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Art had a propensity to reveal.
Then again, they were all created through Ara’s eyes.
Bitterness and heartbreak warred with pride as she studied the canvasses. Ara could no more separate Margot from these pieces than she could herself. For better or for worse, they were inextricably connected. Forever bound in oils, if not in actuality. The paintings were arguably Ara’s best work, likely because each one had been a love letter to its muse.
To her.
It was a series of seven paintings in various poses, whether they were on the chaise or an armchair, but they started with Margot mostly clothed and ended with her without a stitch beneath the robe on that voluptuous body. The seventh was the most sybaritic of all, and Ara sighed softly as she took in the lush lines and the sensual curves of Margot’s limbs forever immortalized on the canvas.
With the robe draped completely off her slender shoulders and falling in a cowl just beneath the cleft of her buttocks, she straddled a walnut bedroom chair in reverse. Bare forearms crossed over the back of the chair with her head resting atop them. Her upper body was angled to reveal the sensual curve of a breast under her right arm and her entire back was on display, down to each muscle, each sculpted hollow, and the spattering of freckles along her scapula. The long channel of her spine led to the flare of rounded hips, only half visible above the edge of the dressing gown.
Ara had almost swallowed her tongue when Margot had emerged from behind the screen with the garment untied and bypassed the armchair, saying without inflection that she wanted a different pose, one partially nude and of her choosing. If she’d meant to punish Ara by flaunting what she couldn’t have, she’d certainly succeeded. The erotic arrangement, viewed from the back with her legs spread, was etched in Ara’s brain. She’d been so aroused she could barely think, much less paint.
As a result, the final sitting for their seventh portrait together had been stilted and tense. Everything about Margot had been impassive to a fault, as though they were nothing but strangers. Her eyes had been gray and wintry, her face unreadable. There’d been no fond words about Percy, no inquiries about the antics of the gossiping washerwomen, no enjoyable banter about the latest fashion or faux pas in the ton.
Nothing but silence and an arctic politesse that had chilled the entire room. The entire time Ara had painted, she’d felt like an exposed nerve, and she was sure some of that had been translated to some degree into the final work. It practically vibrated with angst. With wrath. With need. With regret.
Ara didn’t care what that said about her; she wasn’t afraid of her feelings. Falling for Margot had been like falling for the wind, here one moment and gone the next, the only memory of it a whisper of coolness on one’s skin.
An evocative, transient memory.
Now that their sessions were done and paid in full—Margot had said on her way out that she didn’t care what Ara did with the final pieces—it wasn’t as though Ara could go to Mayfair and demand explanations. One, she didn’t know where the marchioness lived. And two, why should she care? Margot certainly didn’t. And Ara wasn’t about to behave like some scorned lover, even though the idea was entirely too tempting in her current forlorn state.
With a lump in her throat, she moved the easel out of the way and lay down in the center of the studio on the floor, surrounded by her muse. Bloody hell, she was pathetic. She rubbed a fist against her aching chest, but couldn’t bring herself to get up from her prone position. She wanted to wallow in the pain she’d willingly invited upon herself. She’d known exactly who the Marchioness of Waverly was all along.
Ruthless. Heartless. Impervious.
Leopards did not change their spots, no matter how much one might wish them to.
A knock on the door had her leaping up, her heart soaring into her throat. Ara didn’t even stop to check her clothing or see if her hair was a snarled rat’s nest. She ran to the door and flung it open. “I was hoping you—”
But the face wasn’t the one Ara yearned to see. Those blue eyes weren’t the right shade, just this side of morning frost. That pale hair didn’t absorb the light like the darkest of shadows. This smile was too wide, not stingy and spare and infinitely precious. Her former paramour smirked, oblivious to the cracking sound that was Ara’s heart.
“You were hoping I would what?” Sandrine said in a flirtatious tone that was all wrong. It wasn’t husky and low, like velvet over gravel. It wasn’t hers. “I knew I felt a spark between us two weeks ago.”
“There was no spark,” Ara said.
“Then why have you been pining and looking over at the theater twenty times a day?”
She’d been searching for a particular coach in the street until she’d given up, but Ara was too weary to argue. “What are you doing here, Sandrine?”
“I wanted to see you. I had a break from rehearsal and I brought your favorite,” she said, holding up a wrapped parcel. “Fresh, hot crepes with blackberry jam. I thought we could share them.”
Sharing anything with anyone was too much. “Sandrine, we are over. Whatever you felt at the masquerade wasn’t from me. I told you I need to focus on my art.”
Blue eyes flashed, her mouth going flat. “Is that what you’ve been doing? I saw the way you looked at that woman. Who was she?”
“No one you know,” Ara said tiredly, scrubbing a palm over her face. “And besides, it was over before it could even start.” Two weeks of silence were a sign that she could no longer ignore. Margot Foxglove was gone. “She’s no one.”
The silence swelled, and then Sandrine shrugged. “Need a friend then?” she offered. “I’m free for an hour. I could make some tea to go with these. It would be a shame to waste them.”
Ara’s stomach gave an obnoxious growl and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. “As long as we’re clear about where we stand. Friends, nothing more. I mean it, Sandrine.”
“Fine, be no fun whatsoever.”
With a half-smile at Sandrine’s dramatic eye-roll, Ara waved her over the threshold and closed the door behind them. She ushered Sandrine upstairs, bypassing the studio completely. There was nothing in there for her.
Nothing but unnecessary anguish.
