They could not enter without disturbing the performance, so they listened from the terrace. The music touched Emma deeply. It plucked at her composure until she could not resist the way it moved her. The notes seemed to become part of the breeze, and form a web of sentiment between her and the man at her side.
She closed her eyes, so only the music would affect her senses. She knew Southwaite did too. They stood there in the night while the music spoke to their souls. She sensed how they shared this as surely as she felt his warmth.
It was not a long piece. Silence held for a few moments when it was over, then accolades rang in the exhibition hall. Emma opened her eyes, and realized that her hand was held by Southwaite.
“He is technically as proficient as anyone. He never misses a note.” Southwaite’s voice came gruffly. He made a little cough to clear it.
“It was not technical expertise alone that produced such sound. He is a magnificent musician in every way.”
“So women say. Men do not notice the sentimental effects as much.”
Cassandra descended on her as soon as they rejoined the party, and pulled her away from Southwaite. “What a triumph, Emma. It will be all the talk tomorrow. Why did you not tell me of this entertainment when I expressed concerns that you had not hired enough musicians?”
“I kept no secret from you. I am as surprised as you are. Perhaps he thought the count’s collection deserved a special homage.”
Emma sought Ambury’s blue eyes in the crowd, and went to him to express her gratitude.
Southwaite had probably pressed his friend into this. Like Cassandra, he had known it would be all the talk tomorrow. Which meant that the auction itself would be on everyone’s lips too.
He was ensuring Fairbourne’s success in every way he could. When it was done, she will have arranged and managed one of the most illustrious auctions in Fairbourne’s history. It would be a triumph to remember for the rest of her life.
She could not ignore, however, that Southwaite’s motivations were not all pure kindness. He might be giving her this one great victory and wonderful memory because he still intended there to be no others.
Chapter 23
Darius watched two men carefully remove the Titian from the wall and hand it down to two others. Once it was propped on the floor, Mr. Nightingale moved in with his journal. He marked the buyer’s name on the back.
“Leave it here,” he instructed. “It is too large for the worktables, and we will box it where it stands for delivery.” He gestured to the Guardi. “That one next, and it also must remain here in the hall.”
Darius left Mr. Nightingale to finish one other task that he clearly did very well. He walked into the office.
Herr Werner sat there, frowning. His expression probably had to do with Emma’s presence in Maurice Fairbourne’s chair. She scribbled furiously on a sheet of paper, all the while consulting her notes from the auction.
“Lord Southwaite,” he said, jumping to his feet. “Thank goodness you are still here. This woman—” He gestured with an agitated hand at Emma.
“She is unnaturally sharp with figures, Herr Werner,” Darius soothed. “I have confidence that you will find her calculations clear and precise when you check them yourself.”
Herr Werner looked down at his catalogue, and seemed reassured. Emma kept scribbling. Finally she sat back in the chair.
“Herr Werner, most of the purchase money will arrive tomorrow. Solicitors will bring it, and other agents of our patrons. We do not expect them to carry such amounts with them when they attend auctions here.” She pointed to a high stack of banknotes. “However, some did pay at once, for items of smaller value. The drawings, for example. Much of the silver. Here is the amount on hand now. I will give you part of what is due you tonight, based on your percentage for those paid for items that you consigned.”
Werner did not like her logic. Since he had consigned very few items of small value, the amount to be handed over to him would be minimal.
She gave him her figures and he scrutinized the columns. “The rest will be here tomorrow, you say?”
“Two days hence at the latest.”
“And if someone does not pay?”
“He will not receive the painting. Fairbourne’s does not extend credit. Is that not so, Lord Southwaite?”
“That is correct, Herr Werner. Fairbourne’s is very strict about payments. Even from me.”
Emma counted out three stacks of banknotes, and handed him the smallest.
“I will leave the guards here until all is settled,” he said by way of farewell.
With his departure, Emma exhaled a deep sigh and closed her eyes. She appeared distant and exhausted. It had been a trying few weeks for her. During the last four days Darius knew she had all but lived at the auction house, preparing for the party and sale.
“Congratulations are due, Emma. Fairbourne’s will be long remembered for today’s auction.”
She opened her eyes. No longer distant, and anything but tired in appearance, she smiled broadly. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
“Very good. Impressive. As smooth as the best-rehearsed opera.”
“Did you see that crowd? We did not have enough chairs. Mr. Nightingale reported he counted more than three hundred.” She flushed with excitement. “And the bids! Cassandra is in heaven over what her jewels brought. The drawings went for much more than I expected, and I cannot believe that the Duke of Penthurst paid so much for your Guardi. That was the biggest surprise of the day.”
“He has always admired it.” It had been the surprise of the day for Darius; that was certain. He hoped Penthurst had not purchased it out of nostalgia for better times between them. They had been together in Venice during their grand tours, and Guardi’s view of St. Mark’s Square captured nuanced impressions of that experience. “Fortunately, his pursuit of it distracted him from the Raphael.”
