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“Because ye need a pack mule. Remember?” Hauling himself back up on the ledge, Niall planted his backside there, feet dangling. He gave the bemused Alanna a wink. “You have to be hungry after that marking. How about a light supper while Evan works?”
They ate their picnic at that same spot. Niall was pleased when Alanna sat next to him, slim legs and new hiking shoes dangling over open space. As he cut up another apple and gave her the lion’s share of it, she gave him the bulk of the sandwiches, though he coaxed her to eat two before she insisted she was stuffed.
It was absorbing to watch her, and not only because of the expected things. Her training controlled everything. No wasted gestures, such that she had an exceptional stillness to her, almost like a vampire. No fidgeting or shifting. Even when she blinked, it seemed a deliberate movement, the feather of the dark lashes pressing along her cheek before the rich brown irises were revealed again.
He’d compare her to an automaton, except there was so much vibrating beneath her skin, a chaotic emotional and sexual energy. It spun a fascinating net, drawing the casual observer closer, waiting for any move she made, any word she spoke.
When he’d apologized to her in the Rover, telling her he’d been an arse, Evan had echoed it in his mind. Yes, you were. Don’t take out your anger with me or the way the vampire world is on her, neshama. If you need a fight, I am right here. Always.
Always. What was it she’d said? A full sense of the servant’s soul, resting in their hand, to do with as they will. The servant’s complete submission to that idea. Their unconditional devotion to the vampire’s care. That is what they seek.
Her words had taken him back. Had it been 1754? He didn’t remember dates all that well anymore. They’d been on a hilltop overlooking Florence, the city bathed in moonlight, much like this. The vampire was working on a stark black-and-white landscape, not the usual thing for artists at that time. But Evan had been experimenting with those haunting contrasts even then . . .
“Ye want me to describe what?”
Evan gestured to the tree line. “I need you to describe the way the light hits the trees at sunrise. What it looks like, every detail that seems important. How it makes you feel. What it smells like, what it makes you want to do. ”
Niall drew his gaze away from the nighttime view of Florence. It was so different from Scotland, everything warm, prosperous and colorful, the town full of intellectuals and laughing children. Earlier that evening they’d been at Ponte Vecchio. Evan had wanted to see the Pasquino, a sculpture of Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus. While Niall found it heroic and romantic, Evan explained it was based on a fragment of an ancient Roman sculpture. That fragment was simply a headless warrior the archaeologists had deduced had been supporting the body of a fallen comrade, because the shards remaining showed his hand upon a piece of the torso.
The spirit endures through the physical, no matter how time has decayed the original vision. It still inspires statues like this, an echo.
Niall turned his attention back to the pair of rabbits he was cleaning. He intended to prepare them for dinner, have them with the bread they’d bought in the last town. The baker’s wife had a generous bosom, gleaming like a pair of butter-glazed loaves, thanks to the perspiration caused by her ovens. He’d wanted to taste the damp salt on them, but he’d stopped at his imaginings. He didn’t dally with what belonged to another man.
“Pay attention, lazy servant. ” Evan drew him out of the pleasant recollection. “Tell me how sunlight hits a tree. ”
“How does that help you know how to paint it?” Niall’s tone was deeply suspicious, such that Evan laughed at him.
“Trust me, it does. You’re a hands-on man. You’ll understand it more after you see it. When the sun comes up tomorrow, think about it. Make notes. Practice your writing. ”
Like most Scottish lads, Niall had learned his Latin and letters, but it hadn’t stuck that well, since he’d had little use for it before he met Evan. The vampire had tutored him, though, helping him improve such that now he could handle functional correspondence.
“I dinnae have to wait. I’ve seen the sunrise every day since I was old enough to help my da. It falls the same way that moonlight you’re looking at does it. Except, there’s more brightness. The greenness of the leaves, they melt with the gold summat, so you get both colors. ”
He paused, thinking it through a bit deeper. “Ye start to see the outline of the trees, gradual-like. They’re dark against the dark, and then ye notice they’re becoming more defined, the sky a soft gray, like a cheetie’s fur. ”
In the beginning, he’d been self-conscious about giving such descriptions, but then he’d learned Evan was evaluating his described emotional response to help paint the picture, not make Niall more vulnerable. That was when he’d become more confident with it, though Evan had embarrassed him by saying he’d finally found the poet in his soul.
