Like most citizens, Joanna only knew a few details about the future queen: she was young, shy, and polite. For those reasons, her approval rating was high. What else could a small, European parliamentary monarchy want in a future queen? Joanna would have preferred someone with a personality, but it wasn’t like she had a vote in the matter, and the euro amount that came with the commission was, well, princely. But Joanna probably wouldn’t have taken it if it wasn’t for her father.

“Sometimes,” he growled into the phone, “A person needs to do their duty to their country.”

“By accepting a commission from a load of stuffy royals?” Joanna sniffed.

“By setting aside your own preconceived snobbery—”

“My snobbery?”

“It’s not about you, it’s about helping queen and country make a good impression on the world stage.”

“When did you become so sentimental?” she’d demanded, stubbing out her cigarette. “It’s not 1812, Dad, there are photographs of the woman. She hardly needs me to paint her.”

“The request came from the crown princess’s office itself; she chose you specifically. She needs your help.”

“Mmm, last I checked she was set to inherit close to seven million euros worth of real estate, I suspect what she actually needs is a property manager or a third under-butler, or—”

Her father hung up, leaving Joanna alone in her studio staring out over the harbor. The email from the crown’s Department of the Interior was still sitting there in her inbox, unanswered. It would be easy to deny it. How her cynical New York friends would love it if she sent a pithy, bitter response condemning the establishment and rejecting the job.

Her eyes travelled over the harbor, running down the massive wharf that dominated the capital city’s main port. She paid a fortune to rent this view, but it was worth it for the whorl of misty light surging over the water in the evenings. That was what Joanna liked to paint most of all: light.

At the far edge of the dock, the national flag whipped on its pole, battered in the late spring winds rolling off the ocean. It looked so small against the landscape. Joanna lit another cigarette.

“God damn it,” she said, scowling as she inhaled.

So here she was six weeks later, sitting in an overstuffed armchair, drinking a cup of aggressively weak tea in a room whose walls were composed of 80% portraits. They looked like a stuffy lot, the Bastion-Whitfields. Joanna had always declined commissions from the royals for the simple reason that they were all so terribly boring. She liked angles, color, and drama. Royalty embraced tradition, stability, and heritage.

When the doors on the other end of the room opened and her client walked in, Joanna almost choked on a groan. Her Royal Highness Tessa Bastion-Whitfield, future monarch, was dressed in a cream, high necked dress that came to an abrupt end just below her knees, the effect very like someone had censored her whole body in a rectangle of white linen. She was a bland mirage of a person, holding a leather-bound notebook as she walked across the room as Joanna got to her feet.

God, this commission was going to take ages. A consultation and two sittings would probably not kill Joanna outright, but it would certainly try. She’d turned down a month-long residency doing experimental cubist portraiture in Sydney for this small-footed glass of milk in a sensible bob.

When the princess came to a stop, Joanna forced her face to relax.

“Miss Neubauer,” the princess said, her voice as crisp and articulated as the tongs of a fork. “We were so glad to hear you accepted the commission.”

Joanna, wondering who ‘we’ was referring to exactly, nodded her head. “Always happy to serve queen and country.”

“Future queen,” the princess said crisply. “My coronation isn’t for half a year.”

“Well, that will give me plenty of time to paint,” Joanna said.

When the princess sat (in an armchair even more stuffy than Joanna’s), Joanna pulled out her notebook and grabbed a pen from behind her ear. The motion gave her hands something to do as she watched her client. The way she sat. The way she held her chin. The particular fold of her eyelid. The elegant curve of her round cheek.

There was something to her angles, something round and amusing. It reminded Joanna of something, but for the life of her she couldn’t put her finger on it. It eluded her.

The princess coughed, and Joanna realized they’d been sitting in silence for a few moments too long. Tessa’s voice was neutral when she spoke. “I suppose you’re sizing me up. Deciding how you want me?”

Joanna blinked, her gaze arrested at the little curve at the corner of the princess’s mouth. The way her eyes glinted in the watery morning light in the parlor. Oh, she was pretty. That’s what had eluded her.

“Uh,” Joanna managed. “No. We’ll agree on that together.”

“I’m not a painter,” Tessa said firmly. “You should paint me however you see fit.”

“That’s not the point,” Joanna murmured. “Well, not with this portrait. This is about your vision, the way you want to be presented, not about my artistic interests. I’m as good as making a painting to match your living room furniture, not expressing anything organic from my mind. This is marketing, your majesty.”

Tessa blinked at her, and it took Joanna another two seconds to realize how catastrophically rude she was being. God, but she was slow today.

