The Portrait (2 page)

The follies of the rich, he thought, absently rubbing his aching left arm. Unfortunately, he made his living from those follies, and the hell of it was, before a few weeks ago, he'd liked Gosney well enough. The man was generous with his money and his praise, and he demanded little enough in return: a portrait of his wife, a landscape of the
Hudson River
covered with ice. Jonas had been lucky. Gosney's patronage had been a blessing. Until now.

Until Imogene Carter.

Jonas studied the canvas before him without seeing it, thinking about the woman who had just left. Imogene Carter. He couldn't say now what she looked like, even though it had only been moments ago that she'd stood in the middle of his studio. She was nothing but a bundle of gray wool and pale violet, and a wan oval face with big brown eyes that stared out at him from beneath an atrocity of a puce satin bonnet.

He didn't need to know more to know what kind of a woman she was. He'd seen her kind before, the cossetted, easily dismissed ladies of society—women who played at watercolors and drew pretty little houses in the country. Women who believed they had talent even

though they were, at best, remedial sketchers who understood nothing about proportion and less about art. Women who swooned at the sight of a nude.

Yet he had agreed to teach her how to paint. The idea was absurd. Laughable. Infuriating. Christ, he didn't have the patience to deal with some coddled goddaughter, especially one who would faint the first time he brought a live model into the studio. One who would run at the first harsh word. . . .

Jonas closed his eyes and took a deep breath, wondering—again—why the hell Gosney had chosen him to be Miss Carter's tutor. Though Gosney had never been crass enough to say it, Jonas assumed his patron had heard the rumors; maybe even passed them along himself. God knew everyone else had.

Perhaps Gosney believed Jonas felt some kind of obligation to him. An obligation that would make him think twice before he harmed the sweet, bland Miss Carter. If so, it was most unfortunate. Patronage had never made a difference to Jonas when it came to his behavior. Nothing did.

That was the hell of it.

He pushed the thought away. Damn, he was trapped. He couldn't afford to lose Gosney's patronage, and yet he couldn't stand to be controlled by the man either. Not over some untalented watercolorist who knew nothing about the world except what she'd learned in some backwater finishing school.

Jonas thought back to the way she'd looked standing there beside Gosney—shapeless and nervous, spoiled and too sheltered—and he thought again: the kind of woman who would run at the first harsh word . . . He stared at the window, frowning. Imogene Carter was the kind of woman who would run. Whatever she'd learned in that finishing school in
Nashville
, it wouldn't be enough to prepare her for his lessons. One day of honest criticism, maybe two, and she would fly nervously back to her watercolors and her mama.

The thought was compelling. As compelling as the knowledge that if Miss Carter left his tutelage on her own, he would owe nothing to Gosney. If she made the decision not to continue, Jonas could not only keep his reputation—as marred as it was—he could also keep Gosney's patronage.

The beauty of it was that it would require nothing of him except that he be himself, that he treat her no differently from his three other students—the young men who had studied in Rome or at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris before their parents had cut short their support and they had come to him. Students who had seen the great Dutch and Italian masters. Students who had a passion for art and a talent, but who still felt insecure enough to squirm beneath his exacting eye.

There was not a finishing-school watercolorist among them.

He remembered Imogene Carter standing there, exuding fragility, one of the delicate flowers of
Nashville
society.

He could destroy her with a word.

And he would even enjoy it.

Chapter 2

  
H
e woke to the sound of whispering, to murmurs that stole through the thin walls

separating his alcove bedroom from the studio, to hushed movement that sent the tapestry guarding the entrance swaying slightly. Jonas glanced at the pocket watch dangling from the scarred wooden post of his bed, groaning silently when he saw the time. Nine-ten. Christ, he'd overslept.

Wearily he struggled to one elbow. The creaking of the bedstead stabbed into his head, and he covered his eyes with his hand, trying to remember exactly what had happened last night—and whether it caused the pounding pain behind his eyes. He hadn't had that much to drink, he was sure, but then again, maybe he had. He'd stopped noticing the wine the moment that little actress entered the room.

Not so little, he amended, remembering Clarisse's bounteous charms. He'd gone out looking for something to bring back his inspiration, and instead the only inspiration he'd found was in the generous breasts of a redhead with a passion for painters and a hungry curiosity about false hands.

He groaned again, sitting up and grabbing his polished wooden hand from the night table. Clarisse had not been able to take her eyes off it, he remembered, studying the curved, immobile fingers, the leather straps dangling from the worn padded wrist. Cynically he wondered what had been going on in that libidinous little mind of hers, and then he realized that he already knew. She was no different from the others. Since he'd lost his hand four years ago, he'd been amazed to discover just how many women found it . . . intriguing.

