“You did,” William said, still smiling. “She’s … how did you make her look like she’s … shiny? Sparkly, I think,” he corrected. “Yes, that’s it—she sparkles.”
“Thank you!” she said, and would have hugged him if they had known each other just a little longer than they had. “You don’t really want to know the techniques, but it’s basically color. Tiny dabs of white, with an even tinier bit of reflected color from the surface behind the sparkle.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” William said, still smiling. He turned back to the row of portraits. “You said I know all the subjects—is one of those the American general? The cavalryman?”
She nodded, and without words, turned back the veil covering Casimir Pulaski.
William’s face was instantly sober, but he moved toward this painting, too, and stood before it for a long time, not speaking. Brianna was still watching his face and could see on it the memory of the long hours he and Cinnamon had shared with her, standing behind her, protecting her through the dark and the sorrow of that night.
She had struggled with this portrait. Her memories of the dark tent and the endless procession of somber men, many of them wearing the blood and powder stains of the lost battle, had hung about her while she worked, pervasive as the smell of gangrene and unwashed bodies, the occasional gust of wind off the marshes the only relief.
“I couldn’t find my way in at first,” she said quietly, coming to stand beside him. “There was too much—” She waved a hand vaguely, but he’d been there, too; he knew just what too much was. He nodded, and without looking at her, took her hand.
“But you found it, finally.” He didn’t say it as a question, but his hand tightened on hers, warm and big. “What was ‘it,’ though?”
She laughed, even as her eyes were full of tears.
“Lieutenant Hanson.” She swallowed, but knew her voice would shake. She spoke anyway. “When he—when he stopped. Afterward, when the rain started and we were all coming away from the tent? He said—I can’t say it, it was Polish …”
“Pozegnanie,” William said quietly. “Farewell.”
She nodded, and took a big breath.
“That. It was the only thing—just a glimpse—of who he was.” She blinked, then knuckled away the tears that had oozed out. She cleared her throat and looked at the painting.
“When I had that,” she said, able to breathe again, “it—he—wasn’t just a dead body. Or a hero—I could have done that—painted him on his horse, charging or whatever—and maybe the army would rather have had one like that, probably they would, but …”
“The army has much more feeling than you’d think,” he said, with a half smile. “It’s not usually a delicate sort of feeling, but it is feeling. And we understand death. This is perfect.”
She squeezed his hand and let it go, feeling the tightness in her chest let go as well. She nodded at the final painting, still veiled.
“You’ve already seen that one, though it wasn’t finished then. Do you want to see it?”
“Jane,” he said, and she turned to look at him, hearing things in his voice. But his jaw tightened and he shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Not just now.” He took a deep breath and blew it out with a whoosh.
“I daresay you’ve spent some time at Papa’s house whilst you’ve been in the city?”
“Yes,” she said, diverted. “Why?”
“Then you’ve met Amaranthus.”
“I have.”
“I want to talk to you about her.”
120
In Which William Spills His Guts, Mostly
IN THE END, HE told her almost everything. No mention of cold gardens, warm thighs, and black-eyed toads. But everything else: Dottie and the baby, Denzell, General Raphael Fucking Bastard Bleeker, and Amaranthus’s account of her husband.
His sister said very little but sat hunched forward on her tall painter’s stool, feet tucked back behind the rungs, watching him. She had a face that matched her height: boldly handsome, and with eyes that would brook no insult but that still seemed warm.
“I told Papa—Lord John—everything I’d found out.” His father had listened, pale and intent, sifting the account as William told it. Very clearly envisioning the necessity for relaying it to his brother, his knuckles growing whiter as the brutal tale went on.
“That can’t have been easy,” his sister said softly. He shook his head.
“No. But easier than it should have been—for me. I was a coward. I couldn’t … I couldn’t make myself tell Uncle Hal. So I told Papa instead and … left the dirty work to him.”
She considered that for a moment, head on one side. She wore no cap and her hair was unpinned; it fell over her shoulder in a shimmering wave, disregarded. Then she shook her head and thrust the wave back behind her ear, leaving a streak of overlooked white paint from her fingers.
“You’re not a coward,” she said. “Lord John knows his brother better than anybody else in the world—probably including His Grace’s wife,” she added, frowning a little. “There isn’t a good way to tell a man something like this, I don’t suppose …”
“There isn’t.”
“But I’ve heard your, um, father talk about his brother. He’ll know what your uncle feels, and he’s tough—Lord John, I mean, though probably Hal is, too. He can stand up to it, if Hal goes nuts—er, gets really upset,” she amended, seeing the look on William’s face. “You could tell him, all right—and you’ll probably have to, eventually,” she added with sympathy. “He’ll want to hear the gory details from you. But you wouldn’t be able to give him what he maybe needs after hearing it—whether that’s a stiff drink—”
“I’m sure that will be the second thing he needs,” William muttered. “The first being someone to hit.”
Brianna’s mouth twitched at that, and for a shocked moment, he thought she was about to laugh, but she shook her head instead and the paint-streaked lock of hair fell down along her cheek.
“So,” she said, straightening up with a sigh, “Amaranthus is still in love with her husband, and he’s still in love with her. And you …?”
“Did I say I had any feelings for her?” he demanded irritably.
“No, you didn’t.” You didn’t need to, you poor fool, her face said.
“I don’t suppose it matters,” she said mildly. “Now that you know she’s not a widow. I mean … you wouldn’t consider …” She left that thought where it was, thank God, and he ignored it. She cleared her throat.
“What about Amaranthus, though?” she asked. “What will she do now, do you think?”
William could think of a lot of things she might do, but he’d already learned that his own imagination was not equal to that particular lady’s.
You might … just possibly enjoy it.
“I don’t know,” he said gruffly. “Probably nothing. Uncle Hal won’t throw her into the street, I don’t suppose. She didn’t betray him, the King, the country, the army, and everything else—and she is Trevor’s mother, and Trevor is Uncle Hal’s heir.” He shrugged. “What else could she do, after all?”