short.
Smoothing moisturizer over her face, she hesitated over the other small bottles and tubes in her toiletry bag. Cosmetics were something else new in her life, and even though she enjoyed the sexual sizzle they sent through her body, she still lacked expertise with the intricacies of technique.
She would never be very pleased with her reflection- her face was too thin, her cheeks had never dimpled, her mouth was too wide-but she was starting to be satisfied with her eyes and the way her new bangs softened the former austerity. Cutting her hair seemed to have cut away some inhibitions as well, made her less reserved and awkward.
At least with Nauman.
Suddenly impatient to find him, she smudged on eye shadow and lip gloss and quickly dressed.
An aroma of coffee hung in the air and she followed it out to the kitchen, but that utilitarian room was empty save for the tantalizing smell of onions, herbs and well-browned chicken now rising from the oven. Nauman cooked as instinctively as he painted and had evidently felt creative this morning. Sigrid poured herself a cup of strong dark liquid, pulled the plug on the coffee maker, and backtracked through the house to the end wing formed by the studio and its decks.
The lyrical intensity of a Martinu symphony was muffled by the double glass doors that led to Nauman’s studio.
Essentially a huge sun porch, it was lined on both long walls with French windows that led to wide decks on either side. A high ceiling followed the pitch of the roof, accommodating two ten-foot easels; and with the snow outside today, the room was awash in brilliant natural light.
At the far end of the studio, beyond the thrift-shop assortment of tables and cabinets that held his painting supplies, was a huge stone fireplace flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Oscar Nauman sat in one of the comfortable chairs pulled up before the blazing log fire and Sigrid paused to watch him relight his pipe.
He was half a head taller than she and a generation older, with a lean hard body, piercing blue eyes, and thick silver hair that had finished turning white before he was thirty. They had sparred for six months, been lovers for six weeks, yet Sigrid was still unsure of her feelings for him- how much was sexual, how much emotional, and whether the two added up to that irrational state called love.
By nature and by training, she was cool and analytical, but Oscar Nauman was the one element in her life that she consciously refused to analyze. Clearly he was too old, too quixotic, too opinionated, too self-centered. Why was she not heeding the logic of this?
Then Nauman’s head came up, he smiled in her direction, and Sigrid’s heart turned over. She smiled back and started to open the door before abruptly realizing that he was not alone, that his smile had been for a red-haired woman who now walked into Sigrid’s view holding one of Nauman’s pictures. Specific words were indistinct but her voice held a musical lilt.
With the snow reflecting so much dazzling sunlight into the studio, Sigrid knew she would not be seen if she retreated back down the shadowed hall and read the morning paper till the woman was gone. Two months ago, she might have done just that. She was still self-conscious with Nauman when around others but she was trying to overcome it. So she told herself that she lingered here only because she was uncertain if the woman had come for business or if her Sunday morning visit were purely social. Perhaps this was something neighbors did in the country?
There was only one way to find out.
Steadying the coffee cup in her left hand, she opened one of the glass doors. The others looked up as she entered.
This time, Nauman’s smile
The visitor wore brown corduroy knickers crammed inside knee-length high-heeled brown boots and a loose pullover knitted in tones of russet and amber. Windswept auburn hair tangled itself around her fair face and her classic features appeared almost flawless as she put down the painting she’d been inspecting and came to Sigrid with her hand outstretched.
“I’m Francesca Leeds, and I’m so pleased to meet you at last,” she said with a smile in her warm Irish voice. “Oscar’s told me all about you.”
“Has he?” Sigrid mumbled.
“Have I?” asked Nauman, frowning at a picture Lady Francesca had unearthed from earlier years.
“Well, somebody did,
Sigrid nodded.
“And I’m an old friend of Oscar’s come to talk him into saving one of New York ’s landmarks. You must help me persuade him.”
There was something curiously familiar about the woman but Sigrid couldn’t quite decide why. As Francesca Leeds described the Breul House’s near destitution and the benefits an Oscar Nauman retrospective could provide, Sigrid had an opportunity to study her features more closely.
The bright glare of snowlight was not kind to the woman’s skin. It washed out the golden tones and made her seem too pale. It also revealed tiny lines around her eyes and nose so that Sigrid revised her estimate of age upward. Instead of thirty, Francesca Leeds was probably closer to forty. Nevertheless, she remained a stunning creature with the sort of poised assurance that often destroyed Sigrid’s.
Not this time, she told herself, making a conscious effort not to tighten up. But it was difficult. Despite the other woman’s friendly smile and easy conversation, Sigrid knew that she, too, was being studied and catalogued. She should have been used to it by now. Most of Nauman’s friends fell into two camps: those who were amused by their relationship and those who were patently puzzled. Very few accepted her without question.
Lady Francesca appeared to have both amusement and curiosity well in hand and seemed bent on making Sigrid her ally as she pulled a small picture down from one of the racks.
“Think of it, Sigrid: Would you not love to see Oscar’s whole career in one well-chosen show?”
“Pinned to the wall like a bunch of dead butterflies?” Nauman asked sardonically. “Forget it Anyhow, you’re talking to the wrong person. She doesn’t like my work.”
Francesca Leeds started to laugh, realized Oscar wasn’t entirely joking, and looked at the thin brunette with fresh interest. “Really?”
Sigrid shrugged as she studied the small purple-and-black abstract Francesca had held out to her. “He exaggerates.”
The implication not lost upon her ladyship, who knew something must exist before it can be exaggerated. How perfectly ironic that Oscar should be snared by someone indifferent to his artistic achievements, someone who could see him as a fallible man standing unclothed in fame and accomplishment. Francesca deliberately turned her mind away from the memory of Oscar’s lean hard frame unclothed in anything, but there was veiled mirth in her brown eyes as she delicately probed, “Then your interests will be lying in music or literature, rather than the visual?”
“She’s visual,” Oscar said.
His rangy body continued to lounge in the deep chair, but his tone was sharper than necessary, defensive even?
Still holding the small oil from one of Oscar’s middle periods, Sigrid glanced from one to the other, aware of a sudden tension in the air. She handed the violent abstract back to Francesca Leeds. “Even if I don’t completely understand them, I do like some of Nauman’s pictures.”
Oscar abruptly leaned forward to poke the fire and add another log to the blaze. “Ask her anything about the late Gothic, though.”
“Late Gothic? You mean Durer? Baidung? Holbein?”
“And Lucas Cranach,” Sigrid nodded. “Mabuse, too. And earlier, Jan van Eyck, of course.”
“Ah,” said Francesca, enlightened now. “The Flemish. Precision. Order.” She waved her hand to encompass Oscar’s cluttered studio, the vibrant abstractions, the large canvases slashed with color and free-flowing lines. “Anarchy repels you?”
“I
Oscar laughed and stood up. “Stay for lunch, Francesca? I’m making my famous
