Gaze upon her and brush a finger along a curl.
Tears would not mar her pale cheeks. And her shadowed eyes, although they would hold a hint of sorrow, would stare boldly back…
I will overcome this, her look would state.
Snuffing the candle, Casper snorted at his wild imagination.
Since Sir Henry’s death, this beauty had most probably died from the pox or beatings from a cockbawd – another soul lost to the sins of London.
The dark enclosed him, the beat of silence echoing in his ears, and he drew forth the green scarf from his waistcoat pocket, a wisp of silk he’d found caught in his evening jacket after it had languished upon Mrs Swift’s shoulders at the Plymtrees’.
He brought the frayed luxury to his nose: pure soap, a mustiness and hint of tallow, but they beguiled his senses, and rubbing it across the crop of bristles burgeoning upon his cheek, he knew sleep would not be forthcoming.
In its place, he would relish his anticipation for the woman whose eyes he would stare into on the morrow.
Chapter 11
A deception Swift of hand.
Whilst vermin free, the uninhabited Clipstone Street house remained a shrine to bad taste and salacious predilection, and arriving before eight, Evelyn had spent a good hour hiding inappropriate statues and dragging bawdy artworks into cupboards.
“I think that’s me!” Flora exclaimed, glancing at the painting Evelyn was attempting to remove. “I’d recognise my–”
“Could you do something with Mars?” requested Evelyn, pointing at a rather well-endowed statue that shamelessly ogled from the side table.
“Oh, my pleasure,” she gushed and yanked the poor sod – or should that be god – so that only his firmly sculptured buttocks were on show.
With the drawing room as prepared as it ever would be, they positioned the painting in the middle of the one plain wall.
A gallery it was not, but the rooms still held some warmth from the previous occupant and at least the emptiness gave a solemnity which she knew collectors adored – perusing art being a serious endeavour.
Dearest Matilda had told them to make use of anything at hand, as after all, the Clod-skull had likely bought the contents with her dowry. So having come across a half-filled decanter in the boudoir, Evelyn had watered it down to brimming and placed it upon a side table inlaid with ivory satyrs cavorting with…more ivory satyrs.
She sighed and shoved vagrant curls beneath a hundred pins, closed her eyes and hoped that this companion portrait would find favour with the duke. A pair always carried more worth – whether silver candlesticks or silk slippers.
If that failed, her only wish was that one of the other invitees – hustled up through Flora’s contacts within the art world and more inclined to the risqué than the artistry – would make a lower offer.
Even ten pounds would help…
But the duke would pay more. Indeed, he had paid more for the painting he owned.
Enough to pay Filgrave, depart foggy London and breathe fresh country air, rent a small village cottage and start a business.
A mixture of despair and hope weighed for a moment that such a life could be within her grasp.
Last night, she’d not slept a wink: the moneylender’s silent shadow stalked her, Artemisia’s cough had returned worse than before and shouts from the ale-house had echoed as yet another brawl ensued.
A tight hug caught her unawares.
“No more glummy mugs,” scolded Flora. “Smile, Evie. You must act like you don’t give a brass button if it sells or not.” Evelyn endeavoured to curve her lips and bare her teeth. “Hmm, maybe not,” her friend murmured. “Now, don’t you fret. I’ll play maid – quite a common client request lately – and grab their stuff at the door, dump it on the table, keep m’gob shut, push ’em in here, keep the rum booze watered up and then you can befuddle them with yer fancy art talk.”
If only it were that easy.
Casper sternly instructed himself to act nonchalant, stay focused and keep his urges firmly in check as he climbed the steps to No 3.
The most important aspect to this event was to affirm whether the painting was genuine. And if not, did the real one exist at all?
Any…dalliance with Mrs Swift would have to wait until both issues had been concluded to his utmost satisfaction.
With thoughts strictly regimented, he clattered a doorknocker moulded in the shape of a scarcely clad mermaid.
