“Can I do that?”
Cormac was unaware Charlotte had spoken. He had propped up a work in progress to examine and analyse while she was reading Little Women aloud. In less than a year her reading had become so fluent (though she still trailed her finger across the page to keep her place) she didn’t need prompting. Cormac’s mind wandered from the story, which was just as well as he didn’t want to spoil Charlotte’s enjoyment by snorting or making cynical comments.
He couldn’t help himself. In the middle of a sentence he ran next door to his studio and returned with a brush laden with paint, which he placed on the highlighted left shoulder of the seated blue female nude. He walked backwards while not taking his eyes off the shoulder, then ran forwards, manipulated the fresh paint, ran backwards and stood staring at it for a long period. This he repeated until he was satisfied with the effect.
Charlotte had stopped reading and was watching him.
“Can I do that?” she repeated.
At that moment, both she and Cormac became aware of Aunt Verity’s presence in the room.
“Sorry, wrong door,” said Aunt Verity, staring at the blue nude.
Charlotte’s legs had red squares on them and her face was flushed from sitting too close to the coal fire. The door, often left open, had been closed to keep in the heat. Outside it was a typical January day – cold, dark and raining.
Cormac cursed inwardly. Of course Verity hadn’t mistaken the door. In the normal course of events she wouldn’t be anywhere near this part of the house, but he guessed she was still keeping an eye on him – he had often been aware of a passing figure during lessons, but now she had caught him doing his own work during class time and he had no excuse to give except his dislike of Little Women. Bloody hell.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Miss Blackshaw?” he asked. He wouldn’t make excuses.
Aunt Verity, still staring at the nude, began to back out of the room.
“No, thank you,” was all she said. She never addressed him by name and during the rare times she did look at him, it was his deformed hand rather than his face that held her gaze.
“Yes, Charlotte,” said Cormac, after he gauged Verity was out of hearing range. “You may do this. Whether you can or not remains to be seen, so it does. I’m nothing if not pedantic. One stipulation, though. We’ll paint in French. Agreed?”
It didn’t quite work out like that. Soon, Cormac and his ‘apprentice’, as he now called her, were painting daily side by side for hours, and for long periods didn’t speak in any language.