The Elizabeth Papers by Jenetta James Read Free Book Online

step. There was a buzz of many voices coming from inside and permeating the street. There were a lot of people here. Some were serious men in tweed jackets and heavy framed spectacles. They furrowed their brows and said little, and Charlie thought they must be buyers. Then there were the hipsters in their low-slung jeans, their hair arranged in peculiar montages of colour and style. A couple of stragglers roamed around: women in suits and ballet flats, their smart heels sticking out of their handbags; an oldish couple in their Sunday best who shuffled around the room looking out of place; a guy wearing a trilby and looking overheated.
    Later, Charlie reflected that he could never have been prepared for the first moment he saw her. A huge painting of ballerinas in unlikely colours formed the backdrop, and there she was. Her right toe tapped the wooden floor, and he noticed a tiny, gold chain around her left ankle. Her hair, which was the colour of acacia honey, was so thick he thought she might need a spoon to brush it. It was already half out of its ponytail, and he noticed that she moved her head around a lot when she talked. She was the right age, and everyone seemed to be addressing her. He knew that this was the girl. The gallery lights bounced off her creamy skin, and he felt a tightening in his throat. Unused to being disconcerted by another person’s appearance, Charlie got himself a glass of wine and did a circle of the room before approaching her.
    There were a number of people surging around her, babbling and pecking one another on the cheek between hugs. Charlie decided that his only option was to abuse his height and move closer, gazing up at the ballerinas then over the top of her acolytes and down at her honey-blonde head.
    “Miss Pemberton, I assume?”
    “You assume right, but it’s Evie, please.”
    He shook the hand she held out to him and was momentarily shocked by the soft silk of her skin against his. She looked at him expectantly, and he realised that, for the first time in his professional life, he didn’t have a plan or a false name at his fingertips.
    “I’m Charlie, Charlie Haywood.” Did he detect some alarm in her? Her eyes, which his father would have called Dresden blue, flickered about uncertainly as she spoke.
    “Well, welcome, Charlie Haywood. How did you hear about the exhibition? Have you been to the gallery before?”
    Afterwards, he did not know what made him say it. Was it that he was nervous? Was it just the first thing that came into his head? Was it that he wanted to make her stay with him? He could not imagine.
    “I’m a collector, Evie. And yes, I’ve been here before. Exhibitions in this gallery are always so well curated, and I like what they have done with your work. This is great. I really like this one in fact.”
    He turned to the ballerinas, needing to look away from her.
    “Oh, thank you. But that one isn’t for sale. It belongs to my aunt and uncle. If you were really interested, I could work up a proposal for a new work on a similar basis. I don’t know if you are into commissioning work, but if you were, that would be an option.”
    “Thanks, I may well be.”
    He cast his eye around the room, and in the heat of the evening and the hubbub of the laughing, drinking crowd, he began to get his native confidence back.
    “So, what about this? What’s the story here?”
    He nodded towards a small canvass with a purple cello in the middle of it, and Evie began to explain that she had spent time with orchestras and that there were a number of pictures in the exhibition in which the instruments were in full cry without their players. The ballerinas, it turned out, were the product of a similar stint with a ballet company in which Evie had been allowed to tag along and sketch during rehearsals. Charlie stared at the canvas and could almost hear the low moan of the instrument in his ear.
    “I like it. I really like it. Evie, do you have a studio? Where do you