Portrait of a Love (9 page)

“Isabel.” It was Leo’s voice and she turned to find him smiling at her. “May I introduce Don Carter,” he said.

“How do you do, Miss MacCarthy,” the silver-haired man said. “I understand you are painting Leo’s portrait.”

The thought flashed through Isabel’s mind that on her tombstone would be engraved the words
She Painted Leo’s Portrait.
She smiled at Mr. Carter and made appropriate noises of affirmation and delight.

“Don is one of the trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art,” Leo told her pleasantly.

“The Corcoran,” Isabel repeated. “I was dying to come down last year and see your exhibit on American painting, but I never made it.”

Leo waved a genial hand. “Join us for a bit, Don, why don’t you?”

The distinguished gentleman seemed pleased by Leo’s invitation and sat down at their table.

“If you are interested in portrait painting, you must certainly visit us,” he said to Isabel. “We have one of the finest collections of eighteenth-century portraiture in the country.”

Isabel was interested. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, indeed.” Mr. Carter was well launched on what was obviously a favorite topic, and Isabel listened with unfeigned attention. When he left them half an hour later, it was with obvious reluctance.

Leo watched him go and then turned back to Isabel, his blue eyes glinting with amusement. “The Carters are one of the original Washington families, what they call Cave Dwellers here. Don can do you a lot of good, Isabel. He said he wanted to see your work—show it to him.”

“I don’t have my portfolio with me, but he can always see your portrait.” She looked after Mr. Carter. “Cave Dwellers?” she echoed in bewilderment

“Yep. This club runs to the old-guard type—you don’t see that many politicals. I only got in because I’m a Sinclair of Charleston, and Charleston’s old families go back much farther than Washington’s do.”

“Well, I’m descended from the High Kings of Tara,” Isabel said sweetly.

“I’ve never yet met an Irishman who wasn’t descended from the High Kings of Tara.”

Isabel grinned. “Every Irishman is an aristocrat.”

“So it seems,” he said good-humoredly. He glanced at his watch. “And we had better get moving. We’re to dine with the Matthewsons before going on to the dance.”

“Doesn’t anyone in this town ever stay home?” Isabel asked as they left the clubhouse.

“Not unless they’re sick or dying.” At his reply Isabel’s face broke into its sudden radiant smile, and a flicker of emotion went across Leo’s serene face. In a moment it was gone. “Come on,” he said. “The car is over here.”

The dance that evening was given by an organization called The Dance Group. “It’s simply a group of subscribers who like to get together for a dance once in a while,” Leo told Isabel in the car as they drove out to McLean for the predance dinner party they had been invited to. “Being a bachelor, I don’t belong, but I’ve been invited so many times I feel like a member. Maxine—Maxine Wallace, one of the patronesses—told me to come tonight and to bring you.”

“Do you have to be accepted into this group, the way you have to be accepted into a country club?” Isabel asked.

“Yep. But it’s not a big deal. The ladies in charge are all very nice.” Leo spoke with the casual certainty of a man to whom doors have always been open.

The sun child, Isabel thought a little acidly. The golden boy. He had probably never had to struggle for anything in his life.

Isabel wore a plain burgundy sheath gown and no jewelry except her watch and long gold drop earrings. The jewelry on the other women seemed to point up her own lack. Well, I’m not a rich senator’s wife, she thought defiantly. I’m only a poor struggling painter, thank God. And she held her dark head high, the expression on her proud young face grave and still.

She felt a little stiff at dinner; she was too aware of the jewels and the silver lame on the other women, and too worried about the prospect of dancing with Leo. She wanted to dance with him, to feel his strong body against hers. It was this desire that worried her most of all.

The dance was held at the Federal City Club ballroom, and groups of different dinner parties converged upon the candlelit room with greetings and cheek kisses. The society orchestra played cheerful upbeat dance music, and couples spun merrily and purposefully around the floor. It was a giant party and everyone was obviously having a ball. Isabel stared. It was nothing at all like the nose-in-the-air affairs she had occasionally attended with Bob in New York.

“Well, let’s give it a spin, shall we?” Leo said good-humoredly and, taking her by the hand, led her out onto the dance floor.

