He did not answer.
Lavinia reached for the package, the edges digging into her palms. “You presume much, Your Grace.”
“And you,” he said, “are too proud to admit you are vulnerable.”
She let that stand, not trusting herself to reply.
The silence stretched. Then at last, Lavinia said, “If you have finished with your warnings, I should like to begin Lady Sophia’s lesson.”
He did not move. “I have finished with warnings, Lady Lavinia.”
She turned to go, but his next words stopped her mid-step.
“I apologize,” Tristan said.
It was so soft, she barely heard it.
She looked back and saw that his hands were no longer behind his back, but open at his sides—an unfamiliar gesture of uncertainty.
“I apologize,” he repeated, “for overstepping. It is not my place.”
The world tilted, just a fraction.
She did not smile, but she did nod. “Apology accepted, Your Grace.”
He inclined his head, and she left the room, the watercolor set balanced in her arms.
In the hallway, Lavinia paused, steadying herself against the wall. The memory of his voice, so different from every other time they had spoken, lingered in her mind like a question.
For the first time that day—perhaps for the first time in her life— she wondered what it might feel like to be chosen not for convenience, or for advantage, but for the simple fact of being seen.
CHAPTER 18
“Ithink your clouds need more indigo,” Lavinia said as she tilted her head to study the small rectangle of paper between Sophia’s hands. “A storm never looks truly menacing until it is threatening to stain the sky for all eternity.”
Sophia, intent on her brush, did not look up. “Indigo is a violent color,” she replied. “Father says it is undisciplined. He prefers ultramarine, or nothing at all.”
Lavinia allowed herself a smile. “All the best colors are undisciplined.”
Sophia dabbed her brush into the palette, mixing a blue so dark it nearly blotted the light from the table. They were sitting beneath the shadow of Evermere Hall’s south façade, the garden tumbling around them in all sorts of colors and blooms.
Lavinia watched Sophia’s small hand tremble as she outlined the trunk of a windswept tree, then added a delicate patch of heather at its roots. There was something about the way the girl painted with each stroke, carefully placed as if she were mapping a route across dangerous territory.
“You need not make it look exactly as it is,” Lavinia said, softer now. “Art is for imagining how things might be.”
Sophia frowned. “Father says imagination is unproductive.”
Lavinia snorted, earning herself a sidelong glance. “Then he must never have imagined a world in which breakfast is served at noon, and everyone is free to paint trees purple, if they wish it.”
Sophia tried to stifle a smile. It failed. Lavinia leaned back, satisfied. The lesson, such as it was, had already achieved more than she’d hoped.
Then a sound pierced the air, and Lavinia sat up. It came again, and Sophia froze, her brush suspended in the air.
“Did you hear that?” she whispered.
“I did,” Lavinia replied. “I believe it sounds like a cat.”
Sophia dropped the brush at once, heedless of the splotch it left on her sleeve, and scanned the garden with all the solemnity ofa soldier at the ramparts. “It came from the roses,” she said, already half out of her seat.
