The Art Of Seduction. Katherine O' Neal
she saw him in the farthest corner of the salon, his back to her.
As Falconier nervously protested that most of the paintings featured Mademoiselle Ladoux and he couldn’t possibly sell all of them to the man—“I have regular customers here, Monsieur, whom I must honor!”—Mason made her way to join the fascinating stranger. As she neared, she realized he was staring at one particular painting. Like the others, it featured an idealized young woman surrounded by nightmarish imagery: a world of chaos in which line and form were exaggerated to create a sense of menace. But unlike the others, the figure at the center was herself. Her only experiment in self-portraiture.
It showed a figure—Mason herself—kneeling in the foreground with her Prussian blue dress falling in soft folds about her hips, her naked back to the viewer. Her long hair, light brown with touches of gold, tumbled down her back, leading the eye to a heart-shaped birthmark on her upper right flank. She was glancing over her shoulder as if she had just become aware of the viewer’s presence, acknowledging it with the hint of an enigmatic smile. There was no source light or shadows, but the figure seemed to glow from within. On one side of the frame, a grove of leafless, misshapen trees stretched their branches to the sky as if in agony. On the other side, an overturned canon jutted into the air beside a path that snaked into a succession of distant hills, one of which was covered with tombstones. Falconier had labeled it Portrait of the Artist.
The man was gazing at it with rapt attention. She watched him for a moment, thinking he would continue on to the next painting. But he didn’t. He just stood there, as if in a trance.
Finally, she walked over and joined him. This close, she could feel the heat of him, as if he radiated some vital energy all his own. It made her feel keenly aware of the new dress caressing her skin.
He must surely feel her presence, as she felt his, but he didn’t show it. After a moment, she asked gently, “What do you think of it?”
Without looking away, he said, “I think it’s a revelation.”
It was a marvelous voice, deep and rich, decidedly upper-crust British, but with the faintest trace of a Scottish burr. He pronounced the word revelation with an inflection all his own, drawing out the vowels as if savoring them on his tongue. A sensual voice, one that sent shivers up her spine.
“You heard what the critic Morrel said,” she reminded him tentatively.
“Morrel’s an idiot.”
She was slightly shocked to hear this contemptuous appraisal.
“They tell me he’s the last word on what’s acceptable in art.”
He still hadn’t looked away from the painting. Now he gave a careless shrug. “Morrel’s had his day. But the world has passed him by. He wouldn’t know an innovative work of art if it bit him on the—” He turned then and gave her a roguish grin that deepened the creases in his cheeks. “But not to worry. He’ll come around.”
He said it with a conspiratorial confidence that was absolutely thrilling. She looked at him more closely now. There was a glint in his dark eyes that seemed to invite her in. She couldn’t decide if that twinkle was truly wicked or just the contrivance of a charming man. He seemed so self-assured with such a sexual magnetism that her breath quickened. His face was an odd mixture of contrasts, elegantly handsome yet strangely rugged, with a touch of danger about the mouth—a compelling combination. Looking at that mouth—so full, so blatantly carnal—she found herself unconsciously licking her lips.
“The artist was my sister,” she said as much to anchor herself as anything.
“I know. You were pointed out to me.”
He fixed his eyes on her with flattering assessment before returning them to the painting.
After an awkward silence, she ventured, “You said it was a revelation. What did you mean?”
“I mean it’s one of the most extraordinary personal visions I’ve ever seen.”
She strained not to show her excitement. “Why?” she asked as casually as she could.
“First of all, no artist has ever portrayed the anxiety of modern life quite so imaginatively or vividly. The backgrounds of each of these works conveys menace—images of the ugly, the grotesque, the terrible. And yet, the sheer passion of her technique, and the expressive flourish of her color, transforms them into something almost beautiful.”
Mason’s heart began to thump. He was getting exactly what she was after!
“Moreover, the threat of the backgrounds is further neutralized in each of the paintings by the central image of a young woman. These women exude a beauty, a purity, a moral strength, and an awareness of their own sensuality that transforms the misery and peril of the world around them. At first, the paintings seem pessimistic. But the longer one looks at them, the more obvious it becomes that they are intensely hopeful and life-affirming. Look at this one. Obviously painted in the catacombs, the woman is surrounded by stacks of human skulls. A more unsettling reminder of our mortality you’d never want to see. Yet she’s by far the most powerful thing in the painting. A power that makes even our destiny of death seem beautiful.”
Mason’s heart was racing now.
He gestured again toward her self-portrait. “But for me, this is the most captivating of them all. She’s painted herself in what appears to be a battlefield. A horror that has brought her to her knees and stripped her bare. And yet, she’s rising from her knees, from the ashes, and giving us that exquisitely enigmatic hint of a smile. What is she telling us?”
Mason looked away from the painting and into his eyes. “You tell me.”
“She’s telling us that the beauty of art can transcend and purify the horror of the world. Hardly the message of a woman about to kill herself, I admit. But that’s her tragedy. She succeeded in her mission, yet she didn’t know it.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I wish I’d known her. I wished I’d been able to tell her just how magnificently she succeeded.”
Mason couldn’t believe what she was hearing. For the first time in her life, she felt completely understood, accepted, appreciated.
“Who are you?” she gasped.
“Me? I’m nobody.”
“Are you a critic? Or an artist yourself?”
He chuckled, a deep rumble that seemed to emanate from his massive chest. “I’m not a critic or an artist or a collector. Just a chap who hangs about the art world. You might say I’m just an appreciator of art. But I know the real thing when I see it.”
“You must have a name.”
He smiled, showing a flash of straight white teeth. “Garrett. Richard Garrett.”
He extended a large hand that made hers seem miniscule in comparison. The touch of his firm, warm flesh sent a jolt through her senses.
“And your name is…?” he prompted when she just stood holding his hand.
“Ma—” She caught herself just in time. She was so befuddled, so swept away, that she’d almost slipped and told him her real name. Shaking herself, she amended, “I’m Amy Caldwell from…Boston, Massachusetts.”
“Well, Amy Caldwell from Boston, Massachusetts, I’d say you have a bit of a dilemma on your hands.”
“Dilemma?”
“I assume you saw all those people lining up outside to buy your sister’s paintings. Tomorrow they’ll be able to sell them for five times what they paid for them today. And the day after that, those people will be able to sell them for ten times what they paid. There’s a phenomenon afoot and you need time to sit back, assess the situation, and find the proper strategy for dealing with it. Were I you, I’d stop this sale right now before it gets started.”
Mason looked across the room and saw that Falconier was about to open the doors to the public and begin the sale. The gangster Juno