The Portrait (4 page)

I could have told her that. There was a good reason why I usually wore it in a simple
plait at my back.

Only when they left me alone in my bedchamber was I able to see the results of M.
LeGrande's efforts. My mirror was cloudy and discolored with age. Perhaps that's why I didn't at
first recognize the woman it reflected.

I was used to seeing my hair pulled back from my face. Now short tendrils softened the
high expanse of my forehead and tangled with my thick eyebrows. More wisps drifted in front of
my ears. The rest of my hair was caught high in a complicated arrangement of braids, almost a
crown. The style gave me height and a certain regal veneer, while the wisps and tendrils softened
the rather severe lines of my face. Fascinated, I dug into the top drawer of my bureau for the
gold-framed hand mirror that had been my great-grandmother's. Although even more clouded
than the one on the wall, the small mirror showed me my profile. I stared for a long time,
wondering how my nose could have shrunk since this morning.

What would Mr. Sutherland say? He had, like M. LeGrande, called my hair impossible,
my nose a challenge, my mouth--well, my mouth had not changed, at least. It was still too wide,
too full.

The clock in the lower hall was chiming eleven as I ascended the stairs. My stomach
was churning, my hands were icy, and a headache lay in wait for the best moment to attack. In
spite of my apprehension, a small part of me enjoyed the swirl and swish of silken folds about
my legs, the cool sliding of silk along my arms, the soft sensation of silk against bare skin. What
if I wore no chemise? Would the silk tease my... Oh, no, I must not think such thoughts. Surely
they were wicked.

Even as I denied my curiosity, I felt my breasts tighten, as they sometimes did when I
stepped into the cold. But the stairway was not cold, nor was I.

I was terrified.

He was standing in the middle of the large, almost empty room when I entered. His eyes
narrowed, his mouth settled into a grim line. After an eternity, he said, "What have you done to
your hair?" His voice was low, vibrant, dangerous.

"I...Mother...it's just the front," I faltered. "Just around my face."

He strode toward me, circled me slowly. "Fools," he muttered. "Blind idiots." He
stopped before me, caught my jaw in the vise of his fingers and turned my head this way and
that. "At least they had the sense to leave the back long."

"The hairdresser...he said...Mother tried to insist, but he..."

"A man of rare sense. Let it down."

"What?" I blurted, then remembered my training. "I beg your pardon?"

"Take the pins out. Let your hair down." He turned away, then spun back. "Wait! What
is that?" His pointing finger nearly touched my chemise where it peeked from the open
neckline.

"My...my chemise."

"Good God, what were you thinking? I send you a gown most women would kill to
possess and you betray it with your petty, bourgeois modesty. Take it off!"

"I will not." I am certain he heard the hesitation, the uncertainty in my tone. This gown
was meant to be worn against a woman's skin. I do not know how I was so certain of that fact,
but there was no doubt in my mind.

"You will. If you want your portrait done, you will remove that...that abomination."

I took my courage in both hands. "Mr. Sutherland, if I promise to leave off the chemise
next time, can you not go ahead today?" I was so afraid that any further delay would strengthen
Mother's will to discharge him. Despite my mixed emotions about the man, I had come to
believe that he saw more to me than anyone else in the world was capable of seeing. I
desperately wanted to see myself through his eyes.

He glared and muttered and fiddled with his brushes. Eventually he said, "Oh, very well.
Go sit. I've a bit of preparation to do before we begin."

Ever since I had entered the large room, I'd been surreptitiously eyeing the settee that sat
in the slanting sunrays. It was exactly like one I'd seen drawn in a catalogue Mother had left
lying about in the parlor. Backless, it had scrolled ends, one higher than the other, inviting one to
recline against it. The covering was velvet, in a deep, rich shade I thought might be ultramarine,
tufted with glinting silvery buttons that matched the toenails on the crocodile feet.

I hesitated, feeling entirely unworthy to rest upon such an elegant couch. Instead I seated
myself on the same stool I had occupied before.

"Your mother has no idea what a treasure she has in you. Did you know that?"

