She dressed for the occasion. It took her hours to go through her armoire, to dismiss one gown after another. She had a rainbow of pastels, yet when she held each one to her body and looked into the mirror, she realized Jonas had been right. Pastels did not become her. Pastels were colors for true blonds with blue eyes. Chloe's colors, not hers.
But she had nothing else. Finally she'd gone to Katherine, who had searched her own wardrobe, picking out a gown that was too small for her but perfect for Imogene. It was three years old, and slightly unfashionable, but Imogene could forgive that, because it suited her so well. It was simple and beautiful, with an open caraco bodice of bronze velvet and a flounced skirt of matching brocade. When she put it on, the color warmed her skin and brought out the highlights in her hair, made her eyes seem a mysterious golden brown instead of the muddy color she knew they were.
She looked attractive in the dress, if not beautiful, and Imogene took care with the rest of her toilette, pinning up her hair with two golden combs and clasping on earrings of gold filigree to dangle against her cheeks. She wanted to look beautiful. She wanted something to help her be strong, because the little bit of courage she'd shown her father yesterday had faded, and she knew it was because of Jonas, because she would soon be seeing him, and she was afraid of herself. Afraid she would lose her dignity and her self- respect completely. Afraid she would beg him to take her back.
She told herself there were a hundred good reasons to stay away from him: He was as mad as they said. She would never survive him. She didn't belong in his crowd. They were the right reasons for leaving him, the practical reasons. She could pick any one and feel she'd made the right decision, just one would allow her to keep her dignity.
Imogene squeezed her eyes shut. She heard the front door open downstairs, heard the bustle in the foyer, and she knew it was time to go. Time to brave the crowds at the gallery, to pretend nonchalance and composure when inside her heart was breaking. She did not know if she could look at him again. She did not know if she could survive seeing that regret in his eyes—or worse, seeing nothing at all. She wondered if she would even be able to walk away once she'd seen him.
Slowly she went to the door. Her hands were trembling, and she forced herself to calm before she turned the knob and stepped out into the hallway. They were waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs: her father, Thomas, Katherine. She saw them turn worried eyes upon her—except for her father, who only looked at her with contempt and turned away again. She wondered why that didn't hurt. It should have. It always had before.
"You look lovely, my dear," Thomas said.
Imogene gave him a weak smile.
Her father was holding her mantle for her. She came down the stairs and took it from him, putting it on, buttoning the wool collar tightly about her throat and then tying the ribbons of her hat, pulling on gloves. The movements were mechanical, and though she heard the others talking as they readied to go, Imogene felt too detached to answer.
It was so cold outside it nearly took her breath away. Though it had stopped snowing, the sky was still heavy with clouds, the streets frozen with hard-packed mud and ice. It would be better to stay home, she thought, and wished her father and Thomas would look at the road and agree, but they didn't, and Henry was already waiting at the curb with the carriage.
"It'll be 'ard goin' today," he warned as he opened the door. "We'll take it nice 'n' slow."
Thomas smiled and stood back to help Katherine inside. "Good enough," he told Henry. "We're in no hurry."
Imogene climbed in beside Katherine, echoing Thomas's sentiments with relief. They were in no hurry. There was plenty of time to arrange her thoughts. Plenty of time to decide just how she would greet him when she saw him again. Calmly. Coolly. With just a touch of disdain. "Why hello, Jonas. How nice to see you again. Have you met my fath—"
Good Lord. Her father. She glanced at Samuel from the corner of her eye, noting his serious expression, the thin lips beneath his mustache. She had forgotten her father's reasons for going. She had forgotten about his desire for retribution, his notes to Jonas.
She sat back in the seat, closing her eyes, wishing she could fade into the leather. This was going to be a nightmare. She listened to the carriage wheels slipping and sliding on the icy streets, and she wished a rim would catch, or the horses would balk—anything to keep them from arriving at the National Academy Gallery.
But nothing happened, and before long the carriage was pulling up in front of the building that housed New York City's finest art school.
"Crowded tonight," Thomas noted, looking out the window. "Though it always is, I suppose."
