“Mrs. Finchley left a card just yesterday,” de Beauharnais said. “I’m to call on her.”
Richard peered very closely at the brushwork that constituted the subject’s powdered wig in the “Shackleton” portrait. Shackleton, a court painter in the previous century, had been a conservative talent, happy to paint within the conventions of his day. For the most part, de Beauharnais had copied Shackleton’s style quite well, though the brushwork was just a touch too extravagant—too modern—for perfection.
Not that the buyer would notice.
“Mrs. Finchley is a highly social creature,” Richard said, studying the signature again. “Her daughters will make their come outs just as next year’s Summer Exhibition opens. Choose a study of her twins as your submission to the exhibit, and you will find more commissions readily in hand.”
“The signature’s perfect, Longacre. You need not pretend otherwise.”
“The whole work is exquisite,” Richard said, examining the embroidery on the subject’s ornate frock coat. “Utterly impressive, de Beauharnais. You truly do have a gift.”
He would render a likeness of the Finchley twins that would convey whatever lovely qualities they had without unduly obscuring their imperfections. Of all the ironies, de Beauharnais was an honest, compassionate portraitist.
“I have a gift,” de Beauharnais replied, beginning a circuit of the library, “but I do not have money. The Finchley commission is all well and good, but it’s not sovereigns in hand. Town has emptied out for the summer, and you’ve yet to pay me for yonder general.”
The general was a great-uncle to a wealthy maiden lady dwelling in the north. When Richard had informed her that a long-lost Shackleton portrait of her great-uncle had been unearthed in a late friend’s effects, she had been more than willing to pay for such a treasure. The friend’s effects had, in fact, included a workmanlike portrait of the old fellow done by some obscure hand. De Beauharnais’s forgery was thus an exercise in copying content from one source and style from another.
And he had executed that challenge brilliantly.
“I will pay you, my friend. You are pockets to let?” Richard asked, shifting to study the rings on the general’s hand.
“I am perpetually pockets to let, and you know it. London is too bloody expensive, and appearances must be maintained.”
That, they did. “I do have another little project, if you’re interested.”
De Beauharnais held his drink up to the window light. “Not another Shackleton, pray God.”
“Something more modern, something I won’t have to put in an old frame. A painting that will allow your talent a greater chance to shine.”
De Beauharnais paused before the portrait Dirk Channing had done of his young daughter, Catherine. The painting had been a gift to Richard, perhaps an apology. The girl was about eight, a darling, smiling little child climbing onto the lap of a mother who’d already gone to her reward at the time the painting had been finished.
The mother was present mostly in shadow, her skirts evident, not her features. She grasped the climbing child with graceful hands, and the little girl was ecstatic to be scrambling up into her mother’s embrace.
Perhaps Channing had been unable to look upon the thing.
“You want me to copy this?” de Beauharnais asked, peering at the signature.
“Dirk Channing was talented,” Richard said, putting the quizzing glass in his pocket and joining de Beauharnais before the portrait. “Channing was not an old man when he died, alas. I have several of his better works.”
“Channing is barely cold in his grave, Longacre. I knew him, I attended his funeral. Copying a Channing isn’t like copying some relic from the last century.”
The token show of reluctance was part of de Beauharnais’s dance. Perhaps Tolliver found that appealing in bed. Richard found it tiresome.
“You are certainly free to decline my business at any time,” Richard said. “I understand your reservations, and I know I am fortunate to be able to call upon you.”
Just as de Beauharnais was fortunate not to be in Newgate awaiting the hangman’s kind attentions. Forgery was a felony, and nobody back at Hogtrot Hall was of sufficient standing to intercede for de Beauharnais should he be taken up by the magistrate for forgery—or for buggery.
Such charges were nearly impossible to prove without witnesses. One of the participants had to confess to the deed, and confession itself could result in a death sentence. Fortunately, the scandal of the charges alone would be ruinous.
Fortunately for Richard.
