The Portrait (7 page)

"Sir?" It was Daniel's voice, young and concerned and a little frightened.

Jonas waved his hand. "Go on," he said. "Continue."

He waited until he heard the scratching of charcoal on paper again, the hiss of brushstrokes and the wet suck of paint, and then he walked as casually as he could to the empty canvas in the corner by the window, to the half-drawn odalisque, and forced himself to remember what was at stake. He waited until he was calm enough to trust his voice, and then he sat on the windowsill, feeling the cold from the windows against his back, letting it soothe him before he spoke.

"Miss Carter," he said, and then he noticed that she hadn't moved, that she was sitting there watching him. He forced himself to speak evenly, quietly. "I would like you to stay after class today."

She nodded shortly, but she didn't look away, and when he saw the look in her eyes, the quiet speculation touched with pity, he felt the baffling rage growing again, and he made himself turn away to look at the courtesan. But the sight of the unfinished canvas only angered him again, and he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cold glass. The motion reminded him of Rico, of yesterday. Where the hell was Childs? He found himself thinking of last night's fine French cognac, wishing he had a glass of it in his hand.
A drink for courage
. The thought brushed through his mind, and he smiled derisively, wondering when things had degenerated so far that he needed a swig of cognac to attempt a kiss.

Not just any kiss,
he reminded himself. A kiss calculated to frighten. A kiss for a woman for whom he felt nothing but anger and resentment, for whom he felt not the slightest attraction. And how best to go about it? He couldn't just go up to her and grab her. No, best to do it subtly, to approach things carefully, as if he were attempting to seduce one of the rich daughters who came to him to have their portraits painted, one of the silly, vapid creatures who simpered and preened

within sight of their starched chaperones but watched him with knowing, too-wise eyes. They were easy to win over; he'd had enough of them to know. He knew how they changed the moment the chaperone's back was turned, how they talked of grand passion and rebellion when all they really wanted was wooing and romance and fops who professed their love with every breath.

But Imogene Carter was not like them, and his intentions were not the same. He didn't want consummation. He didn't want pleasure. He spent the rest of the lesson turning ideas over in his mind, wondering over the best way to approach her. He paced the room wondering. He criticized his students' work, offered suggestions, but by the time the class was over, he couldn't remember who had done well and who hadn't, who was the best at blending colors, who had drawn Clarisse with proportion and grace. He couldn't remember what Miss Carter had drawn at all.

He was aware that they were all watching him with wary eyes, and he almost felt their questions hovering as he moved from easel to easel.
What will he say? Why hasn't he yelled at her, at me? What made him so damned angry earlier?
So many questions, though they should be accustomed to his erratic behavior by now. It surprised him that they weren't, made him feel faintly ashamed, and that only increased his preoccupation—so much so that Jonas barely said a word when the lesson ended. He only waited while they all gathered up their things.

All except Miss Carter. She watched them leave, and Jonas saw the way she worked over her drawing with barely suppressed energy. Nervousness, he thought, feeling a stab of satisfaction that only grew when he saw a reluctant McBride walk out the door.

Clarisse stepped from behind the changing screen, buttoning her bodice. She turned to Jonas with a smile. "You want me to stay, darlin'?" she asked.

Jonas shook his head. "Go on," he said. "I'll see you later."

Clarisse's brow furrowed. She looked at Miss Carter, then back to him. "But—"

"Go on."

Her mouth tightened, a perfect little rosebud of red- stained pink, and resentfully she moved toward the door. But not before she brushed by him, not before her hand grazed the front of his trousers, her fingers tracing him through the cloth. It seemed she was not so upset about last night after all.

He waited until she disappeared through the door, until the heavy oak slammed shut behind her, before he turned to Miss Carter.

He said nothing. He let the silence stretch between them until it seemed nearly unbearable, and then he moved toward her, stopping just behind her, barely a hairsbreadth away. He felt the heat of her shoulders at his thighs. He glanced down at the easel in front of her, taking in the shaky lines she'd drawn, the tentative, minimal shadowing, the outline of Clarisse's body without detail—the swelling of breast without a nipple, with nothing but two-dimensional heaviness.

There was no talent in the drawing; or rather, there was some skill, but it was mediocre, passionless, technique without magic, like a mildly pleasing story without emotion or depth. She would never be a great painter; the most she could hope for was to become a decent portraitist—or perhaps even one of those traveling artists who went from town to town drawing prize pigs for awestruck farmers. But a great painter? Ah no, never that.

Still, there was enough to work with for now.

She drew a breath. "Sir?" she asked finally, and he heard again that strange hope in her voice, the slight giddiness that jibed badly with his earlier assessment of nerves. "Is there something you wanted?"

He refrained from making the most obvious answer, the lie he couldn't support and she wouldn't believe. Instead, he leaned over her shoulder, plucking the bit of charcoal from her fingers like before. But this time he pressed against her back, let his hair fall over her shoulder, felt it drag along her cheek.

He heard the sharp catch of her breath, felt the infinitesimal freeze of her body. He could almost hear her heart pounding against her chest.

"You're falling behind, Miss Carter," he whispered against her ear. "I thought, perhaps, a private lesson would be in order. Also, I wanted to apologize for today."

She turned to look at him; he saw the surprise in her eyes. He half expected her to say something, to make some coy little remark, but she merely nodded and turned back to face the easel. "It's quite all right," she said. "Shall we get started?"

Jonas frowned. Her composure was surprising, her calm acceptance. But then, he supposed she didn't know him well enough to know he rarely apologized for anything. "It was unforgivable. I should not have lost my temper."

A momentary pause. Then, "I understand."

