Wallflower Most Wanted--A Studies in Scandal Novel

by Manda Collins

  “But this,” he continued, turning to face her, feeling more exhausted than he’d ever been. “This is not inevitable. It’s the worst part of what one human being can do to another. And I should have protected you from it.”

  When she slipped her arms around him it was to offer comfort. And selfishly he took it. He’d seen death before, but what had been done to Framingham was a level of savagery that left him shaken.

  “Sophia?” called a female voice from the front of the room. “Are you still here?”

  Reluctantly, he pulled away from her and they walked back toward the door, where they found not only Gemma but Ivy and Daphne hovering just inside the entrance.

  “Ah,” Ivy said with a twinkle in her eyes. “Good afternoon, Vicar. I might have guessed it was you who waylaid Miss Hastings.”

  But something about both his and Sophia’s expressions must have alerted her to the fact that something was very wrong.

  “Oh no,” she said, her own face turning from teasing to serious. “What’s happened?”

  “Are you well?” Gemma asked, stepping forward, gazing at her sister as if she could divine the source of Sophia’s angst through sheer will. “Did something happen? Did someone harm you?”

  Ben would have responded, but Sophia pulled away from him and gave her sister a little hug. “I’m fine,” she said, before turning to address the others who were watching with varying degrees of concern. “There’s been a … that is to say, Mr. Framingham is…”

  “Framingham has been murdered,” Ben cut in, thinking it best to tell the truth of the matter. “We don’t know who did it, but it seems that he must have been dead when Sophia first entered the shop. Ryder has gone to alert the authorities. The magistrate, I suppose.” It was too late for the doctor to do much good.

  “Dear God,” Ivy put a hand to her chest. “Another?”

  It had only been a few weeks after Ben’s arrival in the area that a man had been found murdered in the library at Beauchamp House. These ladies were not entirely unfamiliar with violent death, much as he wished Sophia had been spared this particular encounter.

  “Statistically,” Daphne said, sounding at once authoritative and worried, “it seems highly unusual that three people so far removed from the criminal underworld should be murdered within the same general area.”

  “Indeed,” Sophia said with a nod to her friend. Ben saw that she gave the other woman a squeeze on the arm. “It is unusual, I think. Right now, though, I think we should probably leave so that when the doctor and the magistrate get here we won’t be underfoot.”

  “Squire Northman will wish to speak to you,” Gemma reminded her. They were well acquainted with Northman from his investigation of the previous deaths they’d been connected to.

  “Then he can do so at a later time,” Ben said firmly. “Let me see you to your carriage. At least I hope you came by carriage.” He gave a speaking look in the direction of Sophia’s injured ankle. She was leaning heavily on the walking stick at this point and it was no doubt paining her.

  “Yes, we brought the carriage,” she said wearily. “And I’ve never been so grateful for it.”

  The others preceded them from the shop, and Ben took the moment of privacy to squeeze her hand. “I’ll come speak to you as soon as I learn anything. Though I may be tied up with Framingham’s family for a while this evening. No doubt this will be a surprise to his wife and children. And I need to ensure that they’ve got sufficient support.”

  She turned and touched his cheek with her gloved hand. It was no more than that, but he felt it like a more intimate caress. “Take care of yourself,” she said softly. “And watch Ryder. He was stunned by the sight of Framingham, but he’s not entirely uninvolved, I think.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a grin. Then, when they’d reached the place where the landau was waiting, he lifted her by the waist and tucked her into the empty seat beside Gemma.

  “Keep an eye on her for me, ladies,” he said with a tip of his hat.

  Sophia looked surprised, but not particularly displeased by his admonition.

  And as he watched the coachman flicked the horses with the whip and they drove away.

