Crimson Rapture (49 page)

Three
days later she received a large box filled with a dozen silk dancing slippers
and a note that read: "To the dances that await us." She laughed and
then cried and then laughed some more.

Christina
looked at her son, playing with a large ball on the lawn nearby. He was the
problem. She turned back to Charles Paton, who was packing his things onto his
mount in preparation to leave. "But it will take at least a week of
work!" she pointed out. "Probably longer!"

"If
you have something against work, you should not harbor pretenses of becoming a
painter. Women..." and he muttered something thankfully unintelligible.

Christina
folded her arms across her front and if he could have seen under her skirts, he
would have glimpsed her small bare foot furiously tapping the green grass.
"I wouldn't mind if I just understood the point of it."

"You,
my dear, do not have to understand anything. You simply have to do it." He
mounted his horse with surprising agility. "Until next week," and he
kicked his horse forward.

Watching
him leave, she suddenly called out with a last-minute hope, "Are you sure
you won't stay for supper?"

He
stopped his mount. "I have more important things to do," he called
back. "Things like painting! And if you could rid your mind of its trivial
pursuits, you would realize the same!"

Charles
Paton did not hear her uncharacteristic and very unladylike response to this as
he urged his mount on. His back was to her and distance was put between them,
and she did not see his smile of intense satisfaction. Satisfaction that had
never before come from teaching a student.

Justin
was returning home. The sun just began lowering in the clear afternoon sky.
Trees rustled softly with a light wind. Long shadows fell over the road. The
cool but pleasant air carried the fertile scent of growth and everything seemed
to burst into green shades of spring.

The
optimism in his heart found voice in a fine loud whistle. Optimism about
everything. The next six months in an illustrious career as a smuggler, or,
more politely, a privateer. This excitement on top of discovering love anew.

He
had taken Christina for a long week in town. They had wined and dined,
socialized at dinners and danced at parties. They had shared long walks, open
air carriage rides, and picnics in the park. They had talked and laughed and
for the first time together, they had played, teased, laughed with their son.
And while he still waited for her, no matter how difficult this was and it
seemed to grow more difficult each passing day—he knew they were progressing
down the path of forgiveness.

Once
he dealt with those bothersome French agents and saw his ships off, there would
be even more time to spend with Christina and little Justin, time with her that
he both needed and wanted.

Coming
up from the opposite direction, Justin met Charles Paton on the road just off
his property grounds. The two men reined in their mounts, exchanged greetings,
and Justin first asked how the lessons were proceeding.

"I
don't mind telling you, Christina is the best student I've ever had and, God
knows," he looked away, stuttered slightly, "I've had too many."

"Really!"
Justin was pleased.

"She
has an astonishing talent, the artist's sense of what is right, as well as a
good dose of perfectionism." Feeling unusually expansive, he elaborated.
"I give her an assignment that all other students will take a half day to
complete, at most a day. She immediately perceives that to do it right, the
task will require a week of work."

Justin
smiled in response. His horse wanted more rein, rolled its head and danced and,
like all good horsemen, Justin responded without thought to loosen the bit.
Then removing his water cask from his saddlebag, he took a long drought and
handed it to Charles.

"To
tell the truth," Charles said after his own long drought, "I might
even be enjoying myself if she weren't so infuriating."

"Infuriating?
Christina?"

"Aye.
Each of my simplest statements are met with ten of her questions. Ten! She
never stops and then too, I like my students to quake in the wake of my voice.
A proper dose of fear and intimidation is good for any teacher-student
relationship. For some reason, the more angry and insulting I get, the bolder
she becomes."

"Christina?"
To say the least, Justin was intrigued by this perspective of Christina. If
there were any one set of characteristics that were ill-matched between them,
it was her gentleness and timidity. So gentle and in that sense fragile, he had
to exercise the utmost care not to frighten and intimidate her.

How
had this man made her overcome it?

Charles
Paton handed the cask back. He understood Justin's incredulity but knew not how
to explain. Christina would overcome anything put between herself and painting
simply because she had the passion. Had Rembrandt been born in a den of
thieves, it is not true—as people often thought—that he would have become a talented
pickpocket. No, he would have found his way to an easel sooner or later. So it
was with Christina. Not only did she overcome the fact of her sex but she was
beginning to overcome the very timidity that had prevented her from recognizing
her talent. Talent that did not fit into the picture she had of herself. There
was no place for anything as grandiose as talent. Until now.

"It's
truly a shame," Charles said to himself out loud and with a shake of his
head.

"What?"

"This
sad fact of her sex."

Justin
chuckled. "I'll have to disagree with that."

"Hmmm,"
he replied with a smile of understanding. Fortunately, he had rarely suffered
from the effects of love over his lifetime. While he had a number of mistresses
and lovers throughout his life, he regarded them with just slightly more esteem
than a good book or a bottle of rum and, in the end, women fell into the
category of things that stole from his passion. "Well," he sighed,
returning to the subject, "she could possibly reach great heights if she
just weren't so... so utterly female!"

Justin
laughed, and after settling the matter of smuggling paints and canvases into
the country— things which would not be available with the Embargo Act—the two
parted with good-byes. He turned his mount toward home and resumed his whistle.
Winter had indeed melted into the bright promise of spring.

The
grand manor stood at the end of the long tree-lined lane and beyond that the
lake glistened in the afternoon sun. Off to the side and through the trees
stretched acres of expansive lawns. Beau barked and Justin turned to catch
sight of Christina and his son in the distance. It was an idyllic scene:
Christina stood in front of her easel, his son played on a blanket nearby, and
Beau and Beauty romped together over the lawns. He moved to become a part of
it.

