Page 49 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
“Probably not. But you need the money, so we’ll try.”
She huffed, slumped into the back of the sofa, and lifted anxious eyes to him. “Must we?” A whine.
He rummaged in his satchel for his notebook and opened it up, pulling a pencil from between its pages. He placed both on her lap.
She made a face that looked as if she only just managed not to stick her tongue out at him.
He swallowed a grin. “You’re feeling better today.”
“Yes.” She sat up with a sigh. “Despite our current task, I am feeling considerably better. After last night.” Her voice lowered. “Thank you.”
He lifted the pencil from where it rested between the angled pages of the notebook and handed it to her.
She stared at it, mouth slightly agape, body rigid, as if he’d thrust a snake into her palm. “I… I do not wish to disappoint you.” Her words almost silent.
“You cannot. I merely wish you to have fun. To create something that makes you smile.” He snorted. “Perhaps you should have a different model than I.”
“No! You make me smile.” She jumped at him, her hands fluttering birds at his shoulders, her cheeks blazing with color. “I mean… I enjoy teasing you. Sit just there. Do not go anywhere. I’ll draw you as you are. If you insist I do so, that is. But I have warned you, so… be warned. It will be no good.”
“It will be fine.” He drew himself up tall, pulled the lapels of his jacket tight, and straightened his shoulders, gave her his profile. “Do you want me like this?”
“Yes.” So much mirth in a single word.
Why was he doing this? He should keep his distance after the troubling emotions brought on by waking with her in his arms, after the conversation in the great hall. In her he seemed to be rediscovering some joy he’d lost years ago. But joy was a dangerous thing. He’d used to love his art, find joy in it. He’d learned what a folly that was. When you saw art as beauty instead of truth you wandered down a path of selfishness.
Cordelia would draw him, and the drawing would do no concrete good. But it might make her happy for a time, and wasn’tthatgood?
“You’ve gone stony, Lord Theo,” Cordelia said. “I cannot get the line of your jaw right because just moments ago it was slack and now it’s hard as rock.”
“Do not focus on the actual line. Then you’ll get it right.”
Her brow furrowed. “Pardon me? Do not focus on the actual line? I have had many an instructor, and I can assure you, they all say—”
“They’re all wrong. To focus on the actual line is a good way to be technically proficient, but what truth is there in the technical?”
Her brow remained furrowed.
He looked about the room. The Castles were closest, but they seemed to be flirting with one another. He unwrapped his cravat, and she lifted her brows suggestively. Theo didn’t dare peek at her drawing. No telling what provocative images it held.
Perhaps he should peek, to reveal it in his drawings later. But they were not who he was after. A colourman and his wife? Middling people when he wanted to expose the shadows at the top.
He leaned in closer to Cordelia and lowered his voice. “Consider satirical drawings.”
Her hand slipped into the pocket of her gown. “Like the one here?”
Which one did she have there? The first he’d drawn her or one of the other three he’d given her since, slid beneath her door while she slept and before he crept into the morning light of the narrow hallway they shared.
It did not matter. He shouldn’t be drawing them. What good did they do?
They made her smile. They filled her pockets, apparently. Damn. Focus.
“In satirical drawings,” he said, “you do not represent things, people, accurately. You exaggerate them.”
“Like my hair?”
He nodded. “And even though the reality of the drawing is not there, everyone knows what it means with a single look.”
“Yes.”
