Page 25 of Flirting with Forever

“Madonna or Venus. I forget which. Charles changed his mind so often.”

The painting was stunning. As Cam approached the canvas, the flush of Nell’s skin gleamed in warm light, the pillows on which she lay looked as if they would rise like clouds into the sky, and the pale blue dressing gown, the very one she now wore, draped off her shoulders, exposing pale breasts, a curving waist, and a long, slender leg bent at the knee. Her head was reclined against the pillows, angled slightly as if she were sharing a sly secret with the viewer, and sensuous waves of red-brown hair trailed across her shoulders and onto the white silk. Cam could almost see the individual strands, feel the lush fabric, smell the perfume on her skin. Cam saw what Peter saw, and for a long moment she wondered what it would be like to be thus observed. She also wondered if Peter was in love with Nell.

“It’s beautiful,” Cam said truthfully. It was also mildly shocking. It wasn’t that artists hadn’t been painting women nude in this century. They had from time immemorial. What made it shocking was that women of the court—she could hardly say upstanding women as she knew Nell had been a prostitute as well as an actress prior to going to bed with the king—did not pose without clothes. It was one thing for a woman of the street or the artist’s wife to pose for him. It was quite another for a woman who expected to maintain a place of honor and position to do it. This was the same quality that had made Peter’s paintings of the women with a breast exposed so intriguing.

Nell dimpled again. “Peter knows how to make a woman look beautiful.”

Cam stepped back to admire the whole.

The only part unfinished was Nell’s face. It looked as if he had started over at least once and possibly twice. Her eyes, nose, and mouth were no more than ciphers.

A key scratched in the lock, and a young man wearing a leather apron stepped in. “Pardon me, m’um—oh, good afternoon, Miss Gwyn,” he added, his pocked face lighting up.

“Good afternoon, Moseby.”

“Regrets, ladies, but it’ll be my hide if I don’t get this painting stowed. The duchess is in high dudgeon. She wants to know when Mr. Lely will begin her portrait.”

“Advise her not to choose a three-quarter view,” Nell said. “The hump may show.”

Cam stepped out of Moseby’s way as he unfastened the canvas. “I’m getting the impression,” Cam said to Nell, “you’re not an admirer of the duchess.”

“She makes things damned uncomfortable for Peter. She’s figured out Charles likes to have portraits painted of his lovers—and for some reason she thinks that because she’s Catholic she should be the only one. She’s taken to dropping in unannounced to see what she can sniff out—like one of them Frenchy truffle pigs, upon my word. Charles just assumes Peter will keep the royal lovers separated and his affairs discreet, and he has a mighty temper, which is why Peter has to go through this ridiculous Merry Andrew show whenever she shows up.”

Cam shuddered. Her family had been divided into the lions and the lambs. Anastasia, who took after their father, practically grew fangs and a stinger when she was mad. Cam, like her brother and mother, approached the world with unwavering calm, and she had had to work hard all her life not to be crushed in the onslaught. She hated the tyranny of temper.

“That doesn’t seem exactly fair.”

Nell laughed. “Fair doesn’t come into it. Charles is like a lava flow. It isn’t that he assumes everyone will get out of his way—he just happens to destroy the ones who don’t.”

“He wouldn’t destroy Peter, surely.” Cam didn’t know much about Lely’s later years. Was it possible he’d lost the favor of the king?

“I heard he nearly chucked him once. There was a misunderstanding over one of Peter’s whores. The king wanted her. Peter refused. Said he needed her for a painting he was completing that night and suggested one of the other girls might be more in the way of the king’s liking. It was a reasonable suggestion, and the king is known for giving his bedmates expensive gifts, so I’m certain any of them would have been happy to take her place. Charles was in one of his Falstaff moods, grinning and playing the host, so he didn’t want to be seen losing his temper. He agreed to choose another and laughed as if the whole thing had been a joke, but the footman who was there told me Charles didn’t see Peter for a year after that, and half the court stayed away as well out of fear of inviting the king’s displeasure.”

“Oh dear. Poor Peter.”

Nell grabbed a plum from a bowl of fruit, wiped it on her gown, and sighed. “I’ve painted Charles to be a positive Old Nick, I know, but he’s a rattlin’ good cove when it comes to fun, and I do think you’d like him if you met him, but I guess Peter has other ideas.” She gave Cam a curious smile and bit into the purple flesh. “Has anyone happened to mention you’re practically the twin of his lover?”

Cam started. “Charles’s?”

“Peter’s. That is, before old Pauly got his arms around her.”

The young man stole a look at Cam, then hoisted the painting free and hurried to the door. “Sorry for the intrusion.” As he bounded into the hall, Nell said, “You’ll want to make sure—”

A murderous scream exploded in the air.

“—she’s not in the hall. Oh no! Poor Peter!”

“That’s Nell in that painting!” a Frenchwoman cried. “Nell!”

Then men’s voices—Peter’s and what Cam assumed to be the king’s—joined in with urgent reassurances. The woman on the canvas, Peter explained, was the mistress of a Spanish count. She wasn’t Nell. Couldn’t possibly be Nell. Why, the hair was all wrong, as anyone could see. Nell’s was much darker. But the duchess would have none of it.

“She’s here, and I’ll find her. That irritating little beetch!”

The last words sent a bolt of fury through Cam. Of the dozens of painters in the art book on Amazon, she’d managed to find the only one with the Restoration equivalent of Anastasia as a client. There was only one way to deal with people like that. She grabbed Nell’s arm and dragged her toward the storage room. “Hide.”

Twelve

Peter’s heart sank as he hurried after the duchess. Around him, apprentices were running like rats before a flood, the king was alternately arguing and soothing, Stephen was quietly locking doors as if the horse hadn’t already jumped the stile, and even Mertons was rushing about trying to reassure Peter’s bewildered patrons, but all Peter could think about was that if Charles lost his temper over this, as he rightfully ought, Peter would never get his paper signed. And that paper must be signed. He owed it to Ursula.