The boys quickly drop their smiles, looking seriously out at the girls, or down at the ground. Mr.Dean’s still staring off into the distance, not in the least interested in the women at the easels.
“You’ll have two hours,” Aunt Genevieve says, turning back to the girls. “On your mark, get set, paint!”
There’s a flurry of movement all around. Rosalie forgoes her paints to start. She picks up a charcoal and does a quick sketch of the tree, the platform, and the general location of each boy.
She knows she needs to focus in on Mr.Dean, so her painting is most impressive to him. A perfect likeness should score her a win. Which is a shame, really, because Mr.Sholle is clearly the star of the show. He’s still writing in the notebook, gently swinging his feet in the name of authenticity.
He does glance up and over at MissPine from time to time, which is very promising. Rosalie forces herself not to follow his gaze. She needs to get to work.
She quickly mixes her colors and begins painting in earnest, forcing dedication into each and every stroke of her brush.
Usually, she and Aunt Genevieve put on old dresses and get intentionally messy, laughing and telling stories and sharing. They’re some of her favorite afternoons, when Mother lets her come over with no agenda and nowhere to be, and she and Aunt Genevieve can just talk, or sit in true companionable silence.
But today isn’t usual. Today isn’t about fun, or comfort. Today is about having the best painting. By bounds.
She takes a moment to glance around the group, noting Henrietta frowning at her canvas and Amalie going in with smudgedfingers. They both look adorably determined and Rosalie hopes their finished products impress Mr. Rile and Mr. Fortes. And their mothers too.
But then her eyes flick over to MissPine and Rosalie’s breath whooshes out of her chest.
The way MissPine is staring at her canvas with such intention, the way her hands are moving, the way she’s got a smudge of green on her cheek and her tongue just between her lips...
Aunt Genevieve coughs behind her and Rosalie starts, her brush jerking across the canvas, wiping a streak of green right across what should be Mr.Dean’s chest. She bites back a curse.
“Eyes on your own canvas, Lady Rosalie,” Aunt Genevieve whispers, extending a clean cloth for Rosalie to carefully wipe away the fresh green paint. Her smirk is far too knowing for Rosalie’s liking.
Rosalie hopes she didn’t look as... stunned as she felt. She should look competitive, like she was checking on MissPine’s progress, not... not whatever it was she was doing instead.
“Don’t sneak up on people,” Rosalie whispers haltingly, her cheeks flushing.
“Thirty minutes” is all Aunt Genevieve says in return, smiling playfully before returning to her prowling.
Rosalie looks back at the empty space where she should be painting Mr.Dean. MissPine wasn’t even trying to distract her that time. The woman is just too magnetic.
Of every person here, all the men on display, all her lovely friends, MissPine is by far the most beautiful, and captivating, and clearly deserves most to be memorialized. Rosalie can imagine all kinds of scenes to paint her in. She might defy portraiture altogether, too complex and full of too many different simmering layers to capture perfectly.
But she’s not who Rosalie is here to paint. She needs to paint Mr. Dean. She needs to focus on Mr. Dean. She needs to win.
She blows out a slow breath and looks up to study him. He’s beautiful too. Differently from MissPine, of course. But his jaw is sharp, his brow line fluid, and his eyes have their own depth, in their way. His hair is luscious, his stature strong and lithe and commanding. He’s everything a girl should want.
And she can capture that. Even if he looks bored. She can highlight that part of his charm. He’s consumed by interior thoughts, unruffled by the frippery of man.
Good God.
Maybe she can’t make him into poetry, but she can give his likeness half the spark she sees in MissPine. She can force herself to see the same in him. She can make him into something worthy of memorializing. She can make him worthy of her, she thinks.
Chapter Eight
Catherine
Catherine can feel Lady Rosalie’s eyes on her like a hot iron, but she forces herself to concentrate. She won’t give Lady Rosalie the satisfaction of distracting her.
Won’t give herself the satisfaction of meeting her gaze and getting lost in her challenging eyes either. She’s here to win Lady Jones’ painting competition. Not to let herself be beguiled by her insanely hot niece.
Her portrait is going well, she thinks. She’s captured each gentleman’s likeness, and they all appear dynamic and distinct, while remaining part of a larger whole. She even thinks she’s managed to make Mr.Dean look contemplative rather than bored or mad, though he does look a bit of both, just staring off like that, oblivious to everyone around him.
She hopes the other women have managed nothing more elaborate than she has. Two hours is not really long enough to do anything excellently, but she supposes that’s part of the challenge.
She can allow herself one sneaky glance over at Lady Rosalie before she starts to finesse all of her details. What could it hurt?
