The Golden Madonna (10 page)

'I don't know,' Sally admitted huskily, resisting the almost overwhelming urge to respond to that caressing hand.

'You do not know?' There was a gentle mockery in his voice and she would have answered it, but at that moment she noticed the unfinished portrait that was propped on the easel, and something familiar about it caught her eye irresistibly.

Although the painting itself was half covered with a cloth thrown over it, the uncovered part revealed enough of the subject for it to be recognisable. Dark, haughty features, one compelling dark eye, the autocratic angle of the head—they were all unmistakable. Even though only half the face was visible, Sally knew without doubt that the last occupant of that empty model's chair had been Ines Valdaquez, and she felt suddenly and quite inexplicably guilty.

It was as if the Spanish girl was there with them in the studio, her dark gaze watching them and passionately disapproving of Sally's near surrender to the persuasion of that sensuous hand at her throat. So well had the artist captured the character, as well as the features of the young widow, that Sally wondered if his sitter would appreciate the all too revealing truth of it. As much of the painting as she could see was brilliantly executed, but perhaps almost cruel in its depth of perception, and it disturbed her intensely.

She shook back her hair and dislodged the hand from her neck, moving away from him and nearer to the easel, standing for a moment before the painted gaze of Ines Valdaquez. Then she reached out a hand and would have drawn back the cover still further, except that a much stronger hand than her own clamped hard on her wrist and pulled her back, at the same time pulling the covering to completely conceal the painting.

'Can't I see it?' she asked, suffering the grip for the moment, without protest.

'No, you may not.' He spoke firmly, in a voice that discouraged argument. 'It is not yet finished.'

'It's very good.' she said, to let him know that she had recognised the sitter, despite his efforts.

For a moment the fingers on her wrist squeezed tight enough to make her protest, then he released her, one brow raised, the black eyes glittering down at her with covert amusement. 'I am flattered that you approve,' he told her. 'But can you comment so authoritatively with no more than a glimpse of one eye?'

Sally shrugged uneasily. Many artists preferred not to let their work be seen until it was completed, but it crossed her mind suddenly that perhaps there was some other reason behind his reluctance. Maybe she had inadvertently intruded upon something more personal than she at first realised.

It was possible that the portrait was more a labour of love than a professional commission. Perhaps he did not spend all the time working when his glamorous cousin sat for him in this warm, white room full of light. It was possible that here Ines Valdaquez was treated with less polite coolness, and in a fashion more satisfying to the passionate emotions that showed so often in her eyes. It was a possibility that Sally regarded with a sudden sense of revulsion when she recalled her own position only a moment since.

'I'm sorry!' She felt a desperate urge to escape suddenly, and turned ready to flee, but before she could take even one step towards the door, a hand reached out and stayed her, the fingers digging into the flesh of her arm and drawing her back.

'Sarita! Where are you going?'

'I—I don't know.' She stood there in the middle of the big, bright room with him, her eyes carefully avoiding the steady black gaze that watched her, until she could stand it no longer, and looked up at him. 'I didn't mean to pry,' she said, in a soft, unsteady voice, then hastily looked away when a brief smile dismissed the idea.

'You were not prying,' he told her. 'It is merely natural curiosity to want to see the picture, but I do not allow anyone to see my work until it is completed to my satisfaction.'

'Not even Senora Valdaquez?'

She could not imagine what on earth had made her ask him that, and for a moment she saw his mouth tighten ominously, but then he smiled, in a way that confirmed his opinion that her curiosity was natural, though possibly childish.

'Not even Senora Valdaquez,' he agreed quietly. 'Why should you think otherwise?'

'I don't know,' Sally confessed. 'I just thought——'

A long finger ran lightly down her throat to where the low neck of her dress began. 'You think too much,
pichon,'
he told her softly, and after a second or two, indicated a tall wooden stool that stood on the far side of the room against one wall. 'Now please, will you sit down for a moment? When Ihave set up a new canvas we can begin.'

Sally glanced out at the bright golden evening sun, and frowned. 'Isn't it rather late for trying to paint?' she asked, and he looked down at her sternly, one brow making comment on her remark.

