head met a welcoming pillow?
Well, yes, of course there were pleasures greater than that instant of bliss. Far greater. To distract himself from those pleasures, Oak mentally critiqued the painting he’d unveiled that afternoon. How had Dirk Channing handled the pillows in his portrait of Catherine’s mother? Pillows were usually covered in damnably white linen, meaning they had to appear white without being white. Dirk had managed that feat by imbuing the pillowcase with pink and gold undertones, to pick up on the candlelight and the purple velvet covers.
Contemplating the image of the woman naked and replete among the bedcovers added to the pleasant sense of arousal Vera’s proximity created, though in Oak’s imagination, the woman who had been so well pleasured that she smiled in sleep became Vera.
And then she became dreams of Vera, and then she became deep, much-needed sleep.
The foremost sculptor in London sat snoring by the fire in one of the club’s many comfortable reading chairs. Richard Longacre, who occupied another such comfy chair, knew the poor fellow craved the warmth of this cozy room because the rheumatism in his hands grew worse by the year.
Near the door to the reading room, a brilliant and handsome young portraitist stood, conversing with his companion. The gifted Mr. Endymion de Beauharnais was rumored to have connections to the late French empress, though in fact he’d been born Andrew Hackett, in the hamlet—a generous characterization—of Hogtrot. He and his friend—neither as attractive nor as talented as de Beauharnais, but of an exceptionally charming demeanor—pretended they were off to find deeper play at the tables around the corner on St. James’s Street.
Artists, no matter how talented, handsome, or charming, could not afford deep play.
De Beauharnais—Diamond to his familiars—was, in fact, escorting his cheerful associate to a discreet set of rooms on a quiet street in Bloomsbury, where the pair would spend the rest of the night in each other’s arms.
The charmer waved to Richard, probably thinking himself daring and naughty. The portraitist made no such friendly display. To Richard, their attempts at discretion were laughable, almost touching. Half the club’s membership indulged in sexual adventures, if not outright orgies. The other half had done so in their youth. If being an artist wasn’t to make a man wealthy—and all too often, it did not—then the artistic lifestyle ought to at least afford him some wanton pleasure.
Or so the usual self-absolving reasoning went.
“You’re here a bit late, aren’t you, Longacre?” Stebbins Holmes sank into the seat opposite Richard’s. “Kitchener maundered on for three bottles of port about the pathetic state of art and the demise of discipline in the Academy apprentices.”
Stebby, unlike some of the club’s other senior members, had not let himself go to pot. He was trim, dapper, and his white hair was always tidily queued back, an old-fashioned affectation a sought-after children’s portraitist could carry off.
“If Kitchener doesn’t moderate his appetites,” Richard replied, “he will soon be swilling port in Saint Peter’s company.”
“Even if he does moderate his appetites, he won’t last much longer. Old boy never had any discipline, of all the ironies.”
What the old boy likely did have was a progressive case of a very nasty disease. He’d soon step down as head of the Academy’s admissions committee. Holmes was the logical successor, though when did logic and artistic organizations ever accommodate each other?
“I’ve done something you should know about,” Richard said.
“Regarding?”
“Channing’s widow.”
“Ah.” A single quiet syllable. Holmes had been one of Dirk Channing’s many mentors, then his advocate and his friend. He had seen Dirk’s potential as a young man, had seen both the talent and the ambition that would keep that talent safe from a fate such as old Kitchener faced. Dirk had frittered away neither his time nor his health, and he’d been generous in his encouragement of younger artists.
A bloody bedamned paragon, except for his long-term liaison with the formerly respectable Anna Beaumont, for which his peers hadn’t censured him.
Ancient history. Not relevant to the present conversation. “Mrs. Channing wrote to me asking if I knew of anybody willing to travel out to Hampshire to restore some older works. Not Channing’s paintings, but works he collected.”
Holmes crossed his legs at the knee, another Continental affectation. “So Dirk left the pretty widow without means, did he? Not very sporting of him. Why hasn’t she remarried? Many a man would pay well to gaze upon that much beauty across the breakfast table each morning.”
Verity Channing wasn’t simply pretty, she was lovely. The outer woman