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“Why would you care?” Her question was abrupt and caught me off guard.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why would you care if I admired you? You bought me or blackmailed my mother to get me, all to get to my father and brother, and to keep Mr. Dubois from them. The way you have treated me has made it very clear what my role will be in our marriage.”
Her words cut into my chest.
She was right.
If she had said all of this before the night we attended the opera, I would have been relieved. There would have been an understanding and no need to pretend in each other’s company what our union meant. But after knowing the fire and passion that flowed just beneath her skin, after seeing the awe on her face as she came apart for me, and the admiration when she saw something she thought was truly remarkable, I needed more from her. If I was going to get it, I needed to fix this now.
“Ms. Astrid. Amelia.” That was the first time I had said her name out loud, and the intimacy of it felt strange.
How messed up was it that I had been inside this woman?
I had made her come on my cock, but saying her first name felt too intimate?
“I’m afraid I have made a grave error in judgment about how I have treated you the last several days. Admittedly, I have acted brutish and rashly, and if you will allow me, I’d like the opportunity to make it up to you. We are getting married, for better or worse, and I’d at least like our union to have a chance at being a happy one.”
“So you think buying your way into a closed exhibit is the way to do that?” She didn’t trust me yet, and I didn’t blame her.
“No, I think making time for you in the middle of the day for a date, at a location you love, and talking without our families or society or the paparazzi interrupting us, is a start. Let me get to know you.” I reached out and took her hand in mine. Her hands were so soft and delicate, her French manicure perfectly done.
“What do you want to know?” She still sounded a little skeptical, but that was fine. It was a start.
“Everything.” I let the word hang in the air between us for a moment. “But why don’t you start with art? Tell me why you love it?”
“I love how a painting can capture so much and how a single portrait can make people feel different things.” The way her eyes lit up and a soft smile graced her lips as she spoke had me captivated. “It can tell a story and you can learn the history behind it and try to guess what the artist was trying to say, or you can let your mind run wild and create your own fiction.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, look at that painting there.” She pointed to a painting of two men in a park sitting with a nude woman. “The Luncheon in the Grass. It actually created quite the scandal.”
“Because the woman is nude?” I asked.
She tilted her head from side to side. “In a way. It wasn’t that he painted a nude woman. It’s that she is so casually lying in the park next to two men who are fully clothed. It was supposed to be a nod to the sex workers who often worked their trade in parks. It was apparently a fact that everyone knew but it was not commented on or even acknowledged in society.”
“And what do you see when you look at it? What fiction is in your head?”
“It feels free.” She gazed longingly at the painting.
“Please, explain.”
“In our world, women are expected to do certain things, act a certain way, dress a certain way. It can feel like a prison. In this painting, the woman is naked, unburdened from societal expectations. The way she is painted, staring so boldly at her audience, totally comfortable in her own skin. With her body, she isn’t trying to be someone she isn’t. She has a casual confidence that I don’t think I would ever be able to embody.”
“The casual confidence of a prostitute?”
“When I see it, I don’t see a prostitute. I see a woman free to live how she chooses.” She lifted her shoulders in a casual shrug.
I thought back to the night of the opera.
That dress had been a plea for some control in her life.
It hadn’t been just a dismissal of my order; it had been a fight not to lose herself.
I couldn’t help but wonder what could have happened if I had allowed her some freedom for a single night.
“You know, I went to art school. My mother thinks I did it just to spite her, and although I admit that was a nice benefit, it was probably one of the few things I have ever done for me.”
