Charlotte successfully avoided Flynn Rutledge for the next two days.
Well, perhaps avoided was a bit of an exaggeration for two people sharing the same space, but at no point in time did they trade any words other than a good morning and a good night. As it was, the days passed in a blur, Charlotte completely losing track of the time, as she was often wont to do when she became immersed in a project. Minutes and hours ceased to have meaning. She was aware of nothing save for the scratch of charcoal over the smooth oak surface, the crinkle of paper as she consulted her detailed sketches, and the soft creaking of the wooden boards on the scaffold as she moved across them.
It wasn’t until her eyes started to ache at the end of the second day that she realized she had lost almost all of her natural light.
She sat back, balancing on the middle span of the scaffold, her cramped muscles protesting loudly. She winced, but even the discomfort couldn’t diminish the rush of pleasure she felt as her eyes roamed over her work. The initial sketch across the panel was complete, black lines waiting to be brought to life by color. Her fingers, tired as they were, already itched for her brushes.
“Lady Cecelia Mountbatten.”
Charlotte jerked, her pulse skipping. While she worked, she had mercifully forgotten about Flynn Rutledge and his mercurial temper. Had she known how defensive and furious he would get over those drawings, she wouldn’t have come within ten feet of them. She hadn’t had any interest in a confrontation then, and she certainly didn’t want to confront him now. “I beg your pardon?”
“The woman in the drawings.”
Charlotte turned carefully on the platform to find Rutledge looking up at her, holding two steaming mugs. With a start, she saw that at some point he must have fed the fire in the hearth and lit the lanterns hanging on the walls against the encroaching night. He’d shed his coat, and dark smudges marred the paleness of his shirt. Her eyes darted to his panel, but as usual, he had covered it with a long sheet. She had no idea why he insisted on hiding his work, but she was certainly not going to ask and risk another tirade.
She eyed him warily, making no move to descend.
His own gaze examined her work behind her. “An impressive start, Mr. Beaumont.”
“Thank you.” Still, Charlotte hesitated, unsure what he wanted from her. Unsure she wanted to engage in any sort of conversation about any part of his life that wasn’t related to the panels behind her.
He held a mug out to her. “I come in peace.” Charlotte supposed that was as close to an apology as she was going to get. Her stomach suddenly rumbled in hunger, and she realized she hadn’t eaten anything all day, too absorbed in her work. She left her tins and charcoal on the scaffold and climbed down.
She accepted the mug from his hands, careful not to touch him, and let the warmth seep into her skin. She took a tentative sip of the steaming tea, closing her eyes briefly in appreciation. He had brewed it strong, exactly how she liked it.
“Lady Cecelia Mountbatten was my…lover.” Rutledge said it flatly—how he might describe a pebble in his shoe that had been difficult to dislodge.
Charlotte studied him over the rim, trying to determine why he was telling her this and what it was he wanted her to say. I’m sorry seemed a possibility, given his tone. She didn’t know Lady Cecelia Mountbatten personally, had never met her, but she’d overheard someone mention her many years prior. The widow of the Earl of Boyle was as famous for her dalliances with artists and actors as she was for her wealth. Though details of those dalliances had never interested Charlotte. Until now.
Now she found herself suddenly fascinated in a manner that was downright appalling.
“Did you love her?” Charlotte clamped her mouth shut too late. That had been a stupid question to ask. She refused to examine why she had asked it.
Rutledge looked at her sharply. “No. Though there was an unfortunate period of time in which I thought I did. And believed she loved me in return.”
“And the two of you are no longer on…um…ah…intimate terms?” she ventured, trying to better imagine how Charlie Beaumont would respond while ignoring the heat that she could feel climbing into her cheeks.
“No.” A shadow passed over his face. “We’re not.”
“Ah.” Charlotte took another sip so that she didn’t have to say anything else. What could she say? What did men say to each other in situations like this? Bloody hell, Charlotte didn’t even know what women said to each other in situations like this.
“Are you a virgin, Beaumont?” Rutledge asked, his grey eyes almost silver in the low light.
“What?” The heat in her cheeks turned into an uncontrollable inferno, even as she tried to reason that Charlie Beaumont would probably not be embarrassed by the question. In the next heartbeat, Charlotte felt the color leach from her face as quickly as it had risen as a new possibility occurred to her. Holy gods above. Surely Rutledge was not going to propose a night of debauchery? A visit to a brothel? That aside from an apologetic cup of tea, he had taken it in his head to introduce Charlie Beaumont to the delights of the fairer sex while banishing the unpleasant memory of his mistress?
