Artfully Yours, page 31
“We’ve had setbacks.” Nina took the wadded gloves from Miss Lolly and smoothed them flat on the table. She ached to unburden herself, to let every detail pour forth.
“I earned the money when I worked for Alan, the man you met, or didn’t meet, rather.” Her cheeks burned.
“Enough to buy the bakery.” Aunt Sylvia was studying the milk in the pot.
“If I collect it.” Nina shifted on her stool.
“If.” Miss Lolly’s brows crept up to her hairline.
“When.” Nina gripped her elbows. “I’ll go tomorrow, I suppose.”
“To London. To collect your money.” Miss Lolly used the strainer to scoop nettles from the vat.
“Yes. No. Perhaps.” Nina felt sweat sliding down her back. She turned her eyes again to the garden. A mess. A royal blasted buggering mess.
“That’s what you said the other day, isn’t it?” Miss Lolly sounded suspiciously bland. “When he proposed.”
Nina started, gaze snapping back. Miss Lolly was doing a poor job hiding her smile.
“Lolly, please.” Aunt Sylvia put her hands on her hips.
“Fancy you couldn’t tell.” Miss Lolly shot Aunt Sylvia a triumphant look. She transferred the nettles to her gloved fist and gave a gleeful squeeze.
“Your aunt,” she said to Nina, “received more marriage proposals than a decade of debutantes.”
“It was extremely tiresome.” Aunt Sylvia sighed. “Did he propose?”
“He did, almost.” Nina’s voice was a croak. “But then he rejected me.”
“My,” said Miss Lolly. “That’s unusual.”
“I added a condition.” She gripped her elbows harder. “He’s clever and kind and funny and fizzing, absolutely gorgeous, you saw him, and I love him—I love him—even though I’ve always been certain it’s not worth it, loving someone, because it can end so poorly, and I might lose myself in the process, like Mother did. But he makes me feel like I’ve found myself, like I can do anything, because we can do anything.” She gulped, dizzy. “But I’m afraid too. I’m afraid to love him, because he’s afraid, of some part of himself he won’t show me. And if he’s already hiding, eventually I won’t be able to find him, whether or not he’s run off. And by then, losing him will feel like losing myself. Maybe it already does.” Her chest was heaving.
Miss Lolly and Aunt Sylvia were looking at each other.
“The condition you mentioned, what was it?” Aunt Sylvia asked.
“To face a very painful truth, about his nephew. I’d face it with him, of course. I said that. And he said no. And that means he’s going to harm the boy, inadvertently.”
Her breathing stayed shallow, as she glanced from aunt to aunt.
“Are you sure you didn’t reject him?” asked Miss Lolly.
“I don’t know. He might have thought so.” Nina bent double. “Does it sound like I rejected him?”
Aunt Sylvia cleared her throat delicately.
“Bugger.” Nina stood up so abruptly her calves bumped the stool’s lowest rung. “What’s the time?”
Aunt Lolly fumbled a watch up from a pocket, damp gloves smearing the face with green.
Seventeen minutes to the next train. Perhaps Alan hadn’t yet gone to the duke. Perhaps, if she went to London now, she’d get another chance to stop him from making a terrible mistake.
“Did you ever regret it?” She fixed her eyes on Aunt Sylvia. “Refusing all those suitors?”
“Never.” Aunt Sylvia gave her a radiant smile.
She nodded, heartbeat slowing. “You’re happier alone.”
“Alone?” Aunt Sylvia’s expression shifted between concern and amusement. “My dear, I’m not alone.” She glanced at Miss Lolly, who lifted her chin.
“We’re not alone.” Miss Lolly dropped her handful of spent nettles on a dish, a plop of punctuation.
Again, Nina glanced between them. She had the distinct impression they were communicating something of vast importance.
She wet her lips. “I meant something different. I meant, you’re happier because you didn’t choose that kind of love. You know, romantic love.”
