PortraitofPassion (15 page)

“Why did you leave Paris?” he asked.

“Anna decided to travel to Madrid to visit her sister. Mama
thought it a good idea for me to see more of the world so we decided to make
the journey with her. We stopped at small villages along the way to enjoy the
local scenery and amusements. It was a wonderful journey.”

“I’ve made that journey myself,” Simon replied with a warm
smile.

“On your Grand Tour after university,” Bea added with a
laugh. She well-remembered William reading some of his letters to her.

Simon quirked a brow up at her statement and Bea realized
she shouldn’t know this about him.

“Isn’t that what all young lords do? Travel the continent
after university, before they must enter Society and settle down to learn the
responsibilities of their position?”

“Just so,” he agreed.

“You traveled to Rome?” she asked, even though she knew he
had. It had been his description of the city in one of his letters that had
prompted her to beg Mama and Anna to extend their journey to include Rome.

“Ah, Rome,” he murmured with a laugh. “The greatest city in
the world.”

“Yes,” agreed Beatrice. “How long did you stay?”

“Two months. And you?”

“About the same, the first time.”

“The first time?” he asked as his toes began to wander up
her leg under the table. Bea shivered at the light, idle caress. She was
surprised at how easily they touched one another. She would not have guessed
that Simon would be so relaxed, so natural in his affections.

“We traveled from Rome to Athens where we rented a small
villa outside the city overlooking the Aegean Sea. We lived there for almost a
year.” Harry’s ship had put into port for three weeks while they were there. It
had been the first time they had been together since Papa had died. In Harry’s
arms Bea had finally been able to let go, to cry out her grief and some small
measure of her rage.

“So this small annuity your father left for you must not
have been so small after all, to allow you to travel the world as you did.”

“Oh by then I was selling my work, the landscapes. I found
that English travelers would pay a pretty sum for reminders of their homeland.”

“The garden scenes, the fountain,” Simon stated.

“You’ve seen one then?” she asked. His father had had a
number of her paintings. She had gifted two to him and he had purchased four
others. She had seen one of them in his London town house all those years ago.
She did not know what had become of them.

“There are half a dozen of them in my home.”

Bea could not hide her surprise. He had never said a word.

“Including a portrait of my father.” Bea watched as his brow
quirked up again in silent inquiry.

“God, you are so like him,” she whispered before she could
stop herself. It was that lift of the brow. How many times had she seen William
do the very same thing?

“Who?” Simon asked, but Bea suspected he knew she referred
to his father. Of course he did. He must have been curious, must have wondered
after she had expressed her sorrow at his passing on the very first night they
met. It was that quiet patience again that had allowed him to wait for her to
tell him.

How much to tell him? What could she say that would explain
how she had adored his father, without giving away too much?

“Your father,” she finally answered.

“How did you know my father?” Simon asked. His voice was
low, a mixture of curiosity and some other emotion she could not name. Dread,
perhaps?

“As I said, my father would often bring friends home with
him. When I was fifteen, your father accompanied Bertie and Anna to visit us
for a few weeks.”

Bea saw the question in his eyes, the one question he must
not ask, the one question she dared not answer.

“He and my mother were friends,” she rushed on, before he
could speak. “They had known each other for years. And of course, your father
and Bertie had attended school together, had known one another almost their
entire lives. They knew one another in London, and later in Edinburgh. They
were friends.” She knew she was rambling, but she needed to deflect his
curiosity.

“My father and your mother?” Simon demanded. He leaned
forward in his chair, his eyes boring into hers.

“Oh no!” she cried, rising to stand, looking down at him in
horror. “Good God no, Simon. Not that way, not in a romantic way. No. Of course
not,” Bea finished on a nervous little laugh.

Simon relaxed back into his chair, a great whoosh of air
accompanying his long sigh. Beatrice walked around the table and gingerly
perched upon his knee, resting one hand on his shoulder. Simon laid a hand
against the small of her back. They looked at one another for a silent moment,
and then Simon chuckled softly. His relief was evident in the sound.

