“Aunt Gertrude,” she whispered. The mirror slipped from her fingers and thudded on the Persian carpet, a nasty crack cut across its surface.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s not right.” She pointed to her Italian sister. “This woman is not my aunt. That’s the Rialto Bridge, for God’s sake. In Venice! No one in my family has ever left Great Britain.”
“He could have copied the bridge from another painting or illustration. Look at the model.” He moved his hand over the painted woman. “See the detail in her face and arms, yet the bridge is in the background, blurred in the lights.”
She turned away from him, refusing to consider his hypothesis.
“What if Adele Jenkinson knows about these sketches or that your aunt was a model for Lawrence James?” he continued, speaking to her back.
She spun around. “Do you know how ridiculous you sound?” She flung her arms up. “So what if this painting and these sketches look like me. It’s a coincidence. My aunt would never—” She stopped. Her eyes widened. “Oh God. Oh God,” she whispered and pressed her hand to her mouth.
He forgot his promise not to touch her and swept a stray tendril from her forehead. “What is it?”
“On the way home from church, Aunt Gertrude said that I didn’t understand the ways of an evil man. I assumed she was speaking of you.”
He smiled, letting his finger trail down her neck. “Of course.”
“She said that such a man makes everything seem like a game while all the time he has designs on your virtue. It struck me as a bit peculiar how she said it, not so much the words, but a familiarity in her voice. As if she had known such a man. Yet when I asked her about Uncle Jeremiah, she flew into a rage about what a wonderful man he was and how he had never sinned in his life.” Her eyes found his. “Do you think it is possible—”
“That there may have been a man before Jeremiah? Absolutely. I know from experience that genteel ladies are not the sinless creatures that our favorite book The Ethereal Graces of the Delicate Sex would have us believe.”
“If she had affections for someone else, it would explain why she couldn’t remember what Jeremiah was wearing at their wedding or why she fainted at the altar. What if she were forced to marry him?”
“I can’t think of a better reason why a woman would wed Jeremiah Bertis,” he said. “Yet, the material question is: was that earlier man Lawrence James?”
Vivienne took in an audible gulp of air. “You don’t think some of those paintings at the Royal Academy could be my aunt?”
He gave Vivienne an even look. “Or more interesting, maybe some of the stolen paintings were of your aunt.”
Vivienne shook her head. “I can’t ask her about James. I can’t admit I know these things.”
He gently brushed her curls from her shoulders and massaged her tense muscles. The warmth of her body flowed like a current through his. “Calm down, let’s not ask her anything until we have a little more information. First, let me talk to my cousin Katherine—she’s Nigel’s daughter.” He jerked his head toward the west. “She lives by Cavendish Square. She might know something.”
“No, no. I shall not allow you to go around asking people about my family. Who knows what you’ll say? I’m already nervous about everything you told Mr. Teakesbury. I insist that you give me your cousin’s address, and I’ll visit her myself.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “Katherine’s a little odd. Besides, you can’t leave the square. I’m not sure who is on a tighter leash, you or Garth.”
She stepped away from his reach. “When are you going?”
“After you leave.”
She paced the room, her brows low and eyes focused on the hem of her gown. She stopped at the commode, picked up a crude stone figure of a jackal depicting Anubis. Rolling it in her palm, she studied the artifact for a moment, and then set it down. “Meet me in the alley in half an hour,” she said. “Take me to her address. You can wait outside.”
“No.”
“But she’s my aunt!”
He shrugged. “Well, she’s my cousin.”
She glared at him. Then a flicker of an idea lit in her eyes. Her chin began to tremble. She blinked, and little tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“Oh no, no. You just stop that right now.”
But she kept the tears coming, letting them pour down like a tiny rain storm. “I’m so worried about Aunt Gertrude.”
He ran his hands up his face and through his hair. Women cried to him all the time, trying to get him into their bed, keep him in their bed, or out of someone else’s bed. He thought that he had built a strong defense to the weeping woman. Yet Vivienne was destroying him because she knew she could.
