A Connoisseur of Beauty (3 page)

As soon as Amy stood at the door of
Wolfston Hall she knew that any aloof poise would be hard to sustain. She had been obliged to dress down in tight jeans, a tee shirt and a very old but still soft and lovely cashmere sweater as nobody with any sense would paint with oils in a pale summer frock, even though this May morning promised to turn into a fine and sunny afternoon. She could only clutch her easel and her blank canvas for reassurance. It was Hunter who opened the door, giving her a dazzling smile of genuine pleasure at seeing her.

“Thank you for being kind enough to come as requested. You’ll see we are all in uproar here as I have people arriving and we are planning what I hope will be traditional May Ball in the grounds if the weather holds. All at short notice, although I hope you will consent to being a guest? Next Saturday?”

“Yes, of course. Thank you,” replied Amy, rather breathlessly. She could see people moving about the place which was looking cleaner and more ordered than of late and yielded a pleasant smell of cooking from within. “It’s nice to see the old place brought back to life. It has been too forlorn for too long.”

“I’m glad you feel that,” replied Hunter, leading her through the house and across a very spring-cleaned morning room which was still being briskly dusted by a stout lady whom Amy vaguely recognised.  “And I hope you don’t mind if we go straight out to look at views you might paint, partly because all this dust will make me sneeze and partly because I have a conference call arranged for l
ater. Lewis Eames Enterprises,” he added by way of explanation. Amy must have looked blank because he continued, “Family business, so I’m still on the board of directors. My grandfather founded it and my father is still running it. Both my brother Cole and I are on the board as well as our cousins and I know my father would wish me to be more involved than I am. My foray into the art world is regarded as a bit of frivolous escapism by the rest of the family.”

Amy mused to herself that if his highly successful and prestigious galleries were regarded as frivolous the family business must be of gargantuan proportions. “The black sheep of the family?” she asked without much seriousness.

“Goodness, no! Cole is chief profligate. He may be nominally on the board but my father has carefully kept any real power away from him. I can’t hope to compete with him. My misdemeanours have proved very lucrative, his ... the opposite. But our cousins Ryan and George are good solid fellows.”  Hunter was striding out through the French windows onto the still damp and recently clipped lawn. Amy, trailing somewhat in his wake, couldn’t help admiring the sheer athleticism or his movements as, sleek in fine grey wool trousers and white linen shirt, he moved out across the garden. She also, irrelevantly, noted how soft his clipped dark hair looked and how the back of his neck seemed to invite a delicate kiss. She had to shake her head to dismiss this image.

“And was the opening of your
galleries a form of escapism?” They were walking across the lawns, through the formal gardens, vibrant already with rhododendrons, into the apple orchard, rich with bloom, and on through the wilderness area where clumps of bluebells still clung beneath the shady trees.

“Escapism?”
Hunter’s eyes took on the curious intense, eager look Amy had seen before. “Yes I suppose it was. Sit here with me.” He indicated a decayed wood bench that was just about holding its own under a wild cherry tree. “We grew up with stern expectations from my father. Not just running Lewis Eames, he was elected Senator at thirty and dreamed, I think, of our family starting something of a political dynasty. Cole and I were sent to boarding school in England and Cole had the good sense to get himself expelled pretty quickly. I, on the other hand, did rather well. I enjoyed learning. Suddenly I found I was favoured son, son with a future. All mapped out for me, of course. I love my father very much, respect him. But I didn’t want a political career.” Something clouded in Hunter’s bright, grey eyes, “How do you break away from a father and establish your independence without defying and disappointing him? I guess I’ve succeeded as far as possible. I’ve always loved beauty, art, music – beauty like that of Elizabeth Montford, beauty like yours. Somehow I turned this love into a commercial success, which I guess made it acceptable to my father. But he still expects me to take over Lewis Eames.”

Hunter sat in thought for a moment. Amy didn’t make any comment because she didn’t want to break the spell that had made him start to open up to her, nor bring an end to the moment in which he had, admittedly in an aside, told her that he thought she was beautiful.