He was right. The National Academy of Design's yearly exhibition was a well-attended event. There were people everywhere, clogging the walks, thronging the stairs, casting shadows against the lighted windows lining the front of the building. They had to wait their turn at the curb, and once they were out of the carriage, they joined those huddled against the cold. It took a long time to get in, and a brisk breeze only made the wait more uncomfortable, but once they were inside, Imogene wished she were still on the walk, still battling the cold.
She had been to exhibitions before, of course. Her family had gone whenever one was held in Nashville. Her father especially had loved those exhibitions. He had lived for the opportunity to socialize with neighbors and enter into long and intricate conversations about "art" and its "value." But Imogene had the feeling he liked this one more, and for different reasons. Samuel looked expectant. Readying for a fight.
Her heart sank. She moved away from her father, following Thomas and Katherine up the low stairs that led to the first of the six galleries. It was a large room, its high ceilings leading to skylights that opened the space and lit it during the day. But as open and large as the room was, people nearly filled it, and the scent of the many gaslights mixed suffocatingly with those of perfume, wet wool, and warm bodies. It was hard to breathe, hard to even hear oneself over the excited buzz of talk, and it was so crowded that they were forced to move with the throng, circling slowly past the many paintings paneling the walls, forced to linger agonizingly by each one.
Imogene scanned the room, wanting to see him, afraid to see him. She didn't know whether to feel relief or disappointment when she saw only the backs of heads and feathered hats and voluminous cloaks. With a stab of dismay she realized she would come upon him suddenly, without time to prepare herself, to compose herself. There were simply too many people to see beyond the next bend, or even the next painting.
"Where is he?" her father demanded impatiently from beside her. "Show me where he is."
Thomas tried to smile. "Patience, Sam. We'll come upon him in time." He pointed to a large landscape that took up a good portion of a wall, bounded on either side by smaller canvases showing a similar scene. "What do you think of that one? I think he's a promising young artist."
Samuel gave the painting a cursory look. "Fine, if you like that sort of thing." He grabbed Imogene's arm, holding her tightly against him, as if he were afraid she would run off. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. "I want no nonsense from you, daughter, do you hear? When you see Whitaker, you point him out to me. Let me take care of it."
She slanted him a glance, pulling away from his grip. "Of course, Papa," she said stiffly.
They moved from painting to painting, following the crowd from one gallery into another, and then to a third. She heard the talk around her distractedly. "Oh, Jeffrey, I love it! Such fine colors ..." "Luminism is evident in every brushstroke, my love. Mark my words, this man will go far ..." "I don't see it. I simply don't understand what all the fuss is about ..." The voices pounded in her head. The paintings wavered before her, each one blurring into the next, a mix of style and color as confusing as the feelings crowding her heart. Anticipation, fear . . . She wasn't sure what she should be feeling, was afraid of what she would see in Jonas's eyes when finally she saw him. She tugged at the collar of her mantle, feeling too hot where before she'd been cold. She undid the frogged fastenings, but even that didn't help. Her lungs felt tight, her throat swollen. She could not silence the question chanting in her head. Where is he? Where is he?
"This is lovely," Katherine observed, stopping before a still life of peaches and grapes. "Oh, Imogene, look! This is by that friend of yours, that Mr. Childs."
The name startled Imogene. She had not expected to hear it. Already Rico seemed to come from a past so long ago it was almost forever. Imogene stared at the painting, her heart racing. She'd thought maybe he'd gone back to Paris. Obviously not.
Katherine grabbed her husband's arm. "He brought a message to the house a few weeks ago. darling. I thought I might commission him . . ."
Her godmother's words trailed off, blending into the sea of voices. Anxiously, nervously, Imogene looked around, trying to see through the faces. Rico was never far from Jonas. She wondered where Childs had been, where he was now. Was he taking care of Jonas? Was anyone—
"Good heavens, it's her. Gerald, look, it's her."
The hushed sentence was close by her ear. Frowning, Imogene looked over—into the narrowed eyes of an older woman in pale apricot silk.
The woman was staring, but when Imogene caught her gaze, she flushed and turned away, pulling her startled husband with her through the crowd.
How odd. Imogene glanced back at Katherine, but she and Thomas were still bent over Childs's painting, her father close beside them. Impatiently Imogene stepped back, but the crowd jostled her, and she drew back farther, looking up just in time to see a man in a tall beaver hat staring at her. He tipped it to her, smiling a smile she found vaguely disturbing. Not just friendly, but . . . but too friendly.
