by Amanda Scott
Turning back to the little room, he noticed several paintings that, thanks to his friendship with Vyne, he recognized as excellent. Definitely a room that spoke of money, he told himself. He had better meet the heiress and stake his claim before the competition caught up with him, for she was going to be in high demand, beauty or no beauty. A distaste for his behavior struck him harshly. Often in the days that had passed since making the decision to stir himself to meet the heiress, such twinges of discomfort had made themselves felt. They were becoming more and more difficult to ignore.
When the door opened behind him, he turned quickly, expecting to see the footman. Instead, a pair of melting blue eyes twinkled engagingly at him from an entrancingly pretty face. The door opened wider, revealing a complete vision of loveliness. Her yellow muslin gown was nipped in beneath her plump breasts with a green satin sash that matched the ribbon threaded through her golden curls. Aside from a bit of embroidery on the flounced hem of her gown, she wore no other decoration. None was required. The thin muslin embraced luscious curves of a splendid body, leaving little to his ever active imagination.
“Oh,” the vision said in a soft, musical voice, “I do hope you are Sir Richard Vyne. We have waited so very long for you.”
Realizing that his mouth had fallen open, Crawley shut it with a snap and made his leg. “I wish I were,” he said, straightening. “You must be Miss Adlam.”
“I am Theodosia Adlam,” she said sweetly, fluttering her lashes at him as she stepped all the way into the room and shut the door behind her. “My elder sister is Miss Adlam.”
So it was Theodosia, not merely Theo, but even as the thought crossed his mind, Crawley looked in dismay at the closed door, knowing full well that he ought not to be alone with her. What was the chit thinking? He might be anyone, a bounder, a throat-slashing villain, anyone at all. “Where the devil is your mama,” he asked abruptly, “or this elder sister of yours, at least? You ought not to be alone here with me, you know.”
She smiled again and moved closer to him. “Freddy told me you were here, so I came down because I knew no one else would tell me until they had looked you over and decided that you were suitable. I wanted to know if I would like you. I do. You have a nice smile. But did you say you are not Sir Richard?” She added the question as an afterthought, bringing one dainty hand up to her rosebud mouth. “Oh, dear, then of course I ought not to be here. But Freddy said he heard you tell the footman you are an artist, so if you are not Sir Richard, who are you?”
“Who is Freddy?” Crawley demanded.
“My little cousin who is staying with us. My brother, Jack, is in India with his wife, Nancy, and they have no time for children, so their children came to us a month ago, all three of them. But about Sir Richard Vyne—”
“Oh, I daresay he will show up when he has a mind to,” Crawley said, hiding his amusement as he thought of what Vyne would say about this unholy charade. “He is dreadfully busy, you know, now that he has managed to make himself all the crack. He certainly has managed to convince people that he is a great painter, has he not? And, of course, having pleased such persons as the queen and Lady Sefton, he has made others desire his services, too. But once I’d learned of your incredible beauty, I thought I could do no less than present my humble self and hope for the best. You will be lucky, you know, if Vyne exerts himself sufficiently to call upon you within a fortnight. He has got rather above himself of late, I fear.”
“Oh, has he?” Theo said, the annoyance he had expected clear in her tone. She had responded instantly to his offhand comment about her beauty, and now she smiled approvingly at him. “Have you painted anyone we know, sir?”
He shrugged. “I cannot say for certain, of course, not knowing whom you count amongst your acquaintance, but perhaps you have heard of the Duke and Duchess of Langshire.”
“Oh, goodness, yes,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Have you truly done portraits of them?”
“Oh, yes, more than once,” he replied blandly, thinking of certain sketches he had drawn for Thorne’s amusement at Eton after a particularly blistering letter arrived from the Duke, castigating his son for some misdemeanor or other. “I have also done various studies of the Marquess of Thorne,” he added with another gleam of mischief, “and numerous other persons of note.” All true, he reassured himself. A good many persons of note had been among his classmates at Eton, where he and Vyne had competed to see who could draw the most ridiculous caricatures. He had also suffered more than once for his talent, either bent over a chair in a master’s study, or on the playing fields at the hands of his chums. He had learned to defend himself well in the latter cases, though not, he recalled glumly, in the former.
