Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter (22 page)

Twice his yearly salary in a month, he reminded himself,
giving a slight wave to acknowledge her as he headed toward the front door.
Even if he never found out the story behind the strange woman he was about to
paint, he would ultimately have one hell of a story to tell about the month he
spent doing it, he was sure.

* * * *

Professional models were always so easy to paint. They
understood what an artist wanted, how to assume a pose and keep it. He didn’t
know how they kept their minds occupied—did they recite baseball
statistics, the times tables, fantasize about the future, meditate?—but
for whatever kept them silent and still, he was grateful. He had been dreading
doing another painting from life. If he couldn’t get professional models, he
preferred to do his work from photos or sketches, because his experience with
real people who modeled was they loved to talk. They talked about their
gardens, their stock portfolios, their children. They fidgeted, shifted, got up
twice an hour to use the bathroom, and by the end of the session, were asking,
“Are we done yet?” like a five year old on a car ride.

But Lydia wasn’t like that. She was a dream subject,
obviously quiet, but also unnaturally calm and still, resting in the same
position day after day, hour after hour. The semi-reclining pose Kauffman had
chosen was convenient, of course, but she never fell asleep, as some subjects
in those poses did. Sometimes he would get so lost in his work, he’d forget she
was real—until he met her eyes.

God, her eyes. He didn’t have any idea how he was going to
capture that expression, her face, the way her eyes followed him, asked him
questions, conveyed some distant longing she couldn’t express. And he had
almost reached that point. It was easy, those first weeks, to work on the
background, the room itself. She had insisted on staying in position, anyway,
even though he told her she didn’t have to. He’d encouraged her to get dressed,
take a break, but she wouldn’t.

Instead she watched him from her repose on the settee, and
he found himself wondering—just who was the subject here? Now it was time
for him to focus on her, to trace the now-familiar curves of her body with his
gaze and his brush. He’d been avoiding it, he knew, afraid of what he might
uncover, not in the painting, but in himself. Three weeks with a silent ghost
of a woman and he thought he might be falling in love.

“Lydia, I need a break.” Ian stood and stretched, seeing
her eyes follow his movements. Sometimes, she looked so hungry, as if she were
starving for something. “Isn’t about time for the old bat to bring us lunch?”

Lydia smirked, her eyes dancing as she sat, too, following
his stretch with her own, her soft, long limbs flexing with the motion.
Reaching under the settee, she brought out a pad and pen he had given her,
their means of communication. She refused to use it at first, shaking her head
vehemently, her eyes wide with fear when he explained what it was for, but she
had become more comfortable, although she still hid it carefully from sight.

You look tired.

He nodded, looking down at her girlish handwriting as she
showed him the yellow pad. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

A frown knitted her brow and she cocked her head at him
before she wrote,
Bad dreams?

Ian shook his head, watching her as she stood, how perfect
she was, her hair like spun gold in the sunlight. “No, not bad dreams.
Incredibly good ones.” He sighed as she touched his cheek, her eyes worried,
and he took her hand, holding it there and turning so his lips pressed a kiss
against her palm.

Lydia jumped, pulling away as if burned.

“Lunch time, princess.”

They both startled at the sound of Mrs. Bauer’s voice
outside the door. She rolled a trolley tray through, but Ian noted she would
never come in herself. They had a girl who came to clean the room, a petite
blonde who stared at them with big, wide blue eyes as she worked, but aside
from her, no one but Kauffman ever visited.

“Think she poisoned the soup?” Ian joked, lifting silver
lids to see what that day’s fare was.

She wouldn’t dare.

He shrugged at her written words, pushing the tray over to
his chair and pulling another chair over for her. He marveled at how she looked
so comfortable doing everything in the nude, even sipping soup and eating
sandwiches. He had tried, a few times, to ask about the nudity, but all she
would say was:
He wants me that way.

And Ian had learned quickly, what Kauffman wanted, Kauffman
got.

He wolfed his lunch down, not discovering how incredibly
hungry he was until the first bite, and then ate the rest of Lydia’s as well.
She watched him, an amused smile on her face, and a warm look in her eyes that
made him flush.

“Artists are pigs,” he declared, burping loudly. “It’s a well-kept
secret, but it’s true.”

Lydia shook her head, still smiling as she stood and walked
to the other side of the canvas. Ian stiffened, watching. She was there, on the
sofa, not finished, of course, just a ghost of a woman now, needing real flesh.
Crossing her arms in front of her breasts—a gesture Ian strangely hadn’t
ever seen from her—she frowned at the canvas for a while, so long Ian
cleared his throat to get her attention.

“What, do you hate it?”

She shook her head, still frowning, her hand going to her
throat to touch the cameo on the velvet choker she always wore. Striding back
toward him, she picked up the pad and wrote furiously, turning so he could read
it.

I need to show you something.

Ian grinned. “Are you finally gonna show me where he buries
the bodies, then?”

Lydia didn’t smile. Instead, she took his hand, pulling him
toward the bed, and for a moment, just a brief moment, he entertained the
thought she was going to offer herself to him, just like that. The thought
excited him beyond reason, and he knew he’d have to be completely crazy to take
her up on such an offer. But she led him past the bed, stopping in front of the
dresser.

“It’s the closet, isn’t it?” Ian joked. He knew it was
locked—the first day, he’d looked for a place to put the portrait, and
Lydia had insisted the closet was off limits.
It’s his.
What wasn’t,
around here, Ian thought at the time, although he didn’t know how accurate the
thought really was. Kauffman owned everything—and everyone—who came
through the front door of his lair. “That’s where he does his secret
experiments, right?”

