CHAPTER 24
Clara lifted her skirts and raced up the stairs, all four flights, to her own room. She clambered up onto her worktable, bare knees against the worn wood, and peered out the window at the street below. There he was: his golden curls spilling out from under his hat, his shapely legs bright in their green stockings. He shook his fist at the young lord, but his other friends clutched his jerkin, pulling him back. The lord skipped backward, laughing tauntingly, until he stumbled over a rooting piglet and fell smack on his bottom in the filth.
Clara plopped wide-legged on her table, heedless of the drawing paper crumpling under her rucked-up skirts. She curled a fist to her mouth to smother a scream. She kicked her heels and laughed until tears spurted into her eyes.
In less than one incredible hour her world had been torn to shreds, as if a cannonball had blown through her chamber window. First comes the golden youth, the beautiful young man who had called to her beneath her window. She'd dreamt of him, she'd sketched him, but she had never expected to see him again. And yet here he came to Mrs. Moulthorne's door. He'd remembered her. He'd searched for her. He loved her.
He'd kissed her.
She touched her lips with a wondering finger. Such tenderness. She'd never felt anything like it. For a moment — a brief moment — he had given her courage. It flowed from him like wine from a barrel. He was bold and kind and foolish and frank and far more handsome than any man she had ever imagined would hold her hand in Mrs. Moulthorne's surgery.
But the moment had vanished, ripped apart by the thin-lipped lord. He was angry with Tom, that much was clear. Then why not fight with him? Why threaten her?
She cried aloud then smothered the cry with her hand. She'd be ruined if he went to Lady Rich and accused her of lying. It mattered not if she were married or widowed; what mattered was that she had not told the truth from the outset. The faintest breath of scandal and her days of painting wealthy women in clean chambers would be over. She'd be forced to go back to scrounging odd jobs from printers or painting cloths for merchants' wives to hang upon their walls.
"Clara!" A deep voice thundered far below stairs.
Clara clutched both hands tightly to her chest as if to keep her heart from pounding out of her body. She slid from the worktable to her feet.
Caspar!
She'd forgotten about him. Fool! She should have run.
When her father died, Clara had been left with no dowry other than her beauty and her talent. So she had accepted the proposal of Caspar Von Ruppa, a sculptor who pretended to admire her painting. For a while, the marriage worked. Until Caspar hit a dry patch with no work and was forced to ask Clara for drinking money. Or when he had a job, but things went badly and the patron chided him for some fault. Any insult, any grievance, called down a storm upon Clara's head. And her face and her body. Once he had beaten her so badly she hadn't been able to show herself in the village for three weeks. She'd lost a client because of it.
She’d fled to Antwerp to live with an aunt. Too near. She'd crossed the German Sea and made a life for herself in London, calling herself Goossens, her mother's maiden name. Gradually, her reputation as a limner had grown until she was painting some of the most famous faces in the realm. Now all of that would be destroyed.
Heavy footsteps pounded closer, shaking the whole house. The door burst open and her hated husband filled the frame. No escape: not even a window large enough to fling herself from, four stories down to the street.
She was trapped.
She cowered against the farthest wall, hating herself for cowering but too fearful to stand and take what was coming.
Caspar stood inside the door holding a cask on his massive shoulder and a sack in the other hand. He looked her up and down, then his eyes roved around the room, taking in the stoic furnishings. "Clara," he sang, in a mocking tone. "Mine lieveling. Your loving husband has found you."
She willed her hands to her sides and forced composure onto her face. She could feel her lower lip trembling. Grant me rage, my blessed Savior. Not fear. Rage gave her strength.
That, and the sound of excited voices rising from the floors below. She was not alone in this house of sturdy craftswomen.
"No sweet kisses?" Caspar smacked his puckered lips at her. Dropping the sack, he lowered the cask to the floor and gestured at it with hands spread wide. "Look! I have brought a present for you!"
"I do not drink wine by the caskful." Clara struggled to speak in a steady voice. "What is in the sack?"
He grinned. "Not for you. A special delivery. You know the Jesuits and their politics. The money they spend! Work in England pays me double."
Smuggling. Caspar always carried a little something extra when he traveled abroad for a job. That sack looked too heavy for lace. Probably banned books or religious pamphlets. Nothing that concerned her. Why couldn't they be content with the books they had here already?
She studied his face, noting the grayness of his skin and the hardness of his features. He's becoming like the stone he works.
"You can't escape me," he said. "I always find you. I found you here. It was easy."
That gossiping sexton! But she couldn't blame him. How could he forestall an act of God?
"Come, lieveling," Caspar said, beckoning with a meaty hand. "Come give your man some loving. I have been so lonely."
He puckered his lips again. The gesture turned Clara's stomach. "If you touch me, Caspar Von Ruppa, I will kill you where you stand."
"What?" He tucked his chin in surprise at her ferocity. He pretended to be afraid. "Will you strike me with your little fist?" He leered at her. "Will you spank me?"
Fury boiled through Clara's veins. "Out! Out of my room! Out of my life!" She thrust her hand out to push him back.
Her fury was hot enough to scorch him — at first. He did step back. For a moment. She smiled. A mistake. His eyes narrowed and she saw his powerful hands curl into fists.
Then she saw her landlady — no small woman — and all of the other lodgers, streaming up the stairs armed with pans and brooms and pokers. They stormed into the room, flowing around Caspar like an angry river roiling around a great gray rock, and ranged themselves in front of Clara.
"You will leave my house," Surgeon Moulthorne said. "You are not welcome here."
"She is my wife." Caspar glowered down at them.
"Leave!" Clara, emboldened by her defenders, reached past them to push Caspar with her open hand against his chest. He gaped down at it in amazement.
"Out!" she cried.
He grabbed her wrist. She wrenched it from his grasp and pushed him again. This time the other women stepped forward also, brandishing their implements.
Caspar looked from one to the other, shaking his head like a bear baited by snapping dogs. Clara pushed him back another step. Two of her neighbors got behind him and began to pull. He growled at them; one whacked him on the shoulder with her broomstick. Caspar flinched and flailed a fist at her. Another woman cracked her poker down on his wrist.
They surrounded him and forced him down the stairs. Clara stood on the top step, vibrating with anger. She raised a fist in the air and screamed at the top of her lungs, "I'll kill you before I let you strike me again!"