And then she saw the single word he had written below the portrait: Muse.

With a cry, Jane threw the book from her and jumped to her feet. Muse? He could not mean that except in irony. She paced the confines of her room, agitated beyond expression. Beth’s words came back to Jane unbidden: “ . . . he had no room in his life for anyone other than his muse.”

No. Impossible. He must not mean that Jane was his muse. In those pages, there must be an explanation of his meaning. Jane dropped to her knees where she had flung the book and turned it over, flipping the pages forward to the drawing of her. Beyond it must lie the key to his thoughts, and so Jane turned the page.

Only words met her gaze. She sighed with relief to see that the text dealt with the nature of light and shadow. Surely the caption had meant nothing, or he would have expounded on it. Jane turned the page again.

Her portrait lay in the margin again, small, without connection to the surrounding text. And again, on the next page. Jane flipped through the pages faster now, finding small illustrations of herself in the margins in more frequent intervals, as though his thoughts had turned to her whenever idle.

Then came the illustration for the nymph in the dining room.

On the verso page, the illustration was of Jane, not of Melody, as the final figure appeared. On the recto, the illustration had Melody’s face. Between them, Mr. Vincent had written, “I shall employ a slipknot, such as I saw Miss Ellsworth use, so the figure can blend from one to the next as I wish. Others can only see the one nymph, but I know my muse is trapped in the tree. Would that I could release her so easily! The wishing almost makes me chuse to drop my masquerade.”

This, then, was what drove Melody’s anger tonight: that her worth was compared in illustration, and Jane deemed higher. But, oh! That Mr. Vincent saw her as a muse! And how then to account for his words to her at Lady FitzCameron’s when he said that her art was without life? How could he find someone a muse whose work he found less than inspiring, whose work he found lifeless?

Thoughts and emotions fought within the confines of Jane’s skull. She wanted at once to run to Lady FitzCameron’s to confront Mr. Vincent before his departure at dawn, and also to go to Melody and confide in her. Though much trust was lost between them, there was no one else to whom Jane could turn without betraying the trust Mr. Vincent had placed in her by giving her his book.

She must also consider the fact that he had given the book to her knowing what lay at the end, knowing—yes, knowing—that his affections were laid bare in its pages. She could not think. The room pressed in on her. She should go to him and confront him. But that was not possible, and so she must wait in this tiny room, confined and pinched, until morning.