“I am glad that is going to you, Southwaite. The man who consigned it will be very glad to know it will have such a worthy home.”
Still smiling, and restless in her happiness, she stood. She pointed at one of the stacks of banknotes. “That is yours.” She picked up the other and began stuffing it into her reticule.
He eyed his stack, then picked up the accounting she had given to Herr Werner. “This is not clear in naming the costs.”
“Of course it is.” She came around the desk and pointed at the figures. “See here. This is the auction’s total, but these down here address the amounts received today. This is Fairbourne’s costs and payouts, and this—”
“I do not understand the need for some of these expenses. The amounts are very large.” He folded the accounting. “There is much to discuss here, Emma.”
She groaned, audibly. “I will sit and explain every line to you, but not right now, please. I want to store this money safely in my house, then celebrate how brilliant I was today.”
“You should not do either alone. Are you done here? Can you leave the rest to Nightingale and Riggles? Good. I will call for my carriage.”
Southwaite ushered Emma out of the auction house with a surprising lack of ceremony. In no time at all she found herself in his carriage with her bulging reticule on her lap. He climbed in and sat across from her. She stuck her face to the window. “Mr. Dillon—”
“I just sent him home. I will see you returned to your house once matters are settled between us.”
He was still curious about the accounting. She knew why. She just did not want to match wits with him over it now. “What is to settle? I calculated everything on the assumption that you were to get half.” She held out her hands. “All done.”
He gazed at her reticule. She had stuffed in so much money that it would not even close properly. It looked like a fattened chicken.
“Were you going to ride home with that much money with no more than your coachman as an escort?”
“Mr. Dillon is capable of protecting me. Nor are there highwaymen on the streets of Lond
on.”
“There must be at least a thousand pounds there. A member of your staff could have told a friend to lie in wait. That reticule would be far gone before Mr. Dillon even climbed down from his perch.”
“That would never happen.”
“It won’t now, since I am here.”
It was thoughtful of him to offer protection, but she suspected that his fascination with her reticule had nothing to do with thieves. He had noticed that her stack of banknotes had far exceeded his own in height; that was all. He wondered to whom all that extra money would be going. Perhaps he even thought that payments for consignments of smuggled goods were included. If so, he would be right.
She decided it would be best to immediately tell him about Marielle Lyon’s twenty percent, and Cassandra’s ten, and her decision to put off paying him for the first auction until she received all the money from this one. All of that might keep him from probing too deeply on what else was in her reticule and why.
“Let us go to the park and take a turn and I will explain the accounting while we walk,” she said.
“I do not think a park is the appropriate place.”
She leaned toward him and whispered. “I will talk very softly like this and no one will ever know that our conversation is about something as terrible as money.”
“There is a successful auction to celebrate, Emma, and we cannot do that in the park. Far better if we go to my house, where we can enjoy both discretion and comfort while we congratulate each other.”
She looked at him. He looked right back.
“Southwaite, are you being sly? Are you just trying to get me alone?”
“Absolutely, but you have nothing to fear. Your formidable resistance should protect you from me if seduction enters my mind.” He smiled. “I have no suspicious, ulterior motives today, however. I want to toast you and praise you, as you deserve.”
Emma viewed the façade of Southwaite’s townhome with some trepidation. The last time she had entered one of his properties, she had ended up naked in the middle of a ballroom.
He claimed he had no ulterior motives, however. He had not even tried to kiss her in the carriage.
He brought her to the library, a vast comfortable room on the second level that overlooked a charming side garden. A dark-haired woman sat near those windows, reading a book. She did not even look up from her page when they entered.
Southwaite excused himself and went over to her. He said a few words and the woman looked down the chamber at Emma. Face expressionless and eyes as opaque as an iron door, she rose and accompanied him back to where Emma stood.
Southwaite introduced her as his sister, Lydia. The family resemblance was obvious in the dark hair and even more in the form of their eyes. However, while Southwaite’s normally showed something of his inner self, Lydia’s revealed…nothing much at all.
“Will you be good enough to sit with Miss Fairbourne while I speak with the steward about ferreting out the wine cellar’s best champagne, Lydia? It should only be a short while.”
Lydia nodded. Southwaite left the library.
Emma and Lydia sat on two divans that faced each other. Emma smiled. Lydia did not. Silence reigned. Lydia regarded Emma but made no attempt to do more than she had been asked by her brother.
“The day is fair, is it not?” Emma asked.
“Most fair,” Lydia said.
More silence. “This is a handsome library.”
“I like it well enough.”
Emma made a few more efforts. For each she received the minimal response and no effort in return.
“I think that your brother assumed you would not mind company,” Emma finally said. “He erred, did he not?”
“I do not mind company as such. I merely do not like idle conversation. I say very little, because it is more polite than speaking most of the time.”
“I doubt anything you say could be less polite than making no conversation at all.”
Lydia’s eyebrows rose. Depths formed in her eyes, as if a soul had just been breathed into her body. “I dare not share my thoughts most of the time, because they are almost never proper enough for polite discourse.”