Tessa’s voice was very cool. “I suppose this is your method, then? Insult your subject? Catch them off guard? I’ve read novels, Miss Neubauer. I understand the artistic temperament.”

Joanna leaned forward in her chair, bringing her face a little closer to the interesting way the light hit her subject’s cheekbones.

“Well, we’ve got two sittings to see if you’re right. In the meantime, let’s discuss your portrait. What outfit will you be wearing?”

Tessa narrowed her eyes at Joanna and withdrew her notebook, setting it on the spindly little table between them. Flicking it open, she withdrew three photos and handed them over. “These are the approved selections. You may of course choose which you prefer. Bit of a concession to the artistic process.”

Joanna looked at the three pleasant, bland dresses. They were casual, high-necked things that suggested a garden party more than queenly power. “Haven’t you got anything more regal? An evening gown or a 17th century pope’s hat, or—”

Her royal highness snorted. It was such a little sound, but so genuine. An unstudied expression in a constructed world.

“I apologize,” Tessa said, sobering. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”

Her eyes weren’t gray, they were green. A vivid, light green. Pictures didn’t do them any justice, and for the first time Joanna wondered if the monarchy might know exactly what they were doing when they insisted on oil paint portraits.

Some things could only be expressed in paint.

“What do you wear when you have nobody to impress?”

Tessa gave her an exasperated look. “I never had nobody to impress.”

“Ah, so tulle skirts and polka dots then,” Joanna sighed, leaning back in the chair. “Or roller skates and leather bodysuits?”

The princess glared at her, a spot of color rising to her cheeks. “No,” she muttered, crossing her arms in a way that revealed she did in fact have breasts underneath her blocky, conservative dress.

“That’s a damn shame. You’re wasted on polo dresses,” Joanna said, before she could stop herself. “You should be wearing something that shows you off better.”

The princess uncrossed her legs. “And you think you’re the judge of that?”

“Only a witness to it,” Joanna said. Deciding that she needed to press the moment a little, she continued. “What sort of person are you, your royal highness? What are your values, your passions, your favorite foods?”

“Pears à la Reine,” Tessa said icily. “And my passion is my people.”

Joanna waved a hand in front of her face. “Right, right, of course, but beyond that. Who, in fact, are you?”

The princess was silent for a long while, her mouth pursed and her hands tapping on the arm of her chair. Joanna waited.

“Alright,” the princess said. “You may as well call me Tessa.”

“Tessa,” Joanna said experimentally. It rolled around her mouth. “What do you want to wear in your portrait?”

“Whatever is fitting.”

“You’ll be queen. Anything you say you want is what you should have.”

“I think your understanding of the monarchy leaves something to be desired, Miss Neubauer.”

“What I desire,” Joanna said, getting to her feet and walking a little closer to Tessa, “Is to represent my monarch in the way she wants to be represented.”

Oddly, Joanna realized that this was actually true. Two hours ago she wouldn’t have much cared about making the princess feel empowered; it was just a job. Tessa had a quality about her that made Joanna feel a little wistful and inspired. Maybe it was that there was something romantic about her, this lonely princess stifled under convention.

Tessa looked up at Joanna, her freckles much easier to see up close, and murmured, “I don’t know how I want to be represented. But if you must know, my favorite thing to wear is silk nightgowns.”

Joanna drew in a sharp breath. Oh dear. “Now that would make for a portrait.”

Tessa said something then, but Joanna didn’t hear it under the noise of a roaring idea taking over her brain. Fumbling for her pencil, Joanna sank down into a crouch and began to sketch. The princess standing in a froth of silk and flowers, a crisp, gleaming gown contrasting with the fine detail of the background. She would look like a gleaming statue amid a haze of color.

Tessa handed the sketch to the princess, and even though it was only a crude suggestion of the concept, her eyes lit up. “Oh, this would be beautiful.”

“But do you like it?” Joanna insisted. “This has to be something you like.”

Tessa looked at Joanna, back at the sketch, and then for an instant her eyes flicked to a portrait behind them. And then, in a quiet little voice, she said, “Could I have a sword?”

The First Sitting

“Joanna, I think you’ve made a mistake.”

“Hold still, you’ll topple the rose mountain,” Joanna said, crouching in front of Tessa as she arranged a stack of silk flowers in an artful heap at her feet. Behind Tessa, lavender fabric draped across a frame to create a sweeping wash of soft material. In the middle of the flowers, standing in a tulle dress with her hair pinned up, Tessa looked like a pillar in the middle of a pastel sea. The effect was striking and modern, part magazine shoot, part classical portrait.

“I just think that perhaps you’ve gotten carried away—” Tessa said, annoyance lacing her voice as Joanna adjusted the flowers.

