Chapter Twenty-Six

Twenty-Six

Within a week, the front reception room in the house at Maiden Lane was put in order. The floors were swept, the old furnishings hauled away, and the boards removed from the windows.

True to his word, Mr. Jones had found several sailors who were willing to work on the house. They were capable men from Mr. Jones’s own community. Lascars, most of them, either home on leave, or permanently set ashore because of age or infirmity. They spoke Bengali, with enough English mixed in to enable easy communication. For anything else, Teddy applied to Ahmad or Mr. Jones to translate, or to his new housekeeper, Mrs. Mukherjee.

Mr. Jones had brought Mrs. Mukherjee to Maiden Lane for an interview the morning after the Finchleys’ dinner. A stout sailor’s widow of late middle age, she had been struggling to make ends meet and was keen to take up regular employment. After consulting with Stella, Teddy had hired the woman to start immediately.

While Mrs. Mukherjee and the sailors righted the house, Teddy took himself off to Oxford Street to purchase what he’d need for Stella’s portrait from Winfield and Sons—one of the many artists’ colormen in the city.

Colormen provided all manner of services for painters, from stretching and priming canvases to selling easels, pigments, and paints. At Winfield and Sons, Teddy bespoke a canvas that was fifty inches in height and forty inches wide. He then went to the shop of another colorman in Regent Street where he bought a selection of new hog-hair and sable brushes, and extra tubes of oil paint in French ultramarine, viridian green, cadmium yellow, lead white, and cobalt blue.

Like Whistler, Teddy intended to work with a limited palette. However, unlike The Woman in White , Teddy’s portrait of Stella would be rich with color. Saturated with blues, greens, and yellows, used in various strengths, fading into each other in seamless harmony, rather than stark contrast.

On returning to Maiden Lane, Teddy spent the next several days—with the help of Jennings and Mrs. Mukherjee—laying out drop cloths, setting up his easel, and preparing his canvas. All was in readiness when the day at last arrived for Stella’s first formal sitting.

Teddy was just mixing colors on his palette when he heard Mrs. Mukherjee greet Stella in the hall. There was a brief exchange—Mrs. Mukherjee offering to take Stella’s bonnet and gloves, and Stella inquiring about how Mrs. Mukherjee was finding her work—before Stella was at last shown into Teddy’s studio.

The preliminary sketches he’d made of her in Devon lay all about the room, along with new sketches he’d made during the last week—heavily shaded images of her staring into the distance, her eyes grave and her figure quietly seductive.

It was the first thing Stella looked at when she entered.

“When did you draw these?” she asked, walking toward them.

She was wearing the same dress she’d worn on the first day he’d sketched her in Hampshire—a deep blue silk trimmed in delicate black cording. The very dress that had begun to stir feelings in him that weren’t entirely artistic. Her hair was neatly arranged in a plaited roll at her nape.

“Some of them in Devon,” Teddy said. “The rest over the last week.” He set down his palette. His coat had already been discarded and his sleeves rolled up. Streaks of green and blue oil paint stained his hands and fingers. “Did Mrs. Blunt come with you?”

Stella picked up one of the sketches to examine it. “She’s busy at the hotel, overseeing the packing.”

The Blunts were departing for Yorkshire tomorrow. In their absence, Stella would be removing to Ahmad and Evelyn’s house. Her mare was already there, lodged in the Maliks’ stable, along with Crab, the horse belonging to Stella’s groom.

“If she didn’t accompany you—” Teddy began.

“I took a cab,” Stella said.

He frowned at her. “Alone?”

“Of course, alone.”

His frown deepened to a scowl. They had been engaged fewer than two weeks, and already he didn’t like the idea of her venturing out unaccompanied. A ridiculous masculine reaction. It was directly at odds with Teddy’s principles. He’d never been one of those witless, overbearing men who thought women should be safeguarded and surveilled like pieces of valuable property rather than rational individuals.

