The Lady in Red

by Kelly Bowen

  His lip curled, and he looked down at his mug. “Just heed my advice, Mr. Beaumont. Do not do what I did. Do not trust your ambitions and your dreams and your secrets to another. If you are to survive in this world, you need to fight all your own battles. Every single one. You need to have your own back.”

  “I agree,” Charlotte said simply.

  Rutledge’s eyes slowly climbed back to hers, a wary look in his eye like he had been expecting her to argue. “Lady Cecelia was…” He stopped and shook his head.

  “A mistake,” Charlotte said.

  “A mistake,” Rutledge repeated as though he thought Charlotte might be mocking him.

  “A mistake,” she said again, feeling the weight of this exchange. “A mistake to be treated in the exact same manner that you treat a success.” She ignored the incredulous look he was giving her. “Mistakes and successes both have the same power—to be destructive or constructive. Dwell on either too long and they will both prevent you from moving forward. Learn from your mistakes and your successes in equal measure, and they will both make you better.”

  “Grand words for one so young,” Rutledge remarked after a long minute.

  “I’ve learned a few things the hard way.”

  “I see.” His skepticism was apparent.

  He didn’t really see anything, Charlotte thought with a sudden frustration that clawed through her like physical pain. The insane impulse to tell him everything gripped her just as swiftly. What would happen if she were to tell him her name? If she took his hand in hers and told him that she understood more than he could imagine how it felt to struggle and hope, only to be shut out and cast aside?

  “Do you see? Really?” She knew she should end this conversation, but she couldn’t seem to stop the words that had built up within her, and she was no longer sure if she was speaking about Rutledge or herself. “Lady Cecelia was not your first mistake, I would think, and probably not your last,” she said. “But neither she nor anyone else, no matter what they’ve done, diminishes you. Not your skill, your talent, or your ambition. It’s all still there within you.”

  She knew she’d said too much. Said all the wrong things. Charlie Beaumont from Aysgarth would not have spoken in such a manner. Charlie Beaumont would likely have made a crude joke at Lady Cecelia’s expense and then suggested that they both get thoroughly foxed to forget her.

  “What do you want, Mr. Beaumont?” His question was sudden.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You speak of ambition, and I’m curious what sort of ambition it is that you harbor.” He waved his hand in the direction of the panel. “When you are done with this commission, where will you go? What will you do?”

  Charlotte ran a finger around the edge of her mug, trying to decide how to answer that. Amid all this candor, it was reasonable for him to press her for details about her own life. Her own ambitions and failings and struggles and…mistakes. Details she could never share.

  This was exhausting, all this lying without lying.

  She took a sip of tea and then another. “I don’t know,” she finally said with utter honesty. She didn’t know where she would go, but she could not bring herself to imagine ever returning to the cold loneliness of London or Aysgarth. Though that was not something she could tell him. “What of you, Mr. Rutledge?” she asked instead, deliberately turning the conversation back in his direction. “Where will your ambitions ultimately take you?”

  “Italy,” he said quietly and without any hesitation. “After this commission is complete, I will go to Italy.”

  “Italy?” She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but given what little she knew of Rutledge and the astounding aptitude she had already seen in his Madonna and his defiant St. Michael, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had declared his intent to become a portraitist sought by royalty. “To do what?”

  “To study. To learn.” He paused, his voice hoarse. “To see the Baptistery. The church of St. Augustine. The Uffizi gallery.” He met her eyes. “And more than anything, the Sistine Chapel.”

  Charlotte looked down at the dregs of her tea, recalling their earlier conversation about just that. And remembering how bleak he had looked when she’d admitted she’d been there. She set her empty mug aside.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I have something that you should see.” Before Charlotte could second-guess the wisdom of what she was doing, she ducked into her room and retrieved the long canvas tube she had set in the corner. She passed it to Rutledge.

  He took it gingerly. “What is this?”