She blushed. She wasn’t about to describe the love she’d experienced with Alan, composed of hope and agony, longing and giddy, unbearable pleasures.
Aunt Sylvia looked pensive. “Nina dear, there’s a great deal we should have said to you.”
“We thought it went without saying,” interjected Miss Lolly.
“Oh.” Nina stood for a moment, flummoxed, eyes flitting from woman to woman. “Will you say it, then? Or not?”
Aunt Sylvia’s gaze met Miss Lolly’s.
“We will,” she said. “But not now. You look as though you have somewhere else to be.”
Nina realized she was on her toes, half-twisted toward the door. “Do I?”
She was wringing her hands together, as though that action would keep her from tearing apart.
“Most certainly,” said Miss Lolly. “You go, now.” She smiled at Aunt Sylvia. “We’ll be here.”
Nina went. She sped upstairs to grab her portmanteau and the ledger Jack had left for her, and she clattered down again, gasping her goodbyes to her aunts, and to Fritz—snoozing with Billie in the parlor—then bursting out the front door. She reached the train station with mere seconds to spare. It wasn’t long before she’d caught her breath. But her heart raced on.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Three new paintings, and six works in progress. And you’re looking at the door.”
Alan turned to face Augustus Burgess. The man feted as England’s greatest living painter was shaking his head.
“I’m crushed,” Burgess added, a hand pressed to the frogs of his colorful smoking jacket, light green velvet and rose madder silk. “Surely Love in Avalon is worth a second glance.”
Alan’s gaze swept the vast painting studio, crowded with aspirants and notables and with Burgess’s easels. He hadn’t given the pictures a first glance. Nor could he bear to do so now. The pigments seemed dangerous, as though they might stain his corneas. Make him see red where it didn’t belong.
“You’re looking at the door again,” observed Burgess. “Come, now. The picture’s not as bad as that.”
Alan allowed himself a beat, to compose his face, to mirror his friend’s teasing smile.
“It’s worse,” he drawled. Burgess laughed, easy and unoffended.
He should have stayed home. He’d hoped the salon would provide a recess from his roiling thoughts. Instead, he felt overstimulated, every sight and sound an irritant.
“I worried something was wrong. Not with Love in Avalon.” Burgess flicked a lock of black hair over his shoulder. “With you.”
Alan reached up to adjust his spectacles and remembered he wasn’t wearing them.
“Standing in the corner,” continued Burgess. “Perhaps you’re saving your strength?” At Alan’s blank expression, he grinned wickedly. “For a more important battle.”
“You invited Syme.” Alan waited for his own reaction. This news should organize his mind, give him purpose.
“Of course I did. My guests don’t come for the canapés. They come to see history being made. Syme’s fired up. Did you hear? He got that prominent American critic, Ingalls, to inspect the paintings you disputed. And Ingalls agrees with him. Says they’re originals.” Burgess clapped his hands. “I’ll clear the dais. You and Syme can have it out. Tit for tat.”
“An exciting opportunity.” Alan shrugged. “Sadly, I must decline.” He started to walk, trying not to catch anyone’s eye.
“You aren’t leaving?” Burgess fell into step with him.
Alan veered around a sofa, focused on the door.
“You can’t leave.” Burgess jogged to catch up.
“I have a pressing engagement.” Alan frowned at the half-truth. But pressing engagement was a more socially expedient explanation than unannounced visit to a duke with intent to blackmail.
“No one’s on time for those.” Burgess was undeterred. “Syme will be here any minute. Stay long enough to reel off a few of the clues that convinced you. For God and country. And for Henley, who’ll put it in the papers.”
Alan grunted. And the door opened. Disclosing not Syme, but . . .