“They were friends,” she repeated softly. “Mama was not
always Papa’s mistress. Once upon a time she was just a young girl, trying to
find her way in the world, attempting to fit into the mold made for her.”

“Without success,” Simon finished for her. He raised a hand
to brush a wayward curl from her cheek.

“Perhaps,” Bea mused. “Then again, she found love. She made
a life for herself, a happy life with her small family around her. She created
a world for us all, our own little paradise, she called it.”

“Until your father died,” Simon said.

“Oh even after Papa died,” Bea told him. “Mama had loved
Papa with all her heart, and she mourned him greatly. But he had been away from
home more than he was there. Unlike most widows, she was not required to learn
how to live without him. In time her grief abated and that is when we began to
travel. She found happiness again, in visiting strange new places, in meeting
people from all segments of society, in making new friends. She has a great
many friends in Rome.”

“I would imagine she found her greatest happiness in you,”
Simon said quietly.

“She was…
is
a wonderful mother. And friend,” Beatrice
replied.

“Will she come to live with you when you find a house in the
country?” Simon asked, his hand absently rubbing her back. “That is your plan?
To purchase a house in the country? To recapture the happiness of your youth?”

“Yes,” Bea replied. “I shall live the rest of my days with
my family in the country, happily painting the English countryside, perhaps
taking on commissions for portraits, should my countrymen desire my talents as
the ladies and gentlemen of Paris and Rome did.”

“Oh they shall,” Simon assured her. “English men and women
can be counted upon to desire that which the French deem of value.”

“Yes, I have noticed that.” Beatrice leaned forward to kiss
Simon gently on his lips. She was deliciously content, wonderfully drowsy,
achingly aware of his hard body naked beneath the silk robe.

Apparently Simon was not yet ready to retire to the big bed
that dominated the room.

“How old were you when you began to sell your paintings?” he
asked, leaning his head back just enough to break their soft kiss.

Beatrice sighed and straightened to look at him. She saw his
lips quirk at her obvious impatience.

“Oh let me see.” She thought about his question. When had
she gone from gifting them to family and friends to selling them? “I must have
been twenty. We were in Madrid and met up with a honeymooning couple from
Dorset. They bought a rather small painting of the cliffs of Dover. I had
sketched it as we set sail to Calais. I used those sketches to paint the scene
numerous times in an attempt to capture the way the sea crashed against the
cliffs, the way the sunlight bravely broke through the storm clouds. I had
finally gotten it right, oddly enough in sunny Madrid. It was a rather dismal
painting, all grays and muted greens.”

“I remember the first painting of yours my father brought
home. It was a gift for my mother, the fountain, that old crumbling fountain
featured in so many of your works.” Simon smiled at her.

“That crumbling old fountain has purchased my bread and
butter for years,” Bea agreed.

“There is another one, it hangs in the front parlor, of the
fountain in winter. It is covered by snow, nearly hidden. The trees around it
are barren of their leaves. The sun is just breaking through the gray clouds.
The way the snow shines gives the impression that it shall soon begin to melt,
that spring is near.”

“I know which one it is. I remember when your father bought
it. We were in Rome. I had just completed my first commission for a portrait,
well, two portraits.”

Beatrice went on to tell him of how the secretary to the English
ambassador had approached her in the park to ask her to paint his wife’s
portrait.

“And then,” she exclaimed happily, “who should come knocking
upon our door?”

“The Pope?” Simon guessed with a laugh. He moved his hand
from where it had been lightly resting on her back to her hip to hold her
still. Bea only then realized that she had been bouncing about on his knee.
“Steady, love, you don’t want to fall.”

“Better!” she cried. “William!”

When Simon only looked at her in confusion, she laughed
softly. “Your father.”

“I know my father’s name,” he replied dryly. “For some
reason, I don’t know why, I was surprised to hear you call him by his given
name. He was always Easton, even my mother never called him William.”

