“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.
“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.