style="font-size:15px;"> “Yes!” The peddler widened his eyes. “You!”
“—how your curative with the bottled extractive magnetism was created. Are you the inventor? Or did someone else—”
But the peddler only cast out his arm to silence the waiting crowd. He stared raptly at her. He nodded.
“You are perfect!” he cried dramatically. “Perfect!”
Fully out of patience now, Olivia put her hands on her hips. “Unless you mean I’m perfect at asking questions you can’t wait to answer, I honestly don’t see what that has to do with—”
“You must agree to pose for me,” the peddler interrupted. He stepped nearer, then chuckled. “I mean, for a lithographer, of course. I need a model to grace the bottles of my forthcoming Milky White Complexion Beautifier and Youthful Enhancement Tonic. With your face on the label, I’ll sell thousands!”
She stared at him, astonished. A model? Her?
Rudely, he reached for her jaw. He turned her face to the sunshine. He gave an evaluating sound, then turned her face in the opposite direction. He laughed with outright glee.
Olivia jerked away her face. “Sir! I am not a horse.”
“Well, you are a mighty fine filly.”
She frowned. “And you are a rude man. I will not—”
“I’ll pay you,” he persisted, annoying her further by talking right on top of her. “I only need a few sketches.”
Olivia crossed her arms, feeling frustrated. Could no one see that she had a mind as well as a face and figure? Could no one understand that there was more to Olivia Mouton than frilly skirts, blue eyes and embarrassingly burgeoning bosoms?
She was accustomed by now to miners and railway men leering at her. But those men were outliers. They scarcely saw another living soul for weeks at a time while they were working. They could be forgiven for their resulting lack of social graces.
But this had been her chance—this medicine show and these well-traveled, experienced men—to be recognized as a kindred spirit, as a person who was interested in scientific progress, miraculous medicine and the world beyond her own small town.
“I’ll pay you handsomely,” the peddler persisted. “All I want is your likeness.” He spread his hands in the air as though envisioning rows of labeled bottles, an enraptured expression on his face. “In my line of work, a beautiful girl is...priceless.”
“If that’s the case, then you can’t afford me, can you?”
For the first time, the peddler seemed exasperated.
Olivia didn’t care. “I don’t think you know what’s in your remedies. I don’t think you are a man of science at all.”
The peddler frowned. “Watch your mouth, girl.”
“I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt,” Olivia went on, refusing to be cowed. “But the truth is, Mary Fairfax Somerville’s published work proves that magnetism cannot be used in extractive form. It cannot be bottled. So your remedy—”
The peddler stepped nearer, appearing ready to spit nails.
“—is nothing more than sheer quackery, sir!” Olivia finished bravely, fired up now. “And I would rather die than allow my image to grace bottles of your do-nothing ‘cures.’”
The crowd of her friends and neighbors gasped. But Olivia finally felt satisfied. She’d said her piece. She’d made sure the people of Morrow Creek would pay attention to her mind for once, instead of her face and figure. She was proud of that.
After all, she could have done worse—especially on a day when she’d been presented, at the tender age of thirteen, with one unwanted marriage proposal, one illicit flirtation and one tawdry offer to reduce herself to a mere image to sell nostrums.
Proudly, Olivia turned to make a triumphant exit.
Instead, she almost ran smack into her father. Henry Mouton had obviously come to fetch her. His kindly, knowing expression said that he’d expected to find her there. In the least proper place to be. Doing the least ladylike thing possible. Again.
To her dismay, he shook his head in disappointment.
Olivia’s heart sank. She so wanted her father to be proud of her. But however she turned, she seemed to misstep.
Swiftly, she reassessed the situation. She took in her father’s beloved face, his world-weary stance and the handful of posted bills he held in his grasp. He’d plainly been to the post office before coming here and had found several additions to their overall indebtedness waiting there for him.
They could use any money she could bring in, Olivia knew. Running their tent hotel wasn’t particularly lucrative. Theirs was a hand-to-mouth existence. Although her father had been seeking investors in The Lorndorff’s future, so far there had been no takers. As far as Olivia knew, they were on their own.
A windfall for having her likeness lithographed would go a long way toward paying their bills. Olivia had her pride. But compared with her love for her father, everything else paled.
“Unless...” she called to the peddler as he turned away, “you could assure me that your new remedy works?”
Obviously heartened, he grinned. “Of course it works!”
Belatedly, Olivia realized that the man wasn’t actually assuring her. He was assuring her father. Because everyone knew that a small-town girl like her didn’t have the mental capacity to understand scientific principles. Wasn’t that correct?
Gritting her teeth, Olivia made herself smile back at him. If downplaying her intellect was what it took to salvage this situation, then that was exactly what she’d do. For her father.
“Very well! If my father agrees—” here, she cast a cautious glance at him “—I’ll simply choose my prettiest dress and pose!”
At that, the peddler and the townspeople surrounding him released a collective pent-up breath. It was, Olivia discerned, as if they’d all been made wholly uncomfortable by her outburst. Including her father. Now, though, even he appeared relieved.
That was all the assurance Olivia needed. From here on, she vowed to herself, she’d never give him another reason to feel disappointed in her. She’d be prim. She’d be proper. She’d finance a piece of their future with her face and feel happy about it. Because she wanted to please her father. She wanted to know that their friends and neighbors approved of her. She wanted to belong somewhere. It was clear now that the only path to those goals was paved with ruffles and lace and rosewater perfume. It was overlaid with delicate fainting spells and crowned with an avowed interest in needlework. It stomped on her books and ignored her curiosity. It squashed her spirits.
The respect Olivia craved felt entirely out of reach.
Maybe it always would dangle beyond her grasp.
But at least she could choose another path for herself, she reasoned. At least she could step deliberately and wholeheartedly