Intriguing,
he thought derisively, keeping his eyes averted as he strapped the hand to his stump of a wrist, buckling the leather straps and jerking a soft kid glove over the rigid fingers with an ease born of practice. As if it were nothing more than an affectation.

The thought made his head pound harder.

He took a deep breath and got to his feet. He should cancel today. He was drained and exhausted, and he still felt edgy, still felt the thin vibration of anxiety he'd hoped a night with Clarisse would ease.

It hadn't. It was there, flourishing deep inside him, biding its time, waiting to spring.

Jonas grabbed a pair of stained and spattered trousers from the floor and pulled them on. The voices of his students grew louder, he heard their worry, and he knew they were wondering if they should wake him or not, or if it was going to be like last spring all over again. . . .

He banished the memory, viciously jerking a shirt from the bedpost and pulling it on without buttoning it. Yanking aside the tapestry, he hurried out into the blazing brightness of his studio.

"Christ." He covered his eyes, wincing as the light sent pain shooting into his skull. "It's too damn bright in here." He tried to adjust to the sunlight, to see the figures standing before him. "McBride, remind me to ask that bastard Tate for some curt—"

He stopped short. A woman stood between Peter McBride and Tobias Harrington, a woman Jonas had never seen before. She was short, and—except for the voluminous folds of her skirt—delicate looking, with light brown hair that was pulled back in a barely fashionable, too-loose knot and skin that looked impossibly pale against the unflattering light pink of her gown.

He opened his mouth to say
Who the hell are you?
but then she lifted her chin and looked at him with steady, unwavering eyes, and the expression brought her sharply into focus, the memory came racing back.

Imogene Carter.

Irritation surged through him, and he realized he hadn't really expected her to show up, had hoped their meeting two days before was enough to scare her away.

He gave her a cold smile. "Well, well," he said slowly. "Miss Carter. I'm pleased to see you're so prompt."

She didn't look away, though a faint flush moved over her cheeks when he began to slowly button his shirt over his bare chest.

"You said nine sharp," she said.

"So I did." Jonas nodded, enjoying her obvious embarrassment. "It's a pity you caught me by surprise. I was looking forward to introducing you to the others." He motioned to the three students standing uncomfortably beside her. "But I can see you gentlemen have already met our little neophyte."

Peter McBride stepped forward. His tall, lanky frame made the movement seem clumsy. "Well, yes, sir, we've—"

"Good. Then go ahead and set up."

They didn't move, just stood there looking sickeningly anxious—except for Miss Carter, who watched expectantly, as if she were waiting for some great revelation.

Annoyance tugged at him. She was so damned naive. Some art school somewhere should have beaten that dewy-eyed idealism out of her before she even thought of coming to him.

Daniel Page stepped forward, running a nervous hand through his coal-black hair. "Uh—sir—" he said hesitantly.

"What is it?"

"The lesson, sir. What—what're we to paint this morning?"

Jonas stared at him, uncomprehending for a moment.
What're we to paint this morning?
Damn, he had no idea. He glanced around the room, searching for something, trying to remember if he'd given any thought at all to this week's lessons, and knowing he hadn't. He'd been too busy cursing at the portrait of the courtesan, too busy trying to wring inspiration from a canvas that mocked him with its silence.

The reasons for that empty canvas brought anger rushing back again, strong and vibrant, and he glanced at Imogene Carter and wondered how much it would take to send her running today, wondered if he should give them a statuette from his collection to paint. Perhaps the ivory carving depicting the "Hovering Butterflies" position, or maybe the large-breasted, round-bel- lied South American fertility goddess. How would she react to those? The thought was compelling, but Jonas dismissed it. It was too easy, and he had to admit there was a part of him that looked forward to the game—a small, sadistic part that enjoyed exacting punishment for Gosney's gall, that wanted to see the embarrassed flush on her cheeks, to see her face fall at his first harsh criticism. No, he wanted more of a challenge, something less obvious. Something so subtle she couldn't run to Gosney with it.

His gaze lit on a vase of dying red dahlias just beside the door. Dimly he remembered that Marie had left them there the last time she modeled for him—a week or so ago—and now they were wilted and faded. They were innocuous enough, and in any case, there was nothing else. Jonas crossed the room in a few strides and grabbed the vase, slamming it down in the middle of the table. Petals fell to the marred surface.

"Those," he said tersely. "Paint those."

They didn't question him. They never questioned him. Jonas stood back, watching as Peter and Tobias and Daniel propped up their easels and began preparing their palettes, working with an economy of movement, a familiarity that seemed graceful and efficient.

It was then that he noticed Miss Carter was just standing there, frowning with concentration as she watched the others' activity.

"Miss Carter," Jonas said softly.

She turned to him with a hesitant smile. "I'm not sure how to start," she said. "I'm afraid I don't have an easel."

