I wanted to trash it. Instead, I held it up, as if my grandmother was floating invisibly just below the ceiling.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I demanded from Violet’s silent, lingering spirit.

Chapter Eight

Johanna

1888, December 24, Paris, France

I knew I was falling in love with Theo when I said, “I like the confident line work.”

We stood in front of the fireplace in Dries’s apartment, discussing the new painting my brother had bought from an artist friend and hung above the mantel. The painting depicted a man and a woman on a boat on the Seine, their faces reflecting a quiet and radiant joy, the whole world turning rose hued around them.

I’d come to Paris desperately hoping Theo would not bring up his ill-conceived proposal. I’d planned on talking to him about Dries, then going on my way. But now I wanted our conversations to continue. I wanted my last few days in Paris, with Theo, to last forever.

Say you’ll visit me in Amsterdam again. Say you haven’t given up. Ask me to reconsider.

Frustration that I could not broach the subject had me nearly dancing in place. But of course, initiating courtship was at the will of men. I was expected to stand there serene and demure. Ladylike. An expression I hated more than pickled eels. Ladylike meant do nothing, say nothing, even feel nothing if possible. To be ladylike required no less than to become the Mona Lisa. Since I wasn’t a portrait of serene, mysterious feminine beauty, I had to offer something else.

Confident linework was an expression I had heard from Dries. My use of it told me how much I wanted to impress Theo, how much I didn’t want him to think of me as a silly, know-nothing young woman. Over the past two weeks, while he’d shown me Paris, introducing me to the city’s culture and art, his opinion of me had become important.

“Do you know the title?” If Dries had mentioned it, I couldn’t remember.

“What do you think?” Theo examined me as carefully as he’d been examining the brushstrokes on the canvas. He always gifted me with his full attention. He offered the benefit of his knowledge and experience of art and life. And he challenged me to dig deeper for my thoughts and opinions. “What would you title it?”

We were alone in the room. The scent of Christmas filled the air: pine boughs and cinnamon. A yule log burned in the fireplace.

“Courtship?” The heat of a blush tingled over my cheeks.

“Or,” Theo said, “The Pleasures of Marriage.”

I blushed even hotter.

“Matrimony holds many pleasures,” he said softly. “A man and a woman discovering who each other are. Falling in love, based on the sure knowledge of each other, instead of wild hopes and fantasies.” He took my hands. “Then growing together.”