His Model Student: A Student-Teacher Romance

Epilogue

Five years later...

"Trista Regina" - "the Sad Queen" - a leading art critic had dubbed it, and the name stuck.

Sera had never thought to give a specific title to the portrait. She was overwhelmed enough with painting such a momentous subject and trying to do some kind of justice to the honour of the commission.

She also hadn't meant to make it sad. But the eyes she had painted were the eyes of someone who had lived a very long time, who had seen eras of history rise and fall. Someone who had lived through war and huge change and love and bereavement and the passing of a millennium.

"It's more nostalgic than sad," Tarq had said. "But it is sad."

The portrait was universally acclaimed though it caused some controversy. A cartoonist in one of the newspapers drew a pastiche of it, titled "Miserable Monarch", linking it to a recent royal scandal.

Most importantly, the subject herself was apparently "delighted" with the final painting. "She has said, though this is strictly off the record," a courtier told Sera, "that it is by far her favourite."

Given how often the famous lady had been painted this was high praise from the highest source.

The past five years had gone by in such a whirl that Sera had barely had time to stop and breathe. She had moved to Paris and ended up giving up her place at St Martin's to instead go to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts by the Seine. Paris suited her.

She had somehow fallen in with a bohemian set of artists and socialites and one day ended up painting a girl who was a well-known model.

"Honnête mais gentil," was the verdict - "honest but kind" - and suddenly Sera was in vogue and in demand.

It led to a flurry of commissions from bright young Parisians wanting portraits, and Sera's work became commanded higher up the social scale until she painted an elderly duchess, a distant cousin of England's monarch.

Which had led to the ultimate commission. Sera was one of the youngest artists to ever be awarded such a recognition and she made the most of it.

Tarq was there at her side, throughout. She couldn't have managed it without his support and guidance.

They were sitting by the window of their Paris apartment eating breakfast and looking at the newspaper coverage of the portrait which had finally been unveiled by the National Portrait Gallery. The previous two days had been a non-stop whirl of interviews for Sera, and she had flown back to France the previous night.

"You look very tired," he told her. "Beautiful, but exhausted."

"That was due to you, not the press," Sera told him. He had been relentless with her in bed the past night, both of them hyped up with the success of Sera's royal portrait.

"You usually have plenty of stamina." There was a glint in his eye and Sera took it for the challenge that it was.

She let her robe fall to her waist. She wore nothing under it. Even though Tarq had painted her a dozen or more times over the past years, sometimes clothed and sometimes nude, he still reacted instantly if she spontaneously disrobed before him.

As she had anticipated he caught his breath. "Already?" he asked.

"Always ready."

He swept her up and carried her to their bed, where he made love to her slowly and tenderly, drawing it out and making her beg him to give her release. Between the sheets he still had absolute command and control of her body.