Page 61 of These Violet Delights
“You will please stand over there,” Violet murmured, hoarse. “Or we will accomplish nothing at all.”
Deliciously obstinate, he stayed long enough to lean down and brush his lips across the edge of her left ear. “Would you call last night nothing?”
“No,” she replied, turning somewhat toward him, wishing she could meld completely into his side. There was a pronounced chill in the gallery, and his warmth would remain a temptation. “I would call it the happiest night of my life. Now, if you please, Mr. Kerr, go and pose for your portrait before my concentration evaporates altogether.”
He wound his finger lightly through a ringlet dangling over her ear and let it spring away. “This place, being trapped here, it feels like a moment out of time; it makes me forget myself.”
“Forget yourself?”
“There are…considerations to be had. Lady Edith would naturally prefer that I find someone who isn’t related to the Richmonds,” he said. Violet’s heart began to sink. “And Freddie will see this as a slight, I’m sure, given your proximity to Miss Graddock.”
“And when you leave here, those voices will be louder.”
Alasdair flinched. “I am here now. That is what matters.”
As he left her, Violet felt a pang of sadness; he was right that this chance for them to spend time together, nearly unchaperoned, unnoticed, blissfully alone, would melt as surely as the snow had begun to outside. Panic rose in her, a sense that she must squeeze and hold and burn into memory every minute of this day. If the snow did not start again or this warmupshot continued, he would be gone as soon as the next morning.
She busied herself with laying out her brushes and pigments how she liked them—the cake of red farthest from her, then yellow closer, then blue, and burnt sienna at the top of the next column. The orderliness somewhat calmed the chaos in her heart; she knew how to do this, and the routine of it would get her through.
“Shall I stand?” he asked, near the wall again and to the left of her easel.
“If you can tolerate it, yes,” she said, closing one eye to study him and decide on her composition. “A little to your right, perfect! That fern is agreeable where it is, and the boughs behind your head will tell the story of this…rather unusual Christmas. Have you been painted before?”
“As a child, yes, with my family,” he said, adopting a three-quarter profile stance, head comfortably neutral, one hand on his hip to flare out the waist of his coat. “Strange, I suppose, that loving art as I do, it never occurred to me to commission someone.”
“And where shall this masterpiece hang in the magnificently refurbished Clafton Hall?” asked Violet, putting on a booming, serious voice that made his smile widen. He did have such a blazing smile when he was at ease, though it was terrible to paint teeth, and she would not consider attempting it.
“In the hall with the best light, right beside your self-portrait. After you finish it, I mean.”
Violet nearly dropped the paper she was stretching over the easel board. “My…But it survived the rain that night? Why did you never tell me?”
“To savor your look of surprise now?” He shifted and shuffled his feet back and forth. “Do not ask me to explain it,Violet. My urge to take and keep it is as befuddling as what lies between us now.”
“And what lies between us?” she asked, raising a brow. It was her turn to glance here and there to make certain they were still alone. This was a conversation for hushed whispers, not a wide-open gallery in a house full of nosy guests.
“You know,” he said. Then, lowering his head, and softer, “You know.”
“Our thoughts are one.”
Alasdair nodded.
She smirked and disappeared behind the easel again.Say it,she pleaded with him silently.Say it, and I will do the same.But Alasdair had fallen silently into thought, staring out the window, across the piled, snowy fields to the very home they had just mentioned. Clafton loomed in the distance, a dark shadow, unfinished and waiting.
“How long until your home is restored?” she asked, stalling.
“A month, perhaps two,” he replied. “The snow is a considerable setback, but progress will be swift after the thaw.”
She looked between him and the blank canvas. “It’s a formidable structure.”
He raised a brow. “I’m glad you think so. The master builder and I endeavored to re-create it as faithfully as we could. The ruins it was originally built upon were largely untouched by the fire, so the castle foundation endures. We even repaired the tunnels that run underneath. Freddie and I played in them as children, which irritated our father. Local legend insists the lord who built the castle was a nervous lunatic, and his ghost is said to wander those tunnels still, though I never saw him. I don’t know if they will ever serve for a daring escape, probably more useful as a wine cellar.”
You had better start painting, little fool; before you know it, he will depart.
“And so too will the light,” she muttered.
“Hm?”
“Nothing important,” Violet assured him, picking up her pencil. Her mind went blank. That practice she had just decided to rely upon for comfort fled. All at once, she had never drawn or painted a day in her life, did not know which colors to mix to match the lightest hues of his skin, or which color to apply for a subtle shadow. The pressure to get it right—to re-create the full height and grandeur and weight of him, to properly commute observation to paper—was too much.