She gave him a withering look, reaching behind the enormous
mirrored dresser and pulling on something with both hands. He leaned over to
see what she was struggling with and saw immediately that it was a painting. He
gently nudged her aside, ignoring as best he could the soft press of her bare
breast against his arm as he slowly pulled the dresser forward so he could
slide the painting out from behind it.

“My god, is that you?” Ian asked, but knew the moment the
words left his mouth that it wasn’t. It was a different woman, certainly, her
face rounder, her body a little more plump, but the resemblance was uncanny.
The painting had been slashed several times with something sharp, and he had to
hold pieces of the canvas up to see the whole thing. It was the exact portrait
he had been commissioned to paint, the same room, same furniture, just a
different woman on the settee.

“What’s going on here?” Ian frowned, meeting her gaze.
Lydia’s eyes darted from him to the painting to the door, and just shrugged.

“Mrs. Bauer!”

The sound of Kauffman’s voice got them both moving, putting
the painting and dresser back quickly. They both heard his steps on the stairs,
accompanied by the unmistakable thump of his cane. By the time Ian picked up
his brush, Lydia was reclining once again on the settee, the only signs of her
transgression the pink flush on her cheeks.

“Mrs. Bauer!” Kauffman poked his head in, although he must
have know his housekeeper wouldn’t be there.

“She brought us lunch.” Ian nodded toward the tray.
“Haven’t seen her since.”

The old man gave a nod, his eyes not on Ian, but the
painting. “It’s coming along. Another week.”

“Yes,” Ian agreed. Another week of eight hour sessions,
spending time in the old house until the light faded while Lydia slept in the
big bed across the room. He still went home and crashed at his place every
night. Kauffman had offered one of their many rooms for his use, but he didn’t
trust himself. Not at night, not after the light was gone, and Lydia was curled
under the covers. Somehow, seeing her there like that, one thigh exposed, the
soft curve of her arm, tempted him more than having her in front of him all day
fully nude.

“Goot.”

They both breathed a sigh of relief when he was gone, and
Lydia carefully slid her pad and pen back under the settee. Ian had been there
all day every day for three weeks, and there was so much he still didn’t
understand about this woman and her life, but he wanted to scoop her up and
take her away from it, that much he knew. And that feeling was dangerous. He
fought it every moment of the day.

He sighed, starting to paint, focusing on lines, textures,
trying not to think about the flesh of the woman he was bringing to life on the
canvas, trying not to wonder why she married such a cold, hard man, or to be
curious about the other woman in the painting behind the dresser. One more
week, and this job would be done, and his life could go on the way it was.

Except he knew—looking over and meeting her eyes, the
way she softened when she looked at him like that—he knew somehow things
were never going to be the same for him ever again.

* * * *

It’s the last day.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Ian growled. He was never
going to finish in time. The light was already fading, a rosy glow radiating
through the room, turning everything a fiery orange. It was her eyes. He
couldn’t get her eyes right.

You can work through the night.

Ian shook his head, frowning, concentrating, barely looking
at her words. He couldn’t get it right, and he hated when the image eluded him,
hiding somewhere in the canvas, lurking just beyond his reach.

It wasn’t until Lydia was beside him, pressing against his
side, resting her cheek on his arm, that he really paid attention.

He’s gone.

Those were the words she was trying to show him.

“Who? Kauffman?” Ian shrugged, putting his brush down with
a sigh. “So?”

For the night. He’s gone out of town until tomorrow. Mrs.
Bauer said it was a family emergency.

“He’s still got family?”

Lydia shrugged, but her eyes were bright as she tugged on
his sleeve, leading him. He understood immediately, but he froze in place,
taking her hands in his, shaking his head.

“I can’t.” The disappointment in her eyes was a heartbreak.
“You’re married, and I’m…” He let his sentence trail off, the hurt in her eyes
like a knife in his belly. He expected her to argue, to turn to her pad and
scribble her pain. Instead, she dropped his hands, her face a sudden mask as
she turned away and walked toward the window.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, swallowing hard as she hugged
her arms, not looking at him as she made her way toward the big bed. It was
early yet, but she slid between the covers anyway. He stood there for a long
while, fighting with himself and trying not to imagine her silently wetting her
pillow with tears.

“Just get it over with, Baker,” he said to himself in the
fading light. He meant the painting, of course.

Of course he did.

He picked up his brush and began to paint again.

* * * *

The moon was high when he finished.

He stood at the window and watched it riding black clouds
for a long time, listening to her breathing behind him. It was her eyes,
watching him, all the time, her gaze burning through every defense, every
excuse, every rationalization. There was no arguing with her, no easy words to
cover emotion. She was just raw feeling, trembling and naked and vulnerable
before him in every moment.

That was what he had captured in her eyes. Finally.
Finally.

“Lydia?” He whispered her name as he approached the bed,
drawing aside the filmy curtain. She slept curled up like a child, one hand
tucked beneath her chin, her mouth a rosy pout. The sheet covered the top of
her breasts and he watched it rise and fall with her breath. The cameo in the
choker she wore glinted in the low lamplight, the black velvet band her only
adornment, and his eyes followed the curve of the sheet downward as it hugged
her curves, tugged tight between her thighs. She was ripe, delectable, beyond
words or form, and nothing could capture her. He had done his best, but it
didn’t come close to the experience of being next to the woman sleeping before
him.

He startled when she touched his hand and he glanced up to
see her eyes were open, watching him, questioning. He raised her palm and kissed
it, admiring the long, delicate curve of her fingers.

“I finished it,” he whispered, sitting beside her, brushing
a soft blonde curl from her cheek. She nodded, smiling, but the smile never
reached her eyes. Instead, there was sadness there. He wished she could speak,
to reveal the mystery of herself to him. He longed to unravel her, unwrap her,
find her true center.