"Do you?" He leaned closer; he could smell the heat of her, the fragrance of—what was it?—vanilla maybe, or ... or almond. Very subtle. Almost masked by the harsh scent of paint. He whispered against her ear. "1 confess I'm not used to having women in my class. Perhaps I'm a bit more . . . thoughtless . . . than I should be. Forgive me?"

He saw the erratic pulse in her throat, the quivering flutter beneath her pale skin. Slowly, slowly, he dropped the piece of charcoal he'd taken from her, stroked her clenched fingers with his thumb.

She inhaled slowly, pulled away. "Sir, shouldn't we start?"

He didn't budge. "Start what?"

"The lesson."

It amused him, her attempt to maintain the illusion. Jonas cocked a brow, smiled a tiny smile. "The lesson," he repeated. "But, Miss Carter, this is the lesson. We have started." He let the charcoal fall from his hand, and then he reached down again, curling his fingers around hers, stilling them. Again he stroked her fingers with his thumb. "This, for example, this is a lesson in how to touch." He raised her stiff hand to his mouth, brushed her knuckles with his lips before he let her hand fall again to her lap. "And this—this is a lesson in caressing." He laid his finger against her cheek, stroked the smooth, warm line of her jaw. The blood pumped into her cheeks; for a moment Jonas imagined he felt the heat of it.

He let his finger fall beneath her chin, felt her convulsive swallow as he stroked her throat, stopping at the high rounded collar. "And now, perhaps, we could try a kiss—"

She wrenched away from him, her shoulder cracking into his chest. He staggered back. She got to her feet so violently her skirt grabbed the chair leg. The fragile stool crashed to the floor. Jonas caught his balance just before he fell, awkwardly saving himself with his good hand, clumsily moving into a crouch.

She was staring at him, her breath coming fast and shallow, her eyes wary. She had grabbed something off a nearby shelf, ostensibly to protect herself, though she wasn't wielding it like a weapon, and she didn't try to use it against him when he got to his feet to face her. She didn't move at all.

He smiled at her, let his contempt show on his face. He gestured to the door. "Go ahead, darling. Run away. Run on home to your goddaddy and tell him all about it."

She flinched as if he'd hit her. Then something melted in her eyes, the wariness disappeared, replaced by something else that made her eyes seem too wide and too brown—almost black. Something he'd seen before. He stared at her, trying to decide what it was, startled when she laid the slender stone statuette on the shelf beside her and faced him with a strange equanimity.

"I know," she said. Her voice was calm and steady, soothing in its evenness. "You don't have to pretend. 1 know."

Jonas frowned in confusion. What the hell was she talking about? "You know what?" he asked.

"Peter told me."

"Told you what?"

She glanced toward the door, and then back at him. "I know what they say about you. That you're . . . mad."

He hadn't thought she could say anything to affect him, and for a moment he didn't understand her, thought she was talking about anger. But then he realized her meaning, it translated itself in his mind
: mad . . . insane.

Insane.

He hadn't expected to hear that—not from her. Most people never said it. Most people were afraid to even think it. And yet here she was, offering it to him as if it were an excuse for everything, begging him to take it as if it somehow made everything all right. It was startling, it was uncomfortable, and strangely, it hurt. Not as much as it had when his brother Charlie had said it, or when his sister thought it, or when his father scrawled it on the papers committing him to the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum. But still, it hurt, and in the wake of that startling realization, he suddenly understood something else, suddenly he knew what he was seeing in her eyes, why that look was so uncomfortably familiar.

It was that damnable compassion again, that wretched pity.

It was unbearable.

"Well, if they say it, it must be true," he said, advancing slowly, angrily, feeling a vindictive pleasure when she backed away. "It gives you even more of a reason to run, doesn't it, darling?" He kept moving, forcing her back and back and back, watching her trip over her skirt. "Go ahead and run. Run for the door." She was nearly to the corner now, nearly trapped. He kept going. "Hurry now, before I change my mind."

She bumped into the wall behind her, jumping at the contact, and he saw her nervousness, saw also the way she lifted her chin to face him, her unflinching, determined expression. He told himself to release her. Told himself to stop, but he couldn't. The word was ringing in his mind:
insane, insane, insane
, and he wanted to punish her for saying it, wanted to punish her for the way she offered it to him, as if he weren't to blame, as if he couldn't control himself.

Because it was true, it was all true, and he hated that about himself, hated that she'd seen it.

He trapped her with his forearms, heard the dull thud of his wooden hand against the wall, felt the vibration of it into his wrist, his arm.

"Too late," he whispered. "You should have run."

He pressed against her, pressed his whole body against her, felt her legs and her hips and her breasts through the voluminous petticoats, the boning of her corset. She was stiff, inviolate in her armor, but he heard the harsh gasp of her breath, imagined he felt her fear shiver in the air around them.

Now
, he thought,
now for the
pièce de résistance, and he bent his head to kiss her, to rape her with his mouth, to send her running away.

And stopped.

She was staring at him, her brown eyes soft, her mouth set, and though he saw the tiny vibration of the pulsepoint in her throat, there was no fear in her gaze at all. Nothing but a strange and fatal honesty, an empathy he could not imagine, a strength he could not endure.

"What?" he demanded, unable to stop himself. "What in the hell are you thinking?"

"I want to know what it's like to be you," she said, and her voice was thin and hushed and hard to hear. "I want to understand."

As quiet as her words were, they crashed through him, stole his breath, brought the anger and shock rising so violently in him that he jerked away as if her very touch were poison.

"I want to know what it's like ..."

He pointed to the door, stunned to find that he was shaking, that his finger was trembling. "Get out!" He screamed the words, his voice was roaring in his head, painfully loud. He saw her cowering in the corner and he wanted to hurt her. "Get the hell out of here."