Page 11 of My Fake Mistress
‘You know I cannot.’
Blythe placed her hand against her friend’s cheek. How she would miss her once she left. ‘Is dancing only for ballrooms? Is there nowhere in this ridiculously huge house where one could waltz?’
Yvette placed her hand over Blythe’s, then leaned in close. ‘And if you could ask, who would you dance with?’
Blythe made a show of scanning the dancefloor, determinedly avoiding Julian. ‘Rembrandt is not in attendance. Nor is Titian. No-one here fascinates me.’
Yvette patted her hand. ‘Liar,’ she said, then gathered her skirts and made for the other side of the room, to the wall flowers, and to Lady Lewellyn.
Blythe watched her friend for long enough to see her initiate a cautious conversation, then turned her attention back to the ballroom, no longer bothering to hide from herself that she sought Julian. In their almost identical uniform of black tails and white shirts she was unable to spot him amongst the other gents.
She fingered the embroidery of her second-hand dress. Yvette had helped her adjust it to a more modern cut, gathering the ample skirt into a bustle and lifting the train so that she felt at ease when she walked. She had bought it from a second-hand dress merchant in Haymarket and had spent long hours examining the patterns and scrutinising the stitching, all while imagining the hem sweeping the floor at Almacks, long since closed, or gracing the carpet at Queen Charlotte’s ball, or entertaining the Duke of Wellington.
A shame she’d have to sell it when she returned to London. But she really couldn’t afford to keep it, as even with a salary, she would have limited funds. And where would she wear a dress like it, away from here?
After the loss of her uncle, Blythe had become used to the realisation that her future would be one of work, so had applied for positions and done her best at private consignments, working diligently at the few opportunities she’d been given. And touching paint applied by masters, ensuring their legacy, had brought its own reward, although not one that filled her belly. Before now, she’d never really been quite so acutely aware that her work gave, but also took. Julian had loosened something in her, and her imminent departure felt less and less like opportunity, and more like sacrifice. Why could she not have affection, and her work? Why did she have to be so torn? She’d never much thought of children, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t want them in her life, as an auntie or a friend. She wanted her career, more than that, she needed it, like air. She’d as soon be able to sever an arm as to abandon that part of herself. But why was the price of that solitude? Why did she have to be sentenced to a life where she could love her work, or another person, but not both?
‘Miss Flintwood, would you like to dance?’
Yvette had warned her that she could not refuse an invitation, but as Blythe looked at the manicured hand before her, and followed the elongated arm, over the broad chest, across the perfectly presented face to find Julian’s sparkling blue eyes, she felt her stomach wilt, even as her heart lurched. She wanted to say no. And she wanted to say yes. He was wedged in her, a splinter in her psyche. She’d have to draw him out eventually, and in doing so, she’d bleed before she could start to heal.
But right now? She still had her beautiful dress. She still had her fake protector. She could dance in the illusion. Reality would rumble her stomach soon enough.
Julian swept her in a wide arc, before pulling her against his chest. His palm flexed against her waist, and she rested her gloved hand on his shoulder, like she’d practised with Yvette. Blythe knew how to dance—small gatherings at churches and halls dotted her few moments of leisure—but never had she waltzed like this. Her slippers, bought from the same second-hand merchant, were just a little too big, and one scuffed against the parquetry as Julian stepped forward, and she staggered back, pinching her toes to stop it from slipping off.
At the local dances, she felt deeply connected to the ground. Feet stomping, chords thrumming, the ground vibrating with movement and music. But in Julian’s arms, she floated. The strings didn’t do anything so intrusive as disturb the floor, and with her skirts billowing into the movement, they buoyed her.
Candles, lights, everything gleaming, Blythe savoured his insistent gaze, glorying in his focus, and while she wanted to look away, she forced herself to drink him in, like he was a masterpiece removed from storage and would soon be returned lest the light make him fade. Her shoe slipped again, and she muddled the next step. Julian braced her against his chest as she swayed. His hand snaked tighter, lifting her so that only the tips of her toes met the ground, like he might raise her from the floor and flip her through the motions like a rag doll.
‘Why are you dancing with me?’ she asked, pointing her toes to find the floor. ‘I am no good at this.’
‘You are my daughter’s friend. No one has asked you to dance all night. To leave you unattended would be to suggest I don’t value you. When I do.’
Duty? Obligation? Or control? His answer gave no resolution, and the jumble of contradictions in her swelled. She craved the press of his chest, but then, hated its smother. Her body keened for his, all of her tingling in remembrance of his exquisite touch, but then he twisted her into a glide with more force than needed. She tried to keep her slipper anchored, but it came off completely and skidded a few feet away, turning in a graceless half circle on the parquetry. He pressed on, oblivious.
‘Julian, stop it.’ She leant away to try and retrieve her shoe, but he caught her.
‘I’m just trying to help,’ he said, tugging her tighter.
‘I don’t need your help!’ Her anguish roared with suppressed ferocity, and she pulled back and shoved his chest. He staggered. Around them, the chatter of the ballroom lulled to a hush, and eyes turned on them. Her breath caught, its loss squeezing her lungs and forcing her voice to a whisper. ‘I’m better off alone.’
She could have run to her room, with its sumptuous four poster and feather down mattress and heavy blankets, and all the comfort she would never know again, but her feet refused to walk that path. Instead, she thundered up the stairs, over the crisp floral runners, then over the slightly more worn carpets, the impossibly shabby rug that led to the library, to the bare wooden stair that led to the landing before the attic door.
Inside, she scrabbled at her bodice, her fingers still ridiculously steady and sure as each button slipped free. She threw it to the floor. Spinning her skirt, she tugged at her waist, not caring at the buttons that bust and popped under thinning thread, and she tugged at the ties and bows of the goddamn bustle and petticoats and layer upon layer of expectation and pretension. She clutched and clawed to rip it all from her body, yearning for her rough spun skirt that had been made by her mother and the comfort of lost days.
She hadn’t ever wanted this; the attention, the dancing, the lust and longing. All she wanted was to care for struggling paintings, towork, but every day she had to teeter along a fine line between lewd looks and condescension.
Finally free of her dress, she flopped against one of the covered tables, exasperated.
Would Vermeer have treated her so?
Likely.
The door snipped close, and with her veins still pulsing with anger driven assertion, she looked up to find Julian standing just inside, his face lit by a candle that he sat on an old chair. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. This is all so unfamiliar, so…’ His chest still heaving, he dragged his hand through his hair, the silver threads slightly more luminescent in the moonlit room. ‘That was the most extraordinary undressing I have ever seen in my life.’
She pushed herself from the table, and he propelled himself from the door, their collision in the middle of the room abrupt and sparkling. He kissed her face, her neck, her decolletage. She drank his breath, sucked his fingertips and grasped a handful of hair. She thirsted after his recognition of all her parts, of the woman who caressed a palette swipe of oil paint and stroked a quivering muscle with the same hand, whose mind could appreciate the artists lusting and the gifted brush, the combination of brain, and body and heart and mortality that was every inch her being. Julian tipped her back with all the gentle grace of a dancer, but rather than sweep her from her feet, he dragged his flat palm down her neck, over her chest, before pressing firm over her breast, where her heart beat for him, for her dead artists and for the connoisseurs and art lovers of the future.
‘Show me,’ she gasped as he rubbed the rough cotton of her chemise between his fingers and with tense, steady agony, dragged his nails over her skin. ‘Everything. Show me everything.’
