Flynn felt the breath punched from his lungs and his jaw slacken. “You’ve been inside the Sistine Chapel.”

He saw Beaumont still, something shifting warily behind those caramel eyes. “Yes.”

“You studied in Italy?” Jealousy was turning like a double-bladed knife in his gut, and he hated himself for the reaction. He had never had a chance to escape the borders of England. See the works of the great Renaissance masters in all their glory—the Sistine Chapel in particular. It had been one of Flynn’s most desperate wishes since the day he had been told about it.

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I was there.” Beaumont was being deliberately evasive.

“Why?” Flynn closed the gap between them.

“I was traveling with an aristocratic family,” the boy said after a long pause. “Italy was one of their annual destinations, and they had accompanied their son on a leg of his grand tour. I recorded their adventures. Places they went, things they did.”

Flynn had never heard of the like. “What do you mean, recorded their adventures?”

“A series of sketches, featuring each of them. Watercolors. Some more substantial paintings when we returned to England.” His eyes slid away.

“Bloody hell.” Flynn knew the ridiculous excesses of the nobility, but this was beyond the pale. To pay to have an artist trail one around the Continent, sketching portraits and pictures all the while, was the height of narcissistic idiocy.

And Flynn would have jumped at the chance to do it. A thousand times over, if it had meant he could see what Beaumont had.

“I would paint them as opposites.”

It took Flynn a moment to realize that Beaumont was talking about the panels again, deliberately changing the subject. “I beg your pardon?”

“Opposites. Hope and despair. Love and hate.” The boy was watching him from beneath his tousled hair. “What do you think?”

Flynn once again found himself scowling. “I don’t know. But what I do know is that this work must be compelling. Inspiring. Resplendent.”

Charlie Beaumont sighed. “And what I’m telling you, Mr. Rutledge, is that to evoke emotion, an artist must paint emotion. Real sentiments and passions that others can relate to.” He paused. “Like your Madonna. Your use of color and perspective is lovely, the way you’ve mastered the light is impressive, but it is not those things that make that painting so riveting. Your Madonna positively radiates the unconditional love a mother might have for her child. She glows with the peace she has found in stopping time long enough to simply hold her son in her arms, safe and protected in that moment.”