“Come,” Peter said.
Stephen, as upright as a bishop, but with the broad, good-natured face of a tavern owner, ducked in and began to gather the stray dishes from breakfast.
“Miss Quinn?” Peter asked as he took his seat.
“Attended to.”
“Good. And Sir David?”
“Gone.”
“Which reminds me.” He caught Stephen’s eye and let the corner of his mouth rise. “The king has taken a new fancy.”
A look of horror came over Stephen’s face. “We cannot begin the painting over. Not again. First Nel , then Barbara Vil iers, then Nel again, and now someone else? The paint on the face has been scraped down so many times the canvas is getting to look like my gran’s lacework underneath.”
“I think we are safe with Nel for now,” Peter said. “We should endeavor to finish it this week, however. With that delivered the king’s only choice wil be a new commission.”
So long as the king maintains his royal prerogative with the women of the court, Peter thought, I shal always have work.
“How are the mezzotints today?”
“Good, good. Except for Col ins with the broken finger, we’ve been producing at a prodigious rate. Nothing to worry about there.”
Peter felt the pause. “But?”
“Might I observe the new apprentice, the tal one with no hair, is not going to make much of an artist.”
He meant Mertons. Peter snorted. “He is my cousin.
From my mother’s first marriage. I’m afraid it was this or transportation to the New World.”
“Ah. Wel , perhaps a stint stretching canvas would be more to his liking.”
“Excel ent notion.”
Stephen started out but paused at the door. “Peter,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I have taken the liberty of placing one or two very handsome widows on your diary this week, and I thought perhaps—”
“No,” Peter said with a choking rush of sorrow. “It has been but a year.”
“Nearly two, Peter. Nearly two. And one of the widows has twice been kind enough to—”
“Enough,” Peter said. It had been two years in Stephen’s memory, but for Peter, who had already endured the rest of his life here and more beyond, it had been eight. Eight long years, and even now his heart felt as lifeless and il -
prepared for the intimacy of another person as a stone.
“You mope,” Stephen said. “You brood. You bury yourself in your work. Ursula would not have wanted this. There. I’ve said her name. I’m tired of tiptoeing around as if she never existed. We al are. Peter,” he said more softly, “she was my friend, too. I know she would not have wanted this. You know what she would have said. She would have damned you for your foolishness.”
Peter smiled in spite of himself. “Aye, I can hear her now.”
Stephen’s eyes twinkled. “A fair temper, that one. I could tel the day I first laid eyes on her, the first day she came in to model.”
“ ’Twas the coloring. The red hair.”
“The coloring, the eyes, the way she refused to lower her shoulder.”
An obscure sentimental joy came into Peter as he considered the scene, as clear in his head as if the years gone by were no more than a snap of his fingers. “God help us, she was a terrible model—stubborn, short-tempered, easily bored.”
“But so, so beautiful on canvas.”
“Indeed.” Peter’s eyes started to smart, and he turned away.
Stephen sighed. “I have said enough. More than enough, I expect.”
Far more. Peter felt the familiar wave of grief.
“I have finished tomorrow’s schedule,” Stephen said, deftly changing the subject. “Might I observe your trade is as strong as ever?”
Peter grunted. At this point in his career, his schedule had always been ful , not that the schedule had mattered to him. He had always taken the commissions he desired, worked until he was done, and let Stephen handle the patrons whose appointments had been delayed or canceled. Al that mattered to him now was appeasing the king until he signed the document that would issue an edict of marriage for a long-dead woman and the man who had loved her.
Stephen, evidently sensing his master’s wish to be alone, made his exit bow. Peter held up a hand.
“I know your intentions are good, my friend,” he said. “But I … I cannot. Not yet.
