Page 8 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“Well, I hope to see you at the masquerade,” the duke said, as he wished them goodnight.
Rosalind’s mother gave her an angry glance, but Rosalind merely smiled and nodded.
“I’m sure, if fate decides,” she said, leaving the matter hanging.
But when the duke had left, her mother turned on her angrily.
“Rosalind, what were you thinking? He wants to dance with you. Why do you think he came to dinner tonight, if not to get to know you? And now he’s leaving believing you’ve got no interest in dancing with him, or any interest in him at all,” she exclaimed.
This had been Rosalind’s intention the whole time, and she felt somewhat pleased with herself for having dissuaded the duke without resorting to rudeness or poor behavior.
“I didn’t say that. I only explained what happens at a masquerade. One doesn’t take one’s mask off. I’ve seen it plenty of times before,” she said, recalling the masquerades she had attended before her coming out.
Her mother looked at her angrily.
“That’s not what I mean. If you’d wanted to, you could’ve made an effort. He’s the Duke of Northridge, he’s rich, he’s the perfect match for you, Rosalind,” her mother said, shaking her head.
Rosalind’s father, too, looked at her angrily. But Rosalind was unperturbed. She was not about to marry a man based solely on the preference of her parents, nor was she willing to lie as to her feelings towards the duke.
“But I don’t think he is. It’s your opinion, mother. Not mine. I’m going to bed. If I happen to dance with him at the masquerade, so be it. If not, well that’s all very well and good,” she replied.
The duchess threw her hands up in the air in exasperation, and the duke cursed Rosalind under his breath. But her mind was made up, and calling out a goodnight, she made her way upstairs, smiling to herself at having achieved a minor victory, even as she knew the greater battles were still to come.
Chapter 4
“Another stroke, another brush, another line,” Sebastian said out loud, drawing the brush across the canvas with a flourish.
He stood back breathlessly, examining his handiwork and smiling. The painting before him was unconventional. There was no real form to it. It was merely a series of brush strokes and vivid colors he had just applied standing out against a dark backdrop. This was Sebastian’s escape. A remedy for the illness he believed was even now coursing through veins, the madness of his father and grandfather.
“A portrait of the mind,” he said, taking the canvas from the easel and hanging it on a hook he had banged into the wall.
It hung among a dozen others, each of them born of the same frantic brushstrokes and vivid colors. Sebastian believed the paintings were an insight into his mind, and that by examining them, he might see something of a pattern or explanation as to what was happening inside his head.
“The strokes are the same here and here, and these colors, too. Red… but why red? The color of passion? Of fear? Of anger? Am I angry? And then these shades of blue, lighter and becoming less pronounced. Perhaps a sign of hope? Yes, blue,” he said, still speaking out loud to himself, even as he stood in an empty room at the top of the house.
This was his studio, a refuge from the outside world. He kept the door firmly locked, whether he was present or absent, and no one, not even John, was permitted into this hallowed sanctum. It was here, on the canvases, Sebastian believed he was best represented.
He painted with his eyes closed, and in doing so, he gave vent to the passions welling up inside him. It had been one of the many doctors he had consulted who had made the suggestion of painting his thoughts, but his mother, too, had encouraged him in his artistic endeavors.
“Painting helps us express our feelings, Seb,” she had often told him.
She was the only person who had ever called him “Seb” and when he painted, Sebastian would picture his mother at her easel in the drawing room, or, on sunny days, out on the lawn. She was an accomplished painter, and several of her pictures and portraits lined the walls.
Sebastian’s stepmother had gotten rid of many of those in other parts of the house, but Sebastian had made sure they were preserved, hiding them in the attics in readiness for the day he could hang them proudly once again.
“And I will hang them again,” he said, glancing at a self-portrait of his mother, her smiling face looking down at him, and bringing a tear to his eyes.
He missed her terribly and would often sit in front of the self-portrait and talk to her, sharing his fears and secrets, and imagining her responses.
“She won’t get away with it. I know what she’s like. I know what she wants. I could send her away. But oh, she’s like a snake in the grass,” Sebastian said, shaking his head at the thought of his stepmother.
She had caught the attention of Sebastian’s father soon after the death of Sebastian’s mother, and it had not been long before the earl had married her. Sebastian had been old enough to take care of his own affairs, and Victoria had never represented for him the archetype of a wicked stepmother.
Nonetheless, she was a woman he had never trusted, and though they remained on civil terms, with Victoria even managing to be sympathetic at times, Sebastian could not help but feel she often had ulterior motives.
“Though I suppose I’m going mad, aren’t I?” he said, pulling at his hair in frustration. He spun around to look up at the paintings of his thoughts with streaks of vivid color, black backgrounds, and the contrast between light and shade.
With a sigh, he sat down in the middle of the room, cross-legged, before lying on his back and gazing up at the ceiling. It was impossible to know what madness felt like. There was no comparison or contrast. He could not ask his father or grandfather what it had been like for them. It was too late for that, and as for asking anyone else…