“Replicating Channing’s style will take considerable skill,” de Beauharnais said, “considerable effort. He was said to ruin his brushes in a single session, some of them sable and quite dear, and he was fanatical about details—as you are, de Beauharnais. You attended Dirk’s funeral.” Half the extant artists in the realm had. “I have a work I’d like you to study in detail before you begin, but you doubtless saw other examples of Channing’s art when at his home.”
“I was a guest at Merlin Hall on two occasions, a protégé of sorts. Channing was happy to instruct those who had ability, and all he required in return was adoration and flattery. At the time, I was eager to provide both, particularly when I was also receiving free meals and a comfortable guest bed.”
“Then you’ve met Channing’s widow?”
De Beauharnais studied Richard as closely as he’d been examining Channing’s rendering of a child’s smile.
“Mrs. Channing was substantially younger than her husband, and prettier than she knew. I liked her, but I was merely one of a regiment of houseguests, and she was taken up with making Channing’s life exactly as he wished it to be.”
“She’s still pretty,” Richard said. “Prettier than ever. Channing called her his maid of the shires, but she had another side, not so maidenly. Did you know she modeled for Channing?”
De Beauharnais took a considering sip of his brandy, then put the drink down unfinished on the desk. “I suppose modeling is a cross an artist’s wife must bear, particularly if she’s attractive.”
“Verity Channing is beautiful, but she also had a delightfully naughty streak, though is it naughty if a man is painting nudes of his own wife?”
“You want me to paint a nude of Verity Channing?”
“Nudes—plural. Channing did a whole series of nudes earlier in his career—I have one you should inspect—and Mrs. Channing doubtless came in for the same thorough study on his part.”
De Beauharnais considered the painting on the wall, then consulted his watch, a plain little piece that had doubtless been given to him by some doting auntie.
“Such a painting will cost you, Longacre. Cost you enough that I needn’t accept another of your projects ever again. They are beneath my talent, in the first place, and in the second, you have graduated from taking modest advantage of some old beldame with a work purporting to be from a bygone era, to ruining a young widow who never did anything to harm you.”
“You don’t know that,” Richard said. “You don’t know how Verity Channing has comported herself, toward me or toward anybody else. She’s a jumped-up dairy maid who got her hooks into Dirk and will be comfortably situated into old age for her efforts.”
De Beauharnais snapped his watch closed. “Isn’t that precisely what women are taught to do? Find a fellow and make the best possible life with him, hoping all the while that his babies don’t kill her? I rather admire the ladies for their courage, fellows in general being an unreliable and difficult lot.”
“You don’t even like women. Stop being contrary.”
“I like women quite well, better than I like most men.” His gaze went to the happy child, who’d been half orphaned as Dirk had painted her likeness. “Pay me for the general.”
Richard opened the desk drawer and counted out the agreed-upon sum plus a bit more. One could be generous in victory.
“I will cheerfully part with five times that amount if you can comp
lete the Channing study in two weeks’ time. That will be enough to tide you over for the rest of the year, and I promise the Finchley referral won’t be the last I send in your direction.”
De Beauharnais slipped the coins into an inner coat pocket. “Before I agree to this project, explain exactly what you want me to do.”
“The objective is simple, almost beneath your talent. I have a nude Channing did of his favorite model, a woman named Anna Beaumont. The work is lovely, semi-erotic, and exquisitely rendered. You simply substitute Verity Channing for Anna Beaumont.”
“Your mother was a Beaumont. Was this Anna a relation?”
“My cousin. I introduced her to Dirk, in fact. Come, I’ll show you the study, and you can let me know what you think.”
Chapter Nine
For Vera, the hours had developed leaden feet, putting her oddly in mind of her wedding day. She was to take a lover, a notion that would have astonished her prior to meeting Oak Dorning. A soft tap on the bedroom door nearly startled her out of her slippers, so immersed was she in contemplation of what was to come.
“Come in.”