This area, he knew, was mostly inhabited by well-paid mistresses and high-class courtesans – near enough to Mayfair for a quick tumble but far enough so that they didn’t bump into the wife. He’d also established that this house belonged to the missing-in-countryside Lord Astwood.
A suspicion that Mrs Swift could be that wastrel’s latest mistress oozed its way to the fore.
Well, time would tell.
Upon his swift knock, no pun intended, a maid answered the door. Casper recognised her angelic features from their first meeting at his townhouse and narrowed his eyes.
If she were a maid, then he was Byron.
Without so much as a curtsey, she snatched away his hat, gloves and cane to plonk them on the table with all the finesse of a pugilist.
“And yer jacket?”
“I beg your pardon?” She required him to disrobe? What had he ventured into?
“Oh lawks, do excuse me, Yer Grace. That’s me weekend job. Keep yer wrapping and follow me.”
Stalking down the hall after the insolent wench, he noted square, paler patches of blue on the walls denoting absent paintings, although the place appeared well kept, if a little chilly.
The maid opened a door, stood back and shooed him in, with no attempt whatsoever at an announcement.
Ahead, two men he vaguely knew from previous auctions were gathered around a frame on the wall, blocking his view. They murmured excitedly and he cursed for being late, but Ernest had not returned home last night and so he’d sent men on the hunt, finally finding him asleep on the floor at Prince’s hell – the lowlife one.
He surged forward but halted at a soft murmur. “Your Grace. So pleased you found the time.”
Malapert.
As decorum demanded of a gentleman, he turned.
Mrs Swift wore her hair in a simple arrangement but copper curls pinged out in wild disorder. Her gown today was…serviceable, plain grey and somewhat dusty at the hem, as though she’d been in the attics. White teeth bit on her lower rosy lip and he wished he were an artist, to capture her alabaster skin and many-coloured skeins of hair.
Yet a weariness beset her. Dark shadows plagued her eyes and her cheeks appeared thinner than three days previous. Was she eating? Or ill? Surely her circumstances were comfortable if she resided in this abode with Astwood paying the bills.
He grasped her proffered hand and bowed, the first instance that he’d held her ungloved fingers. They felt cold as marble, and downright perverted fantasies overtook him. To warm her hands betwixt his, to spoil her with venison braised in sherry, to remove the sorrowful expression in her eyes.
Foolish notions, as those lips lied every time she parted them, and as such, he should loathe the jade. He was unsure why he didn’t.
“Are you well, Mrs Swift?” he allowed himself to ask.
She tugged her hand away and glared. “Of course, Your Grace. Would you care for a drink before viewing the artwork?”
Not really, but nevertheless, he nodded and watched her pour.
Those fingers shook.
Why? Because she thought to sell him a false painting?
Both in his study and at the ball, she’d been full of impudent lip and brazen pluck, and he’d supposed Mrs Swift a tantalising coquette, but today that façade had waned and what he now witnessed fascinated him.
Deception, fragility and bravado.
Sampling the pale concoction, he just about managed to halt a contorted grimace through sheer willpower and eleven years at Eton. Gads, it tasted like the Thames at Rotherhithe.<
br />
The other two invitees – why so few? – abruptly turned and greeted him with sullen countenances. No wonder, as he’d beaten Harper and Lloyd to paintings before.
Lloyd approached Mrs Swift, drawing her aside.
And all of a sudden there it lay.
His heart pumped violently as he strode over, but he forced his gaze to ignore the richness of colour and commence at the lowermost portion of the portrait, as was his wont.
A signature. Familiar.
Upwards.
Silk skirts filled his vision – the very same which graced his own, brushstrokes rendered with delicacy, the material catching the light from an unseen window.
And the colour.
Only Sir Henry Pearce had painted with such depth of colour. Layers and layers of crimson rippled with slips of copper and poppy red, all melded to utter perfection.
Such lushness. Such expertise. Such life.
Upwards.
She posed, as in his portrait, and his pulse hammered as his eyes travelled, encountering waist and bosom – full and so real he could almost hear her breathe beside him.