Ah, how precious. How perfect. Jonas heard the winces of the others as palpably as if they'd been words, and he smiled coldly and walked over to her, pausing only a foot away, close enough so that she took a step back. He saw a flicker of apprehension in her eyes.

"You don't have an easel," he said.

Her smile wavered. She shook her head. "No, sir, I don't."

"Do you have a canvas?"

She laughed slightly and looked down at the case in her hands. "We worked mostly on paper—"

     
"Do you have a canvas?" he repeated.

     
This time her smile died. She looked up at him, and her fingers tightened on the case, her eyes shuttered. "No, sir."

     
Jonas struggled for patience. "No easel. No canvas. Tell me, Miss Carter, what did you intend to do this morning? Watch?"

     
Silence. Her jaw tightened; she glanced at her hands.

     
Suspicion crept into Jonas's mind, a dismal certainty. She was even more inexperienced than he'd imagined. Jonas suddenly knew she'd never worked a canvas in her life, was suddenly certain the colors in her case would be completely wrong for oil work. He wondered briefly, gloomily, if she even knew how to draw.

     
"Have you ever primed a canvas, Miss Carter?"

She shook her head. "No, sir."

"You've never ground colors."

"No, sir."

"Have you ever made an amber varnish?"

She licked her lips, and when she spoke her voice was so quiet he had to strain to hear it. "Never, sir."

"Christ save me." Jonas turned abruptly on his heel.

At his quick movement, the other students jerked to life, hastily ducking their heads, studying the dahlias as if the flowers had suddenly burst to vibrant life before their eyes. Jonas ignored them, striding to the space beside Tobias Harrington. Quickly, with the efficient one-handed movement he'd developed over the years, he unfolded an easel and grabbed a primed canvas from a pile leaning against the wall, slamming it into place so violently the easel rocked.

"There," he said, motioning to it, not bothering to keep the derision from his voice. "Miss Carter, why don't you show me if you can do anything at all? Perhaps we could even see if your drawing skill has progressed past stick figures."

Her head jerked up, and Jonas waited, waited for her to burst into tears, to wilt before him. But she only took a deep breath and nodded—a short, quick nod— and into her expression came a determination he hadn't expected, a willfulness he didn't want. He knew suddenly that she wasn't going to run, that she was going to sit in front of that canvas and try to impress him with a drawing ability he had surpassed by the time he was ten.

He knew all that, and so when she squared her shoulders and walked toward him, he stood back and waited for her, trying to control the disappointment coursing through him, the surprise that there was any steel to her at all.

He wondered if Gosney had told her, if she knew how bound Jonas was to his promise to teach her. He decided not. There was too much resolve in the way she eased past him, in the way she seated herself on the stool and took the piece of charcoal he offered her. Too much acknowledgment of risk. She wanted to succeed, he realized suddenly, and he wondered why.

He stepped behind her, scowling at the pristine canvas. She had strength—he couldn't deny that. Though how much, and just what it was, he didn't yet know.

But he would find out. And he would find out soon.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned forward, breathing over her shoulder, feeling a twinge of satisfaction when she stiffened and moved away. "So, Miss Carter," he said slowly, in a whisper that sent tendrils of her hair dancing around her ear. "Draw me a dahlia."

J
onas Whitaker did not like her, that much was obvious. Imogene settled back against the padded seats of the brougham and stared out the window, watching the passing brick town houses of
Washington Square
with a grim sense of futility. His dislike surprised her. She knew that sometimes people were disappointed when they first met her, people who knew Chloe or her father and expected the entire Carter family to be as charismatic. Imogene knew the looks, the way the joy of meeting her faded with her first soft hello, the way they turned back to her father or to Chloe to continue a conversation that did not include her, that could never include her.

She was used to watching them, used to wishing she could be what they wanted her to be, that she could entertain them with a word or a smile. Until Chloe died, Imogene had been the one who faded into the background, the one forgotten when the talk came around to the Carters.
“Olive is so sweet, and you simply must meet Samuel—and Chloe—ah, darling Chloe. . . ."

It was true she was used to being ignored, used to being passed over, but she didn't think she'd ever been disliked before, at least not like this, not with such . . . intensity.

She told herself she was imagining it, that it couldn't be disdain she'd seen in his eyes, but the illusion was impossible to maintain. She had not mistaken his scorn, she knew. She'd seen it in his every gesture and look, heard it in every word he'd spoken to her.

She didn't know how she'd offended him or what to do about it. She couldn't quit—the thought of it nauseated her. She thought of her father's words to her before she left
Nashville
, his familiar disdain.
"Nothing like getting away from those milk-and-watercolorists, eh, daughter? Whitaker's exactly what you need, I think. Something to put a little steel in your spine."