The Blooding of Jack Absolute (11 page)

Jealousy spurred him forward. He could have gone through the rear door, up the two flights to the salon. But a wrought-iron
balcony gave onto the room he sought and a sturdy vine was as good as a stair. Swiftly he climbed. As he did he heard laughter
– hers, so distinctively husky, so full of pleasure – and the man’s. Lowering himself carefully over the balustrade, he moved
to the open window.

‘You cannot mean it, sir,’ came her voice, ‘you wish me to clutch it … thus.’

‘Exactly so, madam, yet fingers closer to the tip … yes, now thrust it forward and a little more on the side.’

‘Like so?’

‘Just so. Yes, madam, yes! That is … exquisite!’

It was the man’s groan of delight that brought Jack from his hiding place and into the room with a bellow of indignation.

‘Pox!’ yelped the man, stumbling away, nearly bringing down what Jack saw to be an easel. Clutched in his hand was a palette
and knife.

‘Jack,’ yelled Fanny, ‘what the …’ She gathered her full hooped skirt and marched towards him. ‘What the Devil do you think
you are up to?’

‘Um … thought I’d surprise you. Didn’t know you had company.’

He was aware how pathetic it sounded. Fanny took charge, just as she always did. ‘You will apologize to Mr Gainsborough at
once for your japes.’ Turning to the artist, she said, ‘I am so sorry, sir. My brother lives in the country and does not know
the rules of the town. Such as using the customary entrances.’ She turned and glared.

The artist had righted himself and his easel. ‘Not at all, madam. I was … unaware that you possessed such a thing as a brother.’

‘Half-brother, actually.’ Jack had stepped forward on Fanny’s look and allowed his accent to slip into some of the
wider vowels of his youth. ‘My sister’s kind enough to narrow the gulf between us. I’m only up for the week, see. Lawks, what
a time I be havin’.’

‘Indeed? And what part of the country are you from?’

Deep into a lie, Jack thought he might as well continue. ‘Somerset,’ he said with the suitable ‘zeds’.

‘Really? I am off to Bath myself shortly.’

‘Sure, I’ve been bathing myself since I was four,’ he said, and let out a hoot of laughter.

‘Pay no attention to this idiot, sir. The distaff side of the family, you know. T’was ever mad.’ She glared again at Jack
before continuing, ‘Mr Gainsborough means he is off to live and work there. I was fortunate enough to waylay him as he passed
through London. And before his reputation is so established I will be unable to afford his time or pay his fee.’

‘Ah, Miss Harper,’ the artist replied, ‘there is always time for such beauty.’

Fanny beamed, while Jack thought,
notice he didn’t snub the money!

‘Still,’ Gainsborough continued, ‘I am sure you wish to visit with your brother. And my hand will shake somewhat after that
… ha, ha … shock. So perhaps we will leave it here for this day.’

‘Oh, sir. And just when I got this into the correct position for you.’ She raised the porte-crayon in her left hand.

‘We will remember it for next time.’ He was packing up his things. ‘One more session should accomplish it.’

Jack and Fanny waited, side by side, while the artist finished gathering. Then he carefully laid a cloth over the easel, stepped
back and bowed.

‘I do see the familial resemblance now you are together. Perhaps, next time, a double portrait?’

‘We would be zo honoured, sir. Zounds, we’ve a site for such a one ’bove the old fireplace in Harper Hall.’

His accent wandered around the West Country during this sentence and her nails dug in so hard he barely restrained a
yelp. Gainsborough smiled and left the room. They heard his tread down the stairs in silence and the front door close.

‘Idiot!’ Fanny hissed.

‘Fanny,’ he laughed, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh yes, you seem it.’ She stood, hands on hips, glaring. ‘Here have I been working to restore my name and you jeopardize
that work with your schoolboy antics.’