Theo was nodding her head. “I think Sir Richard requires a lesson,” she said. “My sister wrote to him weeks ago, and he has not even had the courtesy to reply, so I think it would do him good to lose such an excellent commission, do not you?”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Crawley replied, adding with a nonchalant shrug and the awareness that this time he spoke only the truth, “Besides, I need the money more than he does.”
“And you will do me justice, will you not?”
“As to that,” he said gallantly, “I doubt that any mere mortal could do true justice to such beauty as yours.”
“Oh, do come now and meet my sister! I know she will like you as much as I do, and then Papa will be compelled to let you paint me. I know I shall love every minute of sitting for you, Mr.—” She broke off, looking adorably confused. “But I do not know your name, sir, do I? What is it, if you please?”
Crawley still had not decided exactly how to present himself. If he gave his true name, it would be all too easy for the Adlams to discover that he was no portrait painter, but if he gave a false name, he stood in danger of being unmasked too soon to suit his purposes. The plain fact was that he wanted to be able to attend such social functions as the younger Miss Adlam attended, and he could not do so without telling her who he was. He decided to play the matter close to his chest, giving only what information he had to give. “You may call me Edward,” he said, smiling at her again.
“I daresay I might do so when others are not about,” she said with a twinkle, “but I must call you something else when my sister or my aunt is by, and certainly whenever Papa is about.”
“Is Papa an ogre then?”
“Oh no, not in the least. Indeed, though he is excessively fond of me, the fact is that he rarely notices anything other than the coins, wines, and Vernis Martin vases that he collects. But he might notice if I were to call any gentleman outside our family by his given name. And my aunt and sister surely would notice. So truly, sir, you must tell me who you are.”
“Very well, I suppose I must, but I must also ask you to keep our business to yourself. I do not choose to let all and sundry know that I have decided to accept such commissions. I came to you only because, having heard of your beauty, I could not resist the temptation to put Vyne in his place. But you must promise that if I am granted the opportunity to paint you, you will not go around telling everyone. It is not quite the done thing for a gentleman to paint for money, you know.” He made his smile as pleading as possible, wondering if he resembled his sister when he did so. He could feel a look on his face similar to the ones Belinda produced whenever she wanted something from him that he was unlikely to grant her.
Theo nodded quickly. “I do understand. I think such rules are silly; however, you are so clearly a gentleman that I feel I must apologize for mistaking you for a common painter. Pray, sir, what is your name?”
“Crawley,” he said, “but I must tell you that Vyne is not—”
“Not Mr. Crawley,” she said wisely. “Ought I not to address you as my lord?”
“On no account in the world,” he said. “You, my dear, must learn to call me Ned.” And audaciously, knowing she would not object, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.
She grinned at him but made no eff
ort to reclaim her hand when he straightened. “We shall just see about that, sir, and you did not say you are no lord. Now, come and meet Felicia.”
“Felicia?” He was surprised. “I thought ... that is, I am sure that someone told me your sister’s name was Felicity.”
“Oh, no doubt it was my Aunt Augusta or one of her cronies,” Theo said, wrinkling her nose. “Aunt still lives in the last century, you see, and will not admit that we have entered upon a new one. She and Papa both continue to refer to Felicia in that outdated style. No one else does so, I promise you, not even Mama. But come now. Felicia will be upstairs in the drawing room, for I know she was meaning to write some letters this morning, and her writing desk is there.”
Crawley followed her, aware that his impression of the elder Miss Adlam had undergone a startling transformation. While he had thought of her as Miss Felicity Adlam, he had somehow been able to convince himself that she would be an unequal opponent, a middle-aged spinster with little experience of the world. But a Miss Felicia Adlam could be quite another matter. He could not explain how such a change might have come about in his own mind. It was absurd. Yet he felt his confidence ebbing as he followed the minx up the wide sweep of stairs to the next floor.
