“Oh, I say!” David said.

They both stood for several silent moments looking at her work.

She had painted the sea, sparkling in the sunshine and reflecting the blue of the sky and the few fluffy clouds that floated across it. But it was not a pretty picture, Anne thought. It was not merely a reproduction of the visual reality. It was hard to put into words what it was. It somehow took the viewer under the water and up to the sky. Or perhaps it was not even that. It was more as if one were being drawn into the water and into the sky.

What had David said? To see things as they see themselves. How had he known to say that?

“Oh, do look who is coming,” Lady Rosthorn said suddenly, smiling warmly and raising one hand to wave. “Sydnam, well met.”

Anne turned her head sharply to look, and sure enough Mr. Butler was walking along the cliff path, dressed as he had been when she first saw him, with the addition of a hat. He doffed it even as she looked.

David collided hard with her side and shrank half behind her.

“Mama,” he whispered. It was half whimper.

“Good morning, Morgan, Miss Jewell,” he called, staying on the path. “Is it not a lovely one? I am taking a shortcut back from one of the farms.”

“And we have been painting, as you can see,” Lady Rosthorn told him. “Do you want to come and point out all the faults in my poor offering?”

It seemed to Anne that he hesitated for a few moments, but then he came. His eye met hers briefly, and she felt an absurd quickening of the pulse, as if they shared a secret. She was to meet him later. They were to go walking alone together.

How foolish to feel as if there were some sort of courtship proceeding. And how…horrifying.

“When did I ever criticize anything you painted, Morgan?” he asked, coming to stand before her easel while David pulled Anne out of the way. “I would not so presume.”

“You never did,” she admitted. “You were always kind and always encouraging. But I was always nervous when you of all people came to take a look.”

“This,” he said after standing in silence for what seemed like a long time, his head bent toward the painting, “is very good indeed, Morgan. You have grown immensely as an artist since I last saw any of your work.”

Lady Rosthorn smiled and moved closer to him, her head tilted to one side as she looked at the painting.

“Now I can see that perhaps it does have some merit,” she said, laughing. “But I brought out a fellow artist with me this morning. Have you met David Jewell, Miss Jewell’s son? David, this is Mr. Butler, the duke’s steward here and a very dear childhood friend of mine.”

“David,” Mr. Butler said, turning to look at him.

“Sir.” David bobbed his head and pressed harder against Anne. “My painting is no good. I cannot see things that big.” He indicated Lady Rosthorn’s painting with one sweep of the hand.

“And I cannot see things that little,” the countess said, nodding in the direction of his own painting. “But big and little both exist, David, and they both show us the soul of God. I remember you telling me that once, Sydnam, when I was about your age and I was convinced that I could never paint as well as you.”

Ah, Anne thought with an uncomfortable lurching of the stomach as she stared at his back and remembered her impression that his long fingers looked artistic. He really had been a painter, then?

“May I see your painting, David?” Mr. Butler asked, and they all moved around to look at it, David still pressed as close to Anne as he could get.

“It is too flat,” David said.

But Mr. Butler was examining it in silence as he had done with Lady Rosthorn’s.

“Someone has taught you,” he said, “to use a great variety of colors to produce the one the untutored eye thinks it sees when it looks at any object.”

“Mr. Upton,” David said. “The art master at Mama’s school.”

“You have learned the lesson well for one so young,” Mr. Butler said. “If you were to paint this same rock at a different time of day or in different weather, the colors would be different, would they not?”

“And it would look different too,” David said. “Light is a funny thing. Light is not just light. Mr. Upton told me that too. Did you know, sir, that light is like the rainbow all the time-all those colors, even though we cannot see them?”

“Remarkable, is it not?” Mr. Butler said. “It makes us realize that there are all sorts of things-millions of things-around us all the time that we are not aware of because there are limits to our senses. Does that make sense to you?”

“Yes, sir,” David said. “Sight, touch, smell, sound, and taste-five of them.” He counted them off on the fingers of one hand. “But maybe there are hundreds more that we do not have. Miss Martin told me that once.”

Mr. Butler pointed at the place on the painting where the rock was joined to the rest of the promontory, held there, it seemed, by clumps of grass.

“I like this,” he said. “That rock is going to fall soon and begin a new phase of its existence down on the beach, but at the moment it is clinging bravely to its life up here, and the life up here is holding on to it as long as it can. How clever of you to notice that. I do not believe I would have. Indeed, I have stood here many times and not noticed.”

What Anne noticed was that David had moved from her side to stand closer to the easel-and Mr. Butler.

“I can see the slope of the rock, with a hint of the depths below and the land above,” Mr. Butler said. “The perspective is really quite good. What did you mean when you said your painting was flat?”

“It…” For a few moments it seemed as if David could not find the words to explain what he meant. He pointed at the painting and made beckoning gestures with his fingers. “It just stays there. It is flat.”

Mr. Butler turned to look at him, and Anne was struck again by his breathtaking good looks-and his kindness in giving time and attention to a child.

“Have you ever painted with oils, David?” he asked.

David shook his head.

“There aren’t any at the school,” he said. “Mr. Upton says that only watercolors are suitable for ladies. I am the only boy there.”

“Watercolors are fine for gentlemen too,” Mr. Butler said. “And oils are fine for ladies. Some artists use one or the other. Some use both in different circumstances. But there are some artists who need to paint with oils. I believe you may be one of them. Oil paints help to create texture. They help the artist bring the painting off the canvas. They also help one paint with passion, if you are old enough to understand what that means. Perhaps your mama can have a talk with Mr. Upton when you return to school to see if there is any chance he can teach you to paint with oils. However, this watercolor is very, very good. Thank you for letting me see it.”

David turned toward Anne, his face beaming.

“Do you think Mr. Upton will, Mama?” he asked.

“We will have to talk with him,” she said, smiling down at him and pushing the lock of hair off his forehead again before glancing up to see Mr. Butler looking steadily at her.

He took his leave then. He bade them all a good morning, put his hat back on, and touched his hand to the brim.

“Oh, Syd,” Lady Rosthorn said as he made his way back to the path, “I do wish you could come and paint with us someday.”

He looked back.

“I don’t think, Morg,” he said, his tone light, “Wulfric would be too delighted if I so misused the time for which he is paying me.”

For a few moments as she watched him walk away, Anne wondered what he had done to hurt himself. He was limping. But even as she thought it he adjusted his stride and walked normally.

“Mr. Butler,” David said excitedly when he was only just out of earshot, “is the monster.”