His words took me by surprise, for I had been intent on watching his hands as they
squeezed paint from bladders and set brushes into a tall jar. Although his fingers were not
artistically long, they moved with a certain grace, one that gave the feeling of restrained strength.
They lingered on each item he touched, as if he enjoyed the tactile sensation. I imagined his
fingers touching me that same way, my face, my hands. Remembered the feel of his hands on my
shoulders the first day, and realized that they had lingered there that same voluptuous way. A
shiver made its way down my spine.

"What are you thinking of?"

I could feel my face bloom with heat. "N-n-nothing."

"A man, no doubt. Good. I want that expression. Go to the couch."

I found myself wondering if anyone ever simply sat in any of his portraits. Once I was
seated, he proceeded to rearrange my limbs as if I were a doll. First he had me half-recline, with
one elbow on the higher scroll and my legs lying stretched the length of the seat. After a few
moments in which he sketched rapidly, he threw down the charcoal. "No, Damn it. You look a
cliché. Sit up."

I sat.

"Tuck one foot under you. Yes, like that. Now, lean on the other arm." He cocked his
head and regarded me. Long fingers stroked his chin.

I shivered again, wondering...

"No, that's still not right. Lie down, with your feet on the high end. Yes, that way. Now
turn your head."

My skirt slid toward my knees. Without thinking, I leaned forward and pushed it to
cover my ankles.

"For God's sake, woman, forget your maidenly modesty. This is Art!"

"This could also be my reputation, sir. I will not stretch the bounds of modesty beyond
what is proper." Although I had shown some ankle last week, I was sure that having my feet in
the air and my skirt rucked halfway to my knees went beyond what would be acceptable to even
the most liberal art critic.

"Ha!" The scritch of charcoal punctuated his exclamation. For several minutes he
sketched in silence. I let my thoughts wander, building in my mind an imaginary encounter with
Mr. Sutherland, somewhere far from this room.

A ballroom, perhaps. A masquerade. I would be wearing this gown, without a chemise.
My domino would be black satin, lined with the palest gold, perhaps with a feather trim at the
hem. My slippers--

"Lie down, on y our belly this time. No, the other way, with your arms across the
foot."

I turned and scooted until I was lying prone on the settee, my upper body more or less
draped over the foot. Although my back was, of necessity, somewhat arched, I found the position
no more uncomfortable than the one I had assumed on the chair last week.

Mr. Sutherland stared at me for a moment, chewing his lower lip. "No," he said again.
"It won't do. Your shape is hidden."

I thought that might be for the best, but said nothing.

"Turn over. Tuck your shoulders up against the foot. Yes...a little more. Let your hand
drop over the edge. Relax!"

Tossing his charcoal onto the table beside his easel, he strode to me. His fingers fastened
on my chin and turned it so my face was three-quarters facing him. Before he released me, he
stroked one finger across my lips.

I didn't try to catch it. I was tempted.

He went to one knee beside me and reached across to catch my opposite wrist. "Let's put
this here--" He made several small alterations in the position of my hand above my ear before he
was satisfied.

Was it possible to feel sensation with each strand of one's hair? Or did I imagine the heat
from his hand as it passed lightly over my crown?

"And this one can trail, thus."

My fingertips grazed the floor. The position was quite comfortable. "I'll fall asleep," I
told him, before I could stop myself.

"As long as you do not move. Now, your hair." His fingers plucked the pins from my
braids. They fell free of their own weight. My hair, never obedient, started to unravel, and he
helped it with his fingers.

"Impossible hair," he said, his voice gruff. "No color, yet all colors. How will I ever
capture the color?"

"My grandmother's was the same," I said, without thinking.

"And men wrote poems to it. How I wish..."

One last hairpin plinked onto the floor. "I saw the study Gainsborough did of her. You
have a bit of her about your face. The same chin, determined and inclined to a certain tilt." He
touched my chin, moved it slightly to the side. "There. Don't even breathe."

Rising, he went to his easel and picked up the charcoal. A pause, while he stared at me,
eyes narrowed. "Still not right. How...?"

I stared back, afraid to move, to speak.

After a long moment, while he simply stared at me intently, he came to me again. This
time it was my ankle his strong fingers encircled. I was so startled that I let him move my leg as
he wished. He placed the foot flat on the settee, close to my other knee, before smoothing the
skirt to cover it. Smiling into my eyes, he said, "Don't fret. You are completely covered, to the
toes." A hesitation, then he smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Toes! Of
course!"

