“You like vivid colors,” he said, examining an oil of the pantry mouser lazing in the sun by a vase of yellow irises.
“John likes taking naps on my sewing table of a morning, though you mustn’t tell Hazel I permit the beast such privileges. His bright orange coloring, the green felt table cover, and the yellow flowers made a fine, sunny image.”
Mr. Delancey peered more closely at the painting of the cat. “Apricot, salmon, cream, ochre, coral, rust, peach, titian… How many colors did you use? The brushwork makes me want to pet what I know is merely paint, and I can almost hear him purring. Did you name him for John, Son of Thunder?”
An obscure biblical allusion, and not quite right. “John, the Apostle of Love—or kittens. Shall we sit?”
Mr. Delancey left off studying the painting to study Psyche. “Am I permitted to hold your chair, Mrs. Fremont?”
“Permitted, but not required to.” She took her seat unassisted. “Let’s eat before the food gets cold. I ordered a roast of beef, and Cook does a marvelous burgundy mushroom sauce.”
The meal was simple. Meat and potatoes, bread and butter, and a plate of cheeses and orange slices. The wines were unassuming, and the conversation more relaxed than Psyche had anticipated. Mr. Delancey was a frustrated advocate for reform—expanded suffrage, parliamentary reform, Catholic emancipation, and repeal of the Corn Laws.
“But you dare not express those opinions at Lambeth,” Psyche said, popping an orange slice into her mouth.
“I am kept too busy debating how many angels can dance on the Regent’s silk-clad knee. Reform is tantamount to heresy, though it’s consistent with every teaching the Church claims to propound. I do what I can within the bounds of ecclesiastical law. Shall we return to the studio?”
Psyche, much to her surprise, did not want to leave the table. The past hour had been congenial. She’d debated politics with Mr. Delancey, played devil’s advocate on any number of issues, and discussed the impact of public opinion on both painting and Parliament.
The meal had been friendly—honestly friendly—and more enjoyable than the simple fare and informality would have suggested.
And yet, as Jacob had said, all good things must end. “You stay here,” Psyche said. “I will ensure the teapot awaits us in the studio, and then you may join me. Finish off the last of that cheese, why don’t you? You seem to like it.”
He stood when Psyche left the table, and she placed a bet with herself: The remaining cheese would be unconsumed when she returned. More of Michael Delancey’s gratuitous self-denial.
The teapot was swaddled in linen and waiting on its tray, and the fire had burned down in Psyche’s absence. She added coal and returned to the parlor, intent on retrieving her model.
Alas for her, Mr. Delancey had been seized and carried off by the minions of Morpheus. He slouched back in his wing chair, eyes closed, hand dangling over the arm of the chair, napkin still on his lap.
What a glorious, masculine, exhausted, beautiful picture he made. The artist in Psyche was denied satisfaction by the widow, who’d been married to a good man. Pride and privacy were more precious to most fellows than they admitted to even themselves.
She moved furniture around as quietly as she could and deposited the remains of the meal on a tea cart that she pushed into the corridor. She hefted Mr. Delancey’s feet onto a hassock, deftly lifted the napkin from his lap, and covered him with a quilt from the bedroom. Only when she was certain of his comfort did she return to the studio and resume work on the earlier pose.
Though her progress was inexplicably slow.
Chapter Five
The first sensation to penetrate Michael’s awareness was warmth. Not the absence of cold won by a sleeper who huddled into a ball beneath the blankets and hoarded even the heat of his own exhalations, but rather, a comforting, abundant coziness.
Heat that bathed his feet and caressed his cheeks.
The next sensation to dawn upon Michael was a contented belly. A man who habitually awoke famished noticed that luxury even before fully waking.
Softness followed, of the blanket, of the cushions beneath him, of even the ambient sounds. A fire crackled gently. Off in the distance, harness bells tinkled rhythmically, and much closer at hand, a cat purred.
The scents were soft too. No stink from the river, no stench of tallow, no bacon-y reek from the landlady’s kitchen. Lavender predominated with a hint of clean wool.
The temptation to sink back into slumber was nigh overwhelming, but Michael and temptation were old foes. He opened his eyes and beheld… Ah, yes. Mrs. Psyche Fremont’s private parlor. John the Apostle of Love and Kittens perched on the arm of the chair, squinting inscrutably. The remains of the meal were nowhere to be seen, and neither was the artist.
Michael eased to his feet, tried a few stretches, then folded the blanket neatly over the back of the chair while the cat settled into the posture of a sphinx. To return to the studio meant passing through the bedroom. Michael had tried not to gawk earlier in the evening, but a lady’s boudoir said much about her.
Mrs. Fremont liked her comforts. The bed was capacious and done up in a peacock palette. The hangings were silk, probably worth a year of Michael’s salary, and the carpets—same luminous blues and greens—were pristine. The landscape over the mantel depicted a white-washed stately manor resplendent amid green fields.
Home? An early study? That painting did not fit with the rest of the room, and where was the obligatory portrait of the late Mr. Fremont? Perhaps he graced the family parlor or the library.
“None of my business,” Michael muttered, tapping on the studio door, then admitting himself.
Mrs. Fremont gave no sign that she’d heard his entrance. She sat in the same wing chair she’d occupied earlier, but her stockinged feet were propped on a hassock and her knees drawn up to support her sketch pad. She glanced at the empty chair opposite, nibbled the end of her pencil, and resumed sketching.
“A moment,” she said. “Just give me one…” She frowned, used an eraser, and then made a few more lines with the pencil. She could hold the pencil and the eraser in the same hand, dropping the eraser when she was through with it.
Nimble hands. Michael recalled the feel of her fingers arranging his hair. Berthold explained a posture to Michael or demonstrated it for him, but he did not touch his models.
“There,” she said, setting the pencil aside and holding her sketch at arm’s length. “Not a bad beginning. Would you like to see it?”
In Michael’s experience, the better artists were both passionately attached to their creations and also professionally disinterested. They could be critical about their own work without lapsing into self-disgust or arrogance.
Mrs. Fremont was truly talented. Michael accepted the sketch from her a little reluctantly.
“Dermot depicts me as haughty,” he said. “Belchamp finds me effete. Henderson’s renderings are marvels of accuracy and seldom more than that.”
“The class is a study of anatomy, Mr. Delancey. Berthold is insistent that we learn accuracy first and take artistic license only when we’ve earned the privilege. How does Berthold draw you?”
Michael studied the sketch, which was exquisitely composed. All elements configured such that the man’s face drew the viewer’s attention.