“He was ever William to me,” she responded with a smile.
“And there he was, in Rome. And what was so amazing is that Mr. Smythe was
his
secretary.”

“I remember him. An affable fellow with a wife that chirped
like a bird and bounced about as she spoke.” He gave her that arch look of his
and Bea laughed.

“Shall I go back to my own chair?” she asked, mimicking his
expression. Or attempting to. She knew she had failed, had succeeded only in
looking ridiculous, when Simon emitted a sharp laugh.

“Not on your life,” he replied, whisking her legs around so
that she sat upon his lap rather than his knee. “I like you just where you
are.”

“Me too,” she said and draped her arms over his shoulders.
She drifted her fingers through the fine curls at his nape.
Such wonderfully
soft hair he has
, she thought.

“So my father heard from Mr. Smythe that a beautiful young
artist, a lovely English rose, was in Rome and paid a call upon you?”

“Something like that,” Bea agreed. “He saw the portrait of
Mrs. Smythe and recognized my work.”

“And came to purchase a few paintings to bring home,
including the fountain in winter.”

“I titled it
Just Before the Spring
.”

They shared a smile before Simon asked, “And you became
friends. You and my father.”

“We renewed our friendship. We were friends before. He came
to the country a number of times before…well, before we left. But we had not
seen him since our short stay in London.”

“When would that have been?” Simon asked, his eyes staring
out at the rainy night.

“Nine years ago,” Bea replied. She sat still on his lap,
waiting, wondering if he would make the connection. “The beginning of summer.”
Bea watched as his fertile brain performed the calculations, dread a hard knot
in her stomach.

“That was a very bad time for my father,” he replied softly,
still gazing out the window. “Hastings, that is the earl who was Henry’s
father, my uncle, had passed away in the spring. They were the very best of
friends, almost like brothers.”

“Yes,” she agreed softly. Surely he would put it all
together now. He was an intelligent man. Would the pieces click into place for
him now? What would he say? What would he do? Bea mentally braced herself for
his scorn, for his anger. She physically braced herself to be forcibly ejected
from his lap.

“He told you?” Simon asked, finally bringing his eyes to
rest upon her face.

Unable to find words, Bea simply gave him a small nod.

“Yes, I imagine you consoled one another,” he murmured, a
sad smile hovering on his lips. “You had just lost your father, also an
acquaintance of my father it would seem. And he had lost his greatest friend.”

Bea waited, barely daring to believe that she was to have a
reprieve.

“Did my father offer to act on your behalf? Did he make an
attempt to help your mother to enforce the oral agreement for living rights to
your home?”

Bea was amazed by the agility of his mind, by his ability to
jump back, to hit upon the most crucial part of her long story. Why was she
surprised? He was a most brilliant man.

“I believe so,” she replied cautiously. Her mind scrambled
for a way to deflect his curiosity, to lead him down another path, one that was
not so close to the path she dare not go down. Not with him, not yet. “I
believe he discussed it with my mother. I do not know the outcome. She would
not discuss it with me. Not then, not ever.”

“He would have wanted to help.”

“Yes,” Bea agreed.

Simon gave a small shake of his head and the solemn look in
his eyes was replaced once again by curiosity. Bea finally began to hope that
she was in the clear, for now.

“So in Rome you and my father, and your mother I expect,
renewed the friendship that had begun years before,” he prompted and Bea was
relieved to feel his hand once more caressing her back.

“Yes. It was a wonderful time. We strolled about the city
together, dined together and attended the theater. We even went to a grand
masquerade ball one night. We had such fun.”

“Fun?” Simon asked.

“Of course,” she agreed. “William was a great one for
surprises, for an impromptu picnic, for spontaneous trips to this village or
that cathedral. Of course, he also appreciated the quiet times, playing chess,
staying in to dinner, walks through the quiet night. You know.”

“No,” he replied. “I do not know.”

At Bea’s look of surprise, he continued. “I do not recognize
my father in the man you describe.”