Flustered, Imogene looked away. When she glanced back, he was gone, but there was another group, a woman who looked at her with sharp, beady little eyes before she leaned over and nudged the woman walking beside her, whispering into her ear. The other woman glanced up, and her fine features drew into a tight little mask; she turned to her friend with words whose harshness carried over the noise, even if what she said didn't. The two of them bustled away.
Self-consciously Imogene checked her gown. Her bodice was buttoned tight against her throat; she was hardly indecent. And surely the dress wasn't all that dated. She adjusted her bonnet. Only a few loose hairs escaped her chignon, nothing more.
Disturbed, she moved to where the others stood. "Katherine," she said quietly. "Do I have something on my face?"
Her godmother turned from the painting. "No," she said. "You look fine."
"People are staring at me."
Her father frowned. "You're imagining things."
"No, I—"
"Nervous, are you, girl?" He grunted in satisfaction and took her arm, giving a cursory nod to Thomas. "Let's get on then, shall we? We can come back to look at these if you like."
He tugged on her arm, pulling her with him. Imogene scanned the faces they passed, telling herself that the stares she received were only in her imagination, as her father said. Certainly the whispers weren't about her, they couldn't be. But still her cheeks burned. She gripped her father's arm more tightly, feeling more and more flustered with every step they took.
She heard the giggles first. Nervous, embarrassed laughter, scandalized half words. A murmur of talk with a slightly hysterical edge. It was just ahead of them, and she knew without looking what it signified; she'd been to enough art shows to know.
She glanced at her father, who lifted his brow and smiled. "Ah, there's something scandalous ahead," he noted, interpreting the hushed talk as she had. "What shall it be this time, I wonder? Which artist?"
Imogene's heart raced. Which artist? The whispers pounded against her ears; she heard everything, each word was too loud, too distinct. "Shocking!" "Who is she?" "How dare he?" "My dear, it's obscene. Isn't it obscene?"
She knew who it was before they came upon him, before the crowd parted slightly to reveal a huge canvas painted with the figure of a woman. She barely glanced at it. Instead, her gaze went unerringly to the man beside it.
Jonas.
He stood back, leaning negligently against some small still life, his shoulder nudging the frame, angling it so the painted pheasant within looked ready to roll off its table. His dark hair was loose, falling over his shoulders in defiance of fashion, seeming black-black against the blue coat he wore. He was talking to Rico, who stood beside him, the perfect blond foil to Jonas's darkness, and Imogene was reminded of the first time she'd seen him. He'd been so vibrant then, a dark sun, a mysterious, frightening man. He was not so mysterious now, and not at all frightening, but the vibrance was still there, emanating from him so strongly she wondered why everyone was staring at the painting instead of him, since he was far more stunning.
"Sweet Christ." Her father's voice was a harsh whisper in her ear. "Jesus Christ, what the hell have you done?"
Startled, she tore her gaze away from Jonas. Her father was glaring at the painting before them, his face tight, his nostrils pinched with anger. She glanced at the portrait.
Her heart stopped. Imogene gasped. The painting glistened in front of her with a delicate luminosity, all shades of white except for the background, which was shadowed and dark, nearly black. It was a woman reclining on a stack of white pillows, her pale skin vibrant and alive, the lines of her nude body obscured and yet somehow made more clear by a diaphanous white scarf. She was a mystery of shapes: small breasts, rounded hips, a triangular hint of shadow at the juncture of her thighs. Her hair was a soft golden brown, falling over her shoulders, strands curling against her cheek. It was a shocking portrait. Too alive, too erotic, too beautiful. But those things weren't what made it shocking. What made it shocking was something else, something far more elemental.
It was a portrait of her.
Imogene felt as if the floor had tilted beneath her. It was her, and though she tried hard to deny it, she couldn't. It was her face—those were her eyes looking dispassionately at the crowd, that was her chin. And that tiny mole just below her mouth was hers too. All her. Good Lord, it was her. Except for one thing. The woman in the painting was alluring and beautiful. She was everything Imogene was not, everything she'd ever wanted to be. Vibrant. Exotic. Sensual.