He scarcely noted the many paintings lining the stair wall, punctuated by marble busts in niches above every sixth step, or the highly polished mahogany railing of the gallery. His footsteps were silent on the carpet, a magnificent example of Turkey’s finest, its colors vibrant on the gallery floor, well lit by the huge window above the front entrance to the house. As he followed Theo to the open doors of the drawing room, he did note briefly that he could see over the wall into the park now through that window, but once inside, he forgot his surroundings again when he came face-to-face with Miss Adlam.
She had been sitting at her desk, talking to the footman, and she turned at the sound of their entrance. Crawley’s first impression was of a little dab of a woman in a dun-colored gown, with sunlight from the nearby window glinting on her soft brown hair. His confidence stirred, then faltered again when he found himself being examined from top to toe by a pair of cool gray eyes. He barely heard Theo speak, babbling something about how he was not Dickon but another artist; however, he clearly saw the expression in Miss Adlam’s eyes harden as she stood up, nodded gravely, and said, “You are not Sir Richard Vyne, then?”
“Ah, no,” Crawley said, confounded by her direct look and a certain something in the way she looked at him that said she could see straight into his soul. “Not exactly.” He cleared his throat, finding it utterly impossible to prevaricate when she looked at him like that. “Not at all, in fact.”
“I told you,” Theo said impatiently. “He is a much better artist than Sir Richard. He has painted dukes and duchesses, Felicia, and he is here right now. He said Sir Richard has got too far above himself to be bothered with the likes of us. He’s too important now, he said. Isn’t that right, sir?”
Confronted with Theodosia’s limpid gaze on the one hand and her sister’s steady look on the other, Crawley suddenly wished he were a hundred miles away. Vyne would murder him for this, if the shrewd-looking Miss Adlam did not beat him to it. “Ah, as to that,” he said, forcing calm into his voice but wishing the gray eyes would look elsewhere, if only for a moment, “it is no place of mine to be casting aspersions upon Vyne’s character, and I certainly never meant to do so. I apologize, Miss Theodosia, if that was the impression I gave you. It is merely that Sir Richard finds himself extremely busy, as much in demand as he is nowadays, and I fear that he would find it hard to do justice to your great beauty without taking time away from his other work.”
“Has Sir Richard actually said as much to you, sir?” Miss Adlam asked bluntly.
“No, certainly not,” Crawley replied, feeling himself sinking into ever deeper waters as he strove to sound completely sure of himself. He wished it were possible to equivocate with this woman. He had thought it would be easy, but now he felt like a lying rogue.
He had not thought of it as lying before, but only as an amusing way to meet the new heiress and a fine joke to play on Vyne. Indeed, he had been rather pleased that though he had had to stretch the truth a bit, he had not told any actual falsehoods to Miss Theodosia, and he had expected to continue the same tactics with her sister. But that was not possible. And why it was not, he had not the least notion.
She was certainly nothing special to look at, all mousy brown and gray as she was. The dun-colored gown boasted no particular decoration, and her hair, though elegantly smooth, was not dressed fashionably but merely parted in the center, brushed back from her face, and arranged in two neatly braided coils joined at the nape of her neck. A dowdy, that’s what she was, and no mistake about it.
Nevertheless he was aware of an aura of common sense and intelligence radiating from the small figure. She sat down again at her writing desk, calmly regarding him, apparently waiting for him to elaborate upon his statement. She made no effort to speak but waited patiently until he could stand the silence no longer, and opened his mouth to confess the whole.
Before he could do so, Theo said, “Why do you care what Sir Richard has said or not said, Felicia? Papa said he wants my portrait drawn; he did not say it must be done by Sir Richard.”
“No, my dear, but you did say you wanted it to be a true Vyne, since that would so much impress everyone. Have you changed your mind?”