"Oh
look who's here!" Christina called as she swept her son into her arms to
see.

Justin
laughed as the dogs, followed by Christina and his son, all ran up to greet
him. He swung off his horse and first took Justin into his arms. He tossed him
into the air and swung him round and round until he heard his son's excitement
burst forth in peals of uncontrolled laughter.

Christina
felt that tingling excitement all young ladies feel the first time they're
courted and in love. She could not suppress the joy in her heart. Ever since
the night of the ball, the long week's holiday in town, just seeing him made
her feel... well, giddy! As though she had enjoyed one too many glasses of
champagne—drunk on her happiness.

He
could see her happiness; it shined through her, and as they exchanged
pleasantries, a similar rush of emotions filled him. In the first few moments
with her he felt much like a schoolboy—and God knows this was new to him—and
today she looked the opposite part of a schoolgirl. Her hair was parted and two
long braided ropes fell well past her waist. Splashed with paints, she wore a
smock over a pale yellow day dress. She looked like a peasant girl, and
mid-sentence she lifted her skirts to see what he knew he'd find. Two very bare
feet. He smiled.

"I
couldn't resist. The day was so warm," she explained. Indeed she could
not; ever since the barefoot days on the island, she could don neither boots
nor even slippers without discomfort. "And neither could your son,"
she laughed, tickling little Justin's bare feet.

Justin
was trying to reconcile the fact that this young girl was one and the same with
the temptress in silk night robes, the beautiful and alluring creature at the
ball.

"I
saw Mr. Paton on his way out." He smiled and let Justin down to the
ground. "How did it go?"

Quite
suddenly and dramatically her mood changed.

"Awful!
The man's impossible, just impossible! He's insolent, insulting, mean and
arrogant— though," she admitted reluctantly, "his arrogance is
justified and I cannot fault him that. He never likes anything I do and the
worst of it, the very worst of it, is it's been two lessons now and he still
has not let me put a brush to the canvas! Imagine!"

Suppressing
a chuckle at the rush of her words, Justin tried to imagine any other time she
had become so passionate. And besides some noted exceptions, he could find
none.

"And
do you know what he'd have me do?" She returned her gaze from the canvas.

"What's
that?"

"He
instructed me to paint on paper thirty shades of each color! That's black,
white, brown, green, yellow, blue, and red! It will take me a week at least
and, oh!" She looked at her son on all fours trying to catch the dogs.
"It's all your fault!"

"My
fault?" Justin tried to reason this through.

"Yes!"
she cried out and, laughing, she ran to catch little Justin. She lifted him
into her arms and the picture of her laughing, holding him in the air, the sun
setting behind them to silhouette the whole, would be yet another to stay
forever in his mind.

"You
gave me him, didn't you? And you," she talked to the younger of the two,
"are such a handful! Never a moment's peace with you, is there?"
Little Justin laughed with a whole body grin and she handed him safely back to
his father. "Why couldn't you give me a son that at least takes naps like
other children?"

Justin
chuckled and shook his head. If she was in any way dissatisfied with their
first child, he would be more than willing to give her another and he was about
to tell her this when suddenly she was serious.

"Did
you speak with Mr. Paton?" she asked in a pretense of nonchalance.

"A
bit."

"Did
he comment on my progress?"

"Yes."

"Oh."
She looked away. "I imagine he said he'd not even bother with me if you
weren't so very generous."

Justin
saw that she truly expected this and, unbelievably, she was afraid to hear his
response. "Christina," he reached a hand to her face, "he
said—his exact words—that you were the best student he ever had."

She
looked up. Marked disbelief mixed with marked fear. He might have just told her
he had it on good word that the world was going to end on the morrow. Then she
turned quickly away and pretended to busy herself with gathering her things.
"You're just teasing me," she whispered on a frightened pause.

Justin
put his son back to the ground and moved to Christina. He was about to take a
drastic measure to force her to confront the happy fact that she had talent. A
lot of it. He reached for her arm, but in the same instant, Beauty drew their
attention with a loud yelp of pain.

Christina
took in the sight at a glance and darted forward, only to find Justin's
strength suddenly wrapped around her in restraint. Wide eyes watched as Beau
mounted, tried to hold Beauty still with his jaws around her neck. This,
however, was not Beauty's cause of pain. "What's he doing to her?"
she asked in a panic.

Justin
looked at the distress in her eyes and laughed, "Even you're not that
innocent. They're just mating, silly. Beauty must be in season."

Beauty
cried out in acute pain and tried desperately to tear away from Beau. This was
not possible. Christina tried desperately to tear away from Justin. This was
not possible either. "He's hurting her! Make him stop! Oh, please!"

"Not
a chance." One would likely lose a hand trying to interfere. After all
dogs were just animals, answering only the call of the wild while mating. He
was about to explain the simple facts of life when Beauty, mindless with fear
and the pain of it, screamed in a long howl.

"Oh
God! Let me go! Let me—" She squirmed, prying desperately at his arms that
would not loosen. Beau was killing her! Something was terribly wrong; a simple
mating would not hurt so much. "Please let me—"

"Stop
it. You're not going—" The sentence nearly choked him and he froze in
sudden shock. The similarity of this, the very words he uttered, to a scene
best forgotten crashed into his consciousness a mere second before the deja vu
experience hit her too, hit her like a stone to her head.