‘But I would do it, Giovanni,’ Cressie said, rallying, ‘if it meant …’
‘That I was provided with the means to expose myself to ridicule for a second time.’ Giovanni dropped his head into his hands.
The horse, spooked by their angry tones, encouraged by Cressie’s unwittingly tightened grip on the reins, lumbered into a trot which went quite unnoticed by the carriage’s occupants. ‘A second time?’ Cressie repeated slowly. ‘What do you mean, a second time?’ she asked with something much worse than a sinking feeling. Drowning?
‘You think I always intended to paint the depictions of perfection that made my reputation?’ Giovanni said bleakly. ‘I started out believing in inspiration, in creativity, in truth. And that is how I used to paint, from the heart. But my muse deserted me, I told you that.’
Belatedly reining in the horse, who took another unnoticed liberty and pulled over to crop at the verge, Cressie thought she might actually be sick. ‘I remember,’ she said miserably, ‘the woman who broke your heart.’
‘What woman?’ Giovanni stared at her, dumbfounded. ‘You think that a woman—that I had a lover …’
‘She was your muse, this woman. And then she left you. And you were devastated and couldn’t paint properly any more without her in your life. Until you met me that is. And obviously,’ Cressie said, sensing his bafflement, her face burning with mortification, ‘I got completely the wrong end of the stick. Oh God!’
It would be no exaggeration to say that Giovanni looked as if he was wearing a thunder cloud as a cloak. Rage and something darker, more dangerous, emanated from him in waves. The last thing he would welcome was further questions, but she had to ask them. She would not allow him to make her afraid of him. And besides, she had meant well. Plus, he had an incredible talent, even she could see that. ‘Giovanni, what did you mean, a second time?’
He was staring at the floor of the carriage. The planes of his face were stark, his skin pale, the coldness of his expression stripping him of his beauty. He took a deep breath and spoke in a monotone. ‘When I walked out of my father’s house, I became an apprentice to one of the Italian masters and began to learn the skills which would eventually bring me fame and fortune. But at the same time I was also trying to create a style of my own. Something unique and revolutionary. I was so excited when some of my work was chosen for an exhibition. It was savaged by the so-called experts. A humiliating and very public failure which naturally came to Count Fancini’s attention. You will come back with your tail between your legs. No one will buy those pretty jottings of yours. Mark my words, you will be back. And I will be waiting. Those were his last words to me when I left. I have never forgotten them—they are seared on my mind. I knew he was patiently waiting for me to fail, but I would not allow him to win. That is when I decided to make a living out of the depiction of beauty and to defy my blood heritage. My father killed my muse, not some woman.’
His words had knocked the wind out of her. Cressie hated the unknown Italian count for his mindless destruction of the son he was so reluctant to acknowledge and so determined to bend to his will. And she was furious at Giovanni for being so very blind. ‘You said you would never allow your father to win. But by sacrificing your artistic integrity for commercial expediency, Giovanni, you are doing just that. You are letting him win. You told me you painted in order to prove to your father that you could succeed on your own terms. But you haven’t succeeded on your own terms, you’ve succeeded on his. When will you have earned enough money to be free of him? When will you have produced enough of those mathematically perfect portraits of yours to finally return to your true calling? I’m guessing never.’
A long silence greeted this tirade. Cressie was crying, the tears blinding her eyes. When he tried to hand her his handkerchief, she shook him off, wiping her eyes with the backs of her gloves, fumbling for the reins, which she had dropped on the floor of the gig.
‘What are you doing?’ Giovanni asked as she set about, most ineptly, trying to turn the horse and carriage around.
‘Taking you back to Killellan.’
‘No.’
‘You have a portrait of my brothers to finish. You have to go back.’
‘No, I mean don’t turn around, Cressie. Take me to this tea party of yours.’
‘What?’ Cressie let the reins fall again. The horse, the most even-tempered of beasts under normal circumstances, snorted and tossed his head in frustration.