“The theme was architectural elegance, we agreed—”

“Well, I never agreed to a flower tidal wave,” Tessa groused.

“Hold still or you’re going to disrupt my floral commentary on the subjective nature of political influence,” Joanna said, adjusting another silk flower so it laid just so across the hem of Tessa’s skirt.

“Thought this was my marketing painting?” the princess muttered. Her expression was careful like it always was, but there was an edge to it. It felt like walking down the stairs in the dark and unexpectedly feeling a creaky board underfoot.

Joanna sat back, crouching at her feet and staring up at her. Joanna had to concede that Tessa was right, at the end of the day. “If you want something different, you only need to say. After all, I’m here to serve you, remember?”

Tessa tore her gaze away from the ceiling and down to Joanna. In the princess’s formal gown and her ceremonial pose, something charged and old-fashioned passed between them. From this angle, Tessa’s round features and green eyes had a direct, cutting intensity that was magnetic.

“Oh, beautiful,” Joanna whispered, capturing the feeling in her mind so that she could paint it later. A sense of potential overwhelmed her, the thrill of the work overtaking her in the first heat of the race. “Beautiful.”

Tessa turned her face away. “I do like it. I feel…elegant. But perhaps, not quite so many roses. I feel like the star of a lurid opera.”

“Is that what they gave you instead of cartoons? Tosca?”

Tessa put her hand on the pommel of her sword with truly alarming competency. “Magic Flute, obviously. It was my favorite.”

“My god, they came up with you in a lab,” Joanna accused, gathering up armfuls of flowers and pushing them off the backdrop.

“Very expensive, very boring lab. Now hurry up, or I’ll have you imprisoned.”

“You were easier when you were just some girl I knew from the stamps,” Joanna sighed.

 

~*~

 

Two hours later Joanna had a few initial sketches of their setup and a dozen high resolution photos to reference. Tessa, to her credit, submitted to the process with immense patience as Joanna fiddled and tweaked the layout until she was satisfied with it.

Joanna was unprepared for how much she liked the scene. The florals were energetic and had movement and vivacity. The pale purple color gave the whole thing a hazy, springtime effect, and in her big dress with the sword strapped to her hip, Joanna looked like a pirate who ran an artsy boutique in her off time.

And, as much as it pained her to admit it, Tessa was right about the flowers.

“I’m satisfied,” Joanna said, snapping her sketchbook shut.

Tessa sagged with relief. “Wonderful. Not sure my ankles could handle standing here another hour.”

“I can’t believe you went with the sword.”

“Well, my father and grandfather all had swords in their formal portraits. Why not me?”

She took a prim step down from the dais, stretching her arms out and yawning. “Are you hungry?” the princess said. “I’m starving.”

Joanna shook her head. “I have to return to the studio and begin immediately. Before I lose the sense of you.”

Tessa’s eyes flashed at that, darting a quick glance at her before looking away. “Well. I hope you’ll enjoy it.”

The afternoon light, stronger now that the clouds had cleared, slanted in across the carpet and landed at the princess’s feet, lapping up at her ankles as if eager to be close to her.

“I intend to,” Joanna murmured. “I’ll be back in a few weeks for the second sitting.”

Tessa twirled a rose between her fingers. “What happens at the second sitting?”

“The most important part. Your face.”

 

The Second Sitting

Joanna had everything set up by the time the princess arrived for the second sitting. Joanna wasn’t sure why, exactly, but she wanted this to go well. The effect of that was that (for the first time in her life) she arrived early to set up her paints and canvases and adjust everything so that it was just so.

It took nearly ten minutes of fiddling, staring at the empty stool where Tessa would sit, twitching the curtains open a little more or a little less, trying to get the exact effect she was looking for.

All the while, she felt nervous and giddy. The painting was coming along nicely, and she was more or less settled on the composition, coloring, and light. Most portraits she took ended up diverging sharply from the photos as Joanna pushed color values, thickened and distorted bodies, and took liberties to express the essence of the person as she saw them.

Tessa’s portrait, however, was sticking so closely to the photos that she almost couldn’t believe herself. Every time she adjusted a line or thought about changing something, Joanna looked at the photos of Tessa and couldn’t bear to change a thing.

In short, Joanna was exasperated at herself for being so damn precious with the piece. It was going to turn out downright romantic at this point.

The doors to the parlor opened and Tessa, dressed in the same gown from the first sitting, waltzed into the room.

“I’m sorry I’m early,” Tessa breathed, waving off an aid trailing after her as she cleared the room in long, brisk strides. “Should I sit there?”

