A Closed Heart by Oster, Camille (acx book reading txt) 📕

“In my experience.”

“I thought it was quite common.”

“My assertion still stands.”

“So you are saying painters are generally self-absorbed.”

“It is common. It takes a certain type of personality to want to be a painter.”

There was an unflattering undertone in what she said. “That must apply to yourself too, then.”

“In some ways it must.” But she denied some unflattering traits with her refusal to do self-portraits. It wasn’t something he’d ever considered. So what was her personality? She certainly didn’t bend to what was expected of her, or of her gender. That did imply a certain disregard and stubbornness. It was becoming apparent that Jane Brightly was very different from the person he’d initially assumed.

Shifting his gaze out the window, he saw one of the swans drift by. It was part of a pair and it was unusual to see it alone. Maybe a little like her—a graceful creature on the surface, but they had a temper if one offended them.

Chapter 12

THE GENERAL FORM WAS painted quickly, but it was in the detail where the magic happened. The eyes in particular, but as she looked at his, she struggled to capture what she needed. It was a feeling in her gut and she couldn’t put her finger on it.

It wasn’t like he was dead in the eyes—there had been a time when she’d been asked to paint someone like that. The money on offer had been good, but she’d refused. Months in that person’s company was more than she could tolerate. Painting someone meant dwelling in their essence as a person for weeks on end. That was not a person, with their dead eyes, that she wanted to have any kind of part in her own life.

It wasn’t a decision she’d regretted.

Julius, however, was something else. There was light, but it seemed to shift. She couldn’t grasp it. Like sand through her fingers.

Putting her brush down, she looked at him.

“What?” he asked.

Was this an issue of trust, she wondered. Maybe that would be something that would right itself as they continued. Or maybe she just needed to study him more. For now, it might be better to leave the eyes for a while. It was usually where she started—the center she worked out from. “I’m just deciding how to approach the next part.” But she needed to start with the eyes. They informed the rest of the painting. Else she could paint everything and the eyes didn’t come out right, and that was the end of the painting.

No, there was no way around it. She just had to start, but she wasn’t getting the rawness—the essence. It was as though he wore a mask. And maybe he did, she thought and looked away for a moment.

“Your son seems to be very curious about me,” she said.

“His curiosity will get him into trouble,” Julius replied.

“It’s a quest to learn.”

“It’s time to engage a tutor for him.”

“He’s a lovely boy,” she finally said. “I can see he looks like you in many ways.”

“Not the eyes,” Julius said.

“No,” she agreed. They had to come from his mother. Jane picked up her brush again. Discussing his son did seem to lighten him in some ways. His eyes were a little less elusive. “He would have been a beautiful baby.”

There it was. For a moment, she had him. But it only lasted a moment as he dropped everything else and thought of his son as an infant. It was enough for her to see the real him—for a moment.

Putting brush to canvas, she started the rough form of them.

Their conversations were awkward. They didn’t know each other well enough to speak about any real issues, but they had little in common otherwise. “This place must be lovely in summer,” she said.

“It is. It’s the best place in the world as far as I’m concerned.”

The best place in the world. “I don’t have one of those. There are places I like, but not one place that is better than all others.”

“Then I pity you.”

“Don’t,” she said. If there was anything she couldn’t tolerate, it was being pitied. She’d had enough of it when her father had died. It was so awful. So many people had pitied her, but it had been the most impersonal charity that had actually done anything for her. It had schooled her, clothed her and fed her, and provided a roof over her head. All very practical things. “Pity serves no use whatsoever.”

To his credit, he didn’t argue with her, which she appreciated, and he didn’t go into some diatribe about how they should have empathy for the wretched. The sorrowful gazes that wealthy people would give when they toured the orphanage. Jane had been sure the more wretched they’d looked, the more it had been appreciated. Cautionary tales of what happened to the unfortunate.

It was true that her upbringing, as it had been, had given her a hard edge that she leaned on when she needed to. Because there was so much superficial in the world and Jane didn’t have time for it.

“I admit, I do agree,” he said, drawing her out of her thoughts. “Pity without action is useless.”

Although she wasn’t sure he knew much about either. He wasn’t the usual types who was involved with the charitable institutions. But the truth was that growing up, she had needed those charities, but there had been a price to pay in her complicity with being wretched. That was the part she’d hated.

“I believe you stay here all year,” she said.

“I only leave for business.”

“Isn’t a townhouse more comfortable in the colder seasons?”

“It is true that we don’t use most of the house in winter.”

“There’s only you and your son. I can’t see how you could use most of the house even if