His Wicked Reputation

by Madeline Hunter

  “I expect you know why I wanted to see you,” Rockport said. “I am hoping that your coming means you are not averse to the notion and I have at least a small chance of convincing you.”

  Gareth had no idea what the man was talking about. “Not averse. Such a strong word. I am not averse to much at all, actually.”

  “I will be plain then. I need someone to represent this”—he gestured to the table—“and me, on the Continent. Not to carry around buckles to sell, as is done here. I can ship samples to those companies I know of. Not stores and such, but men who would distribute there.”

  “If you can ship samples, and have identified distributors—”

  “A factor is what I need. A man to see to the contracts there, and arrange the receipt of shipments. A man to broker the arrangement in my behalf. I can’t do it myself. I’m needed here, and I don’t know the languages. There are ones I can hire, who present themselves for service such as this, but for all I know they, too, call on the patron drunk, if you see what I mean. You’ve a knowledge of those things. You gave me quite an education at that first dinner. I’m thinking you are the man to do it, if you can be persuaded.”

  Gareth did not know whether to be flattered or insulted. Despite the compliments about his vast knowledge of business and shipping, Rockport had just asked him to go into trade.

  “I do not think I would care to live on the Continent.”

  “Nor would you have to. Such contracts are not signed every day or even every month. When one is ready to go, you could hop a packet, deal with it, and come back. At least hear me out before you decline.”

  Gareth agreed to hear him out. Rockport embarked on a fuller description of what this situation entailed. The more he talked, the more Gareth could not pretend that it did indeed sound remarkably like the way he brokered art collections. His knowledge of shipping and transport companies, of contracts and bills of lading, of international payments and credits, derived from that avocation, of course. Without those experiences, he could have never discussed Rockport’s business affairs with him, let alone given him “an education.”

  “Now, I am sure you are curious about compensation,” Rockport said.

  “There is no need. I regret that I would not want to be an employee, even of a firm as fine as yours. I am not accustomed to it, and would make a bad one.”

  Rockport grinned. “Well, now, that is fine with me if it is fine with you. I was prepared to pay you handsomely if necessary. If you prefer independence, so you can represent others in addition—I know of several men who would want to talk about that, in other industries, of course. I’d not want someone who competes with me— We can arrange it be for a percentage and expenses. Say two percent of the sale price?”

  Just like the art collections.

  Rockport stood and walked to his desk. After pawing through papers, he returned with a letter. “Let me see. This French fellow wants fifty.” He closed his eyes and thought. “Fifty at two percent would be—”

  “Hardly worth the journey, or your time, I would think.”

  Rockport looked at him, astonished. Then he burst out laughing. “You are quite the gentleman, aren’t you? Do you think I do all of this for orders of fifty brass buckles or fifty iron hinges?” He leaned forward and held up the letter. “This Frenchie wants fifty gross. At ten shillings per piece. That’s cheaper than he can get them made over there. He’ll hand them off fast at eleven per, and the shops that in turn sell them will do so at thirteen and be happy.”

  Gareth did the math in his head. The commission on brokering that particular sale would be over eight hundred pounds. More money, and less trouble, than some of those art collections that took months to negotiate.

  And there were others like Rockport who needed such a factor.

  A gentleman would not be swayed, no matter what the profit, of course.

  “I will think about it, and let you know within the week.”

  Rockport lifted his glass of brandy. “Here’s to hoping you think rightly.”

  * * *

  The stationer’s shop was an odd place. Narrow and deep, it held a good position in the center of town. The proprietor had decided to make the most of that advantage by augmenting his papers with a motley assortment of other items. Gareth strolled past books and patterns, pins and threads, prints and combs. One shelf even held wooden toys, such as country carvers make.

  Deep in the shop he spied Mr. Stevenson helping a woman choose stationery. Gareth waited until the customer had been served. After she left, Mr. Stevenson turned quizzical eyes on the only other potential patron in the shop.

  Gareth asked to see some pens.

  “Will you be wanting quills or the new ones? I like the latter myself, but some of the gentlemen prefer traditional writing implements.” Stevenson slid a box with an array of new pens onto his counter.

  Gareth toyed with them. “Mr. Zwilliger sent me. He said you have excellent items in your shop. He told me to ask if you have any more of those paintings. Good ones, like the ones he bought.”

  “So soon? Goodness, he visited a mere fortnight ago. The market in London must be flourishing.”

  “It is the Season. The whole ton is in town with money to spare, and spirits are high. That is the best time to sell art.”

  Stevenson peered at Gareth cautiously. “If I were to have a few more soon, would you be buying them for him?”

  “I would, if they were of the same quality.”

  “I can guarantee the quality. What I cannot guarantee is whether more are available yet.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Hard to say. I can send word and see, if you like.”

  Gareth debated whether to continue with the plan he and Ives had put in place. If this man told the truth, and it sounded as if he did since he spoke without dissembling, he was not the mind behind this fraud. The person who brought him the pictures was.

  Gareth removed a card and placed it on the counter. He also placed one of Ives’s cards beside it. “Stevenson, I have been deceiving you. I am not an agent for your London buyer. Nor will he be purchasing more from you. He is in Newgate awaiting his fate for selling forgeries. Forgeries he says he bought from you.”

