“Her…clientele was generally comprised of rich gentlemen. Some more gentle than others who found a penny’s worth of amusement in the sketches and drawings of her young son. By the time I was ten, I was selling small pencil-and-chalk pastel portraits on the docks, mostly to seamen anxious for a memento of their wives and lovers. By the time I was fourteen, I had secured a handful of commissions from wealthy industrialists. It was enough to help keep us from starving when my mother fell ill.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said helplessly.

“I’m not. Necessity is a powerful motivator. I may have mentioned that before.”

Without considering what she was doing, she found his hand in the darkness and threaded her fingers through his.

“My mother insisted that one day my paintings would hang in the Royal Academy. That one day, the titled men who had laughed and paid mere pennies for my work out of pity would look up at those walls and know that they could never afford another. That her son would become greater than they because of talent and not an accident of birth. That was her dream for me.”

“She was right. Your work belongs there,” Charlotte said with utter conviction. “Your paintings—this painting—deserve to be there.”

“Perhaps. But I think that, with talent, there is always a component of fortune that is required for true success. An alignment of the stars, if you will—the outcome of which neither you nor I can control.”

Charlotte pondered that silently, wondering at the way her own path had altered the moment she had discovered a painting of a young girl hidden in the attics of Jasper House.

He was still staring at the Madonna. “Before she died, I promised her that I would make it happen—an exhibit at the Royal Academy. And in failing to accomplish that, I feel like I’ve let her down.”

“You haven’t let her down. She would still be so proud of what you’ve done. Proud of you and the man you’ve become.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

“That’s not kind. It’s the truth, Flynn.”

Flynn let go of her hand, and Charlotte felt the loss of his touch like a blow. “I’ve come to accept that some things are simply out of reach. No matter how much you want them, you can’t wish them into being. Shouldn’t, perhaps, wish them into being.”

There was something in his tone that suddenly made her doubt that he was speaking of art or family anymore. The razor edge of terror and ecstasy that she still balanced on cut hard toward the former.

“What else do you want, Flynn?” she whispered, asking the question that she should have asked at the very beginning.

He reached for the candle and turned away from the painting. “It’s cold. We should get back,” was all he said.

*  *  *