“The reason I’ve been searching you out is because, since the last time you examined my work, I feel there’s been growth in it.” Reaching into the bag on her shoulder, Claire withdrew her sketch pad and held it out. “And I thought you might welcome the opportunity of working with me.” This time.
“No.”
She frowned. That was it? No? When it became clear that he had no intention of taking the book from her hand, she fumbled with her bag, shoving it back into place on her shoulder as she turned her sketch pad around so that the pages faced him. “I’m sure if you see—”
“Don’t need to see it, Your Majesty. I bet this time you got some dogs on those pages. Maybe Poppy’s?”
That was neither, here, nor…
“A sunset, maybe over that place you people call a park.”
Hyde Park. Yes, well—
Her cheeks warmed once more as she drew the sketch pad slowly back toward her chest and hugged the beloved book.
Caleb smirked. “So I’m right, then.”
“I didn’t say that,” she said through her teeth.
He reached for her sketch pad and waggled his paint-stained, coarse, and callus fingertips. “Well?”
Claire held it all the tighter and edged away from him, her back colliding with the wall and her shoulder brushing the frame of that fiery rendering he’d created.
He laughed, and the speed with which he let his arms fall to his sides confirmed that he never really had any intentions of looking at her sketch pad. He’d merely been toying with her. Taunting her.
That should have been reason enough to justify not saying one more word to this man and marching out with the little pride she had left. “I can pay you.” She didn’t have much. Following her family’s fall from grace, and their loss of fortune, she had even less. What she did have, she could offer him. “Twenty pounds.”
He snorted.
“It’s all I have.” Even as she said it, her toes curled sharply into the arches of her feet.
“I’m not looking to clean a lady out of her money. Even if you had twenty thousand pounds, it wouldn’t be enough for me to give you lessons. Don’t worry, Majesty.” Caleb cuffed her lightly under the chin, the way he might a favored sister, dulling the sting… somewhat. Oddly, that familiar gesture grated for reasons she’d no wish to explore. “It’s not just you,” he said. “I don’t give lessons.”
Except, that wasn’t true. He’d taught Poppy.
“Poppy had a natural talent,” he said, matter-of-fact once more and following the path of her thoughts with frustrating accuracy.
Unlike Claire. His meaning couldn’t have been clearer had he spoken it aloud.
“Why are you so rude?” To me.
“You’re confusing directness with rudeness, sweetheart,” he said bluntly. “I found out some time ago, you’ve got nothing I want to see.”
And hateful. He was that, too. She’d be damned, however, if she let him land a blow with that. “Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You decided before you even looked at my work today that you’d not work with me,” she said, jutting her chin up and meeting his gaze as best as she was able at her seven inches past five feet.
“I already told you, I don’t waste my time with anything but truths.” He gave her a once-over, swiping a more than condescending gaze up and down her person. “And you don’t want that. That’s the other reason I won’t have anything to do with you.” With that, he started for the back door he’d entered through.
He thought he knew her so well? She stormed over and placed herself in front of him so that their toes touched. “Don’t presume to tell me what I want. I didn’t come to you for false platitudes or to be patted on the head for mediocre work.” She genuinely wanted to learn. Just as she had since Poppy had moved in, and she’d witnessed her sister-in-law’s great talents.
Caleb narrowed his eyes on her. “You want the truth?”
Claire was already nodding at him. “I do.”
“All right. You’ve got no promise because you have no creativity and because you don’t sketch with emotion. I can’t help you because you can’t even help yourself. Everything you create is on the surface level because there’s not much more to you than that. You can’t even look deep because you are incapable of it,” he said.
The usual condescension was not layered within his words. This time, the absolute absence of mockery and meanness made what he said all the worse.
Claire inhaled slowly and deeply. “I… see.”
She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Not even after that impressively brutal, vicious, and—worse—accurate takedown of her. And yet, her lower lip trembled, and she bit it hard enough so that the pain dulled the pain he’d inflicted.
“Well, then, I shan’t take up more of your time, Mr. Gray.” All the while, Claire struggled to get her sketch pad back into her bag. The book, however, proved uncooperative, continuing to snag on the edges of the sack that she used as an improvised art bag.
“You’re going to cry,” he said flatly, and a real gentleman would have sounded remorseful. Perhaps regretful. Caleb Gray? He was incapable of any such sentiments.
“I’m not,” she said, and damn if a single drop didn’t wind up halfway down her cheek, making an absolute liar of her. Claire shrugged, wiping away as discreetly as she was able the evidence of her tears.
“Like I said, not only do you dislike people speaking the truth, you aren’t capable of giving it either. You’re clearly crying,” he called over to her.
Claire snapped. “Yes,” she hissed. “I am crying. There. Are you happy? Is that what you want me to admit? Do you have a desire to shred all of my pride?”
“Artists don’t have pride. Consider that your first, last, and only lesson for me. Maybe if you actually listen to it, you can do something with it and make something out of your work.” With that, he started off once more.
Good. Let him go. She’d been foolish. Foolish to come here. Foolish enough to work these past months, attempting to elevate her craft so that she might garner enough of his approval to merit his taking her on, as he had Poppy. “You’re a hypocrite,” she shouted when he disappeared behind that door without another look.
After several beats of silence, the panel opened once more, and he stepped out. His dark eyebrows crept up a fraction. “Me?”
“You,” she shot back, reveling in his tangible outrage. Good. Mr. I Only Like The Truth And Won’t Tolerate Anything Less should be offended. “You talk about appreciating honesty, and you give critique freely. But the moment someone questions your masterpieces, your back goes up.”
His hard lips formed another of his customary smirks. “Questions my masterpieces? Well, if that doesn’t sound contradictory, Your Majesty.”
She scoffed, “And the ego on you. You well know everybody admires your work. The minute I pointed out the very gloominess of this exhibit, you become defensive. You like to critique other people, but you don’t”—her words and voice faltered as he started back toward her—“a-accept any of that criticism for yourself.”