Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(76)
“Yes, I was trying to sort that out in my head. You worked on the portrait of me for nearly a month, and it was still ‘not quite finished’ when you were released yesterday. So how on earth did you manage to paint—sixteen, is it?—in the seven months prior?”
Earl tried to stone-face her, but failed. A smirk cracked his face, quickly widening to a grin, and a moment later he broke out into peals of laughter. So violent were his paroxysms that he actually relinquished his wineglass, setting it down on the lacquered table (mercifully without spilling atop it). Eliza did her best to laugh with him, though she had no idea what he was laughing at.
“I’m afraid you have found me out,” he said when at last he could speak again, which is to say, after he’d cleared his throat with a hearty swig of wine, and refilled his glass. “I was stalling.”
“Stalling? You mean, deliberately prolonging my visits?”
“Prolonging the pleasure of one whose charming visage is only matched by her charm of temperament. I confess that toward the end I would prepare my palette with paints the night before, so they would be dry by the time you arrived. Then I’d daub a dry brush into them and across your portrait.”
“Why, Mr. Earl, you scoundrel!” Eliza said, only half joking. “Had you no qualms about continuing to invite a lady into such an environment? Were you not afraid that my virtue might be compromised?”
Ralph shrugged. “It was not I who initiated the visits, but your husband. If he believed no ill would befall you, then I saw no reason to assume contrariwise. After all, I am a gentleman, and I lived there day in, day out. I know ladies are more delicate—”
“Be wary of what you say, Mr. Earl,” Eliza warned with a twinkle in her eye, “lest Mrs. Rutherfurd get wind of your retrogressive ways, and return to school you in women’s equality.”
“Well then, Mrs. Rutherfurd will surely take my side. If a man can stand such conditions, surely a woman can, too.”
Eliza had to admit to herself that she had suffered no harm during her month of visits, and, in fact, had found the experience interesting, illuminating even. She had been shocked to learn, for example, that the inhabitants of debtors’ prison were not, like regular criminals, wards of the state, and as such, the state did not provide for them. It struck Eliza as an absurd, not to mention cruel, system. A man is unable to pay his debt so he is locked away from gainful employment, and forced to go still deeper in debt just to pay his upkeep? There was no way for a creditor to recoup his losses in such a scenario. It was purely punitive. It was yet another holdover from the Old World that she hoped her country would do away with sooner rather than later.
“Well then,” she said now. “I suppose it behooves me to ask if my portrait is actually finished, and can be hung in some place of prominence.” As she spoke she was glancing above the mantel, only now noticing that the silver-framed mirror that normally hung there had been taken away.
Why, Alex! she said to herself. You remembered!
“In fact, it does require a touch more shading. Your gown was of such subtle luminescence. I want to do it, and of course your exquisite complexion, justice.”
She felt a blush add itself to her “exquisite complexion,” then nodded and went upstairs to change quickly from her everyday frock into the silver-pink gown. It fastened in front so she didn’t need Rowena’s help to put it on, and she decided to forego the wig unless Mr. Earl insisted on it. Twenty minutes after she went upstairs she was back down. Earl had set up his easel and paints, thoughtfully pulling over one of the cane chairs that had no fabric to stain, should he drip.
And there was the painting. She had caught sidelong glimpses of it before, but Mr. Earl hadn’t let her have a good look in some time—no doubt because he was hiding how close to completion it was. If his sketches had somehow managed to capture the heart of her being, this painting, in its exquisite lifelike detail, gave that heart flesh that seemed to pulse and perspire.
“Oh, Mr. Earl! It is so beautiful!” She blushed anew. “That makes me sound vain. I mean the painting is beautiful, not its subject.”
“Do not apologize for what God has graced you with, Mrs. Hamilton,” Earl said, but he was frowning, and looking back and forth between her and the picture. “There is something missing. Something—here.” And he waved a dry brush in front of the long, bare, pale column of her throat and décolletage. “There is too much white. It lacks an edge. I know!” He reached into the valise in which he stored his oils and retrieved a simple black grosgrain ribbon. “If you would allow me,” he said, stepping toward her.
Eliza was not sure what he was doing until he reached up to her neck and looped the ribbon lightly around it, tying it in a simple bow that draped down to her chest. His touch was as deft as a lady’s maid’s, yet Eliza was acutely conscious of his eyes on her, which gleamed with an adoration that no maid had ever bestowed.
She thought about pointing out that Mr. Earl could have just painted the bow into the picture without adding it to her ensemble, but she kept that to herself, feeling awkward and uncomfortable.
He stepped back, and gazed at her with revering eyes.
“I was going to say that the light in this room was beautiful, but as I look at you I realize the light is superfluous. My brush is honored to preserve even the tenth part of such radiance.”