Her father's fingers dug into her arm; Imogene heard him say something, heard the rage in his voice. But it barely registered. She could not look away from the painting, not until she heard her name, not until she heard Jonas's voice cutting through the gleeful murmurs of the crowd.
"Genie."
That was all, just her name, a hush of sound, a rush of breath. She glanced up, catching his gaze, and his eyes seemed impossibly bright, impossibly green. His face tightened; he clenched Rico's arm as if the motion gave him strength. But he didn't move. He just stared at her, and it seemed his features were more finely etched than she'd ever seen them, taut with something, some emotion . . . despair?
"Jonas," she breathed. She stepped toward him, but her father's grip held her tight, pulling her back. She turned to her father. "Let me go," she said, trying to wrench free. "Papa, please. . . ."
She trailed off when she saw her father's face. It was white with anger, his brown eyes flashed with it. His fingers bit more deeply into her arm, so painful she cried out.
"Are you mad?" he asked in a harsh whisper, shaking her so hard her head snapped back. "What did you think you were doing, posing for him this way? Wasn't it enough that you blackened my good name by sleeping with him, you had to advertise it as well?"
She heard the gasps around her, the sudden tittering. Imogene swallowed. She caught a woman's avid stare and Imogene turned away, keeping her voice low. "Papa, no," she said, trying to soothe him. "You don't understand. Please, let's talk about this somewhere else."
"Goddammit, we'll talk about it now!" He shook her again, his voice rising steadily until even those yards away turned to stare. "You didn't seem to mind the attention when you posed for this . . . this filth! You wanted to show your nakedness to the world, so be it! Let them hear this too!"
He flung her away so violently Imogene went sprawling. She fell painfully to the ground, sliding against a woman's skirts, jamming her elbow on a man's leg. Stunned, she tried to rise, tried to grab her father's arm. "Papa, please—"
He shook her off, sending her falling again. "Get out of my sight. You're no better than a whore, and no daughter of mine!"
The rest happened so quickly Imogene saw it in a blur. She heard a curse, heard: "Damn you, that's enough!" and then she saw someone—Jonas—rushing her father, she heard the crack of a fist on a jaw, the loud shout of pain. She gasped, and she saw Jonas turn, saw him look at her and shout, "Get her the hell out of here!" and then hands were on her, pulling her to her feet, surrounding her, closing in on her. She thought she saw Rico in the crowd, and Thomas, thought she heard the sound of a struggle, but it was so confusing, and she couldn't see. Her head was spinning; she tasted blood on her lip from the fall. She tried to push past, but the crowd held fast, mad for the fight. She heard running footsteps, and she turned to see men in black coats dodging the crowd, racing toward the commotion.
"Jonas!" she shouted, trying to move closer. "Jonas!"
But he didn't hear her. No one heard her, she couldn't get close, she couldn't see. Desperately Imogene pushed through the crowd; it eased just enough so she wedged herself between two men, just enough so she could see Rico grabbing for someone, his blond hair falling into his face, a red mark on his cheekbone.
"Rico!" She cried. "Jonas!" And then she heard his voice, a hoarse shout, a desperate cry.
"Get her out of here! Dammit, I told you to get her the fuck out of here!"
And suddenly there were arms around her, pulling her back, wrenching her away.
"No." She struggled against them, fighting to stay, to get to Jonas, to stop her father. "No!"
But they were stronger than she was. And the voice, the weary, anxious voice, was stronger too.
"It's all right, Imogene. Imogene, please, my dear. Come with me."
It was Thomas. Thomas looking harried and worn and dispirited. "The authorities will intervene. There's nothing we can do. Come with me."
She didn't want to go. She tried not to go. But the crowd was yelling now, and the men in black coats were forcing their way through, trying to quiet the mob. Thomas was right. There was nothing they could do. Nothing at all.
She looked up at her godfather, seeing Katherine just behind, a kind and sympathetic look on her face. And in her mind, Imogene heard Jonas's desperate words again, called through a crowd. "Get her out of here!"
She surrendered, letting Thomas and Katherine guide her from the hall, into the cold winter night. And when Thomas helped them both into the carriage and told the driver to take them home, Imogene said nothing, leaning her head on Katherine's comforting shoulder, hearing the jeering of the crowd echo in her ears as the carriage jerked forward, skidding through the icy streets of New York City, taking her away.