by society at the time. Her children had an inheritance from their father and fine social standing…just not his name. Her mother was a French opera singer. Her father was a trapper more Natchez than French.”
“La Croix,” I said, softly. The name was both strange and beguiling with vague familiarity on my tongue.
“Yes,” he replied. “She took her mother’s name.” He looked at me with that expectant pause I’d learned to dread. The one that seemed to wait for me to suddenly blink and remember everything. The one that said he knew more than I knew about my past, but it was too heavy with shadows to share. The weight of all I didn’t know behind his hooded eyes was almost more than I could bear.
“Will I have a place to paint?” I asked, desperate to regain my equilibrium.
“Always,” La Croix said. Now there was impatience in his clipped tones and maybe disappointment. It didn’t seem leveled at me, but rather the world around us as if he’d like to grab it and shake it into place with his bare fisted hands. The uncomfortable moment passed, but another followed it. My “always” consists of the three hundred and sixty five days I can remember. All else is as if it never was. I had to have known Jonathan La Croix. He held the evidence of that hidden in tight rolls of canvas in the trunk in his hands. What had he been to me and why was his name the one name I’d allowed myself to know in a year?
“Come with me,” La Croix said. He carried the trunk filled with imperfect portraits up the stairs and I followed. The white of his knuckles stood out on his fingers as he held the trunk’s handles tighter than necessary. But I also noticed the way his black shirt stretched across his shoulders and the way his broad back narrowed to a nipped athletic waist. Not because I’m an artist. Something else in me had wakened. A sleeping woman who now yawned and sat up to note the way La Croix’s powerful legs took the stairs. He was very tall, topping me by at least a foot. I had to rush to keep up with him though his stride was steady and slow.
I tried not to stare, but I failed.
The song in my blood had changed to, “Here he is. Here he is.” But when he turned to make sure I followed him down the long dark upstairs hall, there were shadows in his eyes I was no longer sure I should have been driven to find.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
