Page 34 of The Quiet Wife
He laughed and shook his head. “I’m pretty convinced that he most certainly doesnotknow how to love his wife, but that doesn’t meanI’mgoing to try if that’s what’s worrying you,” he promised her, shocked at how transparent he had apparently been despite trying to conceal feelings he had barely admitted to himself. She didn’t look terribly convinced, and he saw no point in attempting to convince her, so he took another bite of cake, attempting not to listen to the little voice in his head that whispered to him about just how much he wanted to know Frances better. He kept telling himself wanting to spend time alone with her was to improve his understanding of her for the portrait, but he couldn’t convince himself, let alone his mother, so he remained silent.
“Jemie, for heaven’s sake, do nothing foolish,” his mother urged him. “Leyland is good for you. He pays you well to paint him and his family. Do not put that at risk. These portraits will elevate you. Raise your status in the art world. Do not throw away this opportunity, because no matter how lovely or how lonely Frances is, it will be for naught. She’s a married woman and always will be.When these portraits are all finished, you will go on to your next works and she will remain with her family and her husband.”
Jemie looked away.
“Be her friend,” his mother suggested with a pleading look. “She needs a good friend.”
It was true, Frances did need a friend, but he had the strongest suspicion that what she truly needed was a friend and a lover who understood her. Who could laugh with her, love with her. Show her how beautiful she was. A flush rippled through him at the thought and he shook it away.
“How will you paint her?”
“Leyland wants a full length, so I’m going to paint her standing. But I want to give some thought about how I arrange the portrait. I want her in a different pose. I want her… I think I want it to not look posed. Something more natural.” He explained.
His mother tilted her head. “Will that work? Particularly if the portrait of Leyland is formal?”
“I think it will.” He knew it would. He could feel it. Whatever the final composition would be, he wouldn’t have her in a formal pose, standing facing him in the way he was painting Leyland. Solid, stately, and filled with his own inflated sense of self-importance. No, he wanted more for Frances. He wanted to show her as the glorious woman that she was. Wanted her husband to see what sat under his nose. What he ignored every single day. What he berated and spoke down to. Most of all, what he was missing.
“None of these corsets and…” he gestured vaguely, “bustles and nonsense. I don’t want her strung up. I want her in a loose and flowing gown.” He was warming to his topic now. “I want her in beautiful pinks and creams. I want a tea dress, or something unstructured, loose…”
At his mother’s look, he rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know it’s not the kind of thing that a woman wears in public, but it’s hardly immodest.”
His mother sighed. “If Leyland is paying the bill, he may have something to say about it.”
“I won’t show him,” he shrugged.
It sounded petulant, even to his own ears, and his mother laughed. “This is really important to you?”
“It is.” It hit him just how important it was. He wanted Frances to be loose and free. He wanted something that no-one else had, that no-one else saw of Frances Leyland. This would be his symphony. His version of her and he knew that she’d love it. Knew it in his bones.
***
“You want me wearingwhat?” Frances cried. They were alone in the parlour at the Leyland’s current Kensington house. She was sitting in a pool of sunlight, hair gleaming, but her cheeks were decidedly pink at Jemie’s suggestion.
He tried again to describe the garment that he wanted her to wear. A loose flowing tea dress shown from the back, and the stance he wanted her to take. He’d decided that he needed her standing, but looking back at him, over one shoulder.
His explanation did nothing to calm her.
“Frances, can you just trust me?”
The flicker of hurt in her eyes cut. “I thought I could, but it rather sounds like you are going to paint my husband like an upstanding citizen, a wealthy, successful man on the cusp of the biggest move of his life, and me like a… whore.”
Jemie was stunned at her interpretation. How the hell had this conversation gone so wrong? He was usually good at persuading people to do what he wanted.He was known for it in fact. Yet here he was blundering about like a clod.
“That’s not what I’m suggesting. Not at all,” he assured her but to his horror, her beautiful eyes filled with tears, although she fought to hold on to them, to not let them spill.
He dragged a clean handkerchief out of his pocket and moved to sit beside her, offering her the linen. She hesitated but took it and pleated it between her fingers as he searched frantically for the words he needed.
“Frances. I am extraordinarily fond of you. I would donothingthat would cause you distress. I hope you will give me another chance to explain what I want to do. How I want to portray you.” He was wracking his brains because the only damned explanations he could come up with would most likely send her running for the hills. Hell, the realisation almost senthimrunning.
“I’m waiting…” she sniffed.
He gathered both her hands in his and took a deep breath.
“I think that… I think…” He stared at her and hesitated. How could he explain himself without betraying his feelings? How?
“I think Frederick wanted the world to see him as an important man. As a man at the pinnacle of his career, as successful and in command of all he surveys. Including his wife and family.” He glanced at her. At least he had her attention.
“He’s a hard man to know. He lives entirely behind a facade.”
