Page 129 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

“They’ve done it justice, certainly,” Stella said.

“And they haven’t changed its name,” Teddy added. “That’s something, at least.”

“It’s drawn a crowd,” Mr. Whistler observed.

“Not entirely for good reason, I fear,” Teddy said. “It’s still rather controversial on this side of the Channel.”

“Ignore the cretins,” Whistler advised. “Your piece is one of the few things of value at this exhibition.” He spotted another acquaintance across the room. “Forgive me. I must speak with Mr. Edwards before he departs. Do say you’ll join me for dinner on Friday evening in Lindsey Row. Rossetti is coming.”

“We should be delighted,” Stella said.

“Give Edwards my regards,” Teddy said before Mr. Whistler took his leave.

Stella’s friends crossed paths with Mr. Whistler as they approached. All the Furies had come to show their support. Anne and Mr. Hartford had traveled up from Somersetshire. Julia and Captain Blunt had taken the train down from Yorkshire—a rare journey from home, with a new baby to look after. And Evie had arrived with Ahmad, who had left his dress shop early that afternoon to accompany his wife, despite the heavy demands his aristocratic customers were lately making on his time.

Laura and Alex had been unable to attend. They had welcomed a little boy last summer, and Laura was still unfit to travel. Stella and Teddy had gone to see them in Grasse in December. There, they’d spent a blissful three weeks coddling the baby, celebrating Christmas, and sketching the dormant flower fields. Stella had even met Magpie the cat, who did indeed bear a startling resemblance to the itinerant piebald tom who visited them daily in Maiden Lane to feast on Stella’s offerings of diced chicken and cream.

“How do you find the public’s response?” Julia asked. There was a gentle roundness to her features since delivering her daughter. It made her even more beautiful. “Is it any better than it was in Paris?”

Captain Blunt stood at her side, his hand resting on the small of her back.

“Not better than Paris, no,” Stella said. “But better than when it was first submitted to the Royal Academy. Then, you’d have thought it was an aberration.”

“The members of the Academy are old-fashioned,” Teddy said. “They don’t like anything new. Their first instinct is always to condemn.”

“They’ll change their views eventually,” Stella said. “They must. And then one day—”

“Hopefully in our lifetime,” Teddy interjected wryly.

“The good press must help,” Mr. Hartford said. Anne was on his arm. She wore a black caraco jacket and a bright plaid skirt. The latter matched the suit that her husband was wearing.

“Oh yes,” Stella acknowledged. “It just received a wonderful write-up from Mr. Stillwater in the Gentleman Artist’s Monthly. He called it ‘a masterpiece in the making.’ ”

Anne cast a glance at her husband, brows lifted. “Did he indeed.”

“He sounds an astute fellow,” Mr. Hartford replied to her soberly. “A genius, I suspect.”

Ahmad and Evelyn stood next to them. Ahmad’s face held an unmistakable note of approval as he examined Teddy’s portrait. He was a good judge of color and harmony. “If Parisian taste influences art as much as it does fashion, you may soon be more famous than you ever desired,” he said to Teddy.

“I don’t desire fame at all,” Teddy replied. “Only recognition.”

“You have it now in abundance,” Captain Blunt said. “You might find that you prefer the safety of anonymity.”

“Not at all,” Stella said. “We neither of us wish to live a life in the background.”

“You can hardly do so now,” Anne remarked to Stella. “First a Fury, then one of the Four Horsewomen, and now a star. What transformation is next, I wonder?”

“I’m eager to find out,” Stella said.

Teddy flashed her a private smile. “The adventure awaits.”

She smiled back at him in the same way, as much with her eyes as with the gentle curve of her mouth. Their gloved hands found each other, clasping in intimate understanding.

The day he’d proposed to her, he’d promised her the freedom to discover what it was she wanted of life. At the time, she’d had no way of knowing. She’d been made so small for so long, the words hadn’t existed to articulate the wild yearnings within her.

But no longer.

She knew now what she wanted—what she’d always wanted. It was nothing more complicated than the very freedom Teddy had offered her. The freedom to want, to choose, to be. To live a colorful, conspicuous, unconventional life with the man she loved. A life that looked like no one else’s but their own.