A Sinner without a Saint

by Bliss Bennet

  “Yes, sir!” Dulcie set his hands behind his back, as if he were reciting lines for the schoolmaster. “Miss Pennington was not entirely happy with the miniature, sir, but could not quite explain why. And so Miss Adler asked to see it, and soon they were deep in conversation about its merits, or lack thereof.”

  But Dulcie could never keep still for long. Benedict watched as one of his hands reached out to skim over the bladders of paint, then the palette knife on the table, taking care not to touch. “Miss Adler has very few female acquaintances in London, I believe, and I did not like to interrupt the beginnings of a burgeoning friendship. So I informed her that I would just toddle up here myself, so as not to keep you waiting, and she might follow whenever she liked.”

  Benedict frowned. Of course he had known Polly was lonely. After their connection had deepened from teacher and student to peer and peer, she’d told him about the close friendships she had with many of the other girls at her convent school, and how heartbroken she had been to leave them behind. But he had few acquaintances of, and even less comfort with, the opposite sex, especially here in London. Assuming he could do nothing but offer his own self in friendship to ease Polly’s solitude, he’d completely disregarded his very own sister.

  And here, after knowing Polly for only a fortnight, was Dulcie, not only sensing her desire for female companionship, but introducing her to a potential friend as soon as the first opportunity presented itself. Even though it took her from his own side, giving him less time to press his suit. Why?

  Because he knew it would make his own life easier, if his future spouse could content herself with female friendships while he kept company with other men?

  Or because a hint of that kindness that had once led him to befriend a lonely, homesick schoolboy still lurked somewhere below the polished surface of the perfectly turned-out dandy?

  While Benedict debated the question in silence, Dulcie prowled about the studio, his eyes alight with interest. “How shall we begin this first sitting? Have you a book of poses you wish me to consider, or some of your own finished paintings as examples?”

  “There are no portraits here,” Benedict said, intercepting him before his inquisitive hands could reach for canvases leaning against the back wall. If Dulcie had not been impressed by his portrait of Polly, he’d find even less to praise in these abandoned projects.

  “Prefer historical work, do you? Then perhaps you should paint me as an allegorical figure, or hero of ancient myth. Do you not think I would make an excellent Paris, surrounded by Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, all awaiting my judgement of which was the fairest?”

  Benedict’s imagination flared, less from the thought of painting three naked goddesses than in trying to capture Paris in that moment of indecision. But Dulcie would hardly make a likely model for such a painting; he had always been far more decisive than Benedict ever could bring himself to be. Hadn’t he decided to pursue Adler’s paintings by wooing Polly mere days after first hearing of the connection between them?

  “And what would you ask for reward, in return for granting the apple to Aphrodite?” Benedict asked, his tone sharpening. “Miss Adler’s hand in marriage?”

  “What makes you think I would follow Paris’s example?” Dulcie said. He had always been a dab hand at turning a conversation away from any questions too inconvenient to answer. “A poor decision he made, choosing female beauty over power or wisdom for himself.”

  Benedict frowned. “But you never used to be interested in power for its own sake. And your judgment was always sound. If not beauty, then, what is it that you do want, Clair?”

  “Oh, I did not say I scorned all beauty. Just that I prefer my beauty not be embodied in a female.”

  “Ah. You prefer the masculine form? Mr. George Norton’s, perhaps?”

  Dulcie stepped up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “A comely boy, is he not? But the beauty of youth fades so quickly, here and gone before you can barely blink an eye. No, what I truly want—” Benedict’s pulse fluttered in his throat as Dulcie leaned over to whisper in his ear—“is the beauty of the ages. The beauty of the world’s greatest works of art.”

  Benedict shook free of the viscount’s hand, turning on him with a scowl. “The beauties of Mr. Adler’s collection, in fact?”

  Dulcie laughed, then draped himself over the small chaise-longue by the window. “So protective! But in truth, I’m hardly interested in winning the title of most voracious art collector.”

  “Then what?”

  “Why, to be regarded as the finest art connoisseur of the age, by both my peers and by posterity.” Dulcie laughed and waved a hand as if the admission were another joke. But his refusal to meet Benedict’s eyes suggested he had revealed something meaningful, something important.

  Benedict forced back his frustration at Dulcie’s false coquetry, recognizing the opening the man had just given him. If he could use Dulcie’s desires to win him to the cause, rather than act against its interests, perhaps he could protect Polly and forward the museum plans, too.

  “If you wish to be remembered after your death, you would do better to undertake something that will make the world a better place.”

  Dulcie raised an eyebrow. “Such as a national museum of art, open to all ranks and degrees of men?”

  “Yes. The founders of such a museum are far more likely to be remembered by posterity than any gentleman connoisseur, no matter the skill with which he makes his artistic pronouncements, or how many gentlemen he persuades to agree with them.”

  “Ah, but our definitions of posterity might not quite be the same, I fear. I wish to be remembered by the educated, the genteel, not by the rabble at large.”

  “But if the ranks of the educated were to increase, think how many more there would be to admire you. And how better to increase those ranks than by introducing them to the finest genteel culture has to offer: the works of the greatest masters of art.”

  Dulcie barked out a laugh. “Are you truly stooping to appeal to my basest desires? You must want this museum quite badly.”

  Benedict paced in front of the chaise, waving his hands. “I have no patience for those who argue that culture is best advanced by supporting great private collections, walled off from the masses. Art is meant to inspire virtue, and national spirit, in the populace. How can it do so if only a handful of privileged men are allowed to view the greatest works the world’s premier artists have produced?”

  Dulcie swung his legs down from the chaise and spread his arms wide over its back. “Ah, there’s the Benedict Pennington I remember, fired by the need to do good for others. Always so filled with compassion for the downtrodden, going quietly about trying to lessen their woes. Do you remember that long treatise you wrote to the headmaster, expounding on the dangers of abuse inherent in the fagging system? Even though you may have idolized your own fag-master”—Dulcie paused to give Benedict a knowing smile—“you could not help but protest at the way some of the other senior boys took undue advantage of their power of the younger. How I admired you for it!”

  Dulcie smoothed a hand over the seat of the chaise, almost as if inviting Benedict to sit with him as they reminisced about days gone by. But the memory of the egregious behavior of some of the fag-masters—of one boy in particular—and the way Dulcie had left him to that boy’s dubious mercies made Benedict recoil.

  “Am I to understand, then, that you do not wish to become an advocate