Oak opened the door and remained at the threshold. “Am I too early?”
Vera took a moment to behold the sheer masculine wonder of him. At Merlin Hall, the evening meal was informal, and thus Oak was in his usual garb—breeches, waistcoat, jacket, cravat. He might have been a country squire ending a long summer day. His collar was without starch, his cravat without lace. His boots were serviceably clean rather than gleaming with the champagne polish favored by Town dandies.
You do not belong in London. Vera knew the London art crowd. She’d seen them fawning over Dirk like flies swarming over rotting fruit, each sycophant more elegant and witty than the next. Most of them had smiled through their lies and wielded more talent with an insult than with a paintbrush.
They had competed in their attempts to insult her whenever Dirk was out of earshot, and when she’d complained to Dirk, he’d patted her hand and told her not to take offense at a jest.
“Your timing is perfect,” she said, meaning the words in a larger sense. In another year, she might have resigned herself to solitary widowhood. A year earlier, and misplaced loyalty to Dirk’s memory would have prevented her from enjoying this moment.
Oak closed the door, his movements unhurried. “You said earlier today that the pause of this past week was enjoyable for you. That you liked being cosseted a bit.”
The day had grown chilly, then rain had moved in. Vera’s hearth thus held a fire. Oak put aside the screen and began poking air into the desultory blaze.
“I did like the cosseting, and I liked cosseting you too.”
He straightened and set the poker back on the hearth stand. “I hope I haven’t imposed.”
Vera slipped her arms around his waist and leaned against him. “Dirk wanted attention. You enjoy companionship. The two needs are very different. I was happy to attend my husband, and now, your companionship is also a joy.”
His arms came around her, and Vera tucked closer. Oak wasn’t aroused, not evenly slightly, which she was probably not meant to notice.
“Are you having second thoughts, Oak?”
“If there’s a child…”
She was pleased he’d acknowledge the risk. “I will tell you, of course, and I will not require that you marry me.” Would it be so bad, though, to be married to her? Merlin Hall was a comfortable home, the children adored Oak, and even old Bracken seemed to be thawing toward him.
“I will require that I marry you. No offspring of mine will suffer the needless stigma of illegitimacy, and I would never leave you to raise yet another child on your own.”
That was a stirring declaration… of duty, and some of Vera’s hopes for the evening deflated. She wanted this liaison with Oak to be more than a tawdry tumble, and perhaps it was, but the unromantic realities were intruding anyway.
A forced marriage was nothing to look forward to.
“I am not likely to conceive this soon after my courses. When Alexander was born, the midwife had a very blunt conversation with me and an equally blunt conversation with Dirk.” Vera eased away enough to untie Oak’s cravat. “I suspect my mother, had she survived, would have had those discussions with me prior to my wedding.”
She slid the cloth from around his neck and began unbuttoning his waistcoat. She’d been Dirk’s valet, and he her lady’s maid, as was typical of couples of modest station. Those marital courtesies had never taken on sexual overtones.
The sight of Oak in her bedroom after dark, the warmth of his body heat beneath Vera’s palm, felt anything but courteous.
“Don’t stop,” he said. “I’m not shy.”
She knew that about him, knew him to be entirely comfortable in his own skin. “I am shy, you daft man. Dirk liked that about me. I do not like it about myself.”
And why was Dirk’s ghost choosing now to haunt her? To make every word spoken and gesture exchanged a comparison with a mostly happy marriage fading into obscure memory?
“You are modest,” Oak said, drawing a pin from her hair. “You are not shy, any more than lavender is the same shade as pink. They are both soft, lovely colors, but quite distinct.” He held the pin up, so the firelight caught the gleam of onyx, then slipped the pin into his pocket. “Let me take down your hair.”
Vera settled on the stool before her vanity, glad that Oak was for once not being so polite. He’d brushed out her hair several times previously, but tonight he stopped halfway through the job and pressed his lips to her nape.
“The scent of you here is like a winter sunset, brilliant hues that portend approaching night.”