  “Forgeries! No, you must be mistaken. I sold him simple pretty pictures.”

  “You sold him expert copies of works by major artists and old masters.”

  “Major—old masters—you are wrong, sir, and I’ll not be impugned this way.”

  Gareth waited until Stevenson had collected himself. “Perhaps you were hoodwinked by he who gave you the pictures as well as by he who bought them.”

  “Indeed! I think so! If what you say is true, this is most shocking.” He turned and reached up to a shelf behind his counter and fetched a paper fan.

  “Give me the name of the man who supplied you with the paintings, and I will find out the truth, I am sure.”

  Stevenson flipped open the fan and beat the air near his red face. That pulled Gareth’s attention away from the face, and to the fan. And to the wall behind the fan, the counter, and Mr. Stevenson.

  His gaze drifted up to the shelf, then higher.

  “Not a man,” Stevenson said, struggling to speak normally. “A woman. Who would think a woman would do such a thing? What is the world coming to, I ask you? And what if she claims she was unaware and it is all my fault? Who is to believe me that I merely put some pictures in my shop to earn a few shillings? The magistrate? Not likely. This is—”

  Gareth half-listened. His gaze had lit on a small painting hanging high on the wall like an afterthought. It showed a view of a field, with a large tree to one side and a ruin to the other. He narrowed his eyes on it.

  Stevenson’s exclamations turned into a buzz that barely penetrated his ears. Gareth thought he recognized the landscape, or rather the hand that had painted it. His eyes were almost sure, but his instincts were positive. He had seen the ghost of something similar on the floor of a ransacked house.


  Surely not. And if so, it must be a thing apart from those forgeries.

  “Her name,” he snarled, interrupting Stevenson. “Give me her name, or join your accomplice in Newgate.”

  “Newgate! I’m a Birmingham man!”

  “Give me the name, damn you, or you will be a dead man soon.”

  Stevenson appeared ready to faint. Gareth reached over the counter and gripped his coats so he did not go down before answering. “Her name.”

  “M . . . Miss Russell.”

  Holy Damnation. He barely swallowed the impulse to punch the stationer in the nose for daring to utter that name out of all the others in the world.

  The man saw it. His eyes widened with alarm. “Eva, I think her name is.” He spoke fast between short gasping breaths. “I believe she lives in— That is to say, I am sure she—” All that red drained from his face. He swooned and became a dead weight. He slid out of Gareth’s grip and crumpled to the floor behind the counter.

  Gareth strode to the back of the shop, found some water, and returned. He threw it on Stevenson’s face, then left to the sounds of gasping and groaning as Stevenson came to.

  CHAPTER 23

  Yes. Right here. This would do very well.

  Eva threw down a small blanket on the little hill. She sat and made herself comfortable. The lake stretched out in front of her, and the sun had begun descending to her left, casting shadows that broke and formed as the water’s surface moved. A line of houses marred the lake’s shore close to her, where the village had begun to spill into the countryside, but she would leave them out.

  She opened her sketchbook and paged to find a clean sheet. She would need a new book soon.

  Her hand paused when a page turn revealed the drawing of Gareth. As she intended, her few lines indicating his face proved enough to revive the memory of looking at him in that beautiful light. Nostalgia squeezed her heart while she remembered that day. Sadder emotions hurt her when her thoughts turned to the night of the ball.

  Had he returned to Albany Lodge? She had not seen Erasmus or Harold in the village when she walked there, so perhaps he had. Still, he had not called on her. After what she said the last time they saw each other, she could not blame him.

  It was for the best. They never could be only friends. Not when her stomach did little flips at the sight of him. Not when she yearned for the intimacy and pleasure more than she worried about her reputation and future. If he still wanted her, she would succumb, gladly, perhaps even encouraging it as she had the last time. Then with time it would become known they were lovers, and she would be scorned, and Rebecca would never find a husband, and—

  She found a clean page. She began drawing the view, with an eye to using her lines and notes to help her plan a painting.

  The time passed quickly. Only the sun suddenly shining right in her eyes alerted her to how long she had been there. She emerged out of her reverie and eyed her page. The drawing captured the perspective well, and the shape and shadings of that stand of trees on the left shore. A closer tree, right down from where she sat, she had depicted in more detail, especially the way its branches framed part of her view.

  “Impressive. Will it be a painting?”

  She looked over her shoulder. Gareth stood behind her, close enough to see the drawing. Her stomach flipped and flipped. Her heart filled with so much emotion it briefly made her dumb.

  “Yes,” she said. “That is why it is not very finished.”

  “Notes and reminders, you mean. Not a final draft.”

  “That is what I mean.” She made to stand. He offered his hand to help. She tried not to allow the brief touch to affect her, but it did. “What are you doing here?”

  “I called at your house. Your sister said you had come here. I decided you would need a ride home.”

  “I do not think it wise to ride through the village on your horse with you.”

  “Not a horse. Come with me. I will show you.”

