I smiled at my husband. “He just has exquisite taste in models, it seems,” I teased.
Marco smiled. “He does at that,” he relented. “And I can hardly blame him.”
*
As it happened, Botticelli’s house—with his living space above his studio—was not far from my new home at the Vespucci palazzo; so close was it, in fact, that I told Marco he was being silly for insisting I take the carriage. He agreed reluctantly, only insisting that I take Chiara to accompany me.
A part of me had been a bit surprised that he had not wanted to accompany me himself, even supervise the painter’s work. But despite his earlier surliness regarding Botticelli, he had not felt it necessary.
“You are a married woman now, Simonetta,” he said. “You do not need a chaperone to move about the city. I am not some jealous husband who does not trust his wife.”
I was glad to hear him say so and, in truth, some of the realities—and freedoms—of my new status had been slow to make themselves real to me. Yet I had been surprised all the same, knowing all too well that strangely tense undertone in his voice whenever Signor Botticelli was mentioned. It seemed that my husband could sense whatever accord it was that had grown between the painter and myself, yet since there had been no untoward nor improper actions on anyone’s part, there was little he could do or say on the matter. But it eased my mind that Marco trusted me so.
The painter’s studio was on the ground floor of a somewhat ramshackle building, with a weaver’s shop on one side and a silversmith’s on the other. I bade Chiara run along to the market and do some shopping for the household—no point in having her waiting about for me all day—and then went in without knocking, as I knew Signor Botticelli was expecting me.
I found the inside to be rather chaotic. Splotches of paint covered many of the surfaces of the front room into which I stepped, and brushes and pieces of canvas were strewn about everywhere. Empty easels stood here and there about the floor, looking like skeletons awaiting a new graft of skin to give them life.
I heard male voices coming from a room toward the back, out of sight. “Please, maestro,” one said, sounding like a young boy. “It was a mistake. I did not know.”
“You would have known, had you paused long enough to listen to my instructions,” another voice replied sternly, one that I recognized as Botticelli’s.
“It is a mistake only, maestro. I will try again.”
Botticelli sighed. “No. I will do it myself. You will go out into the streets and find Luca, the lazy loafer. And when you do find him, tell him that the next time he does not appear here when he is meant to, I shall find myself another apprentice.”
“Si, signore.” With that, the boy emerged from the back room—he was perhaps twelve or thirteen. He bolted for the door, nearly knocking into me in his haste. “Mi scusi, signora,” he said, pushing past me with barely a glance.
Having heard the boy’s words, Signor Botticelli appeared as well. “Madonna Simonetta,” he said, stopping short at the sight of me. “I—You are early.”
“Am I?” I asked, feeling disappointment leach into my stomach. I had to admit—if only to myself—that I had expected him to be more excited upon my arrival. “Perhaps. My apologies.”
“No, no,” he said hurriedly, stepping farther into the room and collecting a handful of paintbrushes. “You mistake my meaning; I am delighted to see you, at any hour of the day or night.” He smiled ruefully. “It is just that I had hoped to clean up some of this mess before you arrived.”
“I think it is lovely,” I said. I blushed as he turned his questioning gaze on me. “That is … this space. Your space. It is so full of life.”
He smiled again, that same wide, relaxed grin that made his face so beautiful to behold. “I thank you for saying so.” His smile faded as he sighed and ran his fingers through his tousled blond hair. “As you no doubt heard, one of my apprentices has been most derelict in his duties, and I have only the other boy at the moment. I set him to mixing some of the paint I mean to use today, but he is not used to the task, and so I will have to remedy the error myself. If you do not mind waiting, that is. If you wish to return another day, I—”
“Not at all,” I interrupted. “But I confess I thought you might begin by sketching me, and not by beginning the painting so soon? But then I am most ignorant of the artistic process.”
He glanced at me, amused, still moving about the room, collecting stray items and returning them to their proper places—or at least somewhere out of the way. “I shall begin by sketching you, yes, but I confess that I already have an idea of how to pose you, and how to begin, and what I think the portrait shall look like. So it may be a very brief sketch, indeed.”
“Whatever you think best,” I said.
“It has been difficult, establishing my own studio, and then finding promising apprentices,” he went on. “Without the patronage of Lorenzo and his family, I should have a much harder time of it still.” He shook his head. “My apologies, Madonna. You no doubt do not care about such things as the difficulties of a humble artist.”
“Why should I not?” I asked. “We are friends, or so you told me when last we met.”
He stopped and faced me, a slight smile tugging at his lips. “I did say that,” he said. “I have hoped ever since that you did not find me too forward.”
“Not at all,” I said, even though I knew I should say that he had been. More than that, I should feel that he had been too forward as well, but I did not, and so I could not bring myself to say it. For every part of me wanted to be friends with this strange, intense man so set on painting me.
“Then,” he said, drawing up a plain wooden chair to the center of the room, “as one friend to another, I must thank you for agreeing to sit for me.”
“And I must thank you for wishing me to sit for you,” I said. “I have been looking forward to it so.” I flushed slightly as I thought of the ways in which he might construe my words. “I say so not out of vanity, I assure you. Only that I might contribute to art in some small way, if you deem me worthy.”
He chuckled. “I think you more than know my feelings on that subject.” He gestured to the chair. “Please, do sit, Madonna Simonetta. Make yourself comfortable.”
I did as he said, perching myself on the edge of the roughly hewn chair.
He raised an eyebrow as he drew up a chair of his own, facing me. “Is that ‘comfortable,’ Madonna?”
I laughed, feeling my body relax. “I suppose not, no. But my mother would say, ‘A lady always sits with perfect and straight posture.’”