Flirting With Forever by Gwyn Cready (new books to read TXT) 📕

very little written about your personal life. Because you are a painter of less reputation than Van Dyck or Vermeer, the record you have left behind is almost strictly about your work, a fact I imagine you’l be glad to hear.” He hadn’t been glad to hear “less reputation,” she noted, and made a gratifying wince. “Nonetheless, you left behind several portraits of Ursula, including,” she added, hoping her voice did not crack, “one entitled Lady Lely.”

The muscles in his jaw flexed, and his eyes took on the color of molten iron.

So, it real y was true, she thought, feeling the last brutal slap of betrayal. She didn’t need a marriage record. The look in his eyes was al the proof she needed. Ursula might have abandoned him, but he had been left not just bitter, but bitter and married, and for whatever sins Cam might have forgiven Peter, she would not forgive him for drawing her into infidelity without her acknowledged consent.

“There is one entitled Lady Lely, another Ursula and another,” she went on, “in which you are so enamored of your wife, you have painted her four times in one painting—

the maiden, the Madonna, the muse and the whore.”

The last word was a blow, and he seemed to double in bulk.

“And what did you make of this?” His voice was sharp as a blade.

“You mean other than the fact you lied to me?”

“Aye. Other than that.”

“What I made of it is a story—and a damned fine one, I might add. I was able to lay out a classic, Peter, a classic.

Wealthy painter meets woman of the street. He fal s for her face—the Cupid’s-bow mouth, the wide, childlike eyes, the porcelain skin—but he fal s for her body, too.” Cam thought of the slim, high-breasted form, so unlike her own, to which Peter had paid homage on canvas and undoubtedly in his bed, and hated herself for the black jealousy that poured into her heart. “He saves her, he marries her and, in his greatest ode to her, he paints her four times, surrounded by the cherubim of heaven, so great is his love for her.”

“They were not cherubim.”

She heard a note in his voice that was not there before, but his face was stil as cold and hard as steel. She wondered what it would take to break that damnable reserve.

“But his ego is too great. Samuel Pepys, a chronicler of the painter’s day, cal s him ‘a mighty proud man’—”

“Bounding little catchfart.”

“—and having won it, the painter tires of his prize and begins to pursue the women of the court, whoever warms his posing chaise, until broken-hearted and cast aside, Ursula, the girl he raised from the streets to the rank of Lady Lely, finds herself fal ing for—”

“Stop, ” Peter cried. “She was not my wife.”

He said it with such a look of pained sorrow, Cam hesitated.

“I know you’re doing this because you are hurt about that night,” he said, “and I am sorry. But you must stop. She was not my wife. I never married her.”

Cam looked into his haunted eyes and saw the desperation there. “The way I see it,” she said slowly,

“either you’re lying now or you’re sacrificing her name to avoid being cal ed a liar. Either way, Ursula would not be proud.”

“You’re not fit to speak her name.” He was white-hot with anger. “And you’re certainly not fit to lecture anyone on the truth.”

The rebuke was too much. She brought her hand across his cheek, a gratifying crack that final y broke his infuriating calm.

Like a tempest unleashed, he took her by the wrists and kissed her, a bruising, searching kiss, and her body betrayed her, tel ing him her feelings hadn’t changed.

When he released her, his salty-sweet taste on her tongue and his crisp scent in her head, she saw him holding up something. It was her ring stil on its chain—the ring Jacket had given her—and she realized her shirt was agape.

“Perhaps,” he said, stil breathing like a runner, “when we write the summary of that fateful night, you’l consider the possibility that not every lie told then was mine.”

He opened his hand and the chain fel back against her skin.

The reporter stuck his head around the corner and cleared his throat. “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said in Peter’s direction.

“Nothing,” Peter said without turning. “I have nothing to say.”

“The reporter