“No,” she blurted before she caught herself. “No,” she said again, this time trying to achieve the casual flippancy that she imagined Charlie Beaumont would display. Even as Charlotte Beaumont spoke a truth that, until this moment, no one else in the world knew. There was a liberating irony in that.
Though Charlotte wasn’t entirely sure how much a single afternoon counted against Rutledge’s apparent experience. An afternoon when Allan, the bookseller’s son, had led her deep into the Aysgarth dales and, in the privacy of a sun-dappled clearing, kissed her until she was dizzy. And then his hands had come to rest nervously against the ties of her dress, asking permission. Young and drunk on the idea of love, she had nodded, undoing the first knot herself.
“You’re not married, are you?” Rutledge asked, interrupting her reverie and looking as though he found that possibility absurd. He wouldn’t be the first, Charlotte thought, though not for the reasons he thought. Allan had shyly asked her to wait for him to return from the wars, and Charlotte had agreed to that too. He’d been killed in Vitoria two months later.
No one had asked since then. For her hand in marriage or otherwise.
She shook her head. “No.”
“You have a girl waiting on you somewhere?”
“No.” She didn’t have anyone waiting on her. Anywhere.
“You’re better off, you know,” Rutledge muttered. “Women can’t be trusted.”
Charlotte felt her brows shoot upward. “That’s a little unfair, don’t you think?”
“You’re right.” Rutledge stared darkly into his tea. “Rich, titled women can’t be trusted,” he amended. “For they are all conniving, duplicitous creatures.”
Charlotte’s fingers tightened on her mug. That was a little unfair too. But she bit her tongue on behalf of a boy from Aysgarth who would probably not have reason to have an opinion. She should go now. Nod and make some sort of noise that would neither agree nor disagree and then remove herself. She really didn’t need to argue, and she certainly didn’t need to know what lay between a capricious widow and a gifted artist to make him so bitter. What his rich, titled mistress had done to wound him so deeply was none of her business.
“I must assume it is the Lady Cecelia who has inspired such…umbrage?” Morbid curiosity triumphed over good sense.
“Of course it is.” His eyes snapped up, narrowed and mocking. “You really haven’t heard the tales? About me? About us?”
Suddenly clouding her vision was an image of Rutledge in all his golden glory, reclining on satin sheets, the dark-haired Lady Cecelia peeling away his clothes as he kissed her senseless. The expected rush of horrified embarrassment that should have followed that was strangely absent. In its place was a feeling of…jealousy. A deep, inexplicable longing to know what it might feel like to be seduced by Flynn Rutledge. To be expertly kissed by a man capable of the deep, intense emotion that she had already glimpsed in his work. To be taken to bed and caressed by his clever hands, his long fingers gliding over her bare skin, toying and teasing, his body moving deep inside hers. To be tasted and touched and treasured and—
“I have not heard the tales,” Charlotte said, realizing that her breathing wasn’t entirely even. Her breasts ached beneath their bindings, and a pulsing need had settled deep at the juncture of her thighs. Good God, what was wrong with her? She squared her shoulders. “And I cannot imagine that it is either fair or reasonable to assume Lady Cecelia Mountbatten represents the…integrity or decency of all titled women. Or women of any sort, really.” Charlotte wished those words back the second they escaped. She had promised herself that she would not pick a fight with this man. It was injudicious, and one wrong step could cost her everything. But combative was better than besotted. Besotted was beyond foolish.
Besotted was insane.
Rutledge was giving her a hard look. “Right.”
Charlotte couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or serious. But his belligerence and hostility were certainly back in full force. “Look, Mr. Rutledge, I am here to work. I am not your enemy. I am not here to judge you. For your past or anyone who may be a part of it. Your privacy, beyond what you wish to share, is just that. Yours.”
He hadn’t looked away from her but had gone eerily still. “I think you actually mean that.”
“I am not in the habit of lying.” Charlotte bit her lip against the jarring self-reproach that assailed her. For now, she would not consider herself guilty of lying by omission. Circumstance required it. “I only ask that you grant me the same privacy,” she continued. “I know better than anyone what it feels like to be judged not on merit but on…appearances.” At least that was the truth.
He had the grace to redden slightly. “Yes,” he said slowly. “That’s fair.”
“Thank you.” Though if the worst happened, if her true identity was discovered, she doubted that he would still agree. She didn’t think he would be quite so benevolent should she be revealed as a rich, titled woman.
“You should know that Lady Cecelia was—is—a woman with unlimited wealth and vast connections. She is an enthusiastic patron of the arts,” Rutledge said with a twist to his lips. “And as such, there are many who accused me of using her to advance my career. Accused me of sleeping with her to gain entrance to the hallowed halls of society where our sort will never be welcome.”