Leo held her in a light but firm grip and steered her effortlessly around the floor. They stopped three times to chat with other couples, and Leo exchanged greetings with at least five other people. By the end of the dance Isabel’s face was bright with laughter. This was not going to be a romantic cheek-to-cheek evening at all.

“It’s a good thing I took ballroom dancing in gym,” she said to Leo as they left the floor. “Foxtrots are not the usual style in my group.”

He chuckled. “My mama made sure I knew how to dance. Sent me to dancing school when I was a kid.” His blue eyes laughed at her. “How I hated it.”

“But it’s come in useful,” Isabel said.

“Yep. Another case of Mama being right, as usual.”

Much to her own surprise, Isabel found herself having a wonderful time. She felt less self-conscious about her dress and danced with a variety of men besides Leo, all of whom went out of their way to be nice to her. She also drank several glasses of champagne.

At twelve-thirty she was drinking her fourth glass and standing by the fountain—the courtyard had been enclosed for the occasion to serve as a bar—talking to Herbert Rand, an Associated Press correspondent. Leo was in conversation with the British ambassador just inside the ballroom, and as she listened to Mr. Rand, Isabel’s eyes lingered on his distinctive blond head.

Mr. Rand followed her eyes. “He’s an astonishing guy, isn’t he?” he said, completely changing the subject.

“Leo?” She glanced up at the AP correspondent. “Yes,” she said then. “A veritable Renaissance man.”

“That’s one way of putting it, certainly. He’s got a brilliant future in politics, if he wants it.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Isabel asked curiously.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to know what Leo Sinclair wants. He’s a past master at seeming not to really want anything. To listen to him you’d think all of his achievements, the Rhodes scholarship, the football success, the senatorial election, just happened. You’d think he was just an easygoing guy, fortune’s child, and none of it was his doing at all.”

This, of course, had always been Isabel’s impression of Leo. “Isn’t it true?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “I know the AP sports correspondent very well. He says the last three years Sinclair played football he played in constant pain. When they finally operated, they couldn’t believe he had been running on those knees.” He looked over at Leo. “The last three years he played, Sinclair was All-Pro every time.”

Isabel looked at Leo. “Why would he do that?” she asked.

“He loved football. And Christ, how we loved to watch him. Those damn knees. I guess he went just about as long as he could, and then some, before quitting. He was only twenty-nine. He should have had a few more years.”

“I didn’t know,” Isabel said quietly. “I thought he hurt himself the last year he played.”

“He kept quiet about it. He did it in college, actually. Bob Rossi is sure that’s why he took the Rhodes; he knew he shouldn’t play anymore. But I guess he couldn’t stay away. It must have hurt like hell to have to quit. He had a shot at the all-time running record, you know.”

“No. I didn’t know.”

“And now he’s a senator.” The AP man smiled at her. “No freshman senator has had a more royal Washington reception than Leo Sinclair. The top hostesses fall over one another to get him. He applies to clubs with ten-year waiting lists and is accepted. And through it all, there he is, Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Easygoing.” He finished his champagne.

“I understand from the aides on the Senate committees where he sits that he is, consistently, the best-prepared and best-informed senator present.”

Isabel drank some of her champagne. “It would seem, then, that he is serious about politics.”

“I think he is. I think he has set his sights very high indeed. Of course”—and now the correspondent looked at her with frank curiosity—”he needs a wife.”

“Yes,” said Isabel austerely, “I suppose he does.”

“There’s a huge collection of willing women, as I imagine you must know. The leading candidates at the moment are Lady Pamela Ashley, the British ambassador’s daughter, and Cissy Baldwin. Cissy is divorced, however, so I think that rules her out. Sinclair is Catholic.” The correspondent smiled. “But no one has seen Lady Pamela or Cissy since you arrived on the scene, Miss MacCarthy.”

Isabel had never heard of Pamela or Cissy. “The senator has been very kind in introducing me around,” she said warily. “He knows how helpful some Washington contacts would be to me.”

“I see,” said the AP man, who looked as if he saw something very different indeed.

Isabel’s expression suddenly became aloof and withdrawn. “The senator’s mother commissioned me,” she said.