‘You are right,’ he said simply. ‘About all of it. You are, unfortunately, in the right of it. You have a way of presenting the facts with the precision of a mathematical instrument,’ Giovanni added with a ghost of a smile. ‘For some time now, I have been ignoring this feeling of …’ He gestured with his hands, something like a shrug, which made him seem very Continental. ‘I don’t know the word. I wasn’t unhappy, but I knew there was something wrong. I was beginning to hate every blank canvas, could see nothing of interest in the people I painted because I had stopped looking. I was arrogant, but I told myself that I had the right to be. Like my father, you will tell me.’
His expression was stark, lost, uncertain. He was looking at her as if she had all the answers he sought. Cressie was overwhelmed with love for this man. A tearing tenderness, a fierce, visceral reaction gripped her, to gather him to her, to keep him safe, to tell him it would all be fine, all of it, even though she had no idea what she was talking about. ‘Giovanni, you’re nothing like your father.’ She shuffled over the seat and took his hand between hers. Long fingers, immaculate nails, not a trace of paint. She couldn’t resist the most fleeting of kisses. ‘We really are very alike, you and I, trying to play our fathers at their own game, and not realising what we actually need to do is break free from them. You don’t have anything to prove to Count Fancini, but you have a lot to prove to yourself.’
He laughed. ‘You see. Like a precision instrument.’
He touched her forehead. She knew before he did that his fingers would move on to her cheek, her throat. Cressie closed her eyes, trying to memorise the way his touch made her skin tingle, her muscles clench in anticipation. She could not bear for there to be a time when she would have to imagine and not experience. When his lips met hers, she was so surprised that she almost flinched. He had been so very careful to keep his distance. His kiss was the gentlest of touches. His lips were like silk. His hand cupped her jaw, his thumb stroking her throat. She thought she might truly melt, had barely slipped her arms awkwardly around the bulk of his greatcoat, when he let her go.
‘Grazie, Cressie. I am sorry I lost my temper. What you have done—it was—grazie.’ He picked up the reins and handed them to her. ‘I will miss you when it is time for me to go,’ he said, ‘but in future, when I am in any doubt about something, I will say to myself, what would Cressie think, and I am sure you will keep me on the right path. What is the name of this expert that I am to attempt to impress today? Is it Granville? Sir Magnus Titmus perhaps?’
‘I don’t actually know. All Bella could tell me was that he was from the Continent and was the up-and-coming man. Which was why I thought—but there’s no point going back over all that again.’
Cressie took up the reins once more and coaxed the patient horse back into a plodding walk towards the Innellan estates. For a wild moment she’d thought that kiss had signified a turning point, for if Giovanni could finally shed the shadow of his father, perhaps he could also make room in his life for her. For a few heart-breaking seconds, she’d thought she could even in time make him love her. She bit the inside of her cheek hard to stop the foolish tears from flowing, telling herself it was enough that she had helped him, a blessing that she had not blurted out her feelings and turned him from her for ever.
‘Lady Innellan seems to have invited half the county,’ Cressie said, surveying the packed drawing room. ‘Those who are not in London for the Season, that is. Her son, Sir Timothy Innellan, has just returned home from the Continent to claim his title, as I told you. Rat
her belatedly, in fact, for his father passed away over a year ago.’
She nodded over at the prodigal son. Giovanni saw a heavily bearded man dressed in a flowing robe and turban with a crescent-shaped sword dangling from his waist, holding court in the middle of the room. ‘Goodness,’ Cressie muttered, muffling a giggle, ‘one must assume that his travels have taken him to Arabia.’
‘What dangers do you think he fears to encounter in his mother’s drawing room?’ Giovanni asked, also smiling, though rather at Cressie’s face than the new baronet with the bayonet.
‘Scheming dowagers with marriageable daughters for a start,’ she replied promptly. ‘I am glad my father is not in the country. I am sure he would have no qualms in throwing me in Sir Timothy’s path. “Take her with my blessing, even if you have the look of a Whig,”‘ Cressie said in a very fair imitation of her father’s pompous mode of speech. ‘Though actually, Sir Timothy has more the look of those strange men who stand guard outside the harem in Celia’s palace. I saw them when I visited. Most intimidating. Now I come to think of it, Celia told me that traditionally they were castrato. I wonder how far Sir Timothy has taken his admiration of the East.’