“You don’t need to tell me—”
“I want to.” He had a strange expression on his face. “You are bound to hear it eventually, and I would prefer you hear it from me. I would prefer that—” He stopped. “I did not use her. She used me. Fancied me as nothing more than a wicked diversion, something more scintillating than the civilized gentlemen who pursued her. And something easily cast aside and replaced when she tired of it.”
“I’m sorry.” This time Charlotte did say it. Because being cast aside by those who were supposed to love you was something that she understood better than anyone.
His lip curled, and he looked down at his mug. “Just heed my advice, Mr. Beaumont. Do not do what I did. Do not trust your ambitions and your dreams and your secrets to another. If you are to survive in this world, you need to fight all your own battles. Every single one. You need to have your own back.”
“I agree,” Charlotte said simply.
Rutledge’s eyes slowly climbed back to hers, a wary look in his eye like he had been expecting her to argue. “Lady Cecelia was…” He stopped and shook his head.
“A mistake,” Charlotte said.
“A mistake,” Rutledge repeated as though he thought Charlotte might be mocking him.
“A mistake,” she said again, feeling the weight of this exchange. “A mistake to be treated in the exact same manner that you treat a success.” She ignored the incredulous look he was giving her. “Mistakes and successes both have the same power—to be destructive or constructive. Dwell on either too long and they will both prevent you from moving forward. Learn from your mistakes and your successes in equal measure, and they will both make you better.”
“Grand words for one so young,” Rutledge remarked after a long minute.
“I’ve learned a few things the hard way.”
“I see.” His skepticism was apparent.
He didn’t really see anything, Charlotte thought with a sudden frustration that clawed through her like physical pain. The insane impulse to tell him everything gripped her just as swiftly. What would happen if she were to tell him her name? If she took his hand in hers and told him that she understood more than he could imagine how it felt to struggle and hope, only to be shut out and cast aside?
“Do you see? Really?” She knew she should end this conversation, but she couldn’t seem to stop the words that had built up within her, and she was no longer sure if she was speaking about Rutledge or herself. “Lady Cecelia was not your first mistake, I would think, and probably not your last,” she said. “But neither she nor anyone else, no matter what they’ve done, diminishes you. Not your skill, your talent, or your ambition. It’s all still there within you.”
She knew she’d said too much. Said all the wrong things. Charlie Beaumont from Aysgarth would not have spoken in such a manner. Charlie Beaumont would likely have made a crude joke at Lady Cecelia’s expense and then suggested that they both get thoroughly foxed to forget her.
“What do you want, Mr. Beaumont?” His question was sudden.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You speak of ambition, and I’m curious what sort of ambition it is that you harbor.” He waved his hand in the direction of the panel. “When you are done with this commission, where will you go? What will you do?”
Charlotte ran a finger around the edge of her mug, trying to decide how to answer that. Amid all this candor, it was reasonable for him to press her for details about her own life. Her own ambitions and failings and struggles and…mistakes. Details she could never share.
This was exhausting, all this lying without lying.
She took a sip of tea and then another. “I don’t know,” she finally said with utter honesty. She didn’t know where she would go, but she could not bring herself to imagine ever returning to the cold loneliness of London or Aysgarth. Though that was not something she could tell him. “What of you, Mr. Rutledge?” she asked instead, deliberately turning the conversation back in his direction. “Where will your ambitions ultimately take you?”
“Italy,” he said quietly and without any hesitation. “After this commission is complete, I will go to Italy.”
“Italy?” She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but given what little she knew of Rutledge and the astounding aptitude she had already seen in his Madonna and his defiant St. Michael, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had declared his intent to become a portraitist sought by royalty. “To do what?”
“To study. To learn.” He paused, his voice hoarse. “To see the Baptistery. The church of St. Augustine. The Uffizi gallery.” He met her eyes. “And more than anything, the Sistine Chapel.”
Charlotte looked down at the dregs of her tea, recalling their earlier conversation about just that. And remembering how bleak he had looked when she’d admitted she’d been there. She set her empty mug aside.
“What are you doing?”
“I have something that you should see.” Before Charlotte could second-guess the wisdom of what she was doing, she ducked into her room and retrieved the long canvas tube she had set in the corner. She passed it to Rutledge.
He took it gingerly. “What is this?”
“A piece of the Sistine Chapel,” Charlotte said.
He remained motionless.
“It’s only fair that you delve through some of my work,” Charlotte said lightly. “Since I’ve already done the same to you.”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Just open it,” Charlotte interrupted, not wishing to revisit anything to do with the topic of Flynn Rutledge’s mistress. And what they may or may not have done together.
