Page 6 of Things We Do for Love and Science
“Perhaps you should pick it up again, if you have the opportunity, I mean.” What on earth was she trying to do? An amateurish attempt at grief counselling?
But she couldn’t extract herself from this situation. Something kept her pinned to her seat. He was like a polar bear on an ice floe, and she couldn’t watch him drift off without at least a feeble attempt at tethering him.
“I was planning... I mean, I have a suitable canvas lying around. I generally paint portraits.”
He’d never ask her, but if she wanted to help him, she’d have to be his model.Should’ve let him drift away on his ice floe.
If she was being honest, what she was about to offer wasn’t exactly altruism in its purest form. She needed to stay on his good side in case John forced her to get more DNA samples from some long dead earl or countess. Professor Winter had the ear of the dean and thus held her career in the palm of his hand.
“I’ll pose for you. But not in the nude.”
“Jeez, Delia, I mean, I would never.” Both broke into laughter. “Are you sure? For a full figure portrait I’d need five or maybe six sessions? The rest of the time I’d work from reference photographs.”
“Yes, I’m sure.” She whipped out her phone and opened the calendar app. “When will we start?”
“When would suit?” The corners of his mouth quirked up.
She scrolled through the week. “I have a few hours Thursday afternoon.”
“Perfect. You’re absolutely sure?” Faint lines appeared on his forehead.
“Yes. On the one condition that we keep this a secret between us.” She leaned forward. “If so much as a whisper of this arrangement reaches the crowd I work with, I’ll have to deal with stupid teasing and endless innuendoes until another victim’s found. And that could take a while.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I’m unlikely to meet any of your colleagues, but I won’t tell a soul, I promise.” He placed a hand over his heart with mock-solemnity.
“Good. See you on Thursday then.”
~ * ~
Gabriel stared at thedoorway Delia had stepped through and shook his head. Delia the geneticist. How would he paint her? He knew nothing about her other than that she’d be a wonderful model.
An oval face framed by soft waves of dark red hair, a lithe figure with perfect, almost stern, posture, and clear green eyes arresting in their intensity.
The situation was a little surreal, but it filled him with a soft sort of joy. It’d be good to have pleasant company while doing what he loved. But was he asking for too much? A full-figure painting would take a few sessions, but he’d warned her, and well, she’d volunteered, hadn’t she?
He’d better have a thorough plan for the painting before they got started; maybe even do a few composition sketches. His skills were bound to be rusty. He envisioned a full-length portrait to showcase her elegant posture.
Where had he put that large canvas again? The one he’d planned to use for a portrait of Vanessa before she’d broken off their engagement. The storeroom behind the blue room? That was where it was. He kept his gaze on the carpet and slouched off in search of the stretched canvas.
What would he ask Delia to wear? He wanted it to be something special, feminine, eye catching. She seemed to be the practical jeans-and-T-shirt sort of woman, and he doubted her wardrobe contained anything that could be described as festive.
Would she fit into one of the dresses from the collection? He veered off his path, propelled forward by this new idea. The collection would have to be sold, of course, among a great many other things, but before he sent them off to the auction house, he could ask Delia to wear one of the ballgowns for the portrait.
He'd reached the spare bedroom that housed the Renwood dress collection, carefully tended and added to by each countess since the late 1800s. The newer gowns hung in the built-in wardrobe, all sheathed in garment bags. It’d have to be one of them since he couldn’t ask Delia to squeeze herself into some ancient whale-boned corset.
Stretching the length of the room, the open wardrobe revealed dress upon glamorous dress. He focused on the floor-length gowns. Pushing the clothes hangers apart, he opened each garment bag, appraising, evaluating.
The choice was easy. Only one dress fit the bill—burgundy silk shot with threads of forest green. A sumptuous ballgown from the late 1950s that his grandmother had christened ‘the pomegranate dress.’
He eased it out of its protective cloth covering and spread it on the bed. Glorious. The perfect color for Delia too. It had some sort of integrated bra, and he hoped it would be comfortable enough to wear. Tomorrow, he’d drop it at the dry cleaners.
He turned on his heel, trudged to his office, then slumped into one of the leather armchairs. There were still two days to get through before Delia would pose for him and plenty of unpleasant tasks to fill his time with. The family finances were in a more desolate state than his father had let on. He’d probably imagined he’d be able to rectify things before Gabriel took over.
Liam and his wife Mary were great emotional support, but they couldn’t help Gabriel find solutions for what was shaping up to be a financial disaster. No matter what, he’d always come up with enough money for their wages; his job as accountant made sure of that.
But would he be able to hold onto Renwood Hall or would it crumble around his ears while he was incapable of doing anything to stop it?
He should give everything to the National Trust—Renwood Hall, the park, the gatehouse, the chapel and the stables. It’d be a relief and a horrible loss at the same time. Severing the last thread that connected him to his family would set him free but also launch him, untethered, into the void.