“It has given me a lot, my pursuit of beauty, but I don’t quite trust it. The art world is as cruel and competitive as the business world. More so; objects of beauty become objects of value and those who own them, those around them, become possessive, greedy, unscrupulous. As a form of escape it has disappointed me. Where I was looking for something gentle, lovely and pure, I found only hardness.” He suddenly turned to Amy, a strange fire in his eyes. “I wonder if I will find what I am looking for here, amongst these ancient woods, in a house where history, old loves and stories of the past remain even when the money has gone.”

Amy hardly knew how to reply in the face of such intense personal feeling, but she did know a little about the house. “I’m afraid the house also holds disappointment, suffering and loss of faith. I too love the beauty of the place, but I can’t promise that it provides an answer for anyone. Sometimes it’s just best to let things go, live in the moment and enjoy what’s in front of you.”

“What’s in front of me?” Hunter’s eyes turned on her, the fire blazing to greater heights. Suddenly his arms were around her and his lips on hers in a passionate, bruising kiss. His lips sought hers as he explored her mouth almost as if he could reach her soul through that soft portal. For a moment Amy held back, but then she succumbed, partly because there was no resisting the insistence of his embrace but more because her body was lit by the same fire that seemed to engulf him and she wanted to explore him as voraciously as he seemed to want her. And then a voice awoke at the back of her brain. This is what you said you weren’t ready for. Whatever do you think you are doing? This is the road to pain. And somehow the chill of that voice was enough to douse some of the flames. Having to muster almost all the strength in her body, Amy fought against him until he abruptly released her and she was able to spring to her feet, dazed, blushing, confused.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered instinctively. For a moment she thought she saw hurt and confusion in Hunter’s eyes, but then the grey became steely.

“No need to be sorry. It is always a pleasure to kiss a maiden of a May morning. The stuff of poetry.”  There was a facetious edge to his voice that made Amy suddenly harden towards him. He seemed to catch the sudden hard glint in her eyes. “Don’t worry about it, I was just checking to see if you lived up to your reputation as the ice queen! Not quite the whole story judging by that kiss!”

Hurt, confused, tears beginning to prick at her eyes, Amy started to run away.

“And don’t go stalking away from me, all proud and aloof. We were here on business, remember?”

Amy stopped and tried to regain control. All right, if he wanted business, she would show him that she was as detached and emotionless as he seemed to think she was.

“As you wish. Did you want to show me what you want painted, or do you want me to find my own subject?” Despite the fact that her hands, indeed her whole body, seemed to be shaking from their encounter and the aftermath, Amy tried to clear her mind and start looking with an artist’s eye at the scene before her.

“I’ve seen enough of your painting to trust your judgement in this matter. I just wanted to show you the general view I was interested in.
This part of the garden, with or without the house.”

“Very well,” Amy was already assessing how to make the best composition, how to catch the best light and wondering about the merits of limiting her palette of colours to give the painting unity.

Hunter must have seen this shift of her consciousness, because he said, “I’ll leave you to your painting. In that, at least, you show depth of feelings.” And turning on his heels he was gone. Feeling almost winded by this parting blow, Amy sat down again on the bench watching his figure recede without a backwards glance. What had just happened? And why the reference to her being an ice queen? And why the assumption she couldn’t show her feelings? He’d hardly given her a chance! Was he hung up on past experiences? Was he likening her to someone else? Had he taken too literally the link between her and Elizabeth Montford and assumed she was a cold-hearted adulteress, that they were the same temperament just because they shared the same features? That would be beyond unfair. Perhaps this was what he meant by the flowers. They had not been a romantic gesture at all, but a way of saying he thought her frigid, cold as ice. Or perhaps they had been the first step in his seduction and that, followed by a little bit of patter when she thought he had been opening up to her, was all he thought was required for her to fall limply into his arms like a damp lily, and he was simply angry at her rejection, trying to hurt her back.