Jack felt chastened. It had been, for Fanny, a long path back from the nadir of appearing, five years before, in
Harris’s Book of Ladies.
It was just after her husband, Thomas Harper, the actor, had sued her for ‘criminal conversation’ – her adultery with a fellow
player. The divorce had sent her into a decline but Harris had been premature – she had never ‘traded’ in the way that most
of the girls in his list did. In the gradation of bought love, she had never sunk even as low as a ‘Lady of Pleasure’. And
now she was a ‘kept mistress’, why, she was almost respectable. Nonetheless, ‘The Harp’ as she had been known, had been written
up in alluring terms indeed. Jack knew them well. After their first … encounter, he had found an old copy and had clipped
the page to stick within his Greek Grammar. It was more enticing than any Ovid.

And this Venus had chosen him! All because Lord Melbury had been too busy to escort her home from the theatre three months
before and had sent the schoolboy Jack in his place. She had drunk a little and fondled him in the chair. At her house, she
had invited him in and, within minutes, had taken what he had long sought to give away.

‘Well, young Jack,’ she’d said then, lying back and laughing, ‘you do have much to learn.’

And for the three months since she had taught him. She only had three rules: cleanliness, cundums and kindness. So he bathed.
He bought his engines (‘for only the man who keeps me here may come to me unarmoured!’ she’d declared). And he learnt how
to take his time and return the pleasure given.

And for these lessons, he repaid her with jealousy and threatened exposure?

‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘I am a fool, a jealous fool. Please forgive me.’

‘Don’t know that I shall,’ she huffed, moving to the table on which were set a decanter of port and some glasses. She conspicuously
poured just the one and stood there, side on and ignoring him while she sipped.

This is not going to plan,
thought Jack. He couldn’t stand more disappointment, not after Clothilde. And though the merest thought now of that purer
love made him flush a little with guilt, he forced himself to remember that
it … he
was different with Fanny. And to enjoy those differences he would need to redeem himself. The poem he had written for her
was in his pocket but he was determined not to produce that too soon, it would be doing what she had been strenuously teaching
him not to – reaching the climax too soon. He needed something else first, to build toward it.

It was her profile that gave it to him. Moving around the easel, he lifted the cloth from it. She turned at the noise, said,
‘No, Jack, I forbid—’

His raised hand halted her words, timed with the gasp he let out. ‘Oh, madam, it is … extraordinary.’

Indeed his reaction needed little in the way of pretence. Jack was no student of art, though his mother had forced him to
accompany her to various exhibitions, but even he could see that this Gainsborough had something special. The rigidity of
pose and line that seemed to dominate in most portraits of the day was absent. The hooped dress flowed in its cascades of
lilac silk, genuine fabric not sculptured marble. This was a woman, not a statue, and the artist had achieved the same effect
with the skin, must have seen the passionate transformations that occurred there as Jack had. Indeed the expression on the
face seemed to be not a pose at all but a translation direct from life, as if she were caught just before some intemperate
or seductive speech.

Jack had been prepared to flatter by rote. Now he had no need. ‘Fanny! It is you. You to the core.’

‘Really? Do you think so?’ She approached now, peering over his shoulder at it. ‘I was thinking he was making me a little
dull.’

‘Dull?’ Here was dangerous ground. Over-praise of the artist might count against the model. Under-praise him and it would
be a condemnation of her judgement and thus purse. ‘Not so. He has the very colour of your eyes and the thick veils that guard
’em. He has the ripeness of your lips, parted as if ready to speak forth some wisdom. He has the slant of your gentle nose,
the strength of your chin, the perfect symmetry of your ears. All that nature has provided you, he has captured. Except …
yes, now I look closer, he has not yet quite managed the exact shades of faun that make up your wondrous hair. But he said
he was to return tomorrow, did he not? Then perhaps he will stay up half the night attempting to mix together some pigment
that no one has yet discovered, unseen on canvas till now.’

He wondered if he’d gone too far. But her sigh reassured as she tipped her head now this way, now that in contemplation. Then
a hand came up to rest on Jack’s shoulder. ‘You do not think something too … too forward in the expression.’

Jack looked again. It was hard for Fanny to appear anything other than sensual. But what she wanted to hear was that this
portrait, which would be seen around the town, especially if it was exhibited, added to the reputation she was re-establishing.
All would know she was a rich man’s mistress. But there was a large difference between a courtesan and a demirep.

‘It will make you in the Town, that I am sure,’ he murmured, reaching up, taking her hand, kissing it.

