Page 3 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
He hadn’t mentioned clients to her when he’d sat with her some evenings.Or maybe he had, and it had slipped from her mind through the fog of fever.He was working on a plan for a small home.A suburban development?New workers’ cottages?The drawing had his signature aspects, even in its simplicity.All on one level.Windows that faced south, larger rooms for living.A kitchen at the back that was connected to the house.
‘Bracknell Place.’Florence let the name of the design fill the silence.He’d started painting.Maybe he thought she’d be laid up for longer.He hated painting and avoided it whenever he could.
A collection of brushes sat in a little glass jar beside a pot of water and powdered paints.Balancing on tip toes, Florence leant over the desk to reach for the rule pen.She preferred the sharper lines of the pen to a brush, and it offered more control.She adjusted the width of the nib, then mixed a little watercolour between the prongs.
‘I… umm…’ A cough.‘Good morning.’
‘Coffee,’ she said, her eyes steady on the page.‘One nip of sugar and a little milk.I’ll take a light breakfast when I have finished.’
This desk really was too high.How had her father managed to work at it?He was taller than her, but not that much taller.She wiped a drip from the edge of the pen and scanned the plan for a good place to start.
‘The darker green.’The man beside her pointed at the paints, his finger spearing her view.A bright drop of tinted water trembled at the edge of her pen.Florence turned to look at the speaker, at this man who dared to instruct her at her work.
Buckles, buttons, suspenders, embroidery—there were so many details attached to him.So many fastenings and accoutrements adorned the otherwise plain black-and-white canvas of his clothing that her mind, still doughy from weeks of sleep, could not take them in all at once.And so she settled on the part of him closest to her—his hands.One tapped an uneven rhythm against his side while the other still extended into the space before her.A slash of black ink had settled in the crevices around his knuckles and spread outwards in a dark spiderweb.Florence leant back and studied him more intently.Bright stitching—red flowers and yellow bees—edged his waistcoat in a simple pattern, deliberate but imprecise, like it had been home-sewn.The circumference of his waist could have fit at least one and a half of her.A line of buttons, shell-white, led to a neat blue necktie.An ache bit her shoulder as she craned her neck to lock eyes with this tower of a man looking down at her.
‘I beg your pardon?’she said.
He gestured at the tray of paints.‘I was using the darker green to colour the accents.It dries much lighter than you think it will.’He flipped his hand from pointing to open.‘I’m Johannes Hempel.I’m Mr Holt’s assistant.You must be Mrs Murray.’
Florence swallowed the urge to slap his hand away.‘I am my father’s assistant.’Fear, dark and twisting, wrapped around a bolt of jealousy.Her heart thumped once, hard and anxious, then started racing like it was about to leap from her chest.Little spots of pain flamed across her back.‘I colour his drawings.I sit at the desk by the stove.’
Even standing, Florence had to tilt back to meet his gaze.He must have been at least a foot taller than her, and broad as a bear.He had dark hair, close-cropped and neat, and was clean shaven.A delicate dimple imprinted his cheeks, soft and kind against the firm lines of his jaw.His hand, still extended, would have swallowed hers had she deigned to rest it in his palm.
‘Johannes.’Her father’s voice carried through the office from where he stood by the door.‘The order from the stationer should be ready.Will you collect it today?There’s talk that it might snow tomorrow.’
The imposter lowered his hand.‘Yes, Mr Holt.I’ll finish these when I return.’
For a mass of a man, he moved with a measured grace.His every step was deliberate, like he understood how much of the world he occupied and wanted to limit his intrusion.When the thud of the front door echoed down the hallway, Florence dared to look at her father.He pressed his mouth into a thin line, and his sharp eyes dug at her.Only a small raise of his brow betrayed any softness.
‘We spoke about this.On the boat.’
‘You spoke about it.’Florence flicked the edge of the house plan with her thumb.‘I don’t remember agreeing.’
‘There is nothing to agree to!My assistant is my choice!No good will come from this, for you or the practice.’He spun from calm to thunderous like the flip of a coin these days, as if he only had the capacity for two emotions and had left the rest of them—happiness, gentleness, hesitation—in the southern hemisphere.
‘Can’t I at least try to be my own woman?Many others have made careers for themselves, lived independent lives.Things may be different here.’
‘Other women have fathers with fortunes or their own dowries or dead husbands who left them with enough money to pay for six feet at Rookwood Cemetery.You have none of those things.’
‘It’s a bigger city, always changing.That’s what you said.I had hoped it might afford the opportunity for proper study.I could still help you, and in time, I might be able to join the practice in my own right—’
‘This city will not accept a woman at the drafting table, even one who traces and colours as well as you.This is not Ballarat where I can make excuses for using you as my assistant.Nor is it Sydney, where every woman has more freedom, although I wish I had been stricter.Things might have gone differently for you.’
There was the rub.He had given her too much autonomy when it came to courting, and she’d been dazzled by charm and chosen badly.So badly that, after the building accident that had taken George from her, she’d had no choice but to return to her parents’ home.After his business partners had claimed their debts, she’d not had any money left for flour for the larder, let alone enough to pay a maid to help her on bad days.
‘I loved George.’She still had to swallow the knot of grief to say his name, and today it stuck so firmly in her throat that her voice came out weak and thin as thread.‘He loved me.’
‘He gave you nothing but debts and a broken name,’ her father snapped.‘Go upstairs.Your mother is writing calling cards.If you are well enough to paint, you are well enough to seal envelopes.’
Florence stroked the paper with her fingertip, caressing the dry, thick parchment.Her skin tingled just touching it.Her next breath weighed so heavy that it sent a ripple of pain over her shoulder.She crossed the room, only for her father to catch her by the elbow near the door.
‘I am happy to see you up.Do you think this doctor can help you?If we can pay the surgeon, might he have a cure?’
Florence brushed his hand away.‘If you won’t let me sit at the table, what does it matter?’
Chapter Two
Johannesnuzzledintohisscarf as a small flurry of snowflakes brushed past him.Flecks of ice clung to his woollen coat, and when he stretched into his leather gloves, he tugged sharply to close the gap between wrist and coat sleeve.At the edge of the court, in the small alley that led onto the main street, he threw a glance over his shoulder towards the front window of the office.Snow had already collected on the window ledge and along the top of the painted wooden sign that readHolt - Architect.He searched the dark glass with an off-handed hope that the woman with eyes the colour of a cyanotype might be lingering there, but she did not prove so indulgent.The window remained empty and opaque, except for the curtain drapes gathered at its edges.