“Fine, you can go,” he conceded defeat. He glanced at the Huygens and added thirty minutes to the time. “But if you’re not there at exactly 2:19, I’m leaving you. I don’t care how much you cry.”
She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Thank you,” she said, flashing him a weak, wavering smile.
He held out his arm, and she wrapped her fingers around the crook of his elbow, letting him lead her to the passage. As she was crawling on her hands and knees back to her house, he gave her rump a playful swat. She shot him a hot look over her shoulder, those green eyes glittering with outrage.
“Lecher!” she hissed.
“You have twenty-nine minutes,” he said and pushed his panel back in place.
He studied the wavy grain of the wood. The smile he wore dwindled. Everything had become too dangerous. He would let Vivienne follow him to Katherine’s, but after that, this was his mystery to solve. He may indeed be a lecher, incapable of doing the right thing by any woman, but he wouldn’t let Vivienne get hurt. If he couldn’t be an upstanding, faithful husband like those dour men lining the pews at church, at least he could be a vigilant guard at the door to Hades, keeping her safe from demons like Jenkinson, Fontaine, and John. Especially John.
***
Vivienne hiked her skirt and stepped into her bustle. She made a hasty knot over her corset and shoved her dress back in place. Then she locked Uncle Jeremiah’s study and slipped the key down her collar, fingering it down her bodice until she could feel the metal inside her corset. She tiptoed down the corridor to her aunt’s room. Turning the knob, careful to not make a click, she cracked open the door. The curtains were drawn, but the bright sunlight filtered through the thin white cotton, casting a pale glow in the room. Her aunt rested under several blankets, her body rising and falling with her soft high-pitched snores.
A half-drunk glass of water and a bottle of Dr. Oliver’s Elixir for Tranquil Slumber and Serene Mind sat on her aunt’s bedside table.
Where was Garth?
Aunt Gertrude snored, a gruntlike sound, and rolled over. Vivienne waited. Her aunt’s eyes remained shut, and after a moment, she resumed the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep.
Vivienne carefully shut the door and headed downstairs to the kitchen. A tin bathtub filled with water was stationed by the stove, and the floor around it was wet and glistening with bubbles. Paw prints led from the tiny flood across the floor to a cabinet stacked with spice canisters. There, Miss Banks was down on her hands and knees, her expansive drenched backside in the air, her head shoved under the cabinet. “Come here, you blessed ornery dog, and take your Sunday bath.”
Vivienne couldn’t see Garth, but his gargled yelps rang in the air as if he were being tortured.
Vivienne glanced up at the porcelain clock atop the cupboard. The hands pointed to 1:57.
“Allow me,” she said, giving the housekeeper a small poke on her hip.
The housekeeper jumped, banging her head, rattling the canisters. “God and Mary, you scared me!” She popped her face out from under the cabinet. “Garth never wants his bath. Content to live in filth and fleas, he is. Well, not in the mistress’s house. See if you can get the furry jackanapes out of there.”
Less than half
the size of the housekeeper, Vivienne was able to slide further under the cabinet. Garth dripped and growled in the corner, his eyes bulging with fury.
“Just you stop that,” Vivienne admonished him, taking his front paws and gently dragging him out as he continued his barking protest. “We have work to do.”
Miss Banks tossed a towel on top of him as Vivienne continued to restrain the dog.
“I need to ask you some questions about Aunt Gertrude.” Vivienne lowered her voice. “In confidence. Were you employed here when she was married?”
“But a few days, I was. Master Collins, your grandfather, was very ill.” Miss Banks vigorously rubbed the squirming, snorting dog. “I was hired to wash all his linens and clothes.”
“Could you please tell me what you remember?”
“The physician said he hadn’t but a few weeks. The house was to be kept quiet, so we wouldn’t excite him none. Your Grandfather Collins sent for his daughters, saying there was going to be a wedding between your aunt and your uncle. Oh, I hate to burden you with this stubborn dog,” she said, handing Vivienne the towel. “But do you mind fluffin’ him while I get his lavender oil?”
“Of course.”
