Dragon Rose(4)

The pieces awaiting paint before their final firing sat on a shelf next to my worktable. I picked up a bowl, sat down with my back to the door so I wouldn’t block any of the light, and got to work.

The challenge for me, as always, was not to faithfully reproduce the pattern of ivy and forget-me-nots that Elder Macon had prescribed for his new dishes, but rather to keep that pattern consistent from piece to piece. I would much rather have altered each one, not hugely, but enough to give the dinnerware some interesting visual variation. But variation was not what the Elder wanted, so instead I made myself concentrate on churning out uniform leaf after uniform leaf, consistent flower after consistent flower.

When I worked, I paid very little attention to what was going on around me. My father sometimes joked that I wouldn’t even notice if the house caught fire, if I happened to have a paintbrush in my hand at the time. I’m not sure how true that really was, but I did tend to let the world close down to only me, the brush, and the surface I was painting, whether it was a piece of stoneware or a leaf of paper.

So I vaguely half-heard a door somewhere slamming, and feet rushing across the wooden floors, but since no one came in to see me, I paid those sounds very little mind. The light coming in the window also did little to inform me of the passage of time, as at that season of the year, full dark didn’t set in until very late. Six o’clock in the evening was just as bright as three, or four, or five.

It wasn’t until I heard Master Marenson’s shocked tones exclaiming, “My lady Rhianne!” that I realized something was amiss.

I started and dropped my paintbrush—luckily not on the plate that was my current project, but on the stained wooden tabletop. Then I realized his was the absolutely last voice I should be hearing in my father’s workshop.

Although at the moment I wished I could simply flee out the back door, I knew that escape was not feasible. So I slipped off the stool and turned, one hand going up to pull the pins out of the hasty knot at the back of my head.

By some miracle, my voice sounded almost calm. “Master Marenson. Is it six o’clock already?”

His face had flushed an unbecoming dark red, doubly unattractive, as it clashed horribly with the maroon doublet of heavy linen he wore. “Past six, Miss Rhianne, and no one to greet me at the door but a scullery maid and some chit not old enough to leave the schoolroom, let alone allow visitors into her house!”

By “chit” I assumed he meant my youngest sister Darlynne, who had just turned eleven at midsummer. Where everyone else was, I had no idea. “My apologies, Master Marenson. I’m sure this can all be explained. Perhaps there was some emergency that called my mother and other sisters out of the house.”

His eyes, small already, seemed to almost disappear as he scowled down at me from the top step. “And what ‘emergency’ is it, Miss Rhianne, that has you engaged in such an unseemly enterprise?”

For the first time I realized I stood there in a paint-stained apron, my current occupation abundantly clear, not just through those telltale paint spatters, but also from the stoneware ranged around my spot at the worktable. Oh, dear.

Although there was no way to deny what I had been doing, I thought perhaps if I made light of it, or even ignored it, he would do the same. Essaying a smile, I reached up to untie the apron from the back of my neck and then discarded it on my abandoned stool. At least my gown seemed to have escaped relatively unscathed.

“Why don’t we go up to the sitting room?” I suggested. “I’m sure there is an explanation for my parents’ absence—they were so very much looking forward to dining with you—but in the meantime I can have Janney bring you some porter or a glass of wine while we wait.”

For a second or two I thought he might actually acquiesce. But then I saw him straighten and cast a jaundiced eye around my father’s workroom.

“If you think, Miss Rhianne, that I am going to accept hospitality from those who have purposely lied to me, then you have quite an incorrect idea of my character.”

“I hardly know you, Master Marenson, and therefore I feel I am not qualified to have yet formed any idea of your character.”

His face reddened further. “Impertinence! I count myself glad that I discovered this now, before it was too late!”

“Discovered my impertinence?” I asked innocently.

“Discovered that you are engaged in trade, young woman—that you are doing your father’s work for him, as no properly brought-up young lady should.”

“And so the ‘proper’ thing to do would have been to let our livelihood dwindle along with my father’s eyesight?”

“The proper thing is to be truthful, Miss Rhianne. Your father is selling work that is not his.”

My mother would have known to guard her tongue, to find the soft tone of voice that might placate an angry man. But I had not her skills, and I found I enjoyed giving in to the anger that flared in me at this preposterous man’s misplaced indignation.

“What difference does it make?” I snapped. “If the work is good, and our patrons are satisfied, who should care whether it was my father’s hand or mine that painted those flowers, those leaves? Are they any less pleasing to look at because they came from a woman and not a man?”

“A very great difference,” Liat Marenson said, and his fleshy lips thinned a little. “A very great difference.” With a kind of vindictive satisfaction he added, “And you may find that I am not the only one who feels this way.”