Up.
The fingers of her right hand dallied at her neck, brushing the ribbon with an awkward innocence as if to ask, Should I loosen it? But knowing she must.
It was real. Everything about it was real, and he tightened his fists, daring to confront his defiant beauty at last.
Up.
His stomach dropped.
“Tasty morsel, isn’t she?”
“Pardon?” His gaze slipped to Harper, mind befuddled.
“You’ll doubtless outbid me for this one too, but I had to see it, and she’s exactly how I imagined.” Harper adjusted his grass-green pantaloons. “Look at that gleam in her eye – ready for a hard swiving and knows it, eh?”
Casper’s guts heaved and he switched his gaze once more.
Wrong. It had to be.
The woman who stared back did indeed have a knowing gleam to her eye – experienced and desirous. She was pretty, of that there was no doubt, but this woman had not seen innocence for many a year. Her chin was not stubborn or determined but curved and…normal, her cheekbones harsh, lips sensual and rouged, eyelashes tipped with charcoal.
Wrong.
It was all wrong and yet…
He peered closer. The brushstrokes were quintessential Sir Henry. The way he dragged the palette knife in certain areas, the light hitting her skin just so. The quicker-drying walnut oil had been used for her flesh rather than linseed which left a yellow tinge. It all fitted but…
Thrusting a hand through his hair, he compelled his gaze to the background of the painting. As in his own, the room lay bare except for a bed, the sheets rumpled, coins lying upon a table.
All perfect except…
His eyes flitted back to her face; had it been painted years later, mayhap? When life had cut away her candour.
Or had he imagined a demeanour in his own painting that existed not? Had his desires conjured up all else. He closed his eyes, visualised the defiant beauty in his study – her reticence, her fortitude.
Opening them once more, the first feature that struck him were the curled fingers at her throat – shy but resolute.
Perfect.
And then he stared into her brown eyes.
“This isn’t her.”
“Nonsense.” The voice startled him; he’d forgotten Harper. “Course it is. What are you talking about? Blowsy dress and sluttish hair. I remember your painting well, all that naked skin and–”
“Leave.”
“I beg your pardon.”
Casper twisted. “Leave now, Harper, unless you wish the world to know the Jean-Baptiste painting, which you proudly display to all and sundry, is the work of John Bog from Pentonville.”
“I-I…” he spluttered, but Casper merely smiled, which frightened the toad yet more.
“And take Lloyd with you,” Casper snarled. “You’re both out of your depth.”
With a gulp, the man scuttled off, grabbing his companion on his way to the door.
Tension and anger roiled within Casper, seething and fierce. He sensed, rather than saw, Mrs Swift arrive to stand at his side.
“I hope,” she enunciated crisply, “that you plan to purchase it, since you have frightened off my other invitees.”
Casper stilled.
He knew not what this picture meant or what had come to pass.
But oh, Mrs Swift, deceiving a duke had consequences.
Chapter 12
Every picture tells a tale.
The tremor in Evelyn’s toes inched its way upwards, gnawed at her stomach, tingled her chest and then expanded in her throat till she could scarcely breathe.
His Grace stood so motionless and silent.
Whilst Mr Lloyd Esquire had been wittering on about paints, she had endeavoured to keep an eye on Rothwell, but his back had remained rigid, and only when he’d twisted to Mr Harper had she noticed an expression of confusion.
Why?
And then the two invitees had scuttled away as though Beelzebub and all his goblins were nipping at their heels.
Turmoil beset her.
Mr Harper had appeared enamoured enough, would surely pay a small sum yet…
The duke stared ahead, lips thinned, but emotion exuded from him. She could only hope in either satisfaction or pleasure.
“Tell me, Mrs Swift. What title does this painting hold?”
She frowned. “You know it already, Your Grace. The Fall of Innocence Unveiled.”
“And yet this woman captures only the corruption and downfall. No innocence.”
“Do…do you not like it?” Cold fear struck her.
