Page 17 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“And won’t you take yours off, too?” he asked.
Rosalind did so, staring into the stranger’s eyes as he smiled at her.
“There, now, we’re no longer strangers,” he said, and drawing her towards him, he leaned down and kissed her.
Rosalind did not feel surprised. She had desired it, and now she pulled him closer into her embrace, their lips pressed together, her back arched as she gave in to the very same pleasure she had seen depicted in the paintings. As their lips parted, she desired more, clinging to him, even as his image began to fade.
“Where are you going?” she asked, for it was as though the colors in his face, on his outfit, on everything, were fading.
“We’re strangers,” he whispered, and now he disappeared from sight, leaving Rosalind standing alone, clutching at nothing but the empty space in front of her.
“Oh…but won’t you come back?” she asked.
With a start, she opened her eyes, sitting up in bed and looking around her in confusion. Light was coming through a crack in the curtains, and pulling back the blankets, Rosalind sat on the edge of the bed, still caught up in the memory of the vivid dream she had just experienced. A knock now came at the door.
“Good morning, my Lady,” Molly’s voice came from outside, and the door was opened by the maid, who came bearing a tray of morning tea.
“Good morning, Molly,” Rosalind sitting, struggling to compose herself, as she thought back to the dreamed kiss she had shared with the stranger.
But the events of the dream had mirrored the occasion of the masquerade. They had met amid the paintings, dancing, before revealing their faces. The kiss had been imagined, but the identity of the stranger had remained a mystery. Who was he? And why was Rosalind now so consumed by thoughts of him?
“Can I help you dress, my Lady? Will you go down for breakfast?” Molly asked, but Rosalind shook her head.
She had a different idea and taking the cup of tea the maid had brought her; she took a sip, knowing what she was now going to do.
“No, I want to paint. I was inspired by the masquerade,” Rosalind replied.
The evening before, she had told Molly about the stranger, though she had avoided the specific details of the nude paintings. Molly was no prude, but even she would not necessarily approve of such blatant displays of nudity and passion, most people would not.
“By the man you met, my Lady? And you still have no idea who he might be?” Molly asked, busying herself now with folding Rosalind’s clothes.
“I don’t know who he could be, Molly. An aristocrat, I suppose, but I don’t know anything more than that. I didn’t catch his name, and now he’s swallowed up in the metropolis. I’ll never see him again,” Rosalind said, lamenting the thought, even as she knew there was little she could do about it.
Enquiries could be made, but Rosalind knew her parents would stand in the way, and without a loyal brother or a sympathetic older sister, Rosalind was at a loss to know who could make such enquiries on her behalf.
“But you’d like to know, my Lady?” Molly replied.
Rosalind nodded. She would like to know. She could picture the stranger’s face vividly, the removing of his mask, the smile on his handsome features. The thought of his touch sent a shiver running through her, as again she imagined his lips pressed against hers in the passion of a kiss.
“I would, yes. I suppose I could ask Elizabeth to make some enquiries. Oh, it’s hopeless. My parents won’t allow it, and the Duke of Northridge…well, he wouldn’t, either,” Rosalind said, shaking her head, as Molly looked at her sympathetically.
“You don’t have to marry him, my Lady. Didn’t he realize your lack of interest last night? If you didn’t dance with him, it means you didn’t want to, and that surely means you don’t want to marry him, either,” Molly said.
Rosalind wished it was that simple. But a man like the Duke of Northridge was the sort of man who did not take no for an answer. He believed she was already his own, to do with as he wished, and was behaving accordingly.
Her parents, too, supported this idea, and it would take a miracle for them to change their mind. But Rosalind’s own mind was made up, and she felt determined to stand up for herself, even as the possibility of another encounter with the stranger seemed remote.
“I don’t want to marry him, no, and I won’t,” Rosalind replied.
After Molly had helped her dress, and having sent the maid downstairs with an excuse why she would not be at breakfast, Rosalind took out the painting of Ariadne and Dionysus from beneath her bed. Ariadne’s eyes were now finished, and Rosalind was satisfied as to the depiction, but Dionysus was still not finished.
She had modeled the figure on another painting by a renaissance master, taking her inspiration from a book in her father’s library. But now, with her thoughts turned to the stranger, Rosalind decided to make a change.
“I’ll paint him as the man I danced with at the ball,” she said to herself, knowing she did not need a model, for the image in her mind was so vivid.
Taking her paints and a fine scraper, Rosalind set about removing the face she had already painted, while Ariadne looked on in silent contemplation. Rosalind wanted to capture the moment her eyes had met those of the stranger, and as she painted in the features of Dionysus, it was as though she was looking straight into the man’s eyes.
“His forehead was a little higher, wasn’t it? And the eyes closer together, but not too close. And green, piercing green. He really looked at me,” she said to herself, looking down at her palette and trying to match the exact color of the stranger’s eyes.