It had only been a few weeks since they’d seen each other, but she seemed different, somehow. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. When Joanna nodded, Tessa sat down on the stool and turned the full force of her gaze on her.

“Pleasure to see you again, Joanna.”

“I’m afraid this sitting will be considerably less exciting than the last one,” Joanna said. “You only need to sit there and let me make some paintings of your face up close. I’ll do some practice runs here with you in front of me, then take them home and complete the portrait.”

Tessa clasped her hands together. “How exciting. And then the debut.”

Joanna picked up her paintbrush and turned to her canvas. She had a few prepared with some rough sketches of the princess’s face on them, but seeing her in person, Joanna realized they’d need to be scrapped.

Her lines weren’t right, the edge of her jaw and the slant of her eyes wasn’t…Tessa enough. Her displeasure must have shown on her face, because Tessa murmured, “Oh, dear. Difficult subject?”

“No, only realizing the limits of my own ability,” she grumbled, erasing her pencil marks. “I was trying to get your pretty cheeks, and failed.”

Tessa brought a hand to her jaw, poking her face experimentally. “You think my cheeks are pretty?”

“Obviously,” Joanna said, scowling as she made yet another imperfect suggestion of Tessa’s face. “Why are your freckles so reluctant to be painted?”

“Maybe they’re shy.”

“Are you shy?” Joanna said, glancing at Tessa again.

She blinked. “Well. I’m not sure how to answer you. Left to my own devices, I think I might have been a shy person. But in my line of work, that’s not really an option.”

Joanna tried a third time to sketch Tessa’s face, hated the result, and promptly considered throwing the thing out the window. “Argh, it’s no good, I’m just going to have to do this badly a few times until I figure your face out.”

Tessa giggled. “I like hearing you talk, Joanna. You’re like an old sea captain.”

“Tell me something about you, while I suffer for my art,” Joanna said, starting over on a new canvas. There was something very satisfying about switching to a clean canvas.

“Well, I’m a world ambassador for—”

“No, no, tell me something important, like what type of apple you hate the most or the name of the girl who bullied you in secondary school, or what sport you think is the most attractive.”

Deciding that she was simply incapable of getting Tessa’s face down in graphite, Joanna went straight for her paints.

“I’m…I don’t know,” Tessa blustered. “Tennis?”

“Tennis,” Joanna said flatly, drawing the shape of Tessa’s face in quick, confident strokes. Her hands knew how to express this, even if her brain wasn’t up for the tasks.

“The little outfits, the…skirts,” Tessa said, and then stopped, turning her face away to stare at her feet. The flush that stained her cheeks was so lovely that Joanna leaned forward and grabbed the crown princess by the chin, tilting her face forward until they were only an inch apart, staring into each other’s eyes.

“That’s it, that’s how I want you to look at me,” Tessa breathed. “That’s perfect. You’re perfect just like this.”

Tessa’s lips parted, and Joanna let go of her to lunge for her tube of alizarin crimson.

“Oh,” Tessa said. “So I’ll just…”

“Keep thinking about pretty girls in tennis skirts, yes,” Joanna said distractedly, her hands working nearly as fast as her mind.

It was only later that week after she’d been holed up with the portrait, her photos, and her sketches in her studio that Joanna realized what exactly it was that Tessa had been saying.

My god, she liked girls. Liked them the way Joanna always had. Shocked, Joanna stared vacantly at the portrait in front of her and decided at once that she needed to paint the princess’s lips again.

After

Joanna was sitting in her living room studio, staring out at the harbor. It wasn’t like she was moping, exactly, but she wasn’t not moping. It was a pseudo-mope, which was the time-honored tradition of the painter. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t she supposed to fall a little in love with each of her subjects? So why did the end of this commission feel…so much worse than the end of all the others?

The completed portrait sat in the corner, a large painting of a beautiful woman, flushed and lovely, staring into the middle distance.

Outside, the sound of a mournful bell tolling across the docklands cut into her thoughts. It was just shy of midnight, and there was still the activity of ships loading and unloading. It was why she liked this apartment; it always gave her the feeling that something exciting was about to happen.

Or at least, it used to. Tonight, sitting on her shabby armchair, nursing a cup of ill-advised (and rapidly cooling) espresso, the docks only looked cold and lonely. The downpour didn’t help either, and if she’d felt less drab she might have dredged out her gouaches and tried to paint the way the water looked in the streetlights, all speckled and agitated in the rain.

The light looked like freckles. Little dancing freckles set against a button nose and a wary little smile, and—

The sound of the pounding on the door made her nearly drop her espresso in surprise.

“The hell?” Joanna said, padding to the door and peeking through the peephole.

What she saw on the other side made her curse in two separate languages.

