There are perils to intruding upon Eglantine Fox. Some of those perils, admittedly, depend greatly upon one’s business, and how easily shocked one is, and it’s a measure of this latter gauge that grants Passionario access to the home even now. They don’t think he’ll be terribly easy to shock.
It’s just as well, too - there are men in this city who start to sputter at the mere sight of bare ankles. Such men might just have an apoplexy if escorted as Passionario is into a parlour where Eglantine reclines on an ornate chaise longue for the benefit of a painter.
The picture appears to have taken some liberties, if such a phrase can even be used where Eglantine is concerned; after all, the expression of languorous contentment is Eglantine’s own, and so is the flimsy linen serving to replicate the chiton of some ancient Greek youth - but Eglantine has not the devil horns seen in reflection in the mirror painted into the scene, or the curling tail raising the hem of the chiton into further suggestiveness with a judicious hint of thigh. The hand holding the goblet, in the painting, is free of claws, but the mirrored one behind sports the brass nails Eglantine does indeed possess.
From the front, simply an androgynous Greek youth, of the sort much-loved by certain artists; in reflection, a creature of Hell, made for temptation and damnation. Someone has commissioned this, surely, and it no doubt provides all sorts of insights into that someone.
Eglantine rises, ending this sitting, and the painter hastens to pack up and leave, his canvas left to wait for another session. It seems very nearly finished, in any case.
They smile brightly and draw near on bare and silent feet, seeming to care not a whit that they are still covered only from shoulders to knees. "I thought you might come today." Eglantine grins. "It’s just as well you did, actually. Come, sit?" They beckon him to the chaise longue, bringing wine and offering it to him.
"And I say it’s just as well, because there’s a man in my cellar who has apparently been hired to kill you." Eglantine laughs suddenly. "He’d been complaining of his failures in attempts at getting you with poison, so I thought you might prefer it if he was delivered into your hands before he could improve his attempts."
They do seem awfully lighthearted for a person who’s abducted a luckless poisoner, but perhaps that’s to be expected?
edited by Eglantine-Fox on 11/8/2016