was discovering beneath the artist. The artist was talented, ambitious, hardworking, and determined.
The man was decent, kind, honorable, good-humored, casually virile, and perceptive. Vera nearly hated the artist, precisely because she was falling in love with the man. The artist would hie off to London, never to be seen again, and he’d take a piece of Vera’s heart with him.
Not what she had planned where Oak Dorning was concerned, but she was looking very much forward to nightfall nonetheless.
Catherine was a talented artist whose gifts had been neglected. Oak became more aware of this each time he instructed her. She had an instinctive eye for composition and a quick, accurate hand.
“You truly have inherited your father’s ability,” Oak said as he assessed her pencil portrait of Jeremy Forester. “Your mama will have to find you a permanent drawing master when I leave.”
Forester had agreed to sit for her after lunch, while Oak had been busy with Alexander. The boy demanded to go outside now if the day was fair, and he dawdled and dodged when the time came to return to the schoolroom. Oak regarded both developments as positive steps toward typical childhood behavior.
With Catherine, Oak was more at sea. “You have caught Forester’s capacity for humor and his restlessness,” he said. “What else were you attempting to portray?”
Catherine selected a cherry from the bowl on the table and popped it into her mouth. “I’m not sure. Mr. Forester is not that well known to me.”
They were in the kitchen, where the best still lifes were assembled. The ubiquitous pears and apples were out of season, so Catherine had chosen a bowl of cherries for a study Oak would have her do in pencil, pastels, and watercolors.
And oils. She really should be given at least a passing acquaintance with oils.
“Cherries will be difficult,” she said. “Why must I work with fruit at all? It’s not as if fruit is inherently fascinating.”
“Fruit doesn’t fidget,” Oak said, “even if the project takes hours. Fruit doesn’t drop its petals or scratch its nose. Fruit does not require pleasant conversation by the hour, as you start over, change your mind about a pigment, or realize you’ve sketched an element of the composition all wrong. Fruit doesn’t mind if you need to heed nature’s call, and yet, the challenges of its contours and colors are formidable.”
Catherine munched her cherry, then went to the slop bucket and spit out the pit. “You talk to me like I might be an artist one day. Women aren’t artists.”
Oak snorted. “Tell that to Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman. They were both founding members of the Royal Academy. Tell that to Anne Seymour Damer, whose sculptures have been exhibited at the Academy for decades. If you want depictions of violence that exceed even what your father was able to convey in his battle scenes, find some of Artemisia Gentileschi’s biblical subjects.”
“Who?”
“Precisely. Just because you haven’t heard of her doesn’t mean she didn’t set the world on its ear in a less narrow-minded day.”
Catherine slid into the seat across the table, her movements conveying neither a child’s casual slouch nor a young lady’s self-conscious deportment. She had an inherent grace that would serve her well in adulthood.
“Papa set the world on its ear. He said if England is determined to conquer the world, the price of that conquest should be made apparent. Nobody likes his battle scenes, but they gawk at them endlessly.”
“Art can inform,” Oak said, helping himself to a cherry. “It can make people think, can bring joy or sorrow. Perhaps you won’t become an artist, but if you wish to paint as your father did, I can show you the basics of working in oils.”
Vera might object. She probably should object, in fact.
“If I remind you that women don’t work in oils, Mr. Dorning, will you lecture me again?”
“Possibly, if your point of view is in want of the salient facts.”
“I like your lectures.” She held up the portrait of Forester as if trying to determine whether she liked him. “I was trying to convey that Mr. Forester isn’t as clever as he thinks he is.”
And how had Catherine come to that conclusion? “Put a hint of fear in his eyes.”
“How?”
Oak took the drawing and added a few lines around the eyes, a bit of shading beneath the brows.
“Oh my. That is Mr. Forester to the life.” Catherine studied the portrait, frowning. “How does one know, Mr. Dorning, if one is being flirted with?”
Forester apparently needed a severe