“I see,” the man repeated. She could feel his eyes on her profile. Then he said very casually, “You’re an extremely beautiful girl, Miss MacCarthy. You mustn’t be surprised if people come to conclusions about you and the senator.”

Slowly Isabel turned her head to look at the man beside her. He was struck by her stillness, her intensive, watchful stillness. “I am not beautiful and there is nothing but a professional relationship between me and the senator.” Her voice was calm, even, controlled.

“I will accept the last part of your statement,” the man said, his eyes on her face. “But not the first.”

“Isabel.” It was Leo. “They’re serving some supper. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” said Isabel. No one, she instinctively knew, would say uncomfortable things to her in Leo’s presence. He wouldn’t allow it. It was a privilege, she reflected wryly as they went over to the buffet, that he reserved to himself.

“What were you and Rand talking about?” he asked casually as they sat down with plates of scrambled eggs and sausage.

“You,” she replied.

He chewed slowly on his eggs. “Oh?”

She laughed at him. “You are the most imperturbable man I have ever known. Just
once
I would like to see you startled.”

“Stick around long enough and you will,” he returned amiably. He ate some sausage. “What was Rand telling you about me?”

“That you played in pain for the last three years of your football career.”

A shadow of annoyance crossed Leo’s face. “Don’t pay any attention to him. The press is prone to exaggeration.”

“Do your knees hurt you now?” Isabel persisted.

“No.” His voice was unusually clipped.

“What other injuries did you collect over the years?”

He shrugged. “Nothing spectacular.”

Isabel put down her fork and gave him a long dark look. “You could have crippled yourself. I suppose that thought never occurred to you?”

He put his own fork down and smiled at her faintly, his lids half hiding his very blue eyes. “It occurred to me.”

“Men,” said Isabel. She did not mean it as a compliment.

“I know.” His voice was very gentle, almost caressing. Isabel found she could not take her eyes away from him.

“Isabel!” A rich feminine voice next to her ear made her jump. Sunny Gunther, a vivacious young woman whom Isabel had met at a previous dinner party, approached with an unknown young man. “Here is someone who is dying to meet you,” Sunny said, and automatically, Isabel smiled.

The dance didn’t break up until after two and both Leo and Isabel were quiet going home in the car.

“You go on up to bed,” Leo said as they came in the front door. “It’s late and you must be tired.”

“All right.” She put her hand on the stair rail and then turned to look at him. “Aren’t you coming? It is, as you pointed out, very late.”

“In a little while.” He spoke almost absently. “I have a few things to do first.”

“Oh.” She felt absurdly forlorn, dismissed, and forgotten as she walked slowly up the stairs by herself.

* * * *

Leo refused to sit for his portrait the following morning.

“It’s Sunday, and Sunday is my day off,” he told her at breakfast. He was dressed in a well-cut light-gray suit.

Isabel said curiously, “Where are you going?”

“Church,” he replied succinctly.

“Oh.” She looked into her coffee cup. “I used to go when my mother was alive. I made my Communion and Confirmation. Then she died and I stopped going.”

“What did your mother die from?”

Hodgkin’s disease.”

“I see.”

“She was a wonderful person, my mother. So strong. She never complained.”

There was a brief silence. “Would you like to come with me this morning?” he asked gently.

“I... No, I don’t think so.”

“All right.” He didn’t press her.

“I think I’ll work some on the portrait’s background.”

“All right.” He looked at his watch. “What would you like to do this afternoon when I get back?”

“You don’t have to entertain me, Leo,” she said firmly.

“Well, then, how about you entertaining me? I sure would like a guided tour around some art museums, conducted by a bona-fide painter.”

She looked at him. “Would you?”

“I would.” He smiled. “You won’t believe this, but I’ve never been to the National Gallery.”

She stared in horror. “Are you serious?”

“Perfectly.”

“Well, it’s time you went,” she said decidedly.

“I reckon it is.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “We’ll go after lunch,” he said.

“God forbid you should miss a meal.”

He grinned. “Honey, I have never missed a meal in my entire life. It’s the rule I live by.”

“I’ve noticed.”

After he had gone, Isabel carried the dishes into the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher. Mrs. Edwards did not come in on weekends, so Isabel had made breakfast for the last two days. After a very token protest, Leo had handed the kitchen over to her with obvious relief.