  Chapter 15

  After dinner that night, still rattled from the murder of Mr. Framingham and not wanting to be alone, Sophia asked the other ladies to join her for tea in her studio. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt as if art itself were under attack. Especially after Thomas Ryder’s harsh words about her work, and seeing poor Framingham dead among the paintings and canvases of his workroom. Someone—maybe Ryder, and definitely others—was cheapening the heart and soul of what made art valuable by creating fakes. And though she was certainly in no way comparable to the great artists whose work had been forged, it chilled her to think of a fellow artist carefully stealing every brushstroke, every carefully plotted decision about composition simply to make a profit.

  “I don’t think I’ve been up here since you finished your pieces for the exhibition,” Ivy said as she and Daphne followed Sophia and Gemma into the studio.

  The natural light from the windows and skylights was absent now that the sun had gone down, and the room was somehow cozier in the glow of lamplight. Even so, it was bright enough for Ivy to spot the fallen woman painting from the doorway and she and Daphne made a beeline for it.

  “Oh, Sophia,” the marchioness said with wonder and sadness in her voice, “it’s magnificent.”

  Sophia never knew how to accept compliments about her work. She liked it, obviously, but there was also a sort of awkwardness that came from confronting the fact that another person—sometimes a stranger, though in this case a friend—was looking at something that had come directly from her soul. It was rather like having one’s diary read aloud in a crowded room.

  Before she could respond, Ivy continued. “It’s heart-wrenching. The contrast between the gaiety of the theatregoers and the utter sadness of the dead woman just steps away. Have you seen something like this? How did you decide to paint it?”

  They moved to settle around the low table in the corner where the servants had laid the tea service and a plate of cakes. Sophia’s maid had wrapped her ankle in the way the doctor had showed her and because it had swollen again in the wake of the day’s activity, she had it propped on an ottoman.

  “It was a small article in the Times,” she answered once they each had a cup and saucer in hand. “Just a paragraph, really, about a woman found dead near the Royal Opera House. No details. Other than to say that she had died of exposure. Something about the juxtaposition of the dead woman and the site of so many of polite society’s evening entertainments struck me as particularly shattering. And my imagination did the rest.”

  “Have you ever been to the Royal Opera House?” Daphne asked, brow furrowed. “I went once during my first season. This is a remarkably accurate depiction.” She sounded as if she suspected Sophia of some sort of witchcraft. “Though, there was no dead woman, fallen or otherwise, in that area. At least not that I saw.”

  Sophia hid a smile. Daphne could be a bit literal at times.

  “Our Aunt Dahlia took us to London many times over the years,” Gemma said. “Including the Royal Opera House.”

  “During the day it was galleries and museums and parks,” Sophia said with a smile of remembrance, “but in the evenings she took us to the opera, and plays, and fed our minds with great performances.”

  “She sounds as if she would have got along well with Lady Celeste,” Ivy said with a grin. “I wonder if they ever met.”

  It was something Sophia had thought about before. Her aunt and Celeste had been of an age, and could have attended some of the same entertainments in London when they were young. And they certainly seemed to have similar leanings toward intellectualism and the arts. Still, she had no way of knowing. There had been no mention of her in Celeste’s diaries which they’d had to read in order to find out who had killed her.

  “I shall write to her and ask,” she
said aloud, “And until I hear back, I propose we behave as if they did.”

  She raised her teacup in a toast. “To Dahlia and Celeste—the two ladies who made me what I am today!”

  “And the same for me,” Gemma said, raising her own cup. Then, Ivy and Daphne followed suit and they drank to the mentors.

  “Speaking of Celeste,” Ivy said when they’d finished, “I wonder what she would have made of this forgery business. I know what she would have said regarding Morgan and his ridiculous attempts to stop you from showing your work, Sophia. But as a painter herself, she must have had opinions about forgery and schemes like the one Lord Frederick alerted his brother to. I know there have been instances in the world of historical artifacts when people have attempted to pass off fakes as original fragments of Sappho, for instance. It makes me ill.”