Theo flushed, flicking a glance at Crawley. “I may have said some such stupid thing,” she admitted, “but I would not at all mind being the one who discovered an even greater artist, particularly since Sir Richard has so unkindly ignored your request to call upon us.”
Miss Adlam turned her attention back to Crawley. “Is that true, sir? Has he simply ignored my request?”
It did not occur to him until hours after he had left Adlam House that he might simply have disclaimed any knowledge of Vyne’s thought processes. At that moment he simply answered the question as directly as it had been put to him, “No, Miss Adlam, that is not the case.”
“Indeed? You are very certain, sir.”
“I am. I was present when he received your letter.”
“And when was that, precisely?”
Damn, he thought, how did she know the exact questions to ask to put him most in the wrong? But still he could not lie to her. “Yesterday,” he said with a sigh.
Theo exclaimed, “Yesterday! But that is impossible, sir. My sister wrote to him more than a fortnight ago.”
“I know,” he replied, casting an oblique glance at Miss Adlam and noting that there was a silvery glint in the gray eyes now, “but she wrote to him at home when he was away. The letter followed him from point to point but did not catch up with him until yesterday.” He had not the least inclination to describe the great struggle he had fought with his lesser self when that letter was delivered at Longworth the day after Vyne’s departure. He had wanted to open it the minute he recognized her elegant copperplate handwriting. Basely, he had kept the letter in his possession until he reached London, delivering it to Vyne himself, in order to be at hand when it was read. He had the feeling now, however, that the silver gray eyes saw straight through him to the truth. Suppressing a small shudder, he forced himself to meet her gaze as innocently as he could.
Theo said, “Still, Felicia, if Sir Richard is as busy as everyone says he is, he might well not wish to paint me, so I daresay we would do better to commission Lord Crawley.”
The gray eyes shifted in his direction again, widening in surprise, and Crawley felt telltale heat suffuse his face. He could not remember the last time he had actually blushed, and here he was, doing so like a guilty schoolboy. It would help if the fool woman would ask him to sit down, he thought, but he could scarcely do so without invitation or while the younger chit continued to stand.
Miss Adlam said with emphasis, “Lord Crawley? You are a member of the nobility, sir? You must forgive my sister for her poor manners. She ought to have introd
uced you more precisely at the outset. But then, you ought to have announced yourself more precisely to my footman—unless your title is spurious.”
The last words were spoken more gently than those that had gone before, and Crawley fought an impulse to loosen his heavily starched neckcloth, wondering why on earth he had got himself into such a predicament. The woman reminded him of his sharp-tongued grandmother, daring to challenge him in such an outrageous way, but he had asked for it. He had put himself in the wrong from the moment he had entered the house. He cleared his throat, glanced at Theo, then back at Miss Adlam, before saying, “The title is genuine, I’m afraid, though I have no doubt that certain of my ancestors might take exception to my claiming it under the present circumstances. I wonder if I might have a word with you alone, Miss Adlam.”
She raised her eyebrows, and he realized that he ought not to have suggested such a thing. Somehow the thought of impropriety that had struck him instantly below when Theo shut the door of the little parlor had not touched him here. The thought of impropriety where Miss Adlam was concerned was ludicrous. No man would have such courage.
Attempting to recover lost ground, he smiled at her. “You have clearly taken responsibility for your sister’s welfare, ma’am, and I admire and respect that. I would appreciate the opportunity to explain my motives to you privately.”
“No,” Theo said, “I won’t be dismissed like a child! I want you to paint me, sir, and I promised I would not speak of your title, and so I will not. I did not know you meant me to keep it from Felicia, and I would not in any case, because she is my sister and deserves to know, but I will have my way, I promise you, and Felicia will not stop me! If I have to go to Papa on my own, Felicia, and beg him to hire Crawley, I shall, so there!”
He was appalled by the outburst, but before he could think of a response, Miss Adlam stood up and said firmly, “You will come with me, Theo, at once. If you wish to speak privately to me regarding this business, you may, but you must not behave in this manner before his lordship. Come now, and we will speak in the morning room.”