“Nor are mine. That does not stop me. I believe that plain speaking can often save one much misunderstanding and time.”
Lydia found that amusing. Little lights danced in her eyes. “Should I speak plainly and tell you what I am thinking? You must promise not to tell my brother.”
“I promise.”
Lydia glanced to the door, as if expecting Southwaite to fly in and smite her. “I am wondering if he brought you here to seduce you.”
Emma did not know if appearing shocked or blasé would acquit her better. She believed in plain speaking, but not about this.
“Of course he didn’t. He seeks only a business discussion with me.”
Lydia frowned. She picked absently at the white fabric of her dress while she gazed at her lap. “That is disappointing. I had rather counted on him seducing you today. The mention of champagne—” She shrugged.
“He does that often, does he? Bring women home to seduce them?”
“Oh, never. He does that somewhere else. I live here, and he would never scandalize me that way.”
“Then history says I am safe, am I not?”
“I expect so. What a nuisance.” She looked up. “I do not suppose you would consider seducing him instead?”
“I would not want to scandalize you either.”
“I would not mind. Truly. I am two and twenty, and am almost never scandalized anymore, least of all by my brother’s affairs.”
More silence. It had been an odd conversation. Emma had difficulty swallowing her curiosity about just how peculiar it had been.
“Why did you even think he had those intentions?” she asked.
“He has been too interested in that auction house. He invested on a collector’s whim, like a boy buys a toy, and now it is troublesome to him. He feels obligated to make conversation if we have a meal together, and recently I have heard a lot of Miss Fairbourne this and Miss Fairbourne that. I assumed he had some fascination and, being a man, he would do what men are wont to do when they are fascinated.”
“I am flattered that he spoke well of me to you.”
“Oh, no. He didn’t. Not at all. It was never the wonderful Miss Fairbourne. More the annoying Miss Fairbourne and the exasperating Miss Fairbourne.”
“Do tell.” Emma could not help but laugh.
Lydia laughed too. “He was so beside himself with astonishment at your refusal to conform to his will regarding that business that I almost fell in love with you.” She giggled. “‘The woman is impossible,’” she mimicked, matching Southwaite’s voice quite well. “‘Negotiating with ten men would be easier.’”
Emma laughed hard at Lydia’s imitation. She wiped tears from her eyes. “If he was so critical, why would you think he might seduce me?”
“It was the paintings. When he had them taken down the other day, to put in the auction, I thought perhaps he favored the exasperating Miss Fairbourne and wanted to impress her. So I made some plans on the assumption that when that auction was done, he would seduce you.” She made a face. “All in vain, though.”
“I am sorry. I hope that your plans can be rearranged.”
Lydia shook her head. “I do not think so. I am doomed to a life of boring parties with dull people. My brother never lets me be friends with the interesting ones.”
The door opened and the brother in question reappeared then. Lydia cast Emma one more lively, conspiratorial look, then put her mask back on.
Darius paused outside the door of the library. The sound coming from within halted him in mid-step with his hand already on the latch.
Laughter. Feminine peals of joy. Emma’s laugh sounded hearty and loud, but a softer, more delicate one wove in and out of its notes.
He resisted the impulse to stride in. He had not heard or seen Lydia laugh in a very long time. Even her smiles were
halfhearted, and at best private reactions to personal thoughts. At worst they were the calculated stage business of an actress forced to play a part for which she had no sympathy.
The sound died away. He waited, lest he interrupt a moment that his sister might be enjoying. He heard the distant drone of conversation, but no more chortles or guffaws penetrated the door.
When he entered the library, merriment could still be seen in Emma’s eyes. Lydia, however, showed no humor at all. Or any other emotion. As always.
It delighted him that Lydia had found secret enjoyment in Emma’s company. He would make sure that they spent time together in the future. But not today.
“Miss Fairbourne, will you excuse me for a few minutes more? I need to speak to my sister.”
Emma cradled that fat reticule on her lap while Lydia took her leave.
Darius brought Lydia outside the library. She gazed up at him blankly.
“Aunt Hortense has written to me,” he explained. “She claims the Season has exhausted her. Her headaches have returned and she wants to retreat from town for a spell. She asks to go to Crownhill for a few days.”
“I suppose the sea air might help her.”
“She also asks that you accompany her. You have been wanting to go down to Kent, so I thought you might agree to it.”
“It will be dreadful with her there too. When I spoke of a companion, I meant someone more my age. Aunt Hortense will treat me like a child, and want to know what I am doing every minute.”
Which was exactly why Aunt Hortense would be the ideal companion. “At least she will let you ride. It will not be as bad as if it were Aunt Amelia.”
“That is true.” She made an indifferent shrug. “It will be boring, but at least a different boring. I suppose I will go.”
“She plans to leave at dawn. Have your maid pack and I will call for the carriage. You can stay with Aunt Hortense tonight so her departure tomorrow is not delayed.”
“That would make great sense. You are sure that you will not need me here, to help with Miss Fairbourne?”
The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne Page 22