She shivered, though Oak’s hands on her shoulders were warm. Her hair was half up and half down, and the mirror reflected a wanton creature who bore no resemblance to a staid widow.
The luminous, exotic woman in the mirror frightened Vera a little, and intrigued her too.
Oak gathered a skein of her hair and tipped her head back—she watched him do that in the mirror, watched his hand wrap itself in her hair. He commenced a voluptuous spree of kissing that included her mouth, her eyelids, her brow, her throat, and the ticklish place below her ear.
At some point in the midst of this bouquet of kisses, he slid a hand between her dressing gown and her nightgown and palmed her breast. That single caress, and the gentle pressure to her nipple that followed it, sent sensation rampaging through her.
When Oak desisted, Vera leaned against the hard column of his thigh, her heart thumping, her body abuzz while he stroked her hair.
So this is desire. This roaring bodily need, this desperate yearning of the heart. Vera had desired her husband, but not like this. God in heaven, not like this.
And this was Oak Dorning too. The polite sketcher of domestic scenes was nowhere to be found, replaced by the artist rendering uncompromising truth with a storm of color and passion. The artist lurked behind the gentleman’s fine tailoring and exquisite manners most of the time, but the artist would join Vera in her bed, and she rejoiced to meet him there.
“I need a braid,” she managed, drawing her unbound hair over her shoulder. “My hair becomes a disaster without a braid.”
Oak backed away from the vanity, and Vera felt as if her every prop and stay had been taken from her. Simply sitting on a padded stool took effort as she watched Oak shrug from his jacket and waistcoat, then undo his cuffs and pull his shirt over his head.
“Lock the door, Vera. I locked the parlor door, but the bedroom door should be locked too.”
“Finish undressing. Then I’ll lock the door.” For she refused to miss a moment of his unveiling.
He braced his hips against the clothes press and pulled off his boots and stockings. Vera had never envied her husband his ability to paint, but oh, she longed to capture the image of Oak clad in only his breeches. His musculature was as heroic as any Canova masterpiece, from tanned arms to flat belly and all across a chest sprinkled with dark hair.
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He stood and looked right at her as he undid the buttons of his breeches, then he let the flap of fabric fall open as it was designed to do.
He was aroused now. He was gloriously, unabashedly aroused. The male endowments Vera had seen on Greek statues and painted in the classical nudes hadn’t a hint of the grandeur of Oak Dorning possessed in anticipation of lovemaking.
He let her stare, then stepped out of his breeches and draped them on the clothes press. He walked past Vera to flick the lock on the bedroom door, then extended a hand to her.
“You are overdressed for the occasion, Verity.”
“You want me naked?”
“Do I ever.”
But I always wore my nightgown with Dirk. She kept that inanity behind her teeth. Dirk was dead and gone. For the first time since losing him, she could regard his death as not entirely a sorrow. He’d had a fine life, made great art, and had many friends. She’d been lucky to be his wife.
But her life had not ended with his passing. Not nearly.
Oak watched her, his smile patient, as if he knew exactly what he asked of her.
“Braid my hair, please,” she said. “Then you will assist me to disrobe.” Never before had she given orders in the bedroom, though why not? Why not state what she needed and desired, the better to see those needs met?
Oak made short work of tidying up her hair, and then she was standing beside the bed as he unbelted her dressing gown and drew it from her shoulders.
“The nightgown, too, Vera. I wouldn’t want it to get torn.”
“Torn?”
He gathered up the two sides of her décolletage in his fists. “Rent asunder and flung who knows where.”
Like my wits. “No tearing needed. Would you see to the candles?”
“Soon.” He hung the dressing gown over its customary hook on the bedpost. “I want to see you. I want to know the shade of your breasts by firelight—rose alabaster, perhaps. I want to see the curve of your hip and learn the exact line of your belly as it flows down to your mons. I want to know if your second toe is longer than the first and which hip is higher.”
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