A murmur and he peered closer, tapping a button on his fine waistcoat. “It is artistically perfect with all of Sir Henry Pearce’s talent and colour combined in one painting.”
Evelyn sighed in relief. Thank the heav–
“But it is not The Fall of Innocence Unveiled, is it, Mrs Swift?”
And he tilted his head to gaze at her.
Sod, sod, sod…and sod.
Because Rothwell’s countenance held such turbulent anger.
It rippled beneath his skin as though fighting to unleash itself.
She straightened her shoulders, pictured Filgrave’s dirty fingernails and his threat to whore out her sister. She would not be cowed.
“I do not understand, Your Grace. You acknowledge it as Sir Henry Pearce’s work and yet not? Are you saying he did not have a hand in it?” An odd desperation tinged the air.
“I did not say that. I say this is not the young woman of my painting. Therefore, this work is not its twin.”
“But, s-she wears the red dress and the background, how can you–”
“The girl in my painting retains an air of innocence despite her downfall. She is bold yet shy, innocent yet aware. Can you say those eyes portray such?”
Evelyn did not wish to look because she knew the answer. Maisie was beautiful but shyness and innocence had long been eroded, first behind the tangible walls of Newgate clink and then the invisible walls of the Rookery, and all before she’d aged double figures.
“Perhaps Sir Henry wished to portray her at a different stage of life.”
“Oh, you can do better than that, Mrs Swift.” A bare finger tipped her chin and dread raced in her heart. “Look at me,” he demanded, “and tell me this is the face of the girl in my painting.”
The tone brooked no argument, and although she did not believe for one moment that Rothwell would ever raise his hand to a lady, she was, nevertheless, alone with one exceedingly irate duke.
So she stared into his cravat, noted another huge diamond the size of a quail’s egg, inched her gaze to his clenched clean-shaven jaw, to lips pressed firm, and finally to his eyes, hard as glittering sapphires…
He could have her arrested, thrown into Newgate. And the whole plan now seemed so very, very foolish.
But then, what choice had there been?<
br />
Momentarily, she closed her eyes, then opened them to his. The sapphire had deepened, his pupils dilating.
“I witnessed Sir Henry Pearce commence this work,” she whispered before biting her lip. Not an utter lie.
He leaned close, head dipping. Clove and rich linen. “I thought it was your husband that knew the artist; what was his name? Ah yes, Reuben. I thought Reuben was his friend?”
Oh, how she despised that fictitious Reuben and the heap of lies that had tripped her like a tree root and twisted her words. “I…”
His hand cupped her chin, then slid to her cheek.
“Or were you acquainted with Sir Henry in an entirely different capacity? You’re young but artists are open to temptation.” The words purred from his mouth, that sinful voice of gravel raking her senses. “Did you fall from grace? Was this for services rendered?” His lips brushed her ear. “Does the real painting exist?” He nipped her lobe. “And who are you, Mrs Swift?”
Roiling in hurt at his accusation, a voracious urge to tell all swathed her, to fall upon his mercy. But all she’d read about him from the broadsheet columns did not convey a merciful gentleman. He’d beggared a neighbouring lord, remained ruthless in business dealings.
Yes, he’d seemed to enjoy their flirtatious encounters thus far but all that was clearly at an end.
The only recourse was to disappear, to let Mrs Swift vanish into the cold spring air and bury Reuben forever.
Mayhap, they could flee the city earlier than planned, though all her savings had been spent on this little charade.
They could move lodgings again, but Filgrave had more eyes on the streets than London had signposts. She could beg the moneylender for more time, but his reputation was worse than the duke’s, and she’d be damned if he would ever get his clutches on Artemisia.
What was she to do? And she quivered.
“You tremble, Mrs Swift. In fear of me? I am indeed exceedingly…cross.”
If this passed for cross, she’d hate to see furious as his mouth began to trace her cheek, endeavouring perhaps to seduce the answers from her. She turned, denying him the pleasure.
The Duke of Diamonds (The Games of Gentlemen Book 1) Page 8