He removed my slipper and was tugging at my stocking before I could react.

"Wait!" I screeched.

"Oh, calm down. I am not about to ravish you. Remove your stockings. I want to see
naked toes."

"Turn your back."

"As if I haven't seen a woman's legs before." But he obeyed, tapping his foot impatiently
as I removed the other shoe and both stockings.

You haven't seen mine
, I wanted to say, but refrained.

Once again he posed me, like a jointed doll. He arranged my skirts to drape over the
edge of the settee, tugged and pulled at my hair until it cascaded over the scrolled end and
puddled on the polished floor. Everywhere he touched me--impersonal touches, but always with
that lingering, menace to virtue--everywhere his fingers stroked, I felt marked, branded.

After all that, the next hour was anticlimactic. I reclined on the couch, half-dozing. He
sketched.

At first he used the charcoal, but after a few minutes he picked up a brush. Fascinated I
watched it dart across the paper, sometimes in long strokes, sometimes in a series of quick
dabs.

"I thought artists painted on canvas," I said.

"I'm not painting. I'm sketching." His tone was distracted, as if half his mind was
elsewhere. More strokes, more dabs, until, with a curse, he tore the sheet of paper from the easel
and threw it onto the floor. "Don't move," he commanded, as I started to sit upright.

For two endless hours I lay there while he filled sheet after large sheet of heavy paper
with paint and charcoal. Twice he allowed me to stand and move about for a few minutes. The
second time I asked him again if I could see what he had been sketching. To my great surprise,
he acquiesced.

The first sheet I picked up was my hand. Nothing more. Just my dangling hand, fingers
relaxed, the tips lying lightly on the polished floor. Another was my foot, each toe lovingly
delineated, rosy and delicate. As I leafed through the sheets, I found myself growing warm, as if
I were standing too close to a fire. There was something about the drawings...something that
spoke to me on a level below--beyond?--thought.

One of the sketches showed my body, from shoulder to hip. Yet it was not my body, for
there was something different, something... I shivered. The drawing in my hand shook, blurring
in my vision.

Perhaps it was the blurring, or perhaps it was the film of tears in my eyes. The body on
the paper took on shape, depth. Seemed to breathe. And in that moment I wanted to touch, to
stroke, to cup and hold the soft breasts, the deep curve of waist, the sumptuous contour of hip.
My hands tingled and for one timeless instant, there was a ghostly sensation of touching, of
holding, of caressing.

The drawing fell from my fingers. I swayed, might have fallen to the floor but for the
strong arm encircling my waist. I was held against a hard body, was warmed by its heat. A gentle
hand stroked my hair, pulled my face into the folds of an often-washed cravat. I smelled his
scent, a combination of snuff, sweat, and the strong solvent he used to clean his brushes. His
heart beat was a steady, strong vibration within his chest. I imagined I could feel my own heart
taking on its rhythm, as if we were in perfect tune.

Even as the thought was born, I felt him stiffen. The arms that held me straightened
slightly, pushing me away. Although he took no step, he somehow moved back, away from me.
"Please resume your pose." His tone was neutral, lacking all warmth.

Stepping over the scattered sketches, I returned to the couch, my knees still weak. As I
sank on it, I looked to him. But he had turned his back and was attacking his palette with a short
knife.

"Turn your head," he said, over his shoulder. "I want to see your profile."

I obeyed, staring up at the ceiling. It was water-stained, the dark blotches like angry
clouds against a creamy sky. Deliberately I forced myself to seek patterns and pictures in the
blotches. Anything to banish all memory of the strength of his arms, the scent of his body, the
comforting throb of his heart.

He had returned to charcoal, The
scritch-scritch
of it lulled me, relaxed me,
until I drifted, half asleep. When I opened my eyes, he was there, on one knee beside the blue
velvet couch. His gaze was gentle, rather than austere. His smile invited mine. When he cupped a
rough palm around my chin, stroked a hard thumb across my cheek, I leaned into the caress. My
eyes closed again as his face drew close. My lips parted upon a sigh as his breath lightly touched
them. "Chastity," he breathed. "Sweet, innocent Chastity."