blackstairs renaissance au
It should have been boring. Emma certainly thought it would have been so, when her mother had, with the softest voice in the world and stroking gently her hair just like she used to do when she had bad news, told her she would have to pose for a painting.
Your father thinks it’s time for you to get married. And the Duke of Milan has requested to see a painting of you before considering a marriage.
Now she didn’t even think her mother’s voice was that soft, not after hearing his. Or her touch gentle. Julian always touched his brush as gently as he could, almost afraid he’d break it with even the smallest pressure. She wondered if he touched everything like that, if maybe he had a lover waiting for him back in-
“Could you smile a little?“ his voice interrupted her train of thoughts. He was standing behind the canvas, eyes squinted in concentration.
"Say something amusing and maybe I will” she replied and she noticed, not without feeling a certain sense of pride, that a corner of his mouth had twitched up in a half smile.
He had a nice mouth, this painter.
It was the fifth time she posed for him.
He was starting to get more relaxed around her, she could tell it by the way he talked about his paintings and his family (a large family, apparently) and she longed for him to open up to her even more.
Emma had already told him everything he needed to know about her ambitious parents, who hoped to marry her off, and how she struggled to fit in a world she didn’t understand. He seemed to understand her perfectly though, making her smile and laugh often and with him she felt free and light and brave.
When he stopped working and turned around to open the door, she decided she couldn’t stand it any longer. Emma rose from her seat and closed the distance between them as quickly as she could, afraid that if she hesitated the courage would leave her. She pressed her lips to his softly and he moaned, starting to kiss her back more fiercely than she thought he was capable of.
Soon his hands where in Emma’s hair, still braided in the elaborate hairstyle her parents had forced her to wear for the painting. Julian was making a huge mess of it, now. She wanted to laugh, but any thought about her hair disappeared from her mind when he pushed her against the sofa she had been sitting on while posing and started kissing first her neck and then, moving his head lower, the top of her breasts. She tangled her fingers in his dark curls.
“I don’t want you to marry him” he muttered against her skin, voice rough for all the kisses. Here we go, she thought.
She pushed him off of her, although reluctantly, and looked at him in the eyes. Another bad idea, because he had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen and they were desperate and hungry and sad and how could she say what she needed to say when he looked at her like that?
“Julian,” she started. “my family will never let me marry you.” She took a long breath. “Someone of your station, I mean.” She didn’t sound very convincing and Emma knew, by the way he was looking at her, he was thinking the same thing.
With a heavy heart, she told him good-bye and gave him a chaste kiss on his cheek. He put a hand on her back, pressing her against his body as if he couldn’t bring himself to let her go just yet. When she moved away, his expression was unreadable.
The next day a servant delivered a carefully made package, whose square shape left no room for doubt. She opened it with trembling fingers, afraid of ruining it.
The painting inside was simply extraordinary. Her hair, loose, looked like liquid gold and her dark eyes, which she had always considered as not really remarkable, were shining like gems. But it was the smile, her smile, that made her heart really skip a beat. It was one of pure happiness and freedom and confidence and something inside her broke at the sight of it, because she had never seen herself like this, because she now knew what she had to do.
Mother, father, forgive me.
turnnoffyourmind
baratheonpilled
areudirty
romaincrisis
snowghoul
