Lessons of Desire

by Madeline Hunter

  Your grateful friend,

  Elliot

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  Thank you for accompanying me,” Phaedra said. “I do not expect the man to admit everything, and your perception of his reaction to my questions will be useful.”

  “Since you are determined to ask the questions I do not want you making the call alone,” Elliot said. “Your description of your meeting with Needly tells me that these men are not taking your suspicions well, which is not surprising.”

  “Needly was not angry. He laughed at me. That is hardly dangerous.”

  There had been a good deal of scorn in Mr. Needly’s laugh, however. Scorn for her and her mother. It had been a brief meeting in a spare office the day before. The first antiquities seller whom Matthias had named, Mr. Needly, was elderly and elegant and erudite and arrogant. He had made quick work of her questions about the cameo.

  “A fraud,” he said, his prim mouth pursing in distaste. “I told her when she brought it to me, and she did not care for my opinion despite seeking me out for one. She argued with me. As if she had any expertise in such things. The great Artemis Blair had been duped like a country lass. That her daughter now quizzes me on the same gem tells me she refused to see the truth, no doubt because the truth made her a fool.”

  “That the last one laughed does not mean that this one will miss the insinuations of your questions,” Elliot said. “I know this is important to you, but I ask you to be discreet.”

  They walked the streets together, aiming for an address that Phaedra had procured. Their destination was not that far from the offices of Langton’s publishing house on Paternoster Row.

  Elliot had not said one word about the activities of that business when he arrived, nor had he expressed displeasure in meeting her there. She doubted that in leaving the manuscript intact three nights ago he had reconciled himself to the memoirs’ pending publication. Probably he still believed he would produce enough proof for her to give him what he wanted, the way she had promised.

  She hoped that he would. She wanted that blight removed from their happiness. The last few days had been idyllic, even better than the weeks in Italy. The fun and friendship that they now shared proved that the passion could survive their return to England. She had been, she realized, as happy as she ever had been. Even completing her investigations regarding her mother could not dim her mood.

  Thornton’s bookstore occupied a small shop on a small street near the British Museum. The grime of years covered windowpanes that looked into a dark cavern of tomes.

  “I made some inquiries,” Elliot said. “His history is obscure. He is said to have an English father and an Italian mother, and to have studied in Bologna. It would be difficult to disprove that, and those who have met him say he appears educated.”

  “If he is half Italian, he might be in a position to have access to objects being made there,” Phaedra said.

  “You may have the correct man this time. Unlike Needly, this one’s reputation is hardly unassailable. There have been some rumors.”

  They entered the shop. Silence and darkness entombed them. Shelves reached to the ceiling, all stuffed with old bindings. More remnants of estate libraries rose in stacks higher than Phaedra’s head.

  The shadows in the far corner shifted. A figure rose from behind a wall of books and walked their way. The proprietor came forth to greet them. Elliot reached back and opened the door again, so some light would be shed on the man in question.

  Nigel Thornton was not the fusty old bookseller that these premises called for. He appeared not much older than thirty although his too-perfect features, his fashionable frock coat, and his dark hair might be hiding a few more years. Still, he was much younger than Phaedra had imagined.

  She pictured him younger still, his beauty still fresh and his energy unleashed. As the last remnants of Artemis’s own youth fell away, did she seek renewal in an affair with a much younger man?

  He greeted them graciously but managed to convey that they had interrupted important matters that he had put aside just for them.

  His dark eyes sized up Elliot and reflected recognition. His gaze then flickered over Phaedra and vaguely communicated that she complicated the assessment.

  “Lord Elliot, I am honored. You are, perhaps, seeking to fill a new library? We have the best editions of the Roman histories, and can arrange for new bindings if you prefer.”

  “I find Easterbrook’s library adequate for now. It is the lady who seeks you out, and she is interested in a particular story, not a library full of them. I am a mere escort.”

  Thornton accepted that, but his lowered lids indicated disappointment that this would not be a profitable afternoon.

  “Allow me to introduce Miss Phaedra Blair,” Elliot said. “You knew her mother.”

  The light from the door illuminated Nigel Thornton’s handsome face enough for Phaedra to see his reaction. It froze into careful passivity but the dark eyes beneath those lowered lids appeared to gleam more the longer he examined her face. And he examined it a long time, very carefully, with great interest.

  “I knew your mother as a generous hostess on occasion, Miss Blair. I did not know her well enough to tell stories about her, however.”

  “I have heard differently, Mr. Thornton. I am told that you attended on her frequently, not occasionally, the last few years of her life.”

  He angled his head in a nod that neither agreed nor disagreed, but implied the level of friendship was open to dispute.

  “I am also told that years back you sold more than books, Mr. Thornton.”

  “Even now sometimes other items come my way.”

  Phaedra fished the cameo out of her pocket. She set it atop a stack of books directly in the flow of light from the door. It glowed there amidst the dark, dusty tomes, in all its expensive artistry.

  His gaze lit on it. Recognition flashed. A peculiar aura poured off him, like a wave of sentiment had unexpectedly breached a seawall. He began to smile, but stopped the impulse before it got past a vague, sad line.

