“No doubt you’ve given some thought to the other day,” he said as his hand moved to the sheet. “I figured that as my muse, you deserved the right of first inspection.”
“Should I be worried?”
“I painted you how I saw you…” His hand gripped the sheet, shaking now with anticipation. “So, I guess that depends.”
“Depends on what?”
He turned to look at her, making sure to meet her eyes. “On how you think I see you.” And then, he ripped the sheet away and revealed the portrait.
Miss Finch gasped.
Evander kept his stare locked onto Miss Finch as she took in the portrait. He didn’t care about her words or her affirmations. What he cared about was what he saw in her eyes. The way she looked at the portrait… the way she responded to it… that is what he focused on.
“Your Grace…” she began softly as she took a step closer.
The orange light of the candles reflected in her eyes. In them, he saw her take the portrait in. She studied it closely, she inspectedit without blinking, and she smiled in a way that told him how much she loved what she saw.
His heart began to flutter the longer that she looked. As her smile grew, his heart soared. She came close, reaching out as if to touch the painting, but hesitating, biting into her lip now as her hand moved down the lines of her face.
Not once did she look away. Not once did she suggest that she was anything but captivated. Evander glanced from her face to the portrait, and while he was proud of his work, he knew that it paled in comparison to her natural beauty.
“It’s beautiful,” she said at last.
“It is barely a facsimile of your beauty,” he said softly. “I did my best to capture it, but…” A shake of the head. “I could only do so much.”
“My eyes…” She reached up, and her fingers ran around the outside of her eyes. “What… I wonder what she is thinking.”
“Can’t you tell?”
“I would rather you tell me.”
Evander looked at the eyes of the portrait. He stared into them, thinking back to when he had painted them and what was on his mind… what it was that he was trying to capture.
“She was nervous…” He stepped around Miss Finch so that he was right behind her. Her body stiffened as he came close. “Curious also, not sure what was happening or why.”
“Excited too, I am sure.”
“Cautiously excited,” he corrected. “Mostly, she was thinking about the artist. Why he asked to paint her. What he wanted. And why he chose her, of all people.”
“And?” she pressed gently.
Evander looked into the eyes of the portrait. “He… he wanted to show her something. Something that he was afraid to show, just as he was desperate to do so. It was a secret, one he had never revealed to anyone before, but he trusted her with this secret… he knew she would understand.”
“And what was this secret?”
Without thinking, Evander’s hands moved to Miss Finch’s shoulders. She gasped as he held them, then she relaxed as he stepped in closer so that their bodies were pressed together. He breathed in deeply, able to smell her, just as he was able to feel her heavy breathing.
“The artist… he is not who she thought,” he said in a whisper. “For so long, she and everyone have looked at him one way, thinking that they know him. But he doesn’t even know himself… not really. When he asked to paint her, he was showingher his true self, and as she watched, she…” He breathed in deeply. “She started to see him as he wanted to be seen.”
“And how does he want to be seen?”
“As more,” he said. “As so much more. Not as a tyrant. Not as a cold monster. He is a man like any other, and this painting… when he asked her to sit for it, he wanted to show her that he could be that man. A father…” He squeezed her shoulders. “Someone his son would be proud of.”
“I think she sees it,” Miss Finch said. “I think she knows.”
“Does she?”
“She does,” Miss Finch said firmly. “Maybe she doubted it at one point. Maybe she didn’t want to believe it. But I see it there…” She indicated to her eyes and her lips. “She knows who this man really is, just as she likes what she sees.”