  “A piece of the Sistine Chapel,” Charlotte said.

  He remained motionless.

  “It’s only fair that you delve through some of my work,” Charlotte said lightly. “Since I’ve already done the same to you.”

  He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “Just open it,” Charlotte interrupted, not wishing to revisit anything to do with the topic of Flynn Rutledge’s mistress. And what they may or may not have done together.

  Rutledge set his own mug aside before untying the leather strings and sliding the top off the tube. He set it on the long table and carefully slid the canvases out, letting them unroll flat on the surface. Charlotte could see her copy of the Van Dyck on top and moved to push it away, but Rutledge held out a hand and stopped her.

  “Is this yours?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Charlotte said. “It is but a copy of an original work.”

  “A copy.”

  “Yes. Of a Van Dyck. But it is not that that I wish to show you. Look at the small one beneath it.”

  Rutledge continued to gaze down at the portrait of the young girl, and Charlotte wondered if he’d even heard her. Eventually, with what looked like reluctance, he moved it aside, and she heard him catch his breath as the smaller painting was revealed.

  “The Creation of Adam,” Charlotte said quietly. “My favorite of all the chapel scenes because it is, for all its divinity, inherently human. I made more sketches than I care to admit, and when I returned to England, I painted it. I have a…er, knack for reproductions, but you’ll have to forgive my memory for any color inaccuracies you discover when you visit it yourself.”

  Rutledge was tracing the lines of Adam’s arm as he reached up, his fingers hovering just over the canvas, careful not to touch the paint. He was completely silent, his expression giving nothing away. She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, Rutledge not speaking and Charlotte wrestling with uncertainty that she had done the right thing by showing him.

  “It’s incredible,” Rutledge said.

  Charlotte felt something warm blossom inside of her. She had done the right thing.

  “It is,” she agreed. “In my opinion, Michelangelo’s work is second to none—”

  “No, I mean this is incredible. What you’ve done. This painting.”

  “It’s only a copy,” Charlotte said, shaking her head.

  Rutledge was scowling fiercely. “It’s a glimpse of something most people will never have the chance to see.”

  “Perhaps,” Charlotte allowed.

  Rutledge held it up reverently.

  “Keep it,” Charlotte said on impulse.

  His head snapped around. “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can. I’m giving it to you.” As much as Charlotte had initially doubted the wisdom of showing it to him, gifting him the painting came with a sense of certainty.

  He was shaking his head. “I won’t—”

  “Keep it to look at whenever you need to remind yourself that your ambitions and dreams are always yours. Return it to me when you return from Italy if you must.” Not that that would ever actually happen, because Charlotte couldn’t begin to imagine what she might be doing months or years from now that would still involve Flynn Rutledge. That thought was oddly dispiriting.

  “Why would you do that for me?” he asked, and he was gazing at her with that familiar intensity that made Charlotte fear he was loo
king right through her. Butterflies were suddenly beating a frantic tattoo against the inside of her rib cage.

  She turned away from him before she blurted something stupid that a boy from Aysgarth would never, ever say. Before she responded the way a besotted woman might.

  She shrugged. “Because I can,” she said carelessly over her shoulder. “And because I am hopeful that we might complete this commission as friends, Mr. Rutledge.”

  He didn’t answer, but she could feel his eyes following her every move.

  Charlotte reached for her previously discarded scarf that still hung on her scaffold, suddenly anxious to escape the undercurrents of emotion that were threatening her composure and put a much-needed distance between them. “Thank you for the tea, Mr. Rutledge. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” She cringed at the complete artlessness of that.

  “Wait. Where are you going?” The words came out in a rush.

  Anywhere that wasn’t here. “I don’t know. To get something to eat. I’m famished.”

  “There’s a tavern on the south end of Warwick Lane. It serves a decent stew and a passable ale for a reasonable price.”

  “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Would you care for company?” He hesitated. “Because I, too, would like to complete this commission as friends.”