“Dear God, a doublet!” Burgess called out with sufficient volume to draw all eyes to the new arrival. Kate Holroyd paused on the threshold, grinning. She was, as ever, equal to the attention. And most definitely dressed in a doublet. It was deep purple, and she’d paired it with black knee breeches and hose. She winked and gave an exaggerated bow. Alan saw in a flash who stood behind her. Compared to Holroyd, this woman faded into the background. She wore a plain brown dress. She had hair of an indeterminate shade, a round, sweet face. An unassuming presence. If you didn’t overlook her entirely, you might think her ordinary.
His extraordinary, impossible love.
He stopped dead and stared.
Her face was too expressive. Staring wouldn’t help him solve its mystery. He needed to hear her voice, feel her touch.
He didn’t glance back at Burgess. The painting studio winked out. Everything winked out but Nina.
He went to her.
“May I have a word?” he asked, his voice low.
At her nod, he led the way to a small library. She entered ahead of him, and after he pulled the door shut, he leaned against it. She turned and looked at him, fingers playing nervously over the chain of her chatelaine purse. He realized she was travel worn—skirt rumpled, wisps of hair escaping her chignon—and weary. The shadows beneath her eyes attested to a wakeful night, much like the one he’d spent himself.
He pushed off the door. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“You weren’t at your house.”
He tipped his head. “I take it Holroyd was at my house. Doing what?”
“She’d called to collect you for this party. She thought you were driving together.”
“Driving together.” He walked forward, forcing himself to stop before he closed the distance between them completely. “Perhaps she sent a note I didn’t open.” The corner of his mouth kicked up, a minor effort. “It happens. As you know, I don’t have a secretary.”
The light was dim, but Nina flushed. “You should go to an agency.”
She looked fatigued, but she sounded spirited as ever.
“You spoke with Mr. Craddock?” He assumed a businesslike demeanor. “I haven’t yet spoken with my brother. I tried him at home, twice. I even visited that bastion of feudal thinking he calls a club.” He gave a slight grimace. “I was about to return to Park Lane when you arrived.” He paused. “You won’t leave London empty-handed.”
“That’s not . . .” Her hand closed convulsively on her chatelaine. “I brought something for you.” She dug inside the purse. The notebook she extracted was unfamiliar. She held it as though it were fragile.
“I used it as a ledger.” She stared down at it, then thrust it toward him. He tucked his cane beneath his arm and took it, thumbing it open. He recognized her neat handwriting. Rows of phrases, names, numbers. Calculations. He turned a page, then another.
“Bust of a Man in a Plumed Beret,” he read. “Rembrandt. Sleaford. Twenty-five.” He looked at her.
“Twenty-five pounds,” she said. “That’s what we got from Sleaford. The debits are on the left, for materials and the like. The final tallies are at the bottom of each page.”
“Portrait of a Knight of Malta with a Rosary.” He frowned. “This went to Edward Whitcombe.”
“Do you know him? You can tell him, then, that Titian didn’t paint it.” She laced her fingers together.
Alan kept turning pages. There. The titles of the paintings Syme had acquired for the South Kensington Museum.
This notebook proved they were forgeries.
It proved so much more than that.
He drew a breath, raised his eyes. “Why are you giving this to me?”
“I knew you’d find it useful.” She averted her gaze. “I thought Jack had burned it.”
“He should have.”
That made her gaze swing back to him. “He returned it instead. He wanted to show me that he respected what was mine.”
“Charming.” He bit his tongue. The library’s oak fireplace was massive. He could burn the notebook himself. Or he could hand it back to her. He flipped it closed and hesitated. “This isn’t part of our bargain.”
“You decided not to catch a forger.” Her eyes grew brighter. “I decided to give you that ledger.” She hesitated, shifting her weight. “I decided something else too.” She blinked rapidly, as though she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. “I renounce the payment. If you blackmail the duke . . . I renounce it.”
He must have made a small shocked movement. A muscle in his hip wound tight. Time stood still.
He shook his head. “Nina’s Sweets. You must know I’ll do anything to make it yours. Because . . .” He heard the gravel in his voice and stopped.
Because I love you.