Nevertheless…

She glanced up at him. “I can see what you’re thinking,” she said, setting down the sketch. “But I’m not a young lady having a season anymore. And I’m no longer the sister of a clergyman. I’m soon to be an artist’s wife. The rules are different for us, I believe.”

Teddy refrained from pointing out that she was still the sister of a clergyman. “You’re not an artist’s wife yet,” he reminded her instead.

“I very nearly am. We’ve had an engagement dinner, I’ve met your family, and Mr. Finchley has only yesterday finished drafting the documents protecting my inheritance and my ownership of Locket.”

In case things fell apart between them, she might have added.

But she didn’t.

“The terms are very probably not enforceable, Mr. Finchley said,” she went on. “Not by traditional legal means. But he’s assured me that won’t be an impediment with him as my solicitor.”

Teddy imagined not. Tom had never yet met a legal objective he couldn’t attain for one of his clients. It’s what made him so dangerous. Teddy was glad Stella had him on her side, whatever the future might hold.

She crossed to his canvas, registering its size for the first time. “Goodness. Is all this for me?”

Teddy rolled his chair to join her. The wooden wheels caught briefly on a fold in the drop cloth. His biceps contracted as he forced his chair over it. “And for the sea. It’s not a small piece by any means.”

“How will you reach it all?”

“Different sized easels,” he answered. On its own, the canvas was just an inch or two shorter than he was when seated in his chair. It would have to be raised higher at times, depending on which section he worked on.

“Do you already know exactly how you’re going to paint it?” she asked.

“Not exactly, no.” The vision wasn’t set in stone. Far from it. It hovered ahead of him, just out of reach. A luminous, starry vapor, shifting and swirling, at times settling into the form of a woman. Of Stella.

He rubbed the side of his jaw, gazing at the blank canvas along with her. It had already been primed and prepared with a light background. He’d learned the technique from Gleyre in Paris, working alongside one of the atelier’s French students, Mr. Monet, who was of a similar age to Teddy. A light background was better at reflecting the light than a dark one.

“Pity I couldn’t have taken you to Devon with me,” he said. “The cliffs overlooking the sea would have been perfect.”

“Will that be an impediment? Beginning indoors as we are?”

“Not an insurmountable one. I’ve painted that sea so many times. It’s already here.” He tapped his temple. “And here.” He touched his chest. “Echoes of all the work I’ve done. I can conjure them whenever I like.”

Her skirts brushed his leg as she drifted closer. He heard it, rather than felt it. That didn’t stop his heart from losing its rhythm. Sometimes sound could be a physical sensation. Especially when it was the sound of her—her clothes, her voice, her breath.

“Am I there, too?” she asked softly. “In your heart and in your head?”

He met her eyes. There was the barest hint of uncertainty in her face. He recognized that look—that fear. It was the same fear he had about painting her. That vague but persistent feeling that, despite their engagement, despite the promises they’d made to each other, it might all slip away before he could truly grasp it.

Perhaps he’d continue to feel it until they were married. Until that moment when she was actually his.

“You’re in both of those places,” he said. “You have been since I first set eyes on you. But…” His brow creased. “I can’t capture you in the same way as I can the sea. For that I need more than an echo. I need you here—in front of me.”

She gestured to herself, half smiling. “I’m here, as you see.”

“So you are,” he said. The warmth of her nearness gave way to the overpowering urge to commit her to canvas. “Would you mind locking the door?”

Stella did as he asked her.

It was frankly a miracle that the door had a lock. It hadn’t to begin with. Teddy had made a point of having the workmen install one first thing.

She returned, cheeks slightly pinker than they’d been before. “Should I stand, or—”

“Not yet,” he said. “First…I need you to take down your hair.”

An unreadable emotion flashed in her eyes. It may have been anxiety.

Or possibly excitement.

Whatever it was, it didn’t prevent her from complying. She reached back to remove her hairpins. There appeared to be a great many of them.

“Mrs. Blunt lent me the services of her maid this morning,” she said apologetically. “I fear the girl was a bit overzealous.”

Teddy motioned to the window seat. The glass behind it was newly draped with sheer curtains, just thick enough to give them privacy without obscuring the light. “If I may?”

Stella bit the edge of her lower lip. After a moment’s hesitation, she crossed to the window and sank down, her silk skirts billowing around her legs.

Teddy rolled his chair up next to her. She gave him her back, bending her head so he could help her. When seated, he was taller than she was. It subtly changed the dynamic between them. Made it that much more apparent that he was a man and she was a woman. His woman.

There was no other reason he’d be unpinning her hair. It was an intimate task. One that held a distinctly domestic connotation. That didn’t stop his blood from heating and his chest from tightening with emotion.

He removed the first deeply anchored pin with a matter-of-fact efficiency that was only surface deep. He’d felt her hair before, touching it briefly as he’d kissed her.

But not like this.

As he loosened her coiffure, unraveling its rolls and plaits, the heavy strands sprang free, thick and lustrous, under his fingers. Her hair may have been gray, but it wasn’t coarse. It wasn’t brittle. It was as soft and glossy as spun silk.

His heart was hammering so, it took an effort to continue. By the time he’d finished, he could scarcely remember his own name.

Stella glanced back at him. “You have an excellent touch,” she said. “Strong but sensitive. Mrs. Blunt’s maid wasn’t half so good.”

“High praise.” Teddy’s voice had deepened to a rasp. “It’s beautiful, you know.”

“I would thank you for the compliment, but I have the distinct impression that you’re biased when it comes to my hair.”

“It’s not bias. It’s an empirical truth.” He tipped his head to hers. His nose brushed the curve of her ear. “I could paint you a thousand times and still never manage to do you justice.”

She inhaled an unsteady breath. “I’ve never heard you concede defeat before. Certainly not before you’ve begun.”

“Even I know my limits.”

“Limitations? You? What a strange conceit.” She leaned into him as he nuzzled her cheek. He felt her smile again. “Apparently, I’ve come to the wrong house. This is Maiden Lane, isn’t it?”

“The very place,” he assured her. “Soon to be your permanent home.”

If the repairs could be completed in a timely manner. If the house could be made fit for a lady, and the stable made comfortable for her beloved mare. A month, at most. If Stella hadn’t changed her mind by then.

So many ifs. It served no purpose to dwell on them.

With an effort, Teddy drew back from her. It was either that or kiss her, and that wasn’t why she’d come today. He returned to his canvas, resolved to focus on the task at hand.

“You’ll be standing for this one,” he said. “It won’t be easy, holding the pose, but I shall give you rests as often as you require them.”

Stella stood from the window seat. Her hair fell in loose waves down her back, reaching nearly to her waist. She no longer looked a proper, starchy young lady. She looked like a goddess inexplicably garbed in modern clothes.

Teddy could only imagine how she’d look when she was draped in glittering, diaphanous net.

She crossed to the opposite side of the room, instinctively finding the best light. “Where would you like me? Here?”

He rolled back, partially behind his canvas, so he could get a better view of the wall where she stood. The paint was chipped and peeling. There had been no time to repair it. But the backdrop didn’t matter. It was the light, just as she’d intuited—the way it streamed from the newly curtained window to filter over the cracked moldings and the slatted floor.

“Just there,” he said. “Three-quarter profile, facing the door. And if— Forgive me. If, ah, you wouldn’t mind loosening your bodice?”

Her lashes lowered, veiling the expression in her eyes as she obediently unfastened the black cord buttons that closed the high neck of her dress. She opened her bodice slowly, inch by inch, first revealing the delicate hollow of her throat and then the elegant bones of her clavicle. Her corset cover was just visible—a delicate glimpse of lace-trimmed cambric—when she stopped.

“Is this enough?” she asked.

“That will do,” Teddy said gruffly. He moved behind his canvas. His palette awaited him, his paints already mixed and ready.

“What now?” Stella asked.

Teddy picked up his brush. “Now the work begins.”