Page 5 of My Fake Mistress
‘Can I explain,’ he called into the room. She spun around, shocked. ‘About that list. I didn’t mean for you to see it. I’d completely forgotten about it.’
Her surprise faded and was replaced with a teasing smile. ‘It’s quite a list,’ she said, before returning to the frames. ‘Still, I expected more licentiousness from gents on tours. I didn’t realise you only went to look at slightly lewd paintings.’
‘That was just me. It’s umm… it’s a bit of a story. And not one for today.’Or ever.
So quiet otherwise, here, as Blythe examined each forgotten piece, she moved like royalty. No, nothing so mortal. Like a goddess. Head tilted, her gaze penetrating, she surveyed with the intensity of a woman deciding who might live and who should die. This was her domain, her place in the world, and she knew it.
Her confidence made him giddy.
‘I suppose you sampled as many women as paintings. I have heard that is common for a young man on tour,’ she said.
‘It is, but not me. In truth, I’ve only known one woman. Yvette’s mother.’
He couldn’t tell if her wide eyed surprise was because he had revealed such an intimacy, or the intimacy itself. Her gaze trailed away from him, over the odd assortment of covered furniture, ranging over the gilt frames, and then the oils themselves.
‘They were hers,’ she said with a knowing whisper.
‘No.’ His voice rasped. ‘They were ours.’
It was a mundane collection, as far as these things went. They’d both been too measured in their interest to purchase anything as extravagant as a Rubens or a Rembrandt, even though they’d seen them at auctions. They instead purchased artworks they liked, or that fit with the décor of a room. A still life of flowers in a vase, or beautifully dressed couples dancing at a ball, even chubby angels on swings. Pieces that made them happy. And after Penelope had gone, he couldn’t even see the pictures when he looked at them. He only remembered the conversation about the purchase, or seeing it hang over his wife’s shoulder as they breakfasted together or read in the evening. And after months of torment, it had hurt too much, so he’d banished every piece they’d bought to the attic, in some vague hope to also banish his pain.
‘Do you want me to work on them?’ Blythe asked. ‘There’s no sin in saying no. People feel like they have to hold onto everything, but if everything ever made was kept, the world would run out of space for new things, new ideas. I won’t judge you if you want to leave them to crumble.’
Julian shook his head. He’d exposed his pain, and for once, he hadn’t felt judged. ‘Yvette wants them. She asks for so little. And I suppose as everything will one day be hers, I should make sure it’s cared for.’
‘Yvette’s? But surely everything will go to some cousin, some man who’s next in line?’
‘Moncrief is a very old title, by writ. A direct line is more important than a male. My grandmother inherited, as the eldest of three sisters. After I am gone, the title, estate, investments, will all go to Yvette. I’ve been called progressive for educating my daughter so differently, but really, I’m as traditional as the gargoyles carved into the walls. I’ve taught her what she needs because one day she’ll be baroness, in her own right. She plans to lobby parliament to allow women like her to take the family seat in Lords.’
‘She never said.’
‘She never does. Some know, of course, it’s not a guarded secret. But most assume otherwise, so she lets them. It keeps her safe from false friends and insincere courtships.’
Blythe gave a slow walk past the paintings, then gently dragged one out. She held the vertical lengths of the frame and raised it to just below face level. ‘I think I’ll start with this one. What do you think?’
She held a landscape of the house and grounds. The ancient stone building that had been renovated over centuries filled most of the frame, the structure surrounded by cascading green lawns and swaying willows. It was actually one he had commissioned before he married, and had stored it here not because of the memory, but because Penelope had redecorated their rooms, and it hadn’t matched. It held a hint of her, but a memory he could manage. He gave a silent nod, and with a broad smile, she moved toward one of the windows. He hadn’t noticed, but before he had arrived, she must have set up a small workstation. Yvette’s easel from her art studio stood waiting, and on a small table beside it sat an open wooden tool box filled with an assortment of brushes, sponges, and unevenly shaped glass containers and vials.
‘Aren’t you going to blow the dust off?’ he asked. He’d quite like to see her lips form a small, sensual O.
She gave an indignant huff. ‘And force the dust into small crevices? Moisten it with my saliva, and increase the damage? Perhaps you should watch. I won’t be able to teach you everything, but you can at least learn not to do anything stupid.’
After she placed it on the easel and sunk into the chair before it, she looked at the painting for a long time. Julian half sat on a table covered by a sheet. Occasionally she leant forward in inspection, or narrowed her eyes in focus, but mostly, she just looked. Then she filled a small, shallow dish with a liquid—it could have been water, or perhaps some special solution she had brought with her. Very gently, she began to dab at the painting with a sponge, occasionally dipping it back into the bowl, swirling and squeezing, before returning to her work.
Her movements were as light and delicate as a leaf on the wind, but fully controlled with exacting purpose and precision. Her focus never wavered from the canvas, and perhaps his never lifted from her, because when a stretch of sun caught his cufflink and cast a distracting shard of light, he realised how far the shadows in the room had changed. His back grumbling in slight protest, he stretched into his fists, then moved to stand behind her so he could see the painting better.
When she had shown it to him before, the film of dust had created a pall over the image, like a fog had hung over the grounds. That was also how he remembered it, remembered everything—through a haze of grey. Her steady work had swept away the detritus, as if the sun had broken through the clouds. It was not only the streaks of yellow and orange light that shone vivid, but also the nuances of greens in the leaves, and the small flecks of red that would have been the hint of blossoms. He had to force a breath, because his memory flashed with the same vividness as it conjoined with the joy and frivolity that he had felt when commissioning a painting in the latest, most looked down upon style of impressionism. He hadn’t cared for the philosophy, he just wanted a remembrance of his home. He scanned the grounds through the window, and as if they had also been hidden for more than a decade, he saw the same subtleties. The green variegations in the trees, the first hints of flowers in the gardens, and spring flitting over everything.
‘How did you learn this?’ What he really wanted to ask washow did you know, but he couldn’t articulate the collision of life and memory that now seemed awakened both on the canvas, and in his mind.
‘Do you mean, how did I come to learn this, or how did I come to learn this as a woman?’
‘You have me,’ he said, forcing a laugh and appreciating the chance to return to more familiar conversation. He leant into the window and balanced himself on the ledge. ‘I told you I was no progressive. But yes. I don’t think it’s a common profession for any woman.’
‘After my parents died, my uncle took me in. He didn’t have a wife, or family. Didn’t want them. But he and my father were very close, and he missed him terribly. I don’t think he meant to teach me, he just liked talking. I listened. As he aged, he needed help. So, I helped him.’
She squeezed the sponges free of liquid, then set them in a little patch of light.
‘What happened to your parents?’ he asked.
