Page 44 of Seductive Reprise
“Which one?” Ruth asked.
“Mullock. Tall, friendly.”
“Oh.Thatone. Of course he did,” Ruth murmured, seemingly uninterested. But then she looked up, waiting to hear if there was more.
“He came to my aid,” Rose said absentmindedly. “He called off some brutes that were pestering me.”
“Oh?” Ruth repeated, her eyelashes fluttering as she hastily returned to her stitching.
“He’s a bit chivalrous, isn’t he?” With her hand on the doorknob, Rose glanced back one more time.
Ruth sniffed. “I’m not sure I’d go so far as allthat.”
Even in the dark, Rose thought that perhaps Ruth’s porcelain complexion had tinted the slightest bit pink. With a small smile, she retired for the evening in a slightly better mood.
Chapter Fifteen
Rose found it easyto push past her thoughts of Joseph by day. But at night, she could barely close her eyes without wanting him alongside her, his hands on her.
The reason she was able to keep her focus off of Joseph during the days, though, was that the harsh grind of merely surviving commanded all of her attention. Coal, five shillings. A roll and cup of coffee from a stand, one penny. Paying Ruth to mend the tear in her green silk dress, a florin. The dress was far too fine for Rose to trust her own needle, and as she’d spent almost all of her earnings from the sale of the small window scene on it, she thought it wise to protect her investment with a superior seamstress, despite the dear cost.
As she walked the streets in the morning, she held her valise closer to her chest than usual, eyeing everyone who passed her with suspicion. It felt mean, and she hated it.
She drew in a breath and looked upward, squinting at the bright gray clouds. When she’d first come to London it had seemed a dream, a fantasy. Like she was reading a richly drawn account in a magazine of a young lady who, talented with apencil, was plucked from obscurity by a gracious benefactor. Exposed to all the beauty and pleasures the wider world had to offer, and God knows she’d indulged in every new experience.
Now she tightened her grip on her bag and frowned. To distrust her fellow citizens made her feel like a traitor.
But the account of that young lady wasn’t quite true, was it? Although shehadbeen sponsored by the Earl of Ipsley, he wasn’t some altruist scouring the countryside for the keenest eye and rawest talent.
He was her father. He was taking care of his own. Setting her up for a stable and lucrative future.Fancy that, she scoffed.
Rose halted at a busy crossing, waiting for a spectacular carriage with a team of six chestnuts to pass. The curtains were drawn and she could not see within, but the ornate herald painted on its side indicated the import of its titled occupants.
She remembered Joseph’s hand atop hers in his own carriage. But before she could ruminate upon the finer qualities of his face and his attentions, she was pushed aside by someone looking to cross through the gap in traffic, jostling her out of her daydream.
After a quick glance to make sure it was safe, she skipped after the other pedestrians, picking her way through the muck and avoiding the crossing-sweepers as they raced about the street, clearing up horse dung and nabbing discarded fags.
What was she becoming? Someone who gaped at disgusting displays of wealth and fantasized about an entitled, self-important aristocrat doing filthy things to her? She swallowed and tried to ignore the warmth, low in her middle, that came along with that thought.
Or was this who she’d always been? Was it in her blood? As she mounted the steps to the sketching society’s rented studio, she wondered if it could be true. If she’d always been an earl’s daughter in more than just blood, and whether all her successes were born of that tenuous proximity to power and wealth. If allher suffering and the acute penury of the last several months had been useless exercises, mere vain attempts to prove her own inherent worth and that she was truly the daughter of Louis Verdier, having earned every scrap of success she’d ever had, and not the Earl of Ipsley’s bastard.
She missed her father. Perhaps she should visit. Surprisingly, the thought didn’t fill her with guilt like it usually did.
With a deep breath, she opened the door.
The little dish was set out, with only a few coins tossed in to pay for the model. Good. She didn’t feel much like company just now. Rose bent over, added her contribution with a couple plinks, then stood up to look for a spot. Her stomach dropped.
Across the room, his tall, broad figure unmistakable even as it was obscured by his easel, was Silas.
Her mouth dried up in an instant, and her face heated. For a moment she wondered if it would be unseemly to retrieve her two bob from the dish, then turn tail and run. At that moment, though, Silas stepped out from behind his work, and his eyes widened.
She gave him a pained sort of expression and a half-hearted little wave. Silas, for his part, appeared flustered, and he retreated behind his easel once more. Rose wished the earth would open up and swallow her whole.
Even though the only other artists in attendance were Miss Sykes and Mr. Schramm, she felt all eyes upon her as she endured the excruciatingly long ordeal of selecting an easel and setting it up a good distance from Silas. Not so far as to be interpreted as a slight, but far enough that he could not view her without walking several steps away from his work.
Finally the heat burning her ears subsided, and she began to work, slowly escaping the misery of her thoughts as she began capturing the model’s gesture. The unbearable awareness of her former lover’s presence melted away, and enough time passedthat the model shifted into a third pose. It felt good to draw the hard line of a tibia, and the gentle slope of the calf muscle behind it. No shaggy fur and paws here. Just muscle, skin, and bone. She smiled, thinking of the portrait of Walter, and the final adjustments she needed to implement. After those were done she’d deliver it, and receive her fat purse of guineas in the end.
She was nearly there. And she’d done it on her own. Without anyone’s help.
