Free Escape by Moonlight by Mary Nichols Page A

tell you.’ His mood had been slightly sombre, but now he brightened. ‘Let’s make a start, shall we? Do you think you could slip your blouse off one shoulder?’ He reached forward to do it for her and she started back. He smiled. ‘Only a little bit, nothing improper, and there is no one to see you but me and I am an artist. I am allowed a little licence.’
    She took a deep breath and slipped the blouse down a little way. ‘Is that enough?’
    ‘Yes, I think so. Now let down your hair …’
    ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’d never get it up again.’
    ‘But whoever heard of a gypsy with a head full of pins? Go on, take it down. It is such lovely hair. I want to run my fingers through it. I want to paint it, rippling like silk over your bare shoulder. Please.’ He reached up and drew out a hairpin and when she made no protest, pulled out another and then another until her hair was free. It was the colour of dark honey, much longer and thicker than he had imagined it would be; it fell around her face and shoulders like a curtain and he picked up a handful and buried his face in it. She was sat unmoving, unable to do anything. All her dreams were coming true. He must love her. She did not doubt she loved him.
    He brushed the hair away from her face and kissed her. And then he paused to lean back and look at her and sawthe tears glistening on her lashes and the love in her eyes and he could not do it. Smiling, he touched her cheek with his finger. ‘Now, I have you in the right mood, my dear, I will begin.’ And to her consternation he got up, went to his saddlebag and produced a sketch pad and crayons. ‘Sit quite still.’
    She did not need to be told; she had been turned to stone. She had been ready to give herself to him and he had rejected her. Was that all she was to him, a model for his painting? Why, in heaven’s name did she think she was anything else? He did not speak and neither did she, not for a very long time. She could hear the birds twittering in the trees, the scratching sound his crayons made, the croak of a frog and the scampering of a small animal across the floor of the cottage behind her, even her own ragged breathing, but they were sounds from far off, all but obliterated by the crying inside her. He had been right about pretending and self-deception and she was a silly fool.
    He looked up at last and smiled; it was as if nothing had happened. ‘Are you getting stiff?’
    ‘Yes, a bit.’
    ‘Stand up and walk about. I think I’ve done enough for the moment. I can work on it at home.’
    ‘Can I see it?’
    ‘No. It is not fit to be seen yet. When it is finished, you shall be the first to see it.’ He put his materials back in the saddlebag and came back to her, leading his horse. She had replaced her blouse and was busy searching the ground for her hairpins. ‘I can’t put it up without them,’ she said.
    ‘Then leave it down.’
    ‘Pa will flay me when he sees it.’ She found one or two, wound her hair in a thick coil and endeavoured to secure itbehind her head. Then she put her shawl up to cover it. ‘If I can get indoors without anyone seeing me, I can see to it.’
    ‘I’ll walk you as far as the gate.’
    They set off along the path which was more clearly defined than the one she had used to find the place and she realised she had probably taken the wrong one. It seemed strange to her that in a small village where she knew every turn in the road, every building, there could be somewhere like this, a wood, and not a particularly large one, in which it would be easy to become hopelessly lost.
    ‘Can you come again next Sunday?’ he asked. ‘We’ll meet here and work some more on the picture.’
    ‘If you like.’
    ‘I do like.’
    She could see the wall through the trees, the wall that divided her make-believe life from her real life. ‘You needn’t come any further. I can find my own way from here.’
    ‘Very well.’ He reached out and kissed her very gently.