'Do you allow me to know what I am doing, Sarita?' he asked quietly. 'Or do you still presume to tell me how to follow my profession?'

'No, no, of course not,' Sally denied, a flush colouring her cheeks. 'I just-'

'Please—sit down on the stool,
si}'
Sally walked across obediently and perched herself on the high stool as she had been told, sitting rather primly upright and with her heels hooked on the bar of the stool because she could not reach the floor. Her mind was a strange and disturbing tangle of emotions as she watched him, but what troubled her most was the quickening and irrepressible sense of excitement that fluttered around in the region of her heart and made her feel almost light-headed.

She sat quite still while he moved the partly finished picture of Ines Valdaquez from the easel and stood it carefully against the far wall, then replaced it with a blank canvas. He said nothing while he was so occupied and Sally was left to study every small intimate detail of him with an awareness that seemed to glow warmly in her from head to toe.

Those long, strong-looking hands that she knew could be so gentle, or so ruthlessly hard, were competent and sure as he handled the tools of his profession. The way he held his head, with an almost unconscious arrogance. Even when he was relaxed that arrogance was there, part of the magnetism, like the almost animal-like grace with which he moved. The tall, lean body with its long legs, giving the impression of power for all its grace.

There was a fascination in just watching him that had an evocative, stimulating effect on her senses so that, without realising it, she smiled and leaned back against the wall behind her with her heavy lashes lowered to half conceal the expression in her eyes.

It was several minutes before he finished what he was doing and turned swiftly to look across at her, catching that dreamy, sensuous look in her eyes and the full softness of her mouth. For a moment he held her gaze steadily, responding to what she unwittingly revealed in her eyes, then, suddenly realising, Sally pulled herself up sharply and smoothed down the brief skirt of her frock, her hands trembling and without conscious purpose.

'Que es esto,
Sarita?' he asked quietly, and Sally shook her head, without even knowing what it was he asked.

'I was just thinking,' she told him. 'What we call in England, being miles away.'

For a moment he smiled before turning away again. 'I think not,
pichon,'
he said softly.

Sally felt that curling sensation in her stomach again and tried to assume a slightly bored expression, swinging one foot against the bar of the stool. 'What do
I
do?' she asked him. 'Do I paint, or do I watch you?'

He looked at her for a moment with a speculative gleam in his eyes, as if he expected her to argue with his decision, whatever it was. 'In view of your efforts to date,' he said at last, 'it would seem rather pointless to ask you to do anything while I watch you and correct you when you go wrong, since you do not take kindly to correction.'

'I'm not too proud to learn,' Sally objected. 'It's just that I don't like it when you stand over me and tear my work to shreds, at least verbally.'

'As I said,' he averred, 'you do not take kindly to correction.'

'I never did,' Sally told him with her chin in the air, and saw his eyes gleam for a moment before he looked away.

'For the moment you will watch me,' he told her. 'I will try and show you where you go wrong, point out the—pitfalls?—as we go along.'

'I see.'

Her reply was non-committal, but he saw through her apparent unconcern and shook his head. 'I can imagine such an arrangement does not suit you very well,' he told her. 'But it is what I will do. Now— if you will please pay attention.'

Sally got down off the stool, but instead of going across to join him, she walked over to the big window and stood for a moment gazing down at the sea below, already looking dark and indistinct in the dying light, her own spirit as restless as the waves that pounded at the rocks.

'The view is wonderful from up here,' she said, and he looked at her over the top of the easel, his eyes less stern than the lines of his mouth.

'It is,' he said. 'But you are here to learn,
nina,
not to admire the view.'

She did not immediately move, but spoke again over her shoulder. 'You surely can't do much,' she said. 'It's getting dark already, and the light's going fast.'

'All the more reason for haste,' he told her shortly. 'It is good enough for our purpose, and bright sunlight does not always make the most beautiful pictures.'

'I know, but'

'Sarita!' The black eyes caught and held her gaze as she looked back at him, and he looked at her sternly down the length of his aristocratic nose, his patience gone. 'Come over here and stand beside me,' he told her adamantly.
'Inmediatamente!'