  It was something Sophia had thought about, especially given that this particular scheme was taking place in the very village where Celeste had lived. The Home Office had only timed the forgeries coming out of Little Seaford to a year ago—several months before the heiresses had arrived at Beauchamp House, and only weeks before Celeste’s death. Though it was possible their benefactor had known something was going on, it was far more likely she was too sick to know or care.

  “I feel sure she would have had objections,” Sophia agreed. “But I’m not sure the timing is right. Though I suppose it is possible the scheme began before the authorities realized it was going on. It seems to have run too smoothly to be a new endeavor.”

  “And from what you and Benedick overheard,” Gemma reminded her, “they don’t seem to be loyal to whichever artist they use to create the forgeries. It’s possible there was someone before this latest one.”

  Which reminded Sophia of something. “But what happened to Mr. Framingham doesn’t make sense given what we heard. It was clear from the conversation that they would be eliminating an artist. Not an art dealer. Why was Framingham killed and not Ryder—if he is the one who is painting the forgeries?”

  In the chaos of the afternoon’s events, the conversation about the artist had slipped her mind. But now it was like a sore tooth she couldn’t stop poking at.

  “I know we’re talking about the artist, but I just realized about Framingham,” she continued. “Of course we don’t know that he was involved in the scheme at all. It’s purely conjecture on our part. But it seems too coincidental that a forgery scheme and the murder of an art dealer would happen in the same village.”

  “Perhaps Framingham objected to the plan to eliminate the artist?” Daphne, who had been unusually quiet, seemed to be thinking seriously about the matter. “If, as you say, Ryder was there to see him, that means they had some sort of relationship. Perhaps he didn’t wish to see Ryder killed or exiled or dealt whatever punishment the men you overheard meant to inflict.”

  For someone who didn’t generally wish to deal in hypotheticals, it was a logical enough explanation for why Framingham might have been killed.

  “I believe you might be correct, Daphne,” Sophia said with a nod. “And it would explain why Ryder was so overset about the murder. Obviously anyone would be chilled to find a body, but his reaction seemed outsized if the two men were merely acquaintances. Still, we don’t know for sure that Ryder is the artist in question. He’s unpleasant, to be sure, but he could simply be what he seems: Morgan’s protégé. Whatever the case, he and Framingham were connected in some way we don’t yet know about, I’m sure of it.”

  They were silent for a moment as they contemplated the complicated puzzle.

  “I still cannot help but think Celeste must have known something,” Gemma said, finally. “She had her eye on everything that was happening in this area. She had friends all over the county. The art community among them.”

  “Unless she left some sort of trail,” Sophia said with a shake of her head, “as she did with the quests she left for Ivy and Daphne, I don’t see how we’ll ever know.”

  “You’re sure there was no mention of it in your letter from her?” Ivy asked. Her own request from Celeste to search for the person who killed her had come via a letter she’d left to be given to her on her arrival at Beauchamp House.

  “Or perhaps in the papers you received on your inheritance?” Daphne prodded. Celeste had given Daphne the clues she needed to find a long lost treasure in the letter she received with the news of her being chosen as an heiress.

  “No,” Sophia assured them. “Nothing like that. Believe me, as soon as I realized how your missives from her contained clues to the mysteries she wished you to solve, I scoured my own letters like mad. Both Gemma and I did. But we found nothing.”

  “And she gave no letters to Serena to give to you either.” Daphne’s words were a statement, not a question.

  But Ivy was not ready to give up. “With Daphne’s puzzle,” she said thoughtfully, “she used ciphers hidden within the text of the letter to speak to her. What if she did something similar with you, Sophia?”

  * * *

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Sophia was beginning to get a headache. Surely if Celeste had meant to leave her some quest she’d have been straightforward with it as she had done with Ivy and Daphne. She had a feeling they were looking for clues where none existed.

  “What if she left your clues in the form of a painting? Or paintings?”