“Ye feel a sense o’ sadness, because there’s always that in the gray predawn light. Your chest gets tight, and there’s a hitch in your wame, like something’s about to be lost, or something that was lost is so close ye might be able to touch it, there on that dividing point between light and dark. Then the colors start to change. It’s different every day. This morning ’twas a blue with some rose mixed in, and the rose took over, washing over to blue, blending with it so it shimmered like pearl. Then comes the fire. The streaks of clouds, the hints of light t’come. You can feel the heat, and ye know God’s given you another day to do His work. ”
Evan’s gaze was fixed on him, so still it made Niall shift uncomfortably.
“One day,” the vampire said, “I expect there will be a way to capture an image on paper with a machine, so it replicates it exactly. But even so, it won’t show what you just described. ”
Niall shrugged. “I described it as ye asked. If you want sonnets or science, you’ve chosen the wrong man to ask. ”
“You mistake me. No machine will ever be able to show an image the way the soul sees it. And that’s the picture an artist seeks. ”
“Most artists I know are seeking coin. Hoping for fat commissions from titled lords. ”
“So I’m not an artist?” Evan arched a brow, emphasizing those patrician features, the straight nose and high cheekbones. Ach, but the man needed a broken nose or a scar to make his face less . . . distracting.
“Not the usual kind. ” Niall cleared his throat. “For one thing, ye came to Scotland to paint landscapes. Most of the English look at Scotland in horror and flee back to their estates with their smooth green gardens. ”
Evan smiled. “I’m not English, remember? If I do it right, the subject itself infuses the brush with life, from the first contact with the canvas. That connection makes all the difference. And I didn’t initially come to Scotland to paint landscapes. I came to see the Book of Kells. ”
“Aye, so you said. Fascinated because they used thousands o’ wee dots to form a letter. I’ve seen thousands o’ ants carry grains of sand to make their house, keep the rain out and the food in. That seems far more practical than wasting all that effort on a letter of the alphabet. ”
“Pict barbarian. ”
“You said the Picts had admirable methods o’ stone carving. ”
“Uncouth Viking, then. ”
Niall snorted, but left the rabbits, coming to Evan’s side to see what he was doing with the information he’d given him. Of course, he was probably mulling it for a future painting. There was no way to predict how the vampire’s mind worked, unless unpredictability itself could be considered predictable.
Evan was painting a tree, a hardy Caledonian pinewood as he’d seen it in Scotland, but he’d painted it against the picturesque spires, domes and bridges of Florence. Even though he’d done the picture in grays and whites, somehow he’d captured the sense of bright daylight over the city. But as the eye traveled up the hill toward the misplace
d tree, the sky became more turbulent, the tree an angular soldier standing alone from all the rest. Out of place, yet enduring, strong.
Niall had found a disconcerting kind of peace, watching Evan work. There was no denying or describing it. Fortunately, Evan asked plenty of questions about light and trees and such, but he never asked Niall what he thought of a painting. The one time he’d volunteered a comment, it had been about a commissioned portrait of an Italian noblewoman and her two ratlike dogs. He’d told Evan it was nice. Evan had just arched that fine brow, offered a neutral sound and gone back to it.
Now, though, Evan’s fingers had stilled. The vampire’s attention was on him. Niall didn’t look toward him, keeping his eyes on the canvas. When Evan touched his face, he quivered. He knew he was that tree, out of place, yet captured on that canvas by the truths that Evan saw.
“What do you see in it?” Niall asked gruffly.
Evan’s touch moved to his jaw, guided his face toward him. Niall was startled to find the vampire’s face so close to his own. While he was a couple of inches taller than Evan, and looked a decade older, the male had a way of making it clear who was the more imposing of the two, on every level.
Niall made a noise, an uncertain resistance. Evan closed the distance, bringing his mouth to his. Coaxing Niall’s stiff lips open, he teased his tongue with his own, tightening his fingers on his neck even more, letting him feel their strength. Evan had the ability to bruise and force, but now it was reined back. Instead, he shifted a step closer and let his other hand slide to Niall’s back, take a firm hold of the stuff of his shirt, twist with the deepening pleasure of the kiss. That twist constricted into a tight fist when Niall exploded into life, kissing him back.
He finally let himself feel it, get lost in it. For the first time in his life, he could steep himself in another man’s desire. As a result, it felt much like the sunrise he’d described. An unfolding moment of possibilities, stretching out before them.