Page 37 of The Velvet Hours
“Exactly.”
His eyes came alive again.
“Bellissimo.” She knew he was Italian, but to hear him suddenly switch into that language instantly delighted her.
“I fell in love there. So I took the name.”
“And your real name?”
She hesitated. “Beaugiron.”
He made a face. “Yes, you were right,carissima. De Florian is much better.”
“I thought Venice was the most magical place. The water. The light. The palazzos with those beautiful colors... I felt as though Ireached the end of the world, where there was only beauty... and the impulse to make love.”
He laughed and placed his sketchbook down.
“You always speak of colors. I’m thinking I should give you your own set of paints.”
She smiled, her skin warming beneath her dress, its yards of organza and chiffon now felt too tightly wrapped around her. She wished she could instead be free of her corset and in her robe de chambre, reclining on one of Boldini’s divans.
She arched her back slightly to relieve a cramp. “It’s not easy to hold a pose for so long... I would rather be like you, moving about and clasping a stick of charcoal in my hand.”
“I think you’d find that it’s too dusty,” he laughed. “It’s easier to imagine you with a palette.”
“I would like that... to mix paints, create colors,” she mused. But I’d also like to go back to Venice...” She closed her eyes and spoke as if dreaming aloud. “To walk down the serpentine streets, and gaze at the palazzos with their tall windows and pastel facades...”
She could still hear his charcoal against the paper. “To lift my head in those dark churches and see the splendor painted above.”
“Your heart beats like an Italian.” He looked up from the pad and smiled from beneath his mustache. “Perhaps one day we will make a trip there together, and I can show you my beloved Ferrara.”
Her mind leapt. Charles had never mentioned another trip again after Venice. It had been the grand seduction, the place where they first tested out their arrangement. Even if the artist wasn’t serious, the suggestion of making a journey excited her. “Ferrara?” she cooed. “Is it close to Venice?”
“Not too far. A simple enough trip to make.” He pulled slightly at his mustache, his eyes still firmly planted on her. “Less than a day’s journey.”
“And do you go back often?”
“Not often at all. Rarely, as a matter of fact. Italy’s a place of the past for me. Just like you did on your trip to Venice, I’ve reinvented myself here in Paris.” He motioned to her that she no longer needed to keep the pose.
Marthe, relieved to no longer be forced to remain in one position, softened immediately against the velvet upholstery of the settee.
“When I left Ferrara, I felt... How should I say? Free...”
The artist reached for a pipe and struck a match. Marthe detected the scent of oak leaves as she breathed it in—a far earthier fragrance compared to the Oriental flavor of the one Charles preferred. There was something intoxicating about the perfume as it laced the air. She closed her eyes and savored Boldini’s words.
“For the first time in my life, I felt liberated from my father’s shadow. I was no longer the son of Antonio Boldini, the great religious painter of angels and saints.”
He puffed a few more clouds of smoke in her direction. “Perhaps I wasun piccolo diavolo, a little devil,” he laughed. “I preferred to paint a beautiful, real woman over God.
“That isn’t to say I wasn’t grateful for all the training my father gave me... In some ways, those early lessons on painting the human form made me years ahead of my fellow students at the academy. And my fondest childhood memories are those I spent in his studio. The smell of turpentine and sawdust. Unfinished canvases leaning against the walls...”
“A little like here?” She took a light finger and playfully stroked her pearls.
“It was more cluttered. More rustic... Imagine wooden crossbeams exposed like an old barn...” Boldini pointed to the ceiling. “And imagine ten times more canvases in a far smaller space. One thing I learned early on was to be a better businessman, though. It pained my father to ask for money, no doubt because he dealt with the church. I make a point to get most of my money up front.”
“So my Charles has paid you handsomely already,” she laughed.
“Indeed,” he said.