‘I wonder what his mother would say if she discovered you were speculating about such matters in her drawing room while taking tea,’ Giovanni said. ‘You have a most unconventional sense of humour.’
‘My Aunt Sophia is always telling me to put a guard on my tongue.’
‘Don’t ever do so on my account.’
There was no time for Giovanni to dwell on the dwindling number of days left for her to heed his words, for Lady Innellan descended upon them at that precise moment. A stately woman who had, according to Cressie, worn her blacks dutifully and cast them off promptly a year to the day upon which her husband had departed this earth, she was an old friend of the Aunt Sophia Cressie was so fond of. Her first words following her introduction to Giovanni were to enquire after the aforementioned lady. ‘For I believe that her health is somewhat in decline,’ she said to Cressie. ‘She is bringing out your sister Cordelia, is she not? Quite a charge, for a woman of her years. I am surprised Bella did not take on the responsibility. How is your stepmother, by the way? I have not seen her in an age.’
‘Unfortunately she too has been unwell, though she is a little better now.’
‘Do not tell me she is increasing again! Does your father intend to match every one of his daughters with a son?’ Lady Innellan asked with a titter.
Giovanni watched with amusement as Cressie struggled between a desire to ridicule her father by agreeing, and the urge to defend Bella. The grudging respect she had for her stepmother clearly got the upper hand. The smile Cressie returned was just as false as the one her hostess had given. ‘Oh, I think my father is more than content with his four boys. An heir and several spares, as they say. It is a pity that not everyone can be in such a fortunate position.’ She looked pointedly at Lady Innellan’s single heir. ‘Bella wishes for a daughter this time. I am sure she will be up and about directly, when you would be most welcome to call, but in the meantime I shall pass on your good wishes, shall I?’
‘I wonder that you are not in town with your sister, Cressida. Your father must be most eager to see you suitably attached. It has been—what—eight seasons now?’
‘I am needed at Killellan,’ Cressie said, and Giovanni noticed her hands curled into fists beneath the long sleeves of her pelisse.
She did not need his protection, she was more than a match for Lady Innellan, but he couldn’t help standing a little closer all the same. ‘Lady Cressida is taking her brothers for lessons while her stepmother finds a suitable new governess,’ Giovanni said. ‘I have been commissioned to paint the boys’ portrait and thanks to Lady Cressida’s extraordinary ability to control her brothers, the task of taking their likenesses is proving surprisingly straightforward.’
Throughout the conversation, Giovanni had been pointedly ignoring the fact that Lady Innellan was batting lashes like a hummingbird’s wings at him, casting him smouldering sideways glances. Now, he saw with resignation that the smile she turned on him was very different from the one she had bestowed upon Cressie. ‘Your reputation precedes you, signor,’ she said. ‘It is quite an honour to have you here in my modest provincial drawing room, for you are quite the recluse, I believe. There are several of my guests most eager to make your acquaintance.’
Several ladies, no doubt. He saw that thought flit across Cressie’s mind too, as she glanced around the room, smiling wryly over her shoulder in recognition of the coyly admiring looks being cast his way. ‘I begin to understand,’ she whispered, ‘what you mean when you say that beauty can be a burden. Shall I make our excuses?’
He was tempted, but her earlier challenge would not allow him to turn away. You don’t have anything to prove to Count Fancini, but you have a lot to prove to yourself. She was right. He would have to face the bastions of the art establishment at some point. Why not make a start with this newcomer? Giovanni shook his head and turned to Lady Innellan. ‘I am told that you have an art expert visiting you. Will you be so kind as to introduce me to him?’
‘Indeed. My son met him on the Continent where it seems they became very good friends,’ her ladyship replied, reluctantly ceasing her blatant inventory of his person. ‘Where—oh, there he is, hugging my son’s side as ever. They are very good friends indeed, you know. Quite inseparable.’ She raised a beckoning hand.
As the man picked his way daintily across the salon in answer to Lady Innellan’s summons, Giovanni felt a sick feeling of recognition.
‘Signor di Matteo,’ Lady Innellan said, ‘may I present …’
‘Luigi di Canio,’ he said heavily. ‘We are already acquainted.’
