“The reverse?”
“I wonder if it’s your beauty that makes you sad and vulnerable.”
Sienna’s throat sounded dry. “In the sketch, I’m looking to my right. At what?”
“Whatever’s important to you.”
“A breeze from that direction is blowing my hair. Somehow you’ve created the illusion that whatever I’m looking at is passing me.”
“The important things are passing all of us.”
10
Sienna hurried up the steps to the sunbathed terrace and tried not to falter when she didn’t see Chase at the wrought-iron table, where they usually met before going to work. I’m a little early, she told herself. He’ll be here shortly. But before she could sit down, she saw a servant carry a large bowl of something into the sunroom.
Puzzled, she followed. The servant came out as Sienna entered. She saw Chase peering down at what was now visible to her in the bowl. Eggs.
“Good morning.” He smiled.
“Good morning. You’re going to have breakfast in here?”
“I might not have breakfast at all. I’m too eager to get started.” Chase picked up an egg, cracked it, divided its shell, and poured the yolk from one half to the other, making the white drop into a bowl.
Still thinking he intended to eat the eggs for breakfast, Sienna asked, “How are you going to cook them?”
“I’m not. I’m going to make paint with them.”
“What?”
Chase eased the yolk from the half shell and placed it on a paper towel, where he rolled it gently, blotting off the remainder of the white.
“You’re gentle,” Sienna said. “I’d have broken the yolk by now.”
“Believe me, years ago, I broke plenty when I was learning.” With a thumb and forefinger, Chase picked up the yolk by the edge of its sack and dangled it over a clean jar. “Feel like helping?”
“I’d break it.”
“At this point, we want to. Use that knife to puncture the bottom of the yolk. Carefully. Good.” Chase let the yolk drip from its sack, then delicately squeezed the remainder out.
“Here.” He handed her an egg.
“What?”
“Help me prepare more yolks.”
“But…”
“You saw how it’s done. The worst that can happen is we have to get more eggs.”
She chuckled. “Yesterday I was finger painting. Today you’ve got me playing with food.” But after she cracked the egg and separated the white from the yolk, she wasn’t prepared for how sensual it felt to roll the intact yolk in a paper towel and blot off the remainder of the white. The soft pouch felt extremely vulnerable through the paper towel, needing to be handled with the utmost care. When she transferred it to the palm of her hand, the yolk felt surprisingly dry, delicately quivering, the tactile sensation intensifying.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Why?”
“I can’t remember the last time I had a pleasurable new experience.”
“If separating eggs is your idea of a good time…” Now it was Chase’s turn to chuckle.
She enjoyed the sound of it. “How many do you need?”
“Eight.” He lanced the yolk he held.
“What do you want with them?”
“After dinner last night, I came back here and ground the pigments you see in those other jars.”
Sienna studied them. White, black, red, blue, green, yellow, violet, and brown. Except for one, they were common colors, and yet she didn’t think she’d ever seen any so pure and lustrous. “That shade of brown is unusual.”
“Burnt sienna.”
She felt a shock of recognition.
“The shade of your skin,” Chase said. “Your parents named you well. It happens to be my favorite color.”
She looked in amazement from the jar to her arm.
“It’s distinguished by a brilliant, transparent, fiery undertone that’s especially suited for a medium as brilliant and luminous as tempera,” Chase said.
After adding one pigment to each of the yolks, he blended the mixtures with distilled water until they were fluid enough to be applied to a surface. “And now we’re ready to rock and roll.”
11
The plywood was on an easel, its chalk surface covered with a version of the sketch that Chase had selected.
“So now you color the sketch?” Sienna asked.
“No, it’s more complicated than that.” He guided her toward her chair, which he had placed in front of the easel. “The sketch is only a blueprint.”
Until that moment, she had thought that he’d stared at her as intensely as anyone possibly could, but now she realized that he hadn’t really stared at her at all. The power of the concentration he now directed toward her was eerie. From five feet away, his gaze seemed to touch her. Along her neck, her lips, her eyelids, her brow. She felt invisible fingers caress her skin, making it tingle. She felt something from him sink beneath her, warming her, becoming one with her.
“Are you all right?”
“What?” She straightened in the chair.
“You look like you’re falling asleep. If you want to get some rest, we can try again later.”
“No,” she said quickly. “I’m fine. Keep going.”
Chase managed to keep his intense gaze focused on her all the while he dipped his brush into a jar of paint, used his left thumb and forefinger to squeeze some of the paint from the brush, and applied the paint to the rigid surface. Sometimes, his hand went to the surface automatically, as if he knew how the image he was creating appeared without needing to look at it except for quick glances while he concentrated on her.
Overwhelmed, needing to talk but not knowing what about, she said the first thing that came into her mind. “I can feel you painting me.”
“If this makes you uncomfortable…”
“No. I don’t mind it at all. How long will the portrait take?”
“As long as it needs. That’s one of the advantages of tempera. I can add layer after layer for weeks before the yolk finally becomes so inert it refuses to accept another level. Don’t worry, though. This isn’t going to take weeks.”
Sienna surprised herself by thinking that she wouldn’t mind if it did.
A muffled explosion rattled the windows.
“What are they doing over there?” Chase asked.
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen that part of the estate.”
Chase looked surprised.
“When Derek and I were married, he told me I wasn’t allowed over there. I didn’t know how serious he was until curiosity got the better of me and I tried to get a look. A guard stopped me before I was halfway there. That night, the discussion at dinner wasn’t pleasant. I never tried again.”
“You didn’t know how he earned his money when you married him?”
Sienna rubbed her forehead.
“Sorry. That’s a question I have no business asking.”
“No, it’s all right.” She exhaled wearily. “I should have asked more questions of my own. I had a vague idea of what he did, but I didn’t make certain connections. What is it they say? The devil’s in the details. Once I began to understand the specifics, I wished I were still naïve.”
The next thing, Chase was standing over her. “Are you okay?”
Her shoulder tingled from the touch of his hand. “It’s nothing. A headache.”
“Maybe we should stop until after lunch.”
“No, we had a rhythm going.”
12
“It’s exquisite.” Bellasar’s smile was as bright as Malone had ever seen it, emphasizing the tan of his broad, handsome face. “Better than I dared hope. More imaginative than I dreamed a portrait could be. Isn’t it, Alex?”
“Yes,” Potter said without enthusiasm.
It was eight days later. They were in the library, where Bellasar had insisted on a special unveiling, champagne for everyone, except, of course, Bellasar.