  “Did you sell or give Artemis Blair that gem, Thornton?” Elliot asked.

  “That is the story you seek? The story of that cameo?”

  “Yes,” Phaedra said.

  “I regret that I cannot help you.”

  Yes, he could. She knew he could. “But you do recognize it.”

  He gently picked it up and peered closely. He ran his thumb over the tiny figures. “It was hers.”

  “I have been told by the best experts that it is a fake.”

  “I expect that it is, then. Still, it is well done and very beautiful.”

  Right now she did not care if it was beautiful. “Did my mother get that from you?”

  “If I say that she did, I admit to fraud, don’t I? If I say she did not, you have no reason to believe me.”

  “That is because it would not be the only fraud,” Elliot said. “I am told there was the matter of some coins a few years back.”

  Thornton sighed. “Those coins came to me from a solid source. Nor did I sell them as secure in their authenticity. Such trade is fraught with peril, and collectors who hear what they want to hear. Which is why I prefer old books.”

  “Is that what happened with this cameo? Did my mother hear what she wanted to hear?”

  “There is no way for me to know if she thought it authentic. It sounds that way, though.”

  He handed the cameo back to Phaedra. For an instant both their fingers rested on it, as if he hesitated to release his hold.

  “If you decide to sell it, let me know.”

  “You would buy it? So you could sell it again?”

  He turned away, to melt into his dark corner within his castle of books. “I would buy it because it is beautiful. And because it was hers.”

  “What do you think?” Phaedra asked. She and Elliot strolled through the British Museum while she turned the meeting with Thornton over in her mind.

  “What do you
think?”

  “I think it was him. He all but admitted it. If I had not said I knew it was a fraud, he might have told me everything. That was a mistake. He could not satisfy me without saying he was a criminal. But his entire manner, the way he recognized it, his words, while circumspect, indicated he knew my mother owned it and thought it authentic.”

  She sensed a response in Elliot but it was a long while coming out.

  “So, what do you think?” she prompted again.

  “I think that you have your answer, but it is somewhat different from the one your father concluded.”

  “How so?”

  “Nigel Thornton was no scoundrel taking advantage, stealing affection and plotting great frauds. He was in love with Artemis. I think he still is.”

  His observation astonished her. She wanted to disagree. It did not fit with the picture of the evil interloper that her father had painted in his memoirs. It robbed her of indignation and anger over her mother’s affair. If the other man loved Artemis, it complicated everything.

  Only she suspected Elliot might be right. When Thornton saw the cameo the whole mood in the shop altered. The memories and sentiments called forth by the gem had almost been tangible.

  “If he loved her, I don’t get to hate him, do I?”

  “Which story do you prefer, Phaedra? That a man seduced your mother in order to use her connections, and involve her in crimes that would ruin her? That this late affair led her to take her own life? Or that your mother fell in love with a much younger man who out of ignorance sold or gave her an artifact without being secure in its authenticity? You will have to decide which way you think it went, but I do not believe that man back there deliberately misused your mother.”

  “I find it hard to believe that my father was so wrong about Thornton’s character and motives.”

  “Your father had lost the love of his life, the center of his existence, to a much younger rival. He probably thought your mother had lost her wits along with her heart. It is unlikely he could see the situation with objective eyes.”

  He spoke as if he did not have any doubt how it had been. She might have found Nigel Thornton an enigma, but Elliot had left that shop remarkably secure in recognizing the signs of a man in love.

  “If I sell him this cameo, he will probably flog it as an original antiquity again. You said there were questions about some of his dealings. If so, it is likely that he did take advantage of my mother.”

  He took her hand and drew her into a corner of the gallery. “Is it so important for you to believe that, Phaedra? Important to believe that she was wronged? You said in Naples that you could understand why she might have chosen this new lover. If the man loved her in turn, doesn’t that make it easier to accept instead of harder?”

  She did not know what to say to him. Her heart rebelled at this simple explanation that Elliot so easily embraced.

  “I suspect that if one examined Thornton’s dealings one would find ambiguities and allusions, not false claims,” Elliot said. “As he said, collectors hear what they want to hear. I am sure he knows how to exploit that without crossing into fraud. As for that cameo, if you sell it to him I do not think he will sell it. I think that he will keep it as a memento of her until the day that he dies.”

  She pictured Nigel Thornton standing in that bookshop. She pictured him eight years younger, dazzling the aging Artemis with his confidence and handsome face. She saw again the way his eyes had lit with warmth when he saw the cameo and spoke of her mother.

  Dear heavens, Elliot was probably right. It also explained why none of her mother’s friends knew the new lover’s name. Thornton had been so young that Artemis probably kept him a secret so the world would not think her doubly a fool.

  “What an embarrassingly ordinary denouement to my great mystery,” she muttered.

  Elliot circled her shoulders with his arm and gave an encouraging squeeze. “Are you disappointed?”

  Was she? Her anger about the lover had calmed in the last weeks, but her father’s accusatory words still burned in her heart. Perhaps she had wanted to blame someone for her mother’s death and her father had given her a way to do that. Maybe she had actually been angry with Artemis, for betraying the perfection that free love could be.