The woman groaned as she pushed off her knee to stand. “Aye, your mother had just lain in with a tiny thing,” she said, opening a drawer in the cupboard, pulling out a black ribbon and bottle that read Aunt Beatrice’s Fragrance for Concealing the Odor of the Gently Bred Hound. “And your aunt, bless her good heart, was a’staying with her sister to help. Oh, your dear mama was so upset, not only for her father, but because she had to leave that wee precious babe behind.”
“I think that was me,” Vivienne said. “Did Aunt Gertrude seem happy to marry Uncle Bertis? It’s quite important that I know.”
Miss Banks leaned down, letting a few drops of oil from the bottle splash onto Garth’s back. The scent was so strong that Vivienne sneezed and then held her nose. Garth whimpered, rubbing at his face with his paws, trying to scrape off the acres of lavender fields just doused on his fur.
“Oh, I don’t believe in a’gossipin’. No, I don’t.” The housekeeper’s eyes sharpened. “But on the day your aunt was to be married to Mr. Bertis, I was a’coming down the corridor with a basket of sheets when I saw your aunt and your Grandmother Collins. So I stepped into a chamber, but I could still hear them a’talkin’.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t a’listened. No, I shouldn’t have.”
“What did you hear?” Vivienne glanced at the clock. 2:05.
“Aye, your aunt was a’crying, saying she couldn’t marry Mr. Bertis—that she hardly knew the man. I remember hearing a pop, like someone being slapped. Then I heard your grandmother say, ‘Upon my word, you’ve driven your father to his early grave.’”
“What?”
Miss Banks recorked the bottle. “But I probably don’t remember correctly. My poor mind is a’slippin’.”
“I wonder what my grandmother meant.”
“No, no, you shouldn’t worry yourself about these things,” the housekeeper said, sliding a thick black ribbon around Garth’s neck. “Or be a’frettin’ that your aunt told her mother that she loved another the very day she was set to marry your Uncle Bertis. And then your grandmother, bless her dear departed soul, said that your aunt loved a faithless, low scoundrel.”
“Do you happen to know the name of this faithless, low scoundrel?”
Miss Banks shook her head. “You know me, I don’t like to gossip. It’s not my place to know the personal business of others. And no one I asked would tell me the man’s name.” She straightened the large bow she had tied around Garth’s neck. “Oh, what a handsome dog! Did you ever see such a handsome dog?”
Garth whimpered and hid his face in Vivienne’s skirt.
“I have one more question,” Vivienne said, scratching the upset hound. “Do I look like Aunt Gertrude when she was my age?”
“Very much in your face and the shape of your eyes and lips,” Miss Banks said, brushing her ruddy cheeks with the backs of her fingers. “I remember a’thinking the first time I saw your aunt how beautiful she was. Like a little angel.”
Vivienne glanced at the clock. 2:07
“I must ask an important favor. Aunt Gertrude mustn’t know.”
Thirteen
Dashiell waited in the shadows at the back of the alley. Leaning against the cool brick wall, he had one ankle crossed over the other, his hat pulled low. He studied his pocket watch. When the long hand edged up to the ten, he snapped the lid shut. He glanced out onto the square. It was empty except for a coal delivery wagon and a black brougham stopped before the neighbor’s house. She wasn’t coming. Even though he preferred to speak to Katherine alone, disappointment weighted his heart. He slipped the watch into his coat pocket and waited a few more seconds before sauntering down the alley toward Cavendish Square.
“Wait. Don’t leave us!”
He spun around to see Vivienne running down the alley, a veiled bonnet and gloves clutched in one hand and Garth’s leash in the other. The hound, wearing a huge black bow, scurried along the edge of her gown, curled tongue hanging out.
“You’re late.” Dashiell tried to sound severe, even as his face lifted with a grin.
She halted, pressed her hand against her chest, and took several deep breaths. “The housekeeper gave my aunt some Dr. Oliver’s Elixir for Tranquil Slumber to help her sleep,” she sputtered, and then began shoving her fingers into her gloves. “If she wakes up before I get back, Miss Banks will tell Aunt Gertrude that I’m walking Garth around the square and then make her go through the linens and household accounts… away from the front windows.”