  The final clue to help Daphne in her search for a long lost Scottish treasure had been hidden in plain sight in a painting. So, the idea wasn’t entirely without merit. “Then where is the painting? There are several stored in one of the cabinets in the corner, but they weren’t in any place of prominence when we arrived. I assumed they were simply works that Celeste had chosen not to display in the house. Some lesser known but still valuable pieces by continental artists.”

  Ivy tilted her head. “Don’t large houses usually store things like that in the attics? I know when we were at Kerr House, the housekeeper told me that they rotate pieces on display based on family preference, and in some cases the season. But they’re all stored in the attics.”

  Sophia hadn’t actually thought about the paintings in the cabinet since she’d found them on her arrival. Since she shared ownership of the house, she hadn’t felt comfortable removing the works of art already on display throughout the rooms, and there was enough storage space already in the studio that she didn’t need that particular cabinet.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to take a look,” she said with a shrug. Then, feeling sheepish, she asked, “Could one of you bring them over here? I dislike admitting it, but I cannot contemplate walking even as far as it takes to get to the cabinet.”

  Gemma gave her a look while Daphne and Ivy went to retrieve the paintings. “I knew you were overdoing it today.” Sophia knew her sister’s disapproving look all too well.

  Then, in a lower voice so the others wouldn’t hear her, Gemma continued, “No one will think less of you if you give yourself time to heal, Sophia. You are not Mama. And no one will ever mistake you for her.”

  At the mention of their mother, who had wielded her imaginary illnesses and time in the sickbed with the precision of a sharpened sword, Sophia felt breathless for a moment. Had she been doing that? Pressing on because she couldn’t stand the idea of being assumed to be an exaggerator? It was possible, she acknowledged. Grateful to her sister for pointing it out, she squeezed her hand. “You may be right. I do have a tendency to abhor the sick room because of her. I promise to rest my ankle tomorrow.”

  Then Ivy and Daphne arrived carrying armloads of canvases which they propped against the ottoman at Sophia’s feet.

  “This is all of them,” Ivy said, slightly breathless from her exertion. “I thought there would be more.”

  “No,” Sophia said, feeling a bit foolish for not realizing the possible significance of the cabinet before now. “I should have known they were special since there weren’t that many of them. But I was so thrilled that this studio was to be mine I barely gave them a glance befor
e I shut the cabinet and went about my business.”

  She picked up the first one in the stack, using both hands because of its size and the heaviness of its gilt frame.

  It was clearly a Rubens. It bore all the hallmarks of the Flemish artist’s work. A female nude, whose soft, lush body was the central focus of the painting, was seated at a fountain, hunched over to hide her nakedness. But it was her fearful expression as she cringed from the two men crowding into her that told the tale. She knew well how this woman felt—it was the same terror she’d felt that afternoon when Ryder threatened her.

  This was, Sophia realized, a painting of the story from the book of Daniel about Susannah, an innocent wife who is spied upon while bathing by two nefarious men who then threaten to falsely say she’s been meeting her lover if she doesn’t agree to let them have their way with her. She refuses, the men accuse her publicly of having a lover and she is sentenced to death. At the last moment, the young man Daniel appears and demands the men be questioned, and when their stories don’t add up, Susannah is declared innocent and freed and the men who slandered her are put to death.

  It was a story that always angered Sophia when she thought of just how precarious a woman’s virtue could be when men took it into their minds to bring them down. True, Susannah was proved innocent, but she shouldn’t have needed to be.

  More important than the story depicted in the painting at the moment, however, Sophia realized was the significance of the painting itself.

  She knew it was Rubens. It had to be. But it was also, if she recalled correctly, famously missing. There were several versions of Susannah and the Elders that were said to have come from either Rubens or his studio. But this particular version was only known because of an engraving of it by another man. The painting itself had been presumed missing for hundreds of years. It certainly wasn’t known by the art world to be hidden in a cupboard in Lady Celeste Beauchamp’s studio cabinet.