‘Well, well. If it isn’t the illustrious Giovanni di Matteo.’ Luigi’s smile dripped with a venom many years in the fomenting. ‘How very—interesting—to find you here.’
Luigi had been a well-built youth, but now he was inclined towards the corpulent. His hair was still the colour of ripe wheat, but it was receding from his high brow at a rate which he was obviously self-conscious about, for he had attempted to disguise it by having it combed out, Giovanni noticed. Vain and extremely effete were the first impressions he projected, with his thinly sneering mouth and his ridiculous pointed beard. His clothes had all the flamboyance one would expect from an Italian artist too. A bottle-green coat, a waistcoat embroidered with pink cabbage roses and a cravat tied in a monstrous bow. He looked rather like a precocious over-large child, though Giovanni was not fooled. Luigi’s grip was limp, his palms damp but his pale blue eyes were extremely astute and cold, like the eyes of a reptile.
As Luigi bowed low over Cressie’s hand, it was no consolation to Giovanni to see her repress a shudder. Nausea gripped him, and fury, though it was directed more at himself than at Luigi, that vindictive, malicious figure from his past who would not be able to resist making trouble. And Luigi could make plenty trouble, for he had observed Giovanni’s rising star with the meticulous attention of one whose own star was falling. Luigi, that most expert bearer of grudges, would be unable to resist dropping enough hints to reveal the truth in the most tarnished and tawdry of ways. The truth that Giovanni should have told Cressie himself.
He gave himself a shake. They were in an English drawing room taking tea. Luigi was an honoured guest. Why would he sully the occasion with the past which did neither of them credit?
But his unease refused to be calmed by logic as Luigi began to inspect Cressie from head to foot in a way which made Giovanni’s hackles rise. ‘Lady Cressida,’ he said. ‘Charmed. You must be the latest subject of Giovanni’s attentions.’
Cressie was on her guard, and rightly so. Giovanni would not trust Luigi any further than he could throw him which, looking at his ample girth, would not be far. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.
Luigi tittered. ‘In oils, my dear. In oils.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she said, looking unconvinced
. ‘No, that privilege falls to my brothers.’
Cressie knew something was awry. Giovanni wanted to drag her away from the polluted air around Luigi. He wanted to wrap his hands around the salacious slug’s throat and throttle him. He knew, with sick certainty, that what he ought to have done was told Cressie the whole truth. He knew too that the truth Luigi would imply would be much, much worse than the reality. He had to get out of here. Yet still he did nothing, frozen into inaction by their surroundings, by the vain hope that he had underestimated his fellow Italian.
‘How do you come to know Signor di Matteo?’ Cressie was asking now.
‘Luigi and I were apprenticed at the same studio,’ Giovanni intervened curtly.
‘You are a fellow artist?’ The disbelief in her tone would have been amusing under any other circumstances.
‘Sadly,’ Luigi said with a bitter little smile, ‘I found I did not possess enough talent to earn the right to call myself that, unlike my friend Gio here. But I do find, dear Lady Cressida, that a little practical knowledge is most helpful in my current calling as an arbiter of taste. As such, I would have to admit that our man here has done very well for himself. Have you not, Gio? After that—debacle?—yes, I fear it really was a debacle. Did he tell you, Lady Cressida? A most unfortunate exhibition, as I remember …’
‘I know all about it,’ Cressie interrupted.
Luigi raised his brows in surprise. ‘He told you, did he? How interesting.’
It was her obvious dislike which sealed Giovanni’s fate. Cressie had no other intention than to defend him, he knew that, but her words had implied too much between them. He had always thought it a lie, what they said about drowning men’s lives flashing before them, but that is exactly what seemed to be happening to him. He saw a montage of beautiful faces, and floating sneeringly above them all, his Nemesis.
Luigi was unable to disguise his delight at having discovered what he undoubtedly thought was an affaire. He had a nose for scandal and a taste for revenge which he would not be able to resist. Giovanni clenched his fists, but made no move to use them. A part of him was resigned. A part of him thought he deserved his fate. A part of him wished desperately that he could undo the past. Cressie was looking distinctly upset now. She wanted him to speak. She wanted him to explain. But how could he?
The Beauty Within Page 18
