“Encaustic,” she said aloud, and stood still, squinting at the portraits but not seeing them. Her fingers had twitched the brush she was cleaning into position, wanting to paint.
“Not now,” she said to them, and put the brush into her box. She could feel the painting she wanted to do of Roger. An encaustic painting; one done with pigments mixed into hot beeswax. It gave you a vivid image, but one with a peculiar sense of softness and depth. She’d never done it herself, but she was seized by the conviction that this would be the right medium in which to catch Roger’s light.
Any further thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of the front door, a murmur of male voices, and then the clumping of Henrike’s wooden-heeled shoes on the pineapple floorcloth and the louder clump of heavy boots, following.
“Ist deine Bruder,” Henrike announced, throwing open the door. “Und his Indian.”
“THE INDIAN” BOWED to her and came up grinning, though she was sufficiently familiar with his face by now to recognize bravado covering anxiety. She smiled back and impulsively took his hand, squeezing slightly in reassurance—about the situation, if not the painting.
He blinked in shock, then fumblingly raised her hand, evidently thinking she meant him to kiss it. He couldn’t quite bring himself to do that, though, and merely breathed on her knuckles in confusion. Brianna glanced up and met her brother’s eye. He was keeping a British officer’s straight face, but let a trace of humor show in his eyes.
“Thank you, Mr. Cinnamon,” she said, gently detaching her hand. She spread her skirts and curtsied to him, which made him blush like a very large plum and made William look hastily away.
William could wait, though; she had a sitter who had come to see his finished portrait.
“Come see,” she said simply, and beckoned Cinnamon—he wouldn’t let her call him by his first name, nor would he call her Brianna, evidently thinking that was improper. William must have been giving him etiquette lessons—or maybe that was Lord John.
She’d hung a thin muslin cloth over the portrait to keep off gnats and mosquitoes, which had a fatal attraction for linseed oil and drying paint, and now stepped to one side and pulled it deftly away.
“Oh,” he said. His face was completely blank. Her heart had sped up when the young men had come in, and more when the moment of revelation approached; she wasn’t as keyed up as John Cinnamon was but undeniably felt an echo of his nervous excitement.
He stood staring at the portrait, mouth slightly open and eyes wide. A little worried, she glanced at William, whose gaze was also fixed on the portrait but wearing an expression of surprised pleasure. She took a breath and relaxed, smiling.
“You did it,” William said, turning to her. “You really did.” He laughed, a soft rumble of delight as he turned back to the painting. “That is amazing!”
“It—” Cinnamon started, then stopped, still staring at the portrait of himself. He shook his head slightly and turned to William. “Do I—really look like that?”
“You do,” William assured him. “Though not as clean. Don’t you ever look at yourself when you’re shaving?”
“Oui, but …” The blankness was fading into fascination, and he drew cautiously nearer to the portrait. “Mon Dieu,” he whispered.
She’d painted him in his gray suit—he owned only one—with a snowy-white shirt and a neckcloth with a lacy fall over the manly chest. William had contributed a small gold stickpin in the shape of a flower whose heart was a faceted pink topaz, surrounded by green-foil petals.
She’d persuaded him not to wear a wig and to abandon the bear-grease pomade with which he sometimes attempted to plaster down his curls, and had painted him with his distinctive red-brown hair left loose to riot over the lovely broad curve of his skull and the faint reflection of it in the skin of jaw and cheekbones. He’d done his best to keep a stoic, reserved expression on his face, but she’d spent enough time talking to him while she sketched that she’d been able to catch the light that danced in his eyes when he was amused. And it danced in his portrait, in a tiny fleck of white touched with lemon.
“That …” Cinnamon shook his head and blinked hard; she could see the tears he was keeping back and felt a wrench of sympathetic feeling for him, though her joy at his response overwhelmed almost everything else.
His own feeling overwhelmed him to such an extent that he turned suddenly to her and seized her in a crushing embrace.
“Thank you!” he whispered into her hair. “Oh, thank you!”
HENRIKE, SUMMONED ANEW, fetched a bottle of wine and three glasses, and they drank the health of John Cinnamon and his portrait.
“Can you drink the health of a portrait?” Brianna asked, doing it regardless.
“Healthiest portrait I’ve ever seen,” William said, closing one eye and squinting at the painting through his glass of red wine. He turned and raised the glass to Brianna. “We can drink to the artist, though, if you’d rather?”
“Huzzah!” Cinnamon said, raised his glass to Brianna, and drank it off at a gulp. His eyes were bright, his hair standing on end, and he couldn’t stop beaming, stealing looks at his portrait every few seconds as though to ensure that it hadn’t gone away or suddenly started looking like someone else.
“It should dry for a few more days,” she said, smiling and lifting her own glass in salute. “Do you still mean to send it to—to London?” To his father, she meant. “I’ll pack it for you, if you like. So it won’t be damaged on the ship.”
John Cinnamon stared at her for a moment, looked at the portrait for a long minute, then turned back to her and nodded.
“I do,” he said softly.
“Papa would arrange for it to go home with a diplomatic friend, I’m sure,” William said. “Would you like me to ask him?”
Cinnamon paused for a moment, considering, but then shook his head. The glow hadn’t left his face, but it had retreated a little way.
“I’ll ask him,” he said, and stood up abruptly. “I’ll go now. I can’t sit still,” he explained apologetically to Brianna. “I’m so happy!” The glow returned, lighting his face like a flare, and he bowed hastily to her and took his leave, clapping William on the back as he went with a friendly blow that nearly knocked him over.
She’d expected William to take his own leave, and he did take up his hat, but then he stood for a moment, kneading it absently.
“What are the other portraits?” he said abruptly, and nodded at the three portraits still veiled in muslin. “If you don’t mind me seeing them, I mean,” he said, apologetic.
“Of course not. I’d love to have your opinion, since you know what all the subjects really look like.” She lifted the cloth from the largest piece—the portrait of Angelina Brumby—but kept her eyes on her brother’s face, to see his initial reaction.
He looked briefly at first, as though not really caring, but then blinked, focused, walked closer—and broke into a wide grin.
“Got her, didn’t I?” Brianna said, laughing. That was the expression on the face of every man who met Angelina in the flesh.