  He brought her to the lane that ran along this side of the lake. A fine carriage with a matched pair stood there.

  “I had some business that required a carriage,” he explained. “Lance has at least four now, so I borrowed this one.”

  He stopped walking and faced her.

  “Before we take another step, I want to explain something, Eva. My mother was a butler’s daughter, and she herself would have gone into service if my father had not favored her. Not a bad life, and a respectable one. She did not even know him. He was the duke she glimpsed sometimes. But she took what he offered because it provided a security to her and her children better than anything she might otherwise know. So I do not see these arrangements as scandalous at all.”

  “Yes, you have explained that. I understand.”

  He looked away, his hands on his hips, exasperated with her. “I did not like it, if that is what you think. I did not encourage Whitmere. Quite the opposite. You had demanded that promise from me, however, so I had no right to interfere with your own decision.”

  “Of course. You do not have to explain. I should not have accused you as I did, or behaved so emotionally. I was tired and embarrassed. Let us not dwell on it.”

  He led her to the carriage and handed her in. She looked out the window as they rolled through the lanes of Langdon End. The village looked different from the seat of an expensive carriage.

  When they reached the road that connected their properties, the carriage did not turn left toward hers. Rather it aimed toward his.

  “Do not worry. I have no dishonorable intentions. I want to show you something.”

  Despite the way joy hummed inside her, she believed him about the intentions. Gareth could not be called cold today, but he remained distant in subtle but unmistakable ways.

  “Have you made some amazing improvement? The roof is done?”

  “I would not abduct you for that. This is far more interesting. While I was in London, I bought some art. The lodge’s walls are too empty, don’t you agree? I decided to purchase some pictures that are fitting to its heritage and the bloodline that runs through me. You will like them, and can come study them if you choose. If you are very nice to me, maybe I will let you copy them the way academy students copy old masters.”

  A breeze of misgiving made her nape prickle.

  “That would mean spending a lot of time at Albany Lodge.”

  “It is a big house. You will not disturb me. If you are concerned that there would be talk, you can bring your sister or a friend.”

  She had not thought about there being talk. She had hoped to see a few wicked lights in his eyes to indicate he calculated having her in his house, vulnerable to his powers.

  At the house, he handed her out. “The pictures are in the library. I will join you in a minute.” He walked toward the coachman.

  She entered the house and turned into the library. And froze.

  Facing her, propped on chairs and mantel and against the wall, were the pictures Gareth had brought back from London.

  Her pictures.

  She strode from one to the other, hoping she was wrong, knowing she was not. She stood in their midst, unable to think. He knew. He must know. This could not be some coincidence. Unless he came upon the man who had bought them all from Mr. Stevenson—

  “They are very fine, don’t you think?”

  She pivoted. Gareth stood at the doorway, leaning his shoulder against the jamb, watching her. Intently. Darkly.

  She had never feared him before, but for a moment now she did.

  “Most of them came from a Mr. Zwilliger in London. He said they were by masters like Gainsborough and Cuyp.” He pointed at the three boys at the fountain, and the still life she had last seen at Christie’s. “Or Carracci over here. He gave a good name to each of them. Quite an opportunity, it was.”

  “Did you pay the prices such artists would command?”

  “That would have been stupid. After all, they are all forgeries.” He walked toward her. “Aren’t they, Eva?”
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  She wanted to die. Yes, he knew. He had guessed the truth, and suspected worse.

  “They were not intended to be forgeries. I never expected anyone to be fooled. I am not that good.”

  “You are very good. Most people would be fooled.”

  “They were exercises, and a way to earn a few shillings. I would paint a copy and give it to a man in Birmingham, and he would try to sell it and give me half the money if he did. I never said they were by any masters. I do not think he did either. I said they were mine, and he sold them as in a master’s style, but not by his hand. I see how it looks, however. If you think I was in league with this Mr. Zwilliger, I am not sure I can prove I was not.”

  He shed his topcoat, threw it on a chair, and sat on the divan. “Sit here with me, Eva. I want to make sure we hear each other clearly, and there are no misunderstandings.”

  She obeyed, sick to the depths of her being.

  “Eva, are you saying you had no idea that your copies were being sold as originals? None at all? Did you never think they might be?”

  “They were not good enough. I always saw them with the originals, and what they lacked was obvious.” She hesitated, but forged on. “I did see that one in the auction house, given to Cuyp. I told them I had painted it, but the man ignored me like I was some addled fool. And, yes, I will admit that when that happened, it did occur to me that perhaps, after they were sold, there had been a misunderstanding about them.”

  “That is the wrong word. This was deliberate. In the chain between your handing off the pictures, and my finding them, someone chose to present them as originals knowing full well they were not.”

  She stared at her lap, too embarrassed to look at him. She did not want to see his thoughts in his eyes. The best excuse she had was stupidity and ignorance. So much for her fine character. Nor would this get better. More questions would come that would show her in even a worse light.

  She wondered if Sarah would take Rebecca in if she were arrested. Probably so. Forgery was a serious crime. They might transport her. She wondered if forging paintings carried the same sentence as forging documents and such. Men had been hanged for that. The thought sent a shudder down her back.