“A week ago, a creditor had the gall to approach me as I was entering Lady Huxley’s ball. It could have been a colossal embarrassment if I hadn’t had a few sovereigns on me.” Sir Francis Ffoulkes paced the paint-splattered floor with a glass of plonk in his hand. “It’s hopeless, Roger.”
Roger Siddons gulped from his own glass and went back to applying paint to a canvas. “Let me finish this accursed painting while I still have light. I’ve been having a devil of a time with it.”
It was late in the day and the studio had no west-facing windows. Rooms that faced south and west demanded higher rents, and Siddons could only afford this place with transoms that faced the north and east. As it was, he had to eat, sleep, and paint in the same room. However, if he hired an attractive young model, he did find the rumpled bed in the corner very convenient. As long as he had a few extra coins.
In the past, Roger Siddons had not needed money for women. But now, he found he had to pay for his pleasures more and more often. He flattered himself that he was still a lean wolf of a man, with his dark eyes, thin lips, his Roman nose. True, his hair had grayed and years of drink had led to pouches under his eyes, a softening of the jaw line. And a middle-aged artist with no rich patrons would never be as attractive as a young, promising painter.
Siddons painted as quickly as he could, trying to finish his painting of an epergne filled with apples. Another still-life. He had barely been able to afford the apples. At least he would be able to eat the fruit when he completed the painting.
The gloaming filled the room and he had to stop as the bright-red tints on his palette became grays. He would finish tomorrow. One more picture to submit for the next year’s Exhibition. One more chance to earn a fee. So that he could afford more paint. So that he could paint another picture. And so on.
He started to clean his brushes. “Now, Francis, I can listen to you.”
“What’s the use? I am ruined,” Sir Francis Ffoulkes almost whined.
Siddons gritted his teeth. “Really? Have you no other friends from whom you can borrow?”
“I can’t let my wealthy friends know my situation. There is a man . . .” Sir Francis hesitated for a moment. “Not really a friend, but someone I know, a distant relation, who has lent me money. A good deal of money. But it has been spent and I am afraid that he will ask me to do something unpleasant in exchange for borrowing more money.”
Siddons looked at his friend. Everything about Sir Francis reeked of respectability—his upright posture, his elegant clothes, his silver hair cut in the Titus style with curls pushed forward over his balding pate. He and Francis had grown up together in Kent on the Ffoulkes estate, Siddons as the steward’s son, Sir Francis as the heir to the baronetcy. The two men had fallen away from each other after boyhood but had become friends again in the last ten years.
“But all your years provisioning the Royal Navy? I thought you had made thousands of pounds.”
“I had. I did, and then I spent it all. And now there is peace and there is no longer profit to be made from the navy. I am overextended and bankrupt.”
“And your wife’s money?”
“Gone, all gone.”
Siddons poured himself more wine. “To the memory of Lady Hester Ffoulkes,” he said, holding up his glass.
“Thank you, Roger.” The two men drank.
Siddons grimaced after he swallowed. “I’ll be glad when one of us is in funds again. I think I could use this plonk to clean my brushes.”
Sir Francis looked down at his glass.
“Roger,” he said. And was still.
Siddons said nothing. He knew what was coming next.
“Roger,” Sir Francis breathed. “Can I look at her?”
It was cruel, Siddons knew, to make Ffoulkes ask every time he came to the studio. He could have left the painting out and let Sir Francis feast his eyes. But deliberately, he did not. He wanted Sir Francis hungry. He wanted Sir Francis to ask. After all, the baronet might one day be of use, and Siddons wanted him to remember how weak he had been in front of Roger Siddons.
And besides, Siddons had no compunction about being cruel.
Siddons sighed and pretended reluctance as he walked to the corner of the studio where a rack held completed canvases. Most were from the last year but there was one that was older and shrouded to protect against what little light his studio had. Roger Siddons did not want this painting to fade.
He took the shrouded canvas out and unwrapped it and brought it forward. Sir Francis lit several candles as Siddons put the canvas on an empty easel.
The painting showed a golden-haired figure from the back, naked from the waist up, caught in the midst of disrobing. Surrounded by trees and water. Head turned to look at the viewer. Big blue eyes.
“Uhhhnh,” Sir Francis groaned as he exhaled.
Siddons laughed. “Sir Francis, such yearning! And all for a painting.”
“It takes me.”
Siddons looked at the canvas and squinted. “It’s not bad considering I painted it over twenty-five years ago. But it’s not my best. The perspective is not quite right.” He put his hands on the corners of the canvas as if to remove it from the easel. “Sometimes, I think I should just paint over the whole thing.”
“Don’t!” Sir Francis shouted. Then, in a voice tinged with threat,“Don’t even consider it.”
Siddons laughed again, but he let go of the canvas and stepped away, turning to look at Sir Francis who seemed totally rapt, gazing at the painting. Damn, the man was practically drooling.
“I only wish,” Sir Francis said slowly, “that when I was rich, I had forced you to sell the painting to me.”
“We both know that you are taken by the subject.” Siddons refilled his own glass.
“I am. I am. I don’t know why, but I am.”
“It’s the fear. In her eyes.”
Sir Francis blinked. “Is it?”
“The fear and the lust. It’s a heady combination.” Siddons chuckled. “She was the most wanton, wicked minx—”
Sir Francis stiffened. “I have no wish to hear anything more about her or your knowledge of her. It ruins the painting for me.”
The germ of an idea began to form in Siddons’ mind. “You must have occasion to meet her from time to time.”
“Yes. In fact, I danced the quadrille with her at Lady Huxley’s ball last week. I thought she might be like the painting, but she was not. She was distracted. She is a handsome woman, I grant you, but she did not enthrall me, like the painting does.”
“She’s older, Sir Francis, but I doubt she has changed much in the important particulars. Whether that be her hair or her skin or her desire. She could be the picture again, for you. I could teach you how to make her that way. And you are a widower now. She could be the answer to your problems, in more than one way.”
Sir Francis held very still.
“Her dead husband was very rich, Sir Francis.”
Sir Francis licked his lips. “What are you suggesting?”
Siddons shrugged. “I just hope that once you have a heavy purse again, you will remember your good friend Roger Siddons. And that upon the occasion of your marriage, you might be willing to buy a lovely and extremely expensive painting of your new wife as a wedding present. For yourself.”