One phrase in particular stuck in her mind.
“Your reputation as an ice queen!” What reputation? She knew immediately who to ask and before she could really turn her mind to painting she had to resolve this question. She took out her mobile and phoned Judy. When Judy answered she asked, without preamble,

“Judy, you are my friend, tell me straight, do I have a reputation as an ice queen?”

At the other end of the phone Judy laughed. “Amy, what kind of a question is that?”

“A simple one to which the answer is yes or no!”

“I can’t tell you a thing like that. You are my dearest friend!”

“You can answer – and are you saying it has been said? Who by? Why?”

“What makes you ask? Who have you been talking to?”

“Never you mind, just tell me!” Amy heard a reluctant sigh at the other end of the phone.

“Amy, I know you for the dear, loyal, warm-hearted, sensitive person that you are. But you are a reserved person. Not everyone sees that side of you. You’ve kept yourself to yourself, understandably, looking after the person you love most and watching him suffer and die. And then, well, you are twenty-two and have never dated. Men have tried and been turned away, it creates – an impression, however false.”

“I’ve never had the opportunity to date.
And what men? Who tried?”

“Most men who meet you and fancy they stand the slightest chance. You are beautiful, they can’t help hoping.”

“But I never noticed,” replied Amy weakly. “Who has tried? Name me one person?”

“Amy I can give you a list! Simon you had dinner with at my house last month, Andy the month before. Didn’t you notice that they were trying to
chat you up?”

“No.” A horrible suspicion suddenly entered Amy’s mind. “You were trying to set me up with them?”

“No, just offering you opportunities. Amy, you’ve had a miserable few years, you deserve the chance of happiness.”

“Maybe, but there doesn’t seem to be any chance of me finding it with a man.” The memory of her encounter with Hunter was fresh as an open wound in her mind.

“That’s just where you are wrong, if only you could see it. But I don’t want to interfere. Anyway, you must know about Jason. He’s been in love with you since you were at school together.”

“Jason, son of Tom at the Five Bells, Jason?”
A few things were beginning to fall into place.

Judy laughed.
“Yes, that Jason.” Amy was thinking - Hunter has been to the Five Bells, is that where he heard the rumour? - “Still friends?” pursued Judy.

“Of course.”

“So who has been telling you this rumour?”

“No one.
It’s just not how I want to be seen.”

“Well, it won’t put men off. They like a challenge.”

“But I don’t want to be a challenge. I want to be a person. I want to be Amy.”

“Well, perhaps you need to open up and show them who Amy is,” suggested Judy.

Which was all very well, but a bit late, thought Amy.

A couple of hours painting, however, did for Amy what it always did; distracted her from all worries as she captured the tones, colours and character opened out before her. She still felt bruised – literally in the case of her lips and ribs – by the morning’s encounter, but more able to come to terms with it. Nonetheless, the sight of Hunter walking towards her in the early afternoon made her heart flip within her, not knowing what to expect. In fact he greeted her with a slightly rueful smile and a lunch basket.

“Peace offering,” he said. “I may have been rude or unfair this morning.”

Any resentment Amy felt melted away in the warmth of his smile and
the generosity of his apology. “Is that lunch? I will forgive you anything if you are offering me food.”

He opened up the basket and laid out a picnic on a white cloth. Fresh bread, smoked salmon, salads and a bottle of chilled Champagne. They sat down together, both openly determined to put the morning behind them for their own reasons.

“How can you paint a picture of such sublime tranquillity, after my being so rude? You make me want to walk into it, maybe I could be happy and at peace in there. Maybe that is our world.” Amy smiled and accepted the Champagne he passed to her. “I don’t know you yet, Amy,” he continued. “What I see in your paintings intrigues me. I’m sorry if I got off on the wrong foot with you. I’m not used to a woman like you. I’m not used to women of subtlety or depth. Maybe I misunderstand it.”