the reason that these painted images were all that remained of the vibrant woman.
But this time, that guilt didn’t come. Oh, it hurt. A hundred memories flashed through him, including the last one. Especially the last one. But the killing grief, the deepest well of guilt that required wine or drugs to cover over, that was missing.
Slowly, Benedict rewrapped the paintings. He returned to his stool and his easel. He took up a sketchbook and folded it open to a fresh page. He found a pencil on the table and held it over the page. He stared, not at the blank page, but across the room, opening his mind’s eye. He saw Madelene Valmeyer in the gallery, just as she’d turned toward him, startled, pale. Beautiful. Delicate. Lost and waiting to be found.
His hand began to move, laying down simple outlines, defining boundaries, creating basic shapes. He worked quickly, not thinking too much. He just let the images flicker across his inner vision and let his hand break them down into line and shadow. When at last he rose back into normal consciousness, he looked at the picture in his hand.
It was Madelene Valmeyer as the goddess of the moon. Not the cold warrior figure of Artemis, but Selene, who drew her silver chariot across the sky. Selene had once looked down on the earth and fallen in love with a sleeping shepherd named Endymion. In the story, she feared the consequences of loving a mortal, so she begged a gift from her father Zeus. She asked that Endymion be placed in eternal sleep, so he’d never grow old and die, and never leave her.
Yes. Benedict let out a long, slow breath. It was right. This was what he what he felt when he was with Madelene—a warm heart held at a distance, a woman who wanted love and life and yet feared it.
He laid down the book and the pencil and went over to his writing desk to take up his pen instead.
Windford,
You may tell Lady Adele I would be honored to accept her commission.
Yrs.
Benedict Pelham
“I can see her,” he said to the letter, to the paintings and sketches, to his heart, which seemed to have migrated to his throat. “I can speak with her. Paint the portrait, help my friend and his sister. That can do no harm. I’m not a boy anymore. I won’t . . . I wouldn’t . . .” Benedict grit his teeth and did not allow himself to finish that thought.
VI
“This is a mistake,” Madelene whispered as Adele’s coachman placed the step and helped her down onto the cobbles.
“No, it’s not,” Adele answered. “It’s an hour of your time. That’s all.” She took Madelene’s arm and squeezed it gently. “If you want to change your mind about anything . . .”
Madelene sucked in as deep a breath as her stays allowed. “No. I have said I will do this, and I will.”
“We’re all with you.”
Except you won’t be. That’s the whole point, thought Madelene, torn between laughter and panic as they mounted the steps of the half-timber house.
She still could not believe she had contrived all this herself. She, Madelene Valmeyer, Madelene the mouse, had conceived of a plan to spend one hour alone in the company of an unmarried man. An unmarried artist, no less, with a striking face and chestnut hair who set her whole body alight with one glance from his dark eyes and one soft, solemn whisper.
Adele thought it was a marvelous
lark. Madelene had known she would, which was why she’d asked Adele to come with her rather than Helene. Helene thought nothing was occurring today beyond the initial sitting for Adele’s portrait. She was Madelene’s best friend, but she was as protective as a mother hen. Helene would not have agreed to let Madelene have this moment alone with Benedict, even though it was her planning that had inspired the idea.
Helene would not appreciate knowing that, either, even though nothing at all was going to happen.
And that’s true, really. Nothing is going to happen. It’s just a pleasant hour, as Adele says. Madelene made herself repeat those words as Adele knocked on the freshly painted door. An hour, that’s all.
The address Marcus had given Adele proved to be a sprawling edifice, several times larger than its neighbors. It was taller, too, with a third story under its broad eaves, when the other houses around had only two stories at most.
Adele applied the brass knocker again. Somewhere a flute was playing. The music stopped and started again.
Finally, the door was opened by a small, round-faced, white-haired woman in a neat black dress and ruffled cap.
“Yes?” She squinted up at them. “What is it you want?”
“Miss Valmeyer to see Lord Benedict Pelham,” announced Adele.
“Oh yes!” The old woman nodded vigorously. “His lordship told me to be expecting you. If you’ll be pleased to just step inside.”
They stepped into a dim but neat entrance hall, and the landlady took their cloaks and bonnets and proceeded to lead them up two flights of stairs to the attic landing. She knocked on the door, and a voice called out in answer.
Is it you? Benedict’s words echoed in her mind, and Madelene’s heart skipped a beat as the landlady pushed the door open and stood aside so the girls could walk in.
Benedict’s studio was a long, low room, but it was airy and far more clean and spacious than she would have thought. Madelene had conceived a notion that an artist, even a successful artist, must live in isolation surrounded by careless disorder. The room in front of her looked as if it had been freshly cleaned.