Tessa stood there in what must have been a very pretty cocktail dress, half an hour ago. She was soaked through, the pale pink waterlogged to a muted beige color, her ringlets hanging in limp clusters.

But it was her face that really shocked her. She was bright-eyed and flushed, and not in an I-just-walked-here-dramatically-in-the-rain kind of way, but in a so-determined-I-might-deploy-the-Navy sort of way.

Joanna could only open the door and say, “Tessa?”

“Spaghetti,” Tessa said, her chattering teeth doing nothing to dampen the passion in her voice.

“What?”

“My favorite food is spaghetti,” Tessa said, her voice too loud but so clear, so strong. “I told you it was Pears à la Reine but that was a lie. I hate pears. I don’t care that the recipe was named for my grandmother, I hate pears. I love spaghetti, with lots of parmesan cheese. And butter.”

Joanna brought a hand to her cheek, marveling at her. But Tessa wasn’t done. Chest heaving, she took a step forward with such resolute determination that Joanna actually felt intimidated.

“And I loathe magenta. Hate it. My brother picked that color for me when I was eleven, and I’ve spent a decade hating it.”

“Oh my god,” Joanna said, delighted.

Tessa’s next words came out in a rush. “And I love videos of corgis going up stairs. I love them. And I like playing Go Fish, and running in socks, and peeling the tops off yogurt.”

She gestured wildly, a sodden slip of paper gripped in her hand.

“Did you write this all down?” Joanna managed, but Tessa just held up one manicured, pale pink finger in front of her and consulted the limp piece of paper.

“Also,” she continued, panting with the effort, “I think that baseball is tremendous, I like the noise the ball makes when it hits the bat. And I think wool socks should be illegal, and maybe I’ll outlaw them when I’m queen—”

“You’ll be a constitutional monarch; you can’t outlaw anything—”

“Also, shooting parties that start at dawn!” Tessa said, nearly shouting now. “I hate them! Nobody needs to get up that early to go ride around on a horse, Joanna, and I won’t do it again. I won’t.”

She was breathtaking, the flush on her cheeks making the bright, mint green of her eyes somehow even more vivid than they’d been in that pale, beautiful light of the Palace’s East Drawing room. What Joanna would give to take her photo right now, to capture the spirit of the woman within.

“I believe you,” Joanna whispered.

Tessa’s voice cracked as she took another step closer. “I hated it when you asked me what I thought about the flowers, or the dresses they picked for me, because I had no idea. Joanna, I hated it so much.”

Her lip was trembling now. Joanna felt like her heart was surging inside her, growing and leaping. “Oh, sweetheart.”

“I didn’t know how to answer you, and I thought that meant you were being rude, or impertinent.”

Joanna’s lips twitched. “Tessa, will you come inside?”

“No, I’m not done. It’s raining, so I need to do this on the stoop. Haven’t you read novels?”

“I hate reading.”

“Shows what you know,” she whispered, her lip trembling, a teeny little smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

If Tessa was brave, then Joanna could be brave.

“Do you want to see it?”

“The—the painting?”

“Yes, I finished it this morning. Want to come up?”

With a decisiveness that surprised Joanna, Tessa marched inside the vestibule. Two minutes later and they were standing in Joanna’s studio, staring at the portrait in the corner.

Tessa gawked. “You flattered me.”

“I did not,” Joanna said emphatically, thinking of all the liberties she’d wanted to take with the portrait that had been all wrong, because the right decision had been to just show Tessa as she was. Not to dress her up or market her, but simply to stand back and let the woman she was show up on the canvas.

It was, bar none, the most honest portrait Joanna Neubauer had ever taken.

“That’s what you think I look like?” Tessa’s eyes watered. “I look so…”

“Beautiful?” Joanna said, taking a step closer.

“Happy,” she whispered.

Slowly, Joanna wrapped her arms around Tessa pulling her against the front of her body and letting her own body heat saturate Tessa’s cold, damp frame.

“I was hoping I could paint you again,” Joanna said.

“Another portrait?” Tessa said, shivering in Joanna’s grasp. Leaning her head back against Joanna’s shoulder.

“Some figure drawings,” Joanna murmured, leaning her face down to press a delicate kiss against the shell of Tessa’s ear.

Tessa’s eyes crinkled. “Nude?”

Joanna thought about it for a long minute, imagining the composition of the piece, and the breakfast they could have after, and the world that was waiting for them. Everything they had ahead of them to talk about, to love, and to violently and collaboratively hate.

“Not entirely nude,” Joanna conceded, pressing another kiss to Tessa’s cheek. “I suppose you could keep the sword on.”