  Charlotte instantly opened her mouth to refuse until she turned and caught a glimpse at what lurked beneath Rutledge’s closed, tight expression.

  Loneliness.

  Something that had been her constant, awful companion since she was a child. Something that superseded all the promises she’d just made to herself to put more distance between them.

  “I’d like that,” she heard herself say.

  He smiled at her then, a genuine one that crinkled the corners of his silver eyes and exposed a slight dimple along his left cheek. All the air in the room was suddenly sucked out. Her knees actually went a little weak, and the aching want and need deep within her roared back to life. Charlotte put a hand on the edge of the scaffold to steady herself. She could not do this. She could not harbor this sort of desire for a man she was supposed to be working with. She could not allow herself to become infatuated like a pitiful, moon-eyed schoolgirl when everything she had truly wanted and worked so hard for was finally in her grasp.

  She needed to be better. At the very least, she needed to be far more careful than she’d been this far. “We should go,” she mumbled.

  “Of course,” Rutledge said, seemingly not noticing her reaction. “I’ll fetch my coat.”

  Chapter 7

  Flynn studied Charlie Beaumont out of the corner of his eye.

  The boy had been as skittish as a feral cat since they had left the grounds of St. Michael’s and wound their way through the darkened streets, eventually slipping into the welcome warmth of the tavern. As they had walked, Beaumont had kept his head down and had kept a physical distance as though Flynn carried the plague.

  Though Flynn couldn’t say that he’d been overly relaxed either. Everything that had been said in that studio had left him wildly out of sorts. Not to mention Beaumont’s casual gifting of a canvas so exquisite that it had stripped Flynn of words. He had known deep down that Beaumont was skilled—Lisbon had told him as much, even if he hadn’t wanted to hear it at the time. What Flynn hadn’t realized until he’d rolled out those paintings—paintings Beaumont had dismissed as mere copies—was that the boy was breathtakingly gifted.

  And not only gifted but humble. And wise and generous. And kind.

  Perhaps that kindness was why he had told Beaumont as much as he had about Cecelia. He’d tried to convince himself that it was because he didn’t want to have to defend himself when the boy inevitably heard the gossip. It was better to get ahead of such things. Competitive jealousy and ruthless guile were hallmarks of the art world that Flynn had constantly endured, and his naïveté about his affair with Cecelia and how he would be received in a society that was not his was as shameful as it was frustrating. He had learned his lesson about misplaced trust the hard way.

  But the more he had confided to Beaumont, the less difficult the words had become to share. There was something about him that made Flynn want to bare everything. Because Beaumont had simply looked at him with those calm, caramel eyes and had…understood. In his soft-spoken manner, he had put into words what Flynn had been unable to. He had unwittingly forgiven Flynn for actions that Flynn hadn’t been able to forgive himself for. Laid out a truth and a reality that his own anger had prevented him from seeing. It had been unnerving, that revelation.

  I am hopeful that we might complete this commission as friends.

  It had been a long time since Flynn had had a friendship that wasn’t layered in hidden agendas or deceit. He had thought Cecelia Mountbatten, with all her professions of devotion and admiration, had been a friend. He knew better now. But had she possessed even a portion of Charlie Beaumont’s gentle grace and honor, or a fraction of his wisdom and kindness, Flynn would have been lost. He would have fallen in love so hard and so deep that he probably would never have found the surface again.

  As it was, however, he realized he had found his way back. Righted his ship and recharted his course with the most unlikely of allies. Beaumont had drawn Flynn out of the cold shadows of bitterness and regret, and tonight, he had found himself unwilling to let the boy step out into the darkness alone, as if by leaving, he would take all of Flynn’s newfound peace with him. The young artist made him better in so many ways. Made him want to do better. Be better. And as he watched the boy across the tavern table, he thought to himself that it would be a lucky soul who would one day capture the incredible heart of Charlie Beaumont.

