She was still thinking about it at 3:00 in the morning. The candle had burned low, and she was working not on the commission, which was finished, but on a new piece she had started without a commission: a portrait of no one in particular, just the practice of looking closely at something.
She heard the step on the stair. Not Tabitha's step. She knew this step.
Marcus appeared in the doorway. He had clearly not slept. He looked at her across the room—the candle, the ivory, her hands, her face—and he did not speak, and he did not ask permission. He pulled the chair away from the wall, sat down across from her, and watched her work.
He did not look away. She knew he was there. She let him stay.
She worked on the piece before her, with the candle burning low, the street outside going quiet, and the print shop beneath them still. Marcus sat across from her and watched her hands and her face with the full, uninterrupted attention of a man who has finally understood what he failed to do, and is doing it now with everything he has.
He never touched her. He never spoke. He stayed until the light came up pale through the north window and she set down her brush.
And then he stood and left.
Cassandra sat for a moment in the early morning light and looked at the piece she had been working on. She went downstairs and knocked on Tabitha's door.
"Tell the engraver yes," she said.
Gideon Cole arrived in Bath on a Thursday, which meant he had received her letter to Marcus and had come without being asked, which was entirely characteristic. He was a precise, well-dressed man of 50 who administered the Marwood Trust with considerable competence and a very clear sense of whose interests he was administering.
He sent a note to the rooms above Pike's, requesting a meeting at the assembly rooms the following morning. Cassandra, who had been expecting something of this sort, agreed.
She wore the dark green dress. She arrived on time. Cole was already there, standing near the window with his hands behind his back, and he wasted very little time.
"Lady Marwood," he said, "I will be direct, because I believe you prefer it."
"I do," Cassandra said, and sat down without being invited to, which she could see he registered.
"The engraving commission," Cole said, "a frontispiece bearing your name and likeness distributed across three counties, advertising your work as a paid miniaturist—you understand the difficulty."
"Tell me the difficulty as you see it," Cassandra said.
Cole sat down across from her and folded his hands on the table. "A countess who trades publicly, who is known to trade, damages the family name in ways that have practical consequences. The estate's trust carries credit lines secured against the Marwood name. If that name becomes associated with commerce in the popular press—and it will, Lady Marwood, these prints will be discussed—those credit lines become vulnerable. I am not speaking of social embarrassment. I am speaking of the financial instrument that funds the drainage project, the roof works, and the tenant improvements that Marcus has spent six years building."
Cassandra looked at him for a moment. "That is a more sophisticated argument than I expected," she said. "I want you to know I recognize it as such."
"Then you will withdraw the commission," Cole said.
"No," Cassandra said. "I will not." She placed her hands flat on the table. "Mr. Cole, I spent 11 years being invisible in order to preserve the family's comfort. I managed a household that ran without visible effort because I made it run without visible effort. I did not ask to be recognized for it; I did not require it. But I have spent seven years building a practice that is now recognized on its own terms, and I have decided that I would rather be looked at than continue to be the thing that holds the frame together while everyone admires the painting." She paused. "If the credit lines require renegotiation, I am happy to discuss the terms. But I will not withdraw."
Cole left the assembly rooms without agreeing to anything, which was his way of indicating that the matter was not concluded.
The town divided in the way that small societies do when something interesting happens: half of Bath found the story romantic and the other half found it scandalous, and both halves discussed it at length, which meant that the name C. Vane was known across the county before the engraving had gone to press.
Marcus arrived four days later. He came to the rooms above Pike's in the evening, and Tabitha, with the expression of someone who has decided to be neutral, showed him up.
Cassandra was at her worktable. She looked at him when he came in, and she could see from the particular set of his jaw that he had been talking to Cole.
"Cassandra," he said, "I need to speak to you about the engraving."
"Then speak," she said.
He took a breath. "Cole has explained the situation with the trust. The credit lines are... the name attached to commerce could compromise the—"
He stopped. He was repeating Cole's argument. She could see him doing it, and she could see the moment he registered that he was doing it.
She set down her brush. "Marcus," she said, "are you here as Gideon Cole's messenger, or as yourself?"