Page 25 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“I could not disagree more.” Oliver turned to face her. The afternoon light from the high windows fell across his shoulders, caught the gold in his hair. “But we are not here to discuss Mr. Grout. We are here because you agreed to let me help you. Step one requires you to stop pressing yourself against the wall as though you’re hoping that it might open up and swallow you.”

Louisa straightened. She had, in fact, been cowering against the wall. The Great Room was packed. Half of London had turned out for the Summer Exhibition, filling the vast, high-ceilinged gallery with the rustle of silk, the murmur of opinions delivered at fashionable volume, the occasional bark of laughter from a gentleman who believed his wit carried better at full force.

“I did not agree to be paraded through the Royal Academy,” she muttered, avoiding his piercing gaze.

“I am not parading you. I am taking you to the one place in London where having an opinion is not only permitted but actively encouraged.” He glanced at the crowd gathered before a large canvas on the north wall. “What do you know about painting?”

“Very little.”

“Somehow, I do not believe you.”

She gasped, and a blush rose to her cheeks. “I… cannot fathom why you would say that.”

Oliver sighed, as though she were a rather tedious child. “Your problem, Louisa, is not that you have nothing to say. Your problem is that you seem to have decided that what you have to say does not matter. So you rehearse. You edit. You smooth every thought into the blandest possible version of itself before you let it leave your mouth, because you believe the real version will not be welcome.”

She stared at him. Her pulse beat against the high collar of her dress.

“That is a presumptuous assessment from a man I have known for a fortnight.”

“Presumptuous does not mean inaccurate.”

The crowd shifted. A group of five or six guests had gathered before a large oil painting near the center of the north wall. Louisa recognized it from the catalogue: a classical scene, Dido building Carthage, painted in the grand style with columns rising against a gilded sky. The colors were magnificent, but the composition troubled her. The figures in the foreground felt stiff, posed, arranged for effect rather than truth. The painter had placed Dido at the center with her arm extended toward the horizon, her expression serene, triumphant, as though founding a city were no more taxing than ordering tea.

Louisa had opinions about this painting. She had formed them the moment she walked in. She had kept them inside the catalogue where they belonged.

“Come with me,” Oliver said.

“Where?”

“Over there.” He nodded toward the group. “I have a theory I should like to test.”

Before she could protest, he had her by the elbow and was steering her through the crowd with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to moving through spaces that rearranged themselves for his benefit. They reached the edge of the group just as a stout gentleman in a bottle-green coat was holding forth.

“Magnificent brushwork. The columns alone display a mastery of perspective that I have not seen since Lawrence. And the coloring, the warmth of the sky against the marble. One feels as though one could step into the scene.”

Murmurs of agreement from the surrounding guests. A woman with an ostrich plume nodded vigorously.

Oliver crossed his arms.

“I agree entirely,” he said, his voice carrying the pleasant authority that dukes deployed when they wished a room to pay attention. The group turned. Recognition flickered across several faces. The Duke of Ashford had an opinion. The Duke of Ashford was speaking. “The technique is faultless. And Dido herself is beautifully rendered. Though I must confess, I find her rather serene for a woman who has just fled her brother after he murdered her husband. One might expect a touch more urgency.”

He delivered this with the mild curiosity of someone discussing the weather. Then he turned to Louisa.

“What do you think, Miss Fairchild?”

Every muscle in her body seized. Six faces looked at her. The stout gentleman in green raised his eyebrows. The woman with the plume tilted her head, waiting.

Oliver’s eyes held hers. In them she read the challenge, plain, unadorned, the same directness he had shown her in the carriage after the Bancroft ball. Say what you think. The real version. Not the polished one.

“I think,” Louisa began. Her voice came out thin. She swallowed. “I think His Grace is right about the serenity, but the difficulty runs deeper than Dido’s expression.”

Silence. Oliver’s eyebrow rose. The faintest encouragement.

“The composition places her at the center as though she were posing for a portrait rather than commanding a city to rise from nothing. Dido was a queen who tricked a king out of his own land using nothing but an ox hide and a knife. She was clever, resourceful, fierce. This painting makes her decorative.” Louisa heard her own voice gaining ground, felt the words pulling free from the place she usually kept them locked. “The columns are beautiful, certainly. The perspective is accomplished. But the painter has given us architecture and forgotten the woman. She should be the most alive thing on this canvas, and instead she is furniture.”

The stout gentleman blinked. The woman with the plume lowered her fan.

“Well said, Miss Fairchild.” The voice came from a tall, silver-haired lady at the back of the group. Lady Fitzwilliam, Louisa realized with a jolt. Patroness of the Academy. Collector. A woman whose opinion could make or break a painter’s career. “The girl has a better eye than half the critics writing for the papers.”