He cleared his throat. “Because shortbread needs its Da Vinci.”
“Mozart.” Her face had changed. She was looking at him with higher color, shinier eyes. And he was looking at her . . . with neutrality, he hoped. Not with desperate, thirsting desire. Her lips parted. Something tugged behind his ribs.
“I prefer Mozart,” she said. “Da Vinci makes me think of amber varnish and Lavender Spike Oil.”
His brow creased with horrified awe. “You forged Da Vincis.”
“Check the ledger,” she murmured, dimples flickering as she gave him a sheepish smile.
“I want the bakery.” She swallowed, smile fading. “But I can find another way.”
“What way?” He stared.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But this is more important.”
“This?”
“You. Us.” He could sense her frustration unraveling into something frantic. “Claud.” She took a ragged breath. “I understand how hard it is to let him go, but—”
“You understand?” Goaded, he leaned over her. “Then how can you insist that I abandon him?”
Her chin was tipped up. She didn’t flicker an eyelid.
“You don’t understand.” He leaned closer. “The feeling of isolation that makes the days run together. The sheer terror of being powerless and alone.”
Suddenly, the air went thin, and his lungs bucked in his chest. The world slipped from him. Everything was gone. He hung in darkness.
And felt soft pressure, the touch of her hand.
“Alan,” she said gently. “It’s not the same as what you experienced. With Claud—it’s not the same.”
He planted his heels, focused on her face. He gave her his fiercest stare. “I won’t abandon him.”
“Don’t. Don’t abandon him.” She held his gaze. Clear brown eyes. No pity in their depths, but rather a compassion so profound it dizzied. “Accompany him, however you can. When he goes to Italy, write him every day. Write him adventure stories. Help make his life full. Help him heal.”
He straightened abruptly. His pulse was leaping.
“You are abandoning him,” she said, “if you can’t see him as he truly is.”
“I see him.” His throat was so tight.
“You don’t see him. You see yourself,” she whispered.
The white handkerchief unfurled in his mind. He couldn’t see anything through it. Or else it was the sudden flare of pain blinding him. His leg was a spike driving toward his spine.
“I’m going to fall. I’m going to fall down.”
In an instant, she was pressed to him, small and soft, unbelievably strong. Bearing his weight. The sofa was only steps away. They tumbled onto it. He collapsed backward, stretching out his leg.
“Are you all right?” she asked, breathless.
“No.” He wanted to disown the truth as soon as it passed his lips. To shape his lips into a sardonic smile. Fix his mask in place. Instead, he let his head tip back.
“No, I’m not all right.”
She didn’t say anything. She resettled herself carefully beside him. In two tentative movements, she laid her cheek on his shoulder, her arm on his chest. His breath shuddered out. And then the ice in his chest melted. His taut muscles began to ease. He inhaled deeply, a bigger breath than the pain wanted to allow.
He wrapped his arm around her and held her close.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Sometime later, Nina stirred. Alan’s heart thumped beneath her, the beats steady but far too quick. His hand slid up her arm, then smoothed her hair back from her temples. She stilled and let him stroke. He repeated the slow, soothing motion. She found it soothing. But she understood why he did it. Alan was soothing himself. A lump formed in her throat.
“I feel like Charlemagne,” she said at last, pressing her nose into his coat. Alan paused his stroking, hand cupping her head.
“The cat,” she clarified. And then, to clarify further: “It’s a favorable feeling.”
His hand grew heavier.
Her own heartbeat quickened. “How do you . . . feel?”
“As though I finally understand why you prize cats.” His hand began to move again.
She pushed her whole face into his coat. He smelled better than good. She couldn’t get enough, not through the fabric at any rate. She sat up, and he lifted away his arm so she could readjust next to him. He sucked in his breath. She saw his cheeks hollow, his cheekbones leap forward.
“Alan?” His name was the question. She wasn’t sure what else to ask.
He didn’t look at her but instead looked straight ahead.