  She released the last of the deep fury that she had carried to Naples. Nigel Thornton was probably no paragon of integrity, but he was not the calculating conqueror either. Artemis had probably been disappointed to learn the truth about the cameo, but it was unlikely that the episode had destroyed her.

  She fingered the cameo in her pocket. Maybe she would just give it to Nigel Thornton, since he still held Artemis in his heart.

  “You can return to your dissipated life, Christian. There will be no elopement. No flight and no duel. Caroline has accepted my authority on the matter.”

  Lord Hayden Rothwell spoke in the firm, confident tone of a man who expects the world to obey his command. Phaedra doubted that assumption was wrong very often.

  He issued his proclamation from the other side of the table. The dinner party he and Alexia hosted was much smaller than Phaedra had expected. It consisted only of the three Rothwell brothers, Alexia, and herself.

  When Alexia wrote and invited her, she had considered not accepting. Alexia and Hayden had returned from the country several days ago, and they probably knew about those memoirs. If so, she would not really be welcome. Now, however, she suspected that Alexia and Hayden did not know. Easterbrook did, however. His behavior toward her had been correct, even gracious, but she had caught him eyeing her several times the way a hawk watches a mouse.

  “As a man, I doubt you fully understand the matter or have interpreted our cousin’s humor correctly,” Easterbrook said in response to Hayden’s assurance. “I would be more at ease if your wife joined in, or even nodded in agreement with you.”

  Alexia’s color rose at Easterbrook’s request that she either support or compromise her husband’s opinion.

  It still amazed Phaedra that Alexia had fallen in love with Hayden. Alexia had married for the most practical of reasons, then lost her heart. Phaedra would never have expected such a development, especially with the man in question.

  Lord Hayden was handsome, to be sure, but severe and cold. Unlike Elliot, his demeanor and character did not soften the Rothwell face. Alexia, however, insisted that the world did not know the true man.

  “Christian, you must not sow seeds of discord between husband and wife,” Elliot said. “If Alexia chooses to disagree with her husband, she will do so. Our hostess has never hesitated to speak her mind when she thought it necessary.”

  Alexia appeared grateful for Elliot’s interference. Phaedra had noticed that they shared a friendly bond. All three brothers seemed to hold Alexia in high esteem.

  That impressed her, and made her more comfortable at this dinner. Nor had she been treated as the outsider that she was, both to society and to this table. Alexia’s invitation had begged her to come. The two of them had shared some quiet talk and news in the drawing room before coming down.

  “Nonsense,” Easterbrook said. “Hayden would not mind if his wife moved from her position of neutrality. He knows that women know women’s minds better than we do. What say you, Alexia? Has Caroline been cowed or does she plot an intrigue?”

  “No one can know another’s mind, Lord Easterbrook,” Phaedra said. “Nor do all women think the same way. Alexia is much too sensible to know the mind of a young girl bedazzled by a title.”

  She succeeded in drawing Easterbrook’s attention from Alexia rather too well. He regarded her so directly that bodies shifted in their seats.

  Elliot came to the rescue. “I think that it is not Caroline’s mind that will matter, but Aunt Hen’s. She may be more bedazzled than her daughter.”

  “Exactly,” Alexia said. “It is Henrietta who must be reasoned with. We are making great progress there.”

  Hayden changed the subject. The men carried the conversation. Phaedra a
nd Alexia held their own, silently, exchanging female looks that spoke volumes.

  Elliot noticed, but did not react. He had been a little odd tonight. Ever since he met her coach outside he had appeared just…different. She found him looking at her in the same way he had that first time in her chambers in Naples, as if he were seeing her anew and measuring what he had.

  Perhaps it was the party affecting him. She was thoroughly in his world tonight. Nor had she pretended to be other than she was, except for wearing her blue dress. There was no benefit in pretending to be meek and normal. And she would be damned before she allowed Easterbrook to either awe her or intimidate her.

  The meal finished, Alexia invited her back to the drawing room. The door closed on the brothers and their port and cigars. Phaedra wondered if the men would be discussing Caroline’s precarious hold on her virtue, or the pressing matter of Richard Drury’s memoirs.

  “I am so grateful that you agreed to attend,” Alexia said, sitting right beside her on a settee. “It gave me an excuse to leave Hen down at Aylesbury, for one thing.”

  In other words, Hen did not approve of Phaedra Blair and would not sit at a table with her. “Then I am happy I came, if it provided relief from her company.”

  “Have you enjoyed it at all? I know Easterbrook can be—”

  “I have enjoyed it tremendously.” And she had. She found the brothers’ bonds touching. She rather envied Elliot, and understood all the more why blood usually won out in any competition for a person’s loyalty.

  “I am also joyed to see how you are completely one of them, Alexia. I had not seen you among them before like I have tonight. You have found another family as surely as if you had been born into it. I think each man at that table would lay down his life to protect you and your child.”

  Alexia blushed. “They are all doting, aren’t they? It was very sweet how Elliot spoke to me when I saw him again today. Although I wonder if his visit to Italy was to his liking. He seems distracted by something, as if he would not mind being alone instead of among a party tonight.”