If I returned…
And if I didn’t, what then? I had a bit—a very little bit—of my own money, and what the Laurents would pay me upon completion of Alexander’s portrait. It could get me by for a while…but where? To what end? What was it that I really wanted?
I wanted to paint.
I wanted adventures.
I did want someone to share that with.
Eventually.
And Alex was kind. He was smart. He treated me with affection and respect. He listened and made me laugh. He’d become a duke. I could become a duchess. The same as Camille. There was no doubt in my mind that a life with him could be full and happy.
I pressed my lips together, turning through the pages of gowns, ready to cast the die. “I only…It just struck me how terribly much I shall miss all this. I know I’ve only been here a few days, but I’ve already fallen in love with Bloem. It will be difficult to leave it.”
I glanced over to see how well my performance affected her but the shop assistant returned just then, carrying with her an armful of tulle in lavender, peach, and gold. Dauphine shifted her attention back to the sketches, murmuring thoughtfully about the waistline on one of the dresses.
But as she did, I caught the corner of her mouth curling into a small, secret smile.
“These are for you,” Gerard said, entering the study without warning and dropping a pile of books beside the small table at the left of my easel.
“？‘Secrets Kept,’？” I murmured, tilting my head to read their spines. “？‘Lessons in the Hidden World of Botanical Language. The Art of Arrangement.’？”
He nodded approvingly. “Dauphine mentioned you’d selected this for the location of Alexander’s portrait.” He gestured about the room. “I thought it might be nice to have a bouquet painted into the foreground someplace. I may not be able to pick out his legacy but I certainly can remind him of everything that has come before.”
“I see. Are there any flowers in particular you were thinking about?”
“Here,” he said, thrusting a list into my hands.
I read through the list, nodding even though I had no idea what message they were meant to convey. I glanced at the stack of books. I’d have a busy morning ahead of me. “I don’t know what some of these are…what most of them are, actually. Would it be possible to see examples of them in the greenhouse?”
“We have all of them but the Fragaria vesca. I suppose you can cross that one off the list. It won’t be ready for another few weeks,” he said, and swooped forward to steal my pencil right out of my hand to slash off the name himself.
“Father.” Alexander paused on the lip of the threshold, eyes narrowed, before rolling into the study. “I didn’t expect to see you here today. Are you going to watch Verity’s session? Make sure it’s up to standard?”
“Hmmm.” He looked around the room, noting all the changes we’d done—reconfiguring the position of the writing desk so it could be included while keeping Alexander in the best light, arranging a stack of meaningful books in the background, along with a small statute of Arina’s burning heart and a framed rendering of Chauntilalie hung on the wall.
Alexander positioned himself at the center of it all, exactly where we’d decided he’d go at the end of our last session.
“You’re not staying in the chair, are you?” Gerard asked, leaning over beside me to see the composition as I did. He crossed away to fuss with the angle of the statue.
Alex looked unconcerned. “Where else would I be?”
Gerard unfastened the clasp of a window drape, shifting the folds of fabric into a more attractive angle, despite my rough outline of it already sketched across the canvas. “There’re dozens of other chairs to choose from. Surely you don’t want that old wicker thing immortalized forever.”
“Surely you don’t.”
“Well. No,” Gerard admitted, finally turning to his son. He picked at a bit of lint on Alex’s shoulder, truly unable to help himself. “You…You’re so much more than that chair, Alexander. Why include it?”
“It’s part of who I am, Father. Painting in some stuffy fauteuil won’t change that. And they’re terribly uncomfortable.”
“But do you really want generations of Laurents to remember you as…” Gerard stopped abruptly.
“As a cripple?” Alexander asked challengingly. “An invalid? A gimp?”
His father’s eyebrows drew together, as if he were in pain. I noticed his fingers ball into fists. “As…as less than perfect.”
A long, uneasy moment passed between them.
“If perfection is what you’re after, perhaps you ought to have Verity repaint that great ugly nose from yours.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Gerard stared down at his son in disbelief and I braced myself against the impending explosion.
But instead, he laughed.
Swells of laughter so great, he had to hold a hand over his stomach to keep from doubling over.
“Perhaps I might, perhaps I might.” Gerard wiped at the corner of his eye and slapped Alexander across the back with an approving smack. “I suppose I ought to let you get on with all this.” He gestured toward the canvas.
“Would you like to stay?” I offered, surprising them both but wanting to capitalize on the unexpected and happy moment. “I’m sketching out the foundation today and then we’ll start painting tomorrow.”
Gerard waved my offer aside. “No, no, I’ve work of my own that needs attending.”
“The Constances?” I asked. It had been a week since I’d seen the purple flowers. I’d been busy getting everything set up for Alexander’s portrait and Gerard’s tinkering often kept him secreted away, missing meals and working long into the nights, the greenhouse glowing like a beacon even as I blew out my candles at bedtime.
His eyes darted toward Alex, then away again just as quickly. “No, no. Other things. Other flowers. But you must see them. More have bloomed, about this big now…” He held up his hand, fisted. “Look over my list and the books and then come find me. I’m always in one of the greenhouses.” Gerard nodded absentmindedly and then took his leave, his footsteps echoing down the hall long after his departure.
“He named those purple flowers after a woman?” Alexander asked once it was clear Gerard was far from the study and couldn’t overhear.
“At first. Callistephus constancensia,” I said, trying to remember the exact phrase Gerard had bestowed upon the little blooms. “But then he said he might decide on something else.”
He let out a tiff of disapproval. “That man.”
“She’d helped with them, he said. Who is she? An assistant? A gardener?”
Alex let out a sigh. “I suppose you’ll notice sooner or later. Father…” He looked toward the ceiling, trying to conjure up the best phrasing. “Father is a man of…insatiable appetites.”
His eyes drifted down, leveling me with the certainty that Alex wasn’t referencing Gerard’s proclivities for long, drawn-out dinners.
“Oh,” I murmured, coloring instantly.