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“Cold out, Boss,” Zoot said. “You want to freeze?”
“I have my coat on,” she said. “But I’ll be in soon. This is good light for sketching.”
“Didn’t know you sketched. When did you start doing that?”
“Years ago,” she said. “I just haven’t done it in a long time.”
Zoot craned her neck, shamelessly peeking.
“A nice murder you done there,” she said, approving of the drawing of a blade going through a man’s throat. “Who we murdering?”
“General Holofernes. Biblical story. Can’t compete with Artemisia Gentileschi though. She did the definitive portrait.” Regan closed the sketchbook and rested it on her lap. She stared out at the waning sunlight, gathering clouds turning it silver. “Artemisia was raped in her art studio by one of her father’s art students.”
Zoot’s eyes widened. “Hope she murdered him, too.”
“No, but they took him to court and won.” Regan looked at Zoot. “Do you know what she did after that?”
“Murdered him, then.”
Regan smiled. “She went back into the studio and painted.”
Hard to believe, a teenage girl in the seventeenth century, raped by her father’s student who swore after the attack he’d marry her to take the stigma away from her…then he reneged on his promise and during his trial for breach of promise, she was literally tortured with the thumbscrews to verify her testimony. Eighteen years old. Raped and tortured.
And when it was all over…she went back into her studio and painted incredible scenes of women murdering men. Judith and Holofernes. Salome and John the Baptist. Jael and Sisera. One of Regan’s favorite paintings, a young woman pounding a tent peg into the skull of a sleeping enemy soldier. She was one of Regan’s very few heroes.
“I like her,” Zoot said, nodding. “My sort of girl. She’s got balls.”
Regan laughed. It felt good to laugh at someone or something other than her own sorry self.
“All it took to get me to stop painting was one black look from my husband. Meanwhile, Artemisia…”
Not only had she continued to paint after the rape and trial, she’d become a famous painter, belle of the Baroque, painter to dukes and duchesses, kings and queens.
Regan continued, “What would Artemisia think of me, letting Sir Jack completely destroy my love of painting.”
“Doubt that highly,” Zoot said. “Sir Jack was a wrinkled old bellend. Only person I know tough enough to put a dent in you isyou.” She laughed, because it was a joke but it sounded painfully close to Arthur’s accusation that it was Regan who chose to make herself miserable. Well, he didn’t know a thing about her and her misery. Not a bloody thing.
Zoot shrugged. “If you want to paint again, Boss, I’ll let you paint me. Always fancied having my picture done. Maybe on the back of a horse? Suit of armor, Joan of Arc-style? Loads of dead Tommies all around me on the ground? Buckets of blood? You see it?”
Zoot feigned raising a sword above her head, composed her face into a mask of determination and godly rage. It was a surprisingly impressive sight. Regan almost did want to paint that scene.
“A little beyond my skillset at the moment, but I’ll keep that image in mind,” Regan said. “Did you need something?”
“Message for you,” she said, lowering her imaginary sword and sheathing it. “He said he would’ve hand-delivered it to you personally, but he said you banished him from The Pearl.”
Regan sighed. “I told him never to come back,” she said. “I suppose I should have told him never to contact me either.”
“What he do? Piss in your umbrella?”
Regan glared at Zoot. “He was rude.”
“Were you rude first? Never mind. Already know the answer.”
“Do you remember who you work for?”
“Yes, and she’s a proper harpy sometimes though that’s part of her charm.”
“You don’t even like Arthur. You think he’s a brat, too.”
