Yvette’s resolve to purchase the painting wavered the moment the dealer named his price: £1,200—a small fortune, enough to sustain a middle-class household for a dozen years.

Even with Ulysses’ generosity—a £400 furniture stipend, £150 monthly allowance—the sum dwarfed her savings. She’d squirreled away £600 through thrifty living, but this…

The man before her was no artist. His immaculate attire and lack of paint-stained fingers marked him as a dealer, the sort who preyed on starving talents, hoarding their works until death or fame lined his pockets.

“£1,200 for an unknown?” She arched a brow.

“A steal for genius.” The dealer blew a smug cigar cloud. “Stone’s Bacchanalia fetched £2,000 from Lady Temple. This piece? Merely…unlucky in timing.”

“Might I meet the artist?”

“Suicide last month.” He flashed a shark’s grin. “Posthumous value, my dear.”

Damn. No leads from the painter himself. She needed that canvas—but her funds fell short.

Ulysses’ patronage had granted her a townhouse, an arsenal of oddities, and ample coin, yet pride choked her from begging advances.

“Sold!” A voice rang out.

The Duke of Lancaster sauntered over, trailing a perfectly poised footman. The dealer’s sycophancy hit operatic heights: “Your Grace! What an honor—”

Yvette’s hopes died. Even if she’d scraped together the gold, the Duke’s whims overruled all.

“Ulysses’ pretty protégé!” The Duke winked. “Fancy a morbid masterpiece?”

“Yves de Fische,” she corrected coolly, praying the painting’s crowds would stay blind to her face.

“Interested, eh?” His grin turned foxlike. “Answer me: Got any sisters? Lovely aunts?”

“The Fische line breeds sons.”

“Boring.” He flicked a hand. “Wrap it for the lad.”

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Protesting repayment only earned a theatrical gasp: “Pay me? How vulgar!”

Post-Duke, whispers exploded:

“—owns half the West End!”

“Tossed £1,200 like chicken feed—”

Yvette later relayed events to Ulysses, who shrugged. “Consider it a perk. Lancaster’s eccentric, not dangerous. Stay clear.”

As she left the gallery, a raven-haired beauty pressed a note into her hand—an address, and a confession: Stone’s “completed” works were forgeries by a debt-ridden artist.

“His model,” the woman clarified, vanishing.

At dusk, Ulysses’ response was pragmatic: “Take Winterslow tomorrow. Buy it quietly.”

“No need. The Duke…intervened.”

“Naturally.” He sipped brandy. “Forget repayment. Nobles collect favors like stamps.”

“Is he one of us?”

“Just a bored lord. Annoying, but harmless.”

When Yvette returned home, Allison greeted her anxiously. "Master Yves, a massive painting arrived today. Where shall we hang it? The drawing room or foyer? But both are full—we’d need to remove something else."

"Don’t bother. It’s not staying." Yvette handed her a velvet box. "I found this brooch at the gallery. It’s for you."

Inside glimmered a golden lily of enamel and filigree, delicate as frost.

"It’s too generous, Master—"

"Nonsense. Just sand and glass." Yvette shrugged. "No jewels, see?"

Allison’s voice trembled. "It’s… beautiful. I’ve never—thank you." She fled, leaving tear stains on the floor.

Yvette knew fragments of her story: a mother dead in childbirth, a father drowned in gin, a childhood with a bitter aunt who’d packed her off to London at fourteen. Like thousands of country girls, Allison might have faded into the city’s shadows—nameless, childless, forgotten.

Not Mary, Yvette vowed. She’d send the girl to school. In her world, education had armed women to seize their futures.

The painting—a hulking thing in a gilded frame—was lighter than her guilt. She hauled it to her study and locked the door.

Burn it.

The frame splintered soundlessly in her grip. Beneath the cracked top layer, another painting lurked: the same girl, now lying in a deranged nightmare. Walls crawled with stains; her lips parted as if whispering to phantoms.

A double canvas. Stone’s work?

Miss Moretti had shared the tale earlier: Stone’s family dead by carbon monoxide, his suicide in the attic. The art dealer, loath to lose coin, hired Marino to finish Stone’s pieces. Marino, forced to mimic another’s hand for wealthy tasteless buyers, seethed in secret.

Yvette scraped the upper layer away. Madness bled through.

At noon, she found Marino’s rented rooms in Soho. Foreign artists crowded here, poorer ones squeezing into attics. A working-class couple on the stairs glared at Miss Moretti—models drew scorn in Albion’s rigid morals.

The painter slept until dusk, so Miss Moretti led her upstairs. The attic studio stank of linseed oil, its sloped window filtering gray light. Canvases and frames cluttered the floor. A mortar held yellow grit—chrome yellow, the model explained, washing her stained hands.

Painters once ground their own pigments: cheap gypsum for white, costly lapis lazuli for divine blue. Yet here, in this cramped den, a canvas blazed with ultramarine—a king’s ransom in azure.