instrumental in the careers of Renoir and Degas in the days when the art establishment had turned a blind eye to the revolution in painting that was going on all around them. Now he was about to pronounce judgment on her work. Unconsciously, she held her breath.
“In two weeks’ time,” the learned man proclaimed, “this Mason Caldwell will have been completely forgotten. Her current notoriety is entirely without substance or merit. Her technique is sloppy, the subject matter tends toward the macabre, and her colors bear no relation to the physical reality they’re supposed to convey. In short, her work is not art. It is an affront to art. This morbid interest in her is due solely to the fact that she surely realized she had no talent and, having come to this astute recognition, ended her life by flinging herself from the Pont de l’Alma. A romantic notion that at present has the bourgeoisie swooning and lining up to see her paintings, but that is all. Parisians are notorious for loving a good suicide. No, no, my friends. What we are experiencing here is not the discovery of a new master; it is a carnival sideshow.”
Lisette turned to Mason, her eyes brimming with consternation. Mason waved a hand, silently telling her not to bother to translate. Hearing it once was enough.
Mason turned away, feeling flushed and overheated, wanting nothing more than to bolt from the crushing rejection.
But at that moment, her gaze once again found the handsome stranger at the back. He was still watching her. Now he slowly shook his head, then rolled his eyes. His meaning was clear. He was telling her that the revered Monsieur Morrel was talking through his hat. The warmth of it flowed through her, coursing courage and a badly needed jolt of appreciation through her veins.
Caught off guard by the critic’s denunciation, Falconier had turned white. But he was saved from having to react by a sudden shuffling in the crowd and a harsh male voice calling out, “Where is Falconier?”
All eyes turned to a man of medium height, slim but well built, with slicked-back black hair and a distinctly disreputable air. It was the infamous gangster Juno Dargelos. As he and two burly bodyguards moved their way, the elegant bystanders parted in a flurry of scandalized whispers.
Spotting the proprietor, Dargelos called out, “I will buy them, Falconier. All the pictures of Lisette.”
Seeing him, Lisette raised her face to the ceiling and cried out, “Oh no! Not again!”
The intruder peered at her like a love-struck spaniel, and said, “Did you think I would let anyone else possess the pictures of my darling turtledove?”
With a stamp of her foot, Lisette fired back, “How many times must I tell you, Juno? I am not your turtledove, and never will be!”
The presence of the gang chieftain provided a delicious new twist to the story. The reporters jumped on it, firing questions at him.
“Eh, Juno, what are you doing so far from Belleville?”
“You don’t own the police in this part of town, after all.”
“Haven’t you heard that Inspector Duval has sworn he will not rest until the day he packs you off to Devil’s Island?”
Dargelos extended both arms toward Lisette in a gesture worthy of a Puccini hero. “For the woman I adore, I would swim to Devil’s Island and back.”
As Lisette groaned, Mason took the opportunity to steal away. She looked around, trying to spot her silent advisor, but he’d moved on. Finally, 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
