Mr. Violet leaned closer, his voice a low rumble. “Not the famous Priscilla?”
“No.” Lucy bit her lip. “The Countess of Moth.”
“Fancy you taking a liking to a nob.” Mr. Violet’s grin was a whole dirty joke on its own.
Lucy snorted before she could stop herself, and some tight-wound internal part of her relaxed. She’d been so careful and proper the whole time she’d been in London, and it had been more of a strain than she’d realized. It was nice to be with someone she didn’t have to play the lady in front of. She took his elbow just so she could secretly pinch him in rebuke. It only made him grin wider. “Come, now—show me your exhibits, and then if you behave I shall introduce you.”
He had had three paintings accepted by the judges this year, it seemed. Two were sunset studies of the sea, rocky coastlines and roiling skies expertly rendered with confident, minimal brushstrokes in black and blue and searing orange. Ships were sketched in like ghosts, hulls and sails muddied by distance and the tactile weight of light. Half the art world hated his pieces; the other half lauded him as a genius. “It’s good you’re seeing this one now,” he said, “because the red in the center is going to fade by this time next year.”
Lucy was appalled. It was one of his most successful paintings, in her semilearned opinion, and much of the vitality came from that bold red streak. “If it won’t last, then why use it at all? Why not use a paint that will still be bright in ten years’ time?”
Peter turned horrified eyes on her. “This red is therightred,” he protested. “You’ve got to paint the colors right, even if they won’t stay that way forever. Nothing lasts.”
“Some things do,” Lucy argued. “We’ve looked up at the same constellations since Aristotle’s time, and even earlier.”
Peter’s smile was crooked, and a little sad. “They just change slower, is all.” He led her to the third and final painting. It had been hung right on the line, in the center of the wall: pride of place.
Peter’s voice was sly and satisfied as he told her the title: “Medea Meeting Jason.”
Lucy had a hard time finding the title figures, at first. The painting was mostly architectural—not surprising for Peter, who tried to avoid painting people insofar as he could—an airy confection of glowing domes and spires. At the city gate were two small and ghostly figures: a red-haired woman in flowing lilac, with touches of gold in her hair and around her wrists. Her lithe arms were wrapped around a bare-chested hero with a Grecian helmet and curling hair. He seemed to be half avoiding the embrace, head turned away and one arm raised to point down the wooded slope to a tree where the Golden Fleece hung in splendor, a guardian serpent twined around the trunk the same way Medea was trying to twine around Jason. A ship sailing away on the distant sea foreshadowed the coming moment when they would attempt to outrun doom and disaster.
“Lovely,” Lucy breathed, because it was. “But not a very happy moment to have chosen. He looks half bored with her already.”
“He doesn’t want her,” Peter explained. “He wants the Fleece, and seducing her is the easiest way to get it.”
“The fastest, maybe,” Lucy replied. “I’m not sure it was easy on him, at the end.”
“When she kills their boys, you mean?” Peter said, chuckling. “That’s going to be the next painting, to pair with this one. Jason on hands and knees, gold crown rolling from his head, and Medea sailing away in a chariot drawn by dragons. The corpses of her two littles slung all horrid over her arm. And in the background a ruined city, with towers aflame.”
Lucy’s eyes goggled at the description. “I’m not sure how the judges are going to feel about that.”
Peter Violet’s smile turned wry. “I don’t paint for the judges. If they like it, that’s terrific, we’ll hang it up and sell copies and let everyone ooh and ahh all they want. But they could tell me it’s not worth the trouble to spit on it, and I’d still choose to paint it—because there’s nothing else I can do and still feel like myself.”
“So what’s this one really about, then?” Lucy asked. “Since unlike so many artists I know, you’re capable of giving a straight answer.”
Peter’s eyes went grim as he looked over his own work, the product of so many months’ time and effort. “It’s about two people reaching out to take what they want, and getting burned.” His eyes flickered away from hers to land on the vivid red tongue of fire lancing out of the dragon’s open mouth.
Lucy recognized the tone in his voice. She’d heard it often enough in her own, in those first few weeks after Priscilla’s wedding. Peter had known about her inclinations ever since Lucy had caught him and Mr. Banerjee together during one of their visits to her house: she’d told them about Priscilla to reassure them that she had no intention of using their secret against them. Pris had been furious, even though the two men were in a much more dangerous position than two women would be if anyone were to find out.
Peter looked so tough, with his fighter’s face and the accent he refused to shed, but he felt things more deeply the less he showed it. Heartbreak would not sit easily on him.
She squeezed his arm. “The red will fade, you know,” she said, since the dragon’s flame was the same bright but ephemeral shade he’d used in the other painting. Sometimes the passage of time could be a comfort. “You said it yourself: nothing lasts.”
Peter’s smile was a hesitant, half-bitter thing, but it gave her some hope. “Let me show you my favorites by the other painters,” he offered, and Lucy agreed with a laugh.
Catherine didn’t know how much time had passed when she emerged from the tempest of artistic opinion and noticed Lucy was no longer at her side.
A quick glance around was enough to reassure her: there Lucy was, holding the arm of a, well, a rather rough-looking man, if Catherine were being honest. She could practically see his calluses from across the room.
Stephen Muchelney caught the direction of Catherine’s gaze and smiled. “Ah, that’s our Peter Violet,” he said. “Born by the docks, not far from where we’re standing, and he’ll tell you all about it if you give him half a minute.”
“But what is he doing here?” Catherine asked.
“He’s got three pieces showing,” Mr. Muchelney replied. “You can pay for schooling, and you can pay for paint, but there’s no way to purchase genius, and Violet has that if any of us do. He and Lucy have always enjoyed each other.”
As they watched, Peter’s eyes lit up and he said something to make Lucy laugh. The familiar sound of it did queer things to the tight-knotted strings of Catherine’s anxious heart. She pulled cold air into empty lungs.
Mr. Muchelney leaned in conspiratorially. “To be perfectly frank, Lady Moth, I rather hope they’ll end up making a match of it. He may not be gently bred but he’s kind to her, and works harder than any artist I know. And Lucy’s not enough of a snob to sniff at his good qualities.” Mr. Muchelney’s smile was serpent-sly. “Maybe it won’t be too long before my sister stops taking advantage of your hospitality.”