He removed her bonnet from where she held it pressed between her elbow and waist, brushed the curls off her face, and set the bonnet atop her head. Just touching her caused tiny explosions under his skin.
“Did you devise this little subterfuge?” he asked.
“Subterfuge?” She blinked, her eyes blank and lovely. “I don’t know what you are talking about. You use such big words,” she mocked in that sugary voice of hers.
“You frighten me.” He knotted the hat’s ribbons under her chin. “But you smell nice. Lavender?”
“That’s Garth. He had a bath.”
Dashiell gazed down at the disgruntled dog. “Sorry, old boy. I’ll see if I can find something foul and rotting for you to roll in.” Then he returned the conversation to its proper course. “Do you think Miss Banks knows anything about Gertrude’s past?”
“We were right. My aunt was forced to marry Uncle Jeremiah. But Miss Banks didn’t know the name of the other suitor. She claims she doesn’t listen to gossip.”
“Not listen to gossip? How has your aunt managed to employ the most incompetent help in all of England? Servants are supposed to know everything.”
“If that is the case, I’m surprised you haven’t scared off your poor help.” She flicked her fingers at Dashiell as if she were shooing pigeons. “Go on ahead. We shouldn’t look like we are walking together.”
“Protecting my reputation?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s been quite damaged by going to church. You need to straighten up and be a good rake again.”
He chuckled over his shoulder, catching that devilish gleam in her eyes that endeared her to him, and then she flipped the sheer veil over her face. He strode down the street, checking every few seconds to make sure Vivienne and Garth were still behind him.
Entering the round garden in the center of Cavendish Square, Dashiell waited under a low concealing tree branch for her to catch up.
“Which one is your cousin’s?” She lifted her veil and surveyed the houses.
“There.” He pointed past the staid brown brick domiciles protected behind iron fences, where the windows were bare of any decoration but for white window curtains, to a home that looked as if it were blooming. Pots, overflowing with ivy, were set just inside the iron gates. Katherine, not content to wait for summer, had fashioned red ger
aniums out of stiff fabric and stuck the gaudy things among the leaves. Stained-glass balls of aqua, pink, and purple hung from ribbons inside the windows.
As they approached, he could see his cousin had significantly added to her menagerie of plaster frogs and fish decorating the steps.
Garth sniffed Katherine’s gate, dug in his tiny paws, and refused to budge. Dashiell had to give the hound credit for possessing a profound sense of self-preservation.
Vivienne picked him up and offered him to Dashiell. “Here, you keep Garth,” she said. “I won’t be a minute.”
He held up his hands, refusing the dog. “Oh no, we’re doing this together.”
“That might give the wrong impression.”
“Pretty hard to do with old Katherine.”
“But what about Garth?”
Dashiell banged the brass knocker shaped like an inverted dragonfly with green beaded eyes. On the other side of the door, Katherine’s hounds started howling. “Take him with you, of course.”
A squawking female voice yelled, “You dogs get away from there.” Then his cousin’s housekeeper yanked opened the door. She was a wiry, squat woman with thin wrinkled lips, a bony nose, and chapped hands. A nervous straggly dog with a button muzzle and pointy ears like bat wings crawled from under her skirt and began leaping into the air.
“Now you behave,” she admonished the tiny thing. “Lord Dashiell’s come for a visit. You have to be all proper, see.” She performed a terse bob of a curtsy.
“Dashiell is here!” He heard his cousin exclaim from somewhere floors above. “Won’t Amelia be thrilled?”
Dashiell didn’t know Amelia or why she should be thrilled at his presence. Most women were, of course, just not the ones who hung about his cousin.
The housekeeper pulled the leaping dog away. Behind her were Katherine’s four other hounds. All too big for a row house. One looked like an Italian greyhound, and the rest were sad, mixed-breed mutts his cousin had collected off the streets. All female, of course.
Wicked Little Secrets Page 18