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

“Yes,” Jane said.

Pulling out his pocket watch, Julius checked it and returned it. “Perhaps in an hour?”

“Alright,” Jane said and moved away to return to her room. Maybe she would go to the folly a bit earlier and prepare. The plan was to focus on his face today, and those could sometimes be trying days.

Chapter 19

WHY WAS IT THAT THESE sessions increasingly felt fraught? It wasn’t as if anything had changed. Although it seemed any topic was up for discussion, including advice on how he should live his life. Octavia must have emboldened her. It really wasn’t something that should be encouraged.

The sun had risen in the sky and it had a hint of warmth. Spring really was blossoming. Flowers weren’t really an interest for him, but a few dotted around the grass. This wasn’t an estate with expensive gardens. There were some, but there wasn’t anyone who particularly paid attention to them—unless Octavia had when she’d lived here. He hadn’t noticed if so.

The doors to the folly were open and he walked in. She was there, pottering around with her jars and tubes and other accoutrements.

“Miss Brightly,” he said and walked toward his seat. “Are you ready to start?”

“Just about,” she replied and continued organizing. Her skirts had mud along the back of the hem, and he wondered where she’d been that morning. She must have gone for a walk. Had she not slept well? Was something worrying her? Perhaps Octavia and Eliza leaving.

Finally she brought whatever she’d been preparing to the canvas, then looked at him. The discomfort hit him instantly. It wasn’t that he feared judgement in her eyes. That wasn’t it, because at the heart of it, he wasn’t unhappy with himself. One didn’t fear judgement if one was resolved with oneself. No, it was something else entirely.

Unexpectedly, she rose and walked to him. Her hand reached for him and without thinking, he pulled away. It made her pause. “I’m sorry. I have to rearrange you slightly. We’re in a precision phase.”

“Right,” he said. Pulling away from her touch had been an unwitting reaction, one based out of surprise.

Now he availed himself to being manipulated. Her dainty fingers came to his chin and she angled his head slightly to the side and down. Honestly, he wasn’t sure anyone had ever touched him like that before, gripped by the chin. Maybe his aunt sometime in the distant past.

The touch left a ghost on his skin when she returned to her seat. Almost as if she’d left marks on him. It still felt as though they’d been too close. His space had been invaded and now he felt as if he was enveloped in her scent. That wasn’t true, obviously. Jane didn’t wear perfume. If anything, there was a faint smell of soap about her, but certainly nothing that lingered.

Her eyes were on him now, scrutinizing, and then she turned to the canvas with her brush. A much smaller one and it looked as if she was using black. There was also green on the palette, and she would mix the two. What she was painting, he had no idea, but it was his face, obviously. It meant he couldn’t look away out the window like he sometimes did. He was fixed in this position where he watched her, because that was what the pose required.

This portrait would be of him watching Jane Brightly. Is that what he would think of every time he looked at it? It wasn’t something he’d anticipated.

“When are you going to London next?” she asked. “I understand you go every once in a while.”

“In a few weeks. There’s a parliamentary committee that I’m a part of.” Now it occurred to him that she would be here at the time, and unable to paint him. “I can send my apologies.”

As he watched, she bit her lip. “If it’s a day or two, it makes little difference, but if you are planning to be gone a while, that would not be ideal.”

“No, it will only be a day or two.”

“Then we shall miss you.”

A curious statement. It wasn’t typical that anyone missed him. If Atticus missed him, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps, although it was hard to see why. Atticus missed his cousins because he had fun with them. Eliza and his sister let their children run rampant, even as they’d likely pay for it in the long run.

Julius cleared his throat. And why would she miss him? It made no sense. It was probably just a throwaway comment and he was reading too much into it.

“I’m sure you will occupy yourself painting mist. Is that what you’re still doing?”

“Yes, I’m still working on it.”

It seemed a remarkably long time working on the same painting. Then again, this portrait was taking an exceedingly long time too. “Is painting always so time consuming?”

“Yes. There are those who paint fast. It’s their style. It’s not my style, unfortunately. I’m rather meticulous.”

Except with most other things. She wasn’t meticulous about her appearance, or her thoughts. They flowed freely. And she didn’t seem entirely meticulous about her company either. “Do you associate mostly with other painters?”

“Artists,” she said. “The exact variety isn’t necessarily important. Poets, sculpturers, writers. It varies. There is also a group of people who are drawn to these kinds of people, but who do not pursue artistic endeavors themselves.”

“Then what do they want?”

“Passion, I think. And those that express it.”

Was that what it was about? “Is it passion at the core of artistic pursuits, then?”

“Yes. Expression. Emotion. Hopes and fears.”

“But it doesn’t seem to produce anything concrete.”

Jane paused and her mouth opened as if he’d said something unintelligible. “It actually does.”

“An object is created,” he said.

“That will survive long