“Don’t scowl so, Miss Beatrice. You can’t ruin this with every feeling that flits across your face,” Clara urged. “Smile.”
Beatrice stretched her lips and made her cheeks plump.
“With feeling. Think of something pleasant. Imagine doing something wonderful.”
Beatrice imagined that she had a right to every inch of the chapterhouse, that she and her greater spirit would be known scholars of the mysteries. That gentlemen smiled at her not because she was beautiful, but because she was respected, and girls hurried from one lecture hall to another, openly studying the art and science of high magic. She thought of the world she wanted and remembered her posture.
She smiled as if the chapterhouse were her friend.
“That’s much better!” Clara praised. “I’ll take these gowns home, as you will be returning with your father. Good luck!”
“Thank you,” Beatrice said, and set her path for the tall double doors.
Cool and dim, the arched ceiling of the grand foyer picked up her footsteps and flung the sound across the room purposed as the display of the ingenue’s gallery. Vases of costly flowers stood next to fourteen painted canvases, their scents mingling with the clean, cool stone of the hall. Beatrice walked toward the portrait of Ysbeta Lavan, stunning and vibrant in a gown of deep turquoise, her hand outstretched to catch a topaz blue butterfly attracted to the lush, drooping blooms of the perfume tree in the background. A jeweled diadem held back her light-as-air crown of tightly curled hair. She dominated the room with her splendor and beauty; her portrait hung in the principal position in the center of the room. Empty spaces flanked her image as if nothing and no one could compare.
Beatrice’s own painting was in a dim corner next to a couple of girls who were plain-faced, but still obviously wealthy. She had sat in velvet, and the painter had captured both the soft glow of the fabric and the unfashionable puffed sleeves on her gown. She held her violon across her lap.
She barely remembered the smell of linseed oil and the cursed dust in the air making her want to sneeze. Or the incredible boredom of having to sit very still with nothing to occupy her mind but the desperate desire to scratch an itch. But most of all Beatrice remembered the peculiar feeling of being so thoroughly examined while the truth of her remained invisible as the artist from Gravesford painted her.
It could have been interesting. He had been on fire to paint Beatrice with a rifle after he met her carrying one tucked in the crook of her elbow after a morning ride through the wood. Beatrice tried to explain she only had the rifle due to the dangers of encountering wild boar, forest manxes, and even the occasional bear, but the painter was too enamored with his vision. Father ended the painter’s inspiration by threatening to send him home without pay.
If only he’d gotten his way. The canvas Beatrice was exactly what a viewer would expect. She ought to have carried a rifle under her arm—or a pistol, dangled from one hand while she slouched in her seat like a gentleman at ease. Something to show that she was a person, anything to show that she was something more than what people expected of a woman: ornament, and trained silence.
“Starborn gods, what an aura. You must be Beatrice,” a voice in accented Llanandari said.
She turned and regarded a young man who must have been—“Danton Maisonette. Good afternoon. Have you seen the new chapterhouse?”
“They’re all new, in Chasland,” Danton said with a dismissive little sniff. “Valserre’s been part of the brotherhood for seven hundred years. Chasland is running itself to tatters, trying to keep up with the better nations.”
Beatrice pressed her lips together at the string of slights and insults. “It’s not to your standard, then?”
He glanced up to the stone, laid with all the skill of Chasland’s masons, and dismissed it with a shrug. “It’s the latest style. Chaslanders are all gold and no taste.”
Beatrice had to search for a hold on her temper and the right words. “Then what would you have done? Valserrans are known for their—knowledge of beauty.”
“Aesthetics,” Danton corrected. “Building in an earlier style would have been pretending to a legacy that doesn’t exist here, come to think of it. But chapterhouses ought to have gravity. They should be timeless, rather than fashionable.”
Beatrice searched for the right words, but Danton filled the silence for her. “Though the quality of the sound in the working rooms is startlingly good.”
“That would be thanks to the builders,” Beatrice said. “The designer was a Hadfield, the family who build holy sanctums for generations.”
“Built,” Danton corrected her Llanandari once more. “You all sing to the gods for worship. It must sound impressive at Long Night. Can you sing, then?”
“I have trained,” Beatrice began, “like any Chaslander lady.”
Danton’s mouth turned impatient. “But are you any good?”
This rude . . . oaf! The arrogance! Beatrice lifted her chin. “Yes.”
“You’re rather sure of yourself.” He contemplated her for a moment. “But I believe you.”
He turned his head, taking in the sight of Ysbeta Lavan’s portrait, then back to her.
Danton Maisonette was scarcely taller than her, but his brown coat and buff-colored weskit were satin-woven Llanandras cotton, well made and embroidered in tasteful geometric patterns. He was handsome enough, but his thin little mouth clamped up so tight Beatrice couldn’t imagine a kind word escaping it. He stood with an upright, chest-forward posture, his bearing reminding Beatrice of a soldier—which made sense. As a Valserran heir to a marquessate, he was expected to take a high position in that nation’s army. His hooded eyes were a watery blue, and he had a direct, pointed stare.
Or perhaps it was just that he was staring at her. He examined her so completely it made Beatrice’s stomach shiver. When he turned his chin to compare what he’d seen to the portrait Beatrice on the wall, Beatrice seethed behind a smile that matched the demure curve depicted on the canvas.
“You really are pretty,” he said. “Too many redheads look like they’re made of spotty chalk.”
“Thank you.” That wasn’t what she wanted to say at all, but she promised Father she’d be kind. If only someone had made Danton promise the same. Her wish for honesty had been answered. She hadn’t expected to be treated like a clockwork figurine, incapable of being insulted by whatever thought flitted from Danton Maisonette’s mind to his lips.
“This meeting’s going to be boring talk. Trade and investment. Did you bring handwork to amuse yourself?”
If only she could widen her eyes. If only she could drop her jaw. But she smiled, smiled, smiled at this rude, demanding man. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything with me.”
One side of his mouth turned down as he said, “I had an interest in joining the conversation.”
Instead of the labor of keeping her amused, since she hadn’t brought a lace hook. Beatrice kept her smile up and asked, “Have you seen the chapterhouse gallery?”
“The only thing that’s new is the ingenues,” he said, leaving the hint to escort her through the gallery gasping on the floor. “Only fourteen of you this year. Private negotiations are becoming too popular.”