Wandering into a gaming hell alone was as good as advertising that a fellow had nowhere else to be and nobody willing to pass the time with him. Not done.
“I’m off to my lodgings,” Belchamp said when they reached the corner. “I ought to walk, but it’s too damned cold to hike to Southwark.”
“You live across the river?”
“It’s cheaper by far, and the air’s better most days. I walk the bridge in the morning, but allow myself a hackney in the evening.”
“Then I will thank you for sharing a meal with me and bid you farewell.” An evening more or less wasted, but one never knew when an investment of port, steak, and flattery might pay off.
Belchamp raised a hand and whistled, and a hackney moved forward from the stand at the far end of the street.
“I have seen Smith over in Southwark,” Belchamp said. “He might lodge over there. He’s not in the throng hiking into the City every morning, which suggests his employ is on the far bank as well.”
“Southwark? What’s to do over in Southwark?” Warehouses, shops, cheaper lodgings… Lambeth Palace and its sprawling grounds sat over there as if having disembarked from the river onto the wrong, unfashionable shore. Perhaps Smith performed in lewd tableaux?
“You were curious,” Belchamp said as the hackney came to a halt beside them. “If I see him wandering about over there again, I’ll pay closer attention.”
“Do that, and some time when you’re free, I really must introduce you to Auntie. She adores aspiring artists and stray bachelors.”
“I’d enjoy that.” Belchamp offered a ridiculously formal bow and climbed into the coach.
Dermot waited on the walkway only long enough to be polite and lordly and all that other balderdash, then made a swift progress for his own lodgings. Would not do to be ambushed on the street if Enderly decided to make an early night of it. Worse yet if Enderly removed to the Coventry for more play and found Dermot losing at vingt-et-un.
Though what the devil—what the naked, symmetrical devil—was Smith doing larking about Southwark?
Another modeling job had not been in Michael’s plans, but he could hardly chase after Mrs. Fremont’s hackney and tell her he was having second thoughts about the bargain they’d just struck. Walking home allowed him to have second thoughts as well as third, fourth, and impossibly absurd thoughts without acting on his fancies.
More income was good, and lounging about unclad was hardly work. Michael assured himself of both facts as he approached Circle Lane. He ought to simply keep moving. He was almost warm, and desperately tired. He ought to send a wish and a prayer heavenward and deny himself…
Psyche Fremont’s words came back to him: The more we deny ourselves, the more insistently our yearnings clamor for our attention.
“What does a pretty young widow in men’s clothing mean when she alludes to yearnings denied?” Michael muttered.
Nothing prurient. Of necessity, he had a finely honed instinct for when flirtation approached proposition, and Mrs. Fremont had not even been flirting with him. He was absorbed with the question of what yearnings might plague her when his feet took the turn onto Circle Lane without his having told them to do so.
“She likely yearns to exhibit, to sell her work. To succeed.” Grand portraits in the tradition of Lawrence and Reynolds, and the grand commissions to go with them.
Michael stopped at the foot of the steps before No. 209, as he had stopped on countless other nights. He’d blow a kiss, mutter a prayer, and get back to Lambeth, hoping that his good wishes were somehow manifest to the people inside.
The more we deny ourselves, the more insistently our yearnings clamor for our attention.
Sunday evening was the high point of his week, the consolation for every woe and misery. He yearned for Sunday evenings and guarded them with the ferocity of Cerberus at the gate of the underworld.
The street was deserted, the hour approaching midnight. Nobody would know.
Michael took himself into the alley that ran parallel to Circle Lane. The tiny garden was dreary and dark, but he did not need to see to fit his key into the lock on the back door. He was careful to lock up behind himself—no part of London was safe from thievery—and made his way soundlessly up the back steps.
He emerged onto the second floor, crossed the corridor, and opened the opposite door. Silently, he doffed hat, gloves, and scarf and propped his walking stick at the foot of the bed. He settled into the rocking chair near the hearth, wishing he could add coal to the banked fire, or light a few tapers, but one did not waste candles or waken those who dearly needed their rest.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m here, and I love you. I will always love you.”
“Where has Mrs. Buckthorn got off to this evening?” Mr. Delancey asked, hanging his black top hat on a hook on the back of the studio door. Psyche’s painting smock, spattered with every color of the rainbow, hung below it.
A study in contrast, just as Mr. Delancey’s person—masculine, vigorous, restless—contrasted with the comfortable appointments of the room itself. Psyche had spent the days since hiring him trying to picture him in this studio, though the reality eclipsed her imaginings.
She took his cloak and draped it over the back of a chair near the hearth. “Aunt Hazel is involved in myriad charitable committees, and one of her favorites meets without fail on Thursday evenings. She leaves me in peace when I’m in my studio, even if she does stay in. You did not arrive here in a cab, Mr. Delancey.”
He’d been punctual, though. Psyche had been listening for the clatter of coach wheels on the cobbles and had heard none.
“The evening air appealed to me. Does your staff also keep your activities from Mrs. Buckthorn’s notice?”
“And hers from mine, with our mutual thanks for sparing the household a great deal of nonsense. Make yourself comfortable, and we’ll get started in a moment.”
Psyche tried grouping three candelabra on the far end of the mantel, the better to illuminate the second wing chair. The fire itself provided most of the light, though that put…
Lighting would have been much easier by day. She shifted the candles a couple feet, which helped dispel some shadows but of course created others.
“What is our objective for the evening, Mrs. Fremont?”
“I’m not sure.” She tried moving the chair a few inches to the left, and that solved nothing. “To make a start, to get ideas, to become accustomed to working with a model in this space after sunset. I generally spend my time in the studio by day, and the lighting…”
The lighting was a significant limitation. She moved his cloak to the second chair and assessed the first chair. Tossed a pillow onto the seat, shifted more candles, crouched down to consider the possibilities of a low-angle perspective…
“Have you a dressing gown I can use?”
Psyche had found a combination of elements—chair, candles, firelight, books, hothouse camellias in a green glass vase—that might work. She straightened, still considering where she should perch herself for the best perspective on the whole.
“Why would you…?” Great God Jehovah in a nightgown. “Mr. Delancey, what has become of your clothing?”