Rutledge set his own mug aside before untying the leather strings and sliding the top off the tube. He set it on the long table and carefully slid the canvases out, letting them unroll flat on the surface. Charlotte could see her copy of the Van Dyck on top and moved to push it away, but Rutledge held out a hand and stopped her.
“Is this yours?” he asked.
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “It is but a copy of an original work.”
“A copy.”
“Yes. Of a Van Dyck. But it is not that that I wish to show you. Look at the small one beneath it.”
Rutledge continued to gaze down at the portrait of the young girl, and Charlotte wondered if he’d even heard her. Eventually, with what looked like reluctance, he moved it aside, and she heard him catch his breath as the smaller painting was revealed.
“The Creation of Adam,” Charlotte said quietly. “My favorite of all the chapel scenes because it is, for all its divinity, inherently human. I made more sketches than I care to admit, and when I returned to England, I painted it. I have a…er, knack for reproductions, but you’ll have to forgive my memory for any color inaccuracies you discover when you visit it yourself.”
Rutledge was tracing the lines of Adam’s arm as he reached up, his fingers hovering just over the canvas, careful not to touch the paint. He was completely silent, his expression giving nothing away. She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, Rutledge not speaking and Charlotte wrestling with uncertainty that she had done the right thing by showing him.
“It’s incredible,” Rutledge said.
Charlotte felt something warm blossom inside of her. She had done the right thing.
“It is,” she agreed. “In my opinion, Michelangelo’s work is second to none—”
“No, I mean this is incredible. What you’ve done. This painting.”
“It’s only a copy,” Charlotte said, shaking her head.
Rutledge was scowling fiercely. “It’s a glimpse of something most people will never have the chance to see.”
“Perhaps,” Charlotte allowed.
Rutledge held it up reverently.
“Keep it,” Charlotte said on impulse.
His head snapped around. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can. I’m giving it to you.” As much as Charlotte had initially doubted the wisdom of showing it to him, gifting him the painting came with a sense of certainty.
He was shaking his head. “I won’t—”
“Keep it to look at whenever you need to remind yourself that your ambitions and dreams are always yours. Return it to me when you return from Italy if you must.” Not that that would ever actually happen, because Charlotte couldn’t begin to imagine what she might be doing months or years from now that would still involve Flynn Rutledge. That thought was oddly dispiriting.
“Why would you do that for me?” he asked, and he was gazing at her with that familiar intensity that made Charlotte fear he was looking right through her. Butterflies were suddenly beating a frantic tattoo against the inside of her rib cage.
She turned away from him before she blurted something stupid that a boy from Aysgarth would never, ever say. Before she responded the way a besotted woman might.
She shrugged. “Because I can,” she said carelessly over her shoulder. “And because I am hopeful that we might complete this commission as friends, Mr. Rutledge.”
He didn’t answer, but she could feel his eyes following her every move.
Charlotte reached for her previously discarded scarf that still hung on her scaffold, suddenly anxious to escape the undercurrents of emotion that were threatening her composure and put a much-needed distance between them. “Thank you for the tea, Mr. Rutledge. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” She cringed at the complete artlessness of that.
“Wait. Where are you going?” The words came out in a rush.
Anywhere that wasn’t here. “I don’t know. To get something to eat. I’m famished.”
“There’s a tavern on the south end of Warwick Lane. It serves a decent stew and a passable ale for a reasonable price.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Would you care for company?” He hesitated. “Because I, too, would like to complete this commission as friends.”
Charlotte instantly opened her mouth to refuse until she turned and caught a glimpse at what lurked beneath Rutledge’s closed, tight expression.
Loneliness.
Something that had been her constant, awful companion since she was a child. Something that superseded all the promises she’d just made to herself to put more distance between them.
“I’d like that,” she heard herself say.
He smiled at her then, a genuine one that crinkled the corners of his silver eyes and exposed a slight dimple along his left cheek. All the air in the room was suddenly sucked out. Her knees actually went a little weak, and the aching want and need deep within her roared back to life. Charlotte put a hand on the edge of the scaffold to steady herself. She could not do this. She could not harbor this sort of desire for a man she was supposed to be working with. She could not allow herself to become infatuated like a pitiful, moon-eyed schoolgirl when everything she had truly wanted and worked so hard for was finally in her grasp.
She needed to be better. At the very least, she needed to be far more careful than she’d been this far. “We should go,” she mumbled.
“Of course,” Rutledge said, seemingly not noticing her reaction. “I’ll fetch my coat.”