‘Sweet boy,’ she said, turning her wrist so that he could kiss her palm. He was only too happy to oblige. Three months before
he would undoubtedly have galloped on apace, sought lips, tongue, breast, and all in rapid succession. But he had been a good
student. So he led her around to the table, poured them both a glass of the port, clinked glasses before draining his, then
whispered, ‘Stand here, I have something for you.’

‘A gift?’ she said as he returned to his satchel, which he had dropped by the window. When he returned with the jar of brandied
peaches, she sighed, ‘So sweet! But I’ve told you, Jack, I want for nothing so you should not spend the little you have on
me.’

‘Those are a token only.’ He pulled out the papers. ‘This is the real gift and the only expenditure is from my insufficient
self. Have pity, for it comes from the heart.’ It was not quite true. Other parts of the body had inspired Jack in his endeavours,
together with the memory of a night the week before and a quite extraordinary lesson.

‘“On a Religious Conversion by Candlelight,”’ he announced. ‘Shall I?’

‘Please.’

Clearing his throat once, he began.

When I first run my tongue down your smooth thigh

Just like a priest, I kneel and bend to pray

And gaze with his same fervour for on high

My altar calls and sweet scent guides my way.

On both our passions candles cast their light

But his reveals nothing save pure gold.

A richer treasure far is in my sight

Whose soft and flowing red is warm, not cold.

Then with my stubbled chin I lightly climb

The full perfection of those luscious slopes

And kiss, so soft, yet building up till Time

Itself takes pause and hangs upon our hopes.

I suck you in, your flesh explodes in me,

Your moans, Love’s music set in sweetest key.

He had not assumed one of the prescribed positions from Le Brun as he had for Clothilde. The subject matter here was not a
monster from the east; this required nothing but the slight husk that came naturally to his voice as his words mixed with
his memories. Lost within them for only a moment, it ended
when he looked up to see that she had half-closed her eyes, had leaned back against the table, as far as the hoops of her
dress allowed her.

‘Oh, Jack! That is indeed a gift worth receiving. And yet …’ she reached down and grasped folds of lilac silk in her hands,
‘yet it seems it is a gift only half given.’

Jack looked down. The hands were now engaged in pulling the material upwards. Already the silken fringe had cleared the lowermost
wooden hoop. Suddenly dry-mouthed, he took a step toward her, then another, trying not to rush.

‘Your bedroom,’ he said, in a voice gone quite thick.

‘No time.’ She matched him in huskiness, as the material rose still higher. ‘I am expected at Lady Dalrymple’s rout in half
an hour and it took me at least one to get into this dress. Besides,’ and here the white silken shift beneath the gown cleared
the knees and Jack had the first glimpse of her cerise silk stockings, ‘your poem speaks of more accessible delights. So,
kneel to your devotions again, Jack. Let us see if you have truly learned your catechism. And if you have, a further lesson
awaits you. Or should I say reward. For I shall show you the way I really like to consume peaches.’

At that, she popped the lid off the jar, slid her fingers into the depths and produced one soft and succulent segment. Sliding
it into Jack’s mouth, flooding it with fruit and cognac, her wet hand then disappeared up within the gown.

‘What was it, Jack? “And sweet scent guides your way …” Here.’ As she reached fully up, her eyes half closed again while her
other hand snaked behind Jack’s head, applying a little pressure.

Jack had prayed for this from the moment he awoke in his bedroom that morning. She had managed to raise the hoops so they
concertinaed a little, just enough for her to rest her buttocks on the table’s edge and for him to slide under the rings of
wood. Cotton encased him, it was like a cave with a treasure at its limit, delight beckoning him towards it. But the poem
was in his head and he turned aside, his lips finding the
stocking on her left thigh. Running its length he came to the tie that held it there, a bow, a single simple knot. Putting
his teeth to it, he jerked it free and, in the little gap created, inserted his tongue between thigh and silk.

He heard, as if from far away, the groan. Thinking where once was good, twice was better, he switched to the other side, teeth
seeking, finding, pulling again. This lace was longer, his head reaching back till it was pressed against a hoop. Twisting
freed it, and once more his lips found a paradise that, until recently, he never knew existed – the softest skin near the
top of a woman’s thigh.