They arrived all too soon, and after giving the driver a generous tip, Thalia descended the carriage and approached the open door, handing the invitation to the doorman and tossing back the hood of her cloak. From there, she pulled a mask from her pocket and attached it to her head.
It was very unlikely that anyone in attendance here would also be attending places such as Almack’s, but she could never be too careful.
With the mask in place, she walked through the large rooms. In one, a mostly naked woman posed elegantly, sitting on the very edge of a chair with a maroon blanket wrapped loosely around her. Several young men avidly drew her, with varying degrees of accuracy and artistic talent.
Something stirred in Thalia as she watched. If the lady could have just tilted her chin a little—not demure but rather as though she owned the entire place—then that would bring the entire vision together. That way, her nudity became a kind of strength rather than a vulnerability.
I would draw her in the Roman style, she thought.Commit her to marble, as one of the more durable mediums.
The air stirred behind her, and a man leaned in. “Delicious, isn’t she?” His voice was unfamiliar, and his breath smelled heavily of wine. “Would you like to go next?”
“I would rather draw than pose, sir,” she said honestly.
“Is that so?” He turned her to face him. “And are you an aspiring artist, little lady?”
She reached for her invitation, holding it between two fingers. “My name is Madam Goode, sir, and I am here on behalf of Signore Rossi, who sends his apologies.”
The man plucked the invitation from her fingers and read it dismissively. “Rossi is never able to make it, but he always sends such delicious ladies in his stead. Are you as delectable as the ladies he sculps, Madam Goode?” He reached for her mask, and she took a step back.
“Who are you, sir?”
“Why, my name is Sir Thomas, although you may call me Master if you wish.”
When she looked around again, she saw the tastefully draped model slap at a wandering gentleman’s hands. The entire party appeared to her now in a different light.
Seedy. Insalubrious. The sort of place where gentlemen who could not get a lady’s attention any other way might go.
Suddenly, she wished she had never accepted the invitation. This was not some meeting of great minds as she had hoped it might be. It was the birthchild of some disgusting, handsy man who no doubt merely wanted an opportunity to grope barely clothed women.
And Sir Thomas thought she would be next to reveal herself.
“I do not wish to call you anything but your name, sir,” she said stiffly. “And as it appears my presence here has been received in poor taste, I will now take my leave. Goodbye, Sir Thomas.”
Sir Thomas caught her arm, dragging her further into the party. “Now then,” he said, his grip like a vice on her upper arm. “It would be rude to just take off like that. What would Master Rossi say?”
“Master Rossi has the utmost respect for women,” she managed, just as he shoved her into a room showcasing one of her most recent works: a man and a woman in a passionate embrace.
It was, secretly, the sort of embrace she dreamed about in those darkest moments just before sleep, when she acknowledged to herself there was something missing from her life. Elliot had called it hermagnum opus, but really it was just the desperate wish of her heart preserved for the world to see.
Of course, Elliot had sold it almost immediately, but she hadn’t known the buyer would be Sir Thomas—a man on whom the concept of romance, and perhaps even consent, was thoroughly lost.
She wanted to cry at the thought.
“It’s on auction,” Sir Thomas said into her ear. “I purchased it for a pretty penny off your master, and now I will make a profit off it. Look at the exquisite detail, Madam Goode.”
Thalia looked, though she could have recalled every inch of the man’s strong face with her eyes closed. And, indeed, the way his hands pressed into the soft flesh of her sides. The urgency with which the woman gripped him to her, their legs intertwined. Her face was pressed into his neck, and he had a hand in her hair, cupping her against him in a motion both possessive and tender.
Lovewas what Thalia had privately called it.
But for the public, she had named itPassione.
“Will Rossi be pleased with the way I am making his work well known to the world?” Sir Thomas mused. “I invited everyone who is anyone here tonight, and they will all bid on his splendid work, and then no doubt commission more. There will be plenty of disappointed members of theton. So, you see, I am doing Master Rossi a favor; he ought to have come here and thanked me himself.”
Thalia bit back the words on the tip of her tongue that she had no intention of thanking him for anything. This was not the sort of place she had imagined her beautiful sculpture residing. It ought not to have gone to the man with the deepest pockets, but the person who might love it the way she had. Art was not there to be flaunted, but to be felt.
Furious tears sprang to her eyes.
“I beg you would let me go, sir,” she said as icily as she could manage.
