An ominous expectancy, so powerful it made the skin at her nape prickle and her stomach tie in knots. She shook the feeling off and focused on the early morning sun sparkling on frost-covered grass and shrubs. She stopped for a moment to enjoy the bejewelled fantasy scene. She smiled, buttoned up her down-filled coat, and wrapped her woolly scarf around her neck, muttering, ‘It’s going to be a wonderful, creative morning.’ She open the back of her rusty station wagon, hauled out her equipment with a heave, and shut and locked her car. She tucked her easel and enormous sketchpad under one arm, and lifted her carrycase of art supplies in her other hand. Armed with these tools for teaching her first art class, Sofie hurried to the back entry of the Edwardian hall, hoping the caretaker had turned on the heating. There was no point in holding a life drawing class if the model needed to cover up because she had goosebumps and puckered nipples. As it was, she didn’t know how the men who had signed on would react to a naked woman.