  Their meal was eaten mostly in silence, Flynn lost in the turmoil of his thoughts and Beaumont seemingly content to keep to himself. Normally, the silence would have pleased Flynn to no end. Normally, he would have no interest in dissecting anything remotely personal with another individual. But with Beaumont, his normal seemed to have shifted. He just wasn’t sure what to do about it. They had finished their meal and were almost back to St. Michael’s before Flynn decided that silence was not at all what he wanted.

  “Thank you,” he said into the darkness of the night, the air crisp with the promise of winter.

  “For what?”

  “The painting. I’m sorry if I came across as ungrateful.” The wind had died, and his breath rose in a foggy cloud.

  Beaumont shrugged. “Don’t trouble yourself,” he mumbled.

  “Do you have siblings?” Flynn suddenly needed to know more.

  He saw Beaumont duck his head, and for a moment Flynn wasn’t sure if he was going to answer. “Two brothers,” he muttered after a pause.

  “And are they artists as well?”

  “No.”

  “What do they do?”

  There was another long pause. Somewhere in the distance, hooves clattered. “They work for my father,” Beaumont finally said.

  “In Aysgarth?”

  A hesitation and then a nod, followed by an empty silence.

  Flynn frowned. “What does your father do?”

  “He manages land.”

  “A steward then?”

  Beaumont shrugged. “Something like that.”

  Flynn scowled at the ambiguity of his answer, and Beaumont caught his expression.

  “I’ve never been close to my family,” the boy said, his eyes slipping away again. “They’ve never seen value in me or…approved of my…ah…ambitions. For as long as I can remember, I have only ever been a disappointment to them.” There was an edge of frustration and sadness that Flynn recognized well. Because Flynn had also had to fight legions of people who didn’t think that he would ever amount to anything. He still was fighting.

  “I’m sorry.” Because as much as Flynn had fought, he’d been armed with the knowledge that his mother, the only family he’d ever had, had believed in him completely and passionately. “Was it difficult to leave?”
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br />   Beaumont made a small noise that was difficult to interpret. “There was no one and nothing to leave,” he mumbled. “My only regret was that I didn’t find the courage to leave sooner.”

  Flynn stopped abruptly in the middle of the deserted lane, the handful of buildings on either side of them silent and dark. A broken fence listed drunkenly, creating strange shadows across the road. “You were meant to do this, you know,” he said to Beaumont’s back.

  The boy stopped, and he slowly turned to face Flynn. In the dark, it was impossible to see his features clearly. “Do what?” he asked in a voice so soft Flynn almost missed the question.

  Flynn waved a hand in the direction of the church, its spire just visible above the shadowed roofs in the moonlight. “You were meant to create, Mr. Beaumont. Inspire. You see beyond the surface.” He didn’t know what was making him say these things. Maybe it was guilt over his initial conduct. Maybe because he saw part of himself in Beaumont. Maybe it was because he understood that Charlie Beaumont was not an adversary but an ally. A true friend who listened without judgment and whose actions were driven only by kindness. He didn’t have pieces of the Sistine Chapel to gift this boy with, but perhaps he could offer words. “Regardless of what you might have overheard me say, you have a gift. You should be proud of what you’ve already accomplished.”

  Beaumont had gone utterly silent and utterly still. As the seconds ticked by, Flynn shifted uncomfortably in the cold, feeling foolish. This is what he got for letting his guard down and spouting…feelings. No doubt Beaumont was—

  “Thank you.” It was a strained whisper that hung in icy crystals before dissipating. “No one has ever said anything like that to me before.”

  Flynn frowned. Beaumont sounded…off. Like he was going to weep. There was something not quite right about—

  He froze, his skin prickling with an awareness that hadn’t ever failed him. An awareness that had allowed him to survive for those years when so many others hadn’t.

  “Step towards me, Beaumont,” he commanded.

  The boy obeyed either his tone or because he had sensed the same.