There was no mistaking the gist of the last order, and Sally thought of defying it for a moment, then shrugged and left the sanctuary of the window reluctantly. Standing beside him, she kept her eyes carefully on the canvas in front of him, and refused to meet that implacable gaze so that eventually he shrugged and turned back to what he was doing. 'Now watch me,' he told her.

It was fascinating just to watch him work, the skill and care he brought to even the sweeping strokes of the first few lines were beyond anything she could ever hope to achieve, and she sighed deeply after a moment or two. Mistaking her sigh for boredom, he turned swiftly and frowned at her, 1 bringing his black brows into a straight line above glittering eyes.

'I am sorry if you find this wearying,' he told her. 'But you will nevertheless watch me for as long as I tell you to,
senorita.
Your father has paid for you to learn to improve your artistic skill, and if you do not mind if he wastes his money, I have more consideration. Now pay attention!'

Sally felt her colour rise, and she curled her hands into fists at her sides, resisting the temptation to hit him only with difficulty. Why, oh, why did he have to be so infuriating, just when she was admiring him too?
'Si, senor,'
she said pertly. 'I hear and obey!' Answering him with such mock meekness, she knew, must inevitably bring a response, and she saw from his eyes that she had provoked him to further anger, for they glittered like coals as he turned to her.

'Vaya con cuidado, senorita,'
he told her, his voice harsh and barely above a whisper. I do not like to be made fun of, even by a beautiful woman. This arrangement was made for your benefit, not for mine, although you seem to think it is not so. Why else would I bring you here to my studio, if not to learri about the art you think you know so much more about than I do?'

It was a question designed especially to embarrass her. Daring her to voice the suspicions that had been in her mind ever since she had so reluctantly climbed those narrow stairs to the studio. The words, the steady black gaze and even the way he stood there, so overpoweringly tall and aggressive, it was all aimed at making her feel small and foolish, and Sally had to admit that it succeeded to a large extent.

She felt suddenly very ungrateful and rather childish. 'I'm sorry,' she said meekly, and kept her eyes downcast, adding to her look of apology. 'I—I do appreciate what you're doing for me, Don Miguel. I
am
grateful.'

'But still suspicious,
si?'

'I suppose so.'

She admitted it reluctantly and there was silence for a moment. A taut, meaningful silence that she began to find unbearable, then a hand reached out and cupped her chin in its strong fingers, lifting her face to him and sending those uncontrollable impulses surging through her again.

He studied her for a moment in silence, the shadow of her lashes still hiding her expression from him, then he sighed and slid his hand down from her chin to lay with a warm palm on her neck, the thumb moving caressingly on her cheek.

'Asi hermosa,'
he said softly.

'Don Miguel' She hesitated, not sure what she wanted to say exactly, only that she wanted to do something to break that sensual feeling of lethargy that threatened to possess her again. 'I—we really can't do much tonight, can we? It's too dark, I mean the light's going, and we'

'Again you try to tell me my business,' he said with a brief tight smile. Then he turned and looked at the dying sun through one of the smaller windows along the side of the big room. 'It is a beautiful evening, Sarita, do you not think so?'

'It is,' Sally agreed, her senses responding all too rapidly to the effect of that light hypnotic caress on her cheek. 'Why—why do you call me Sarita?'

He smiled. 'It is your name,' he told her. 'I use the Spanish, do you mind?'

'No.' She raised her eyes briefly. 'It's rather pretty.'

'It is very pretty,' he agreed softly.

The sunlight was becoming a deeper gold every minute, as the day slid away, and Sally looked at the west windows and laughed, a little wildly, trying to keep common sense uppermost when it was rapidly losing ground. There soon won't be
any
daylight left,' she said.

'And you are such a little philistine that you think only of bright sunlight to paint your pictures by, hmm?' He pulled her round so that her back was to the evening sky, holding her there, his hands sliding down her arms to clasp her waist and pull her against his body. Every nerve in her responded to the pressure of his hands, and she tried not to want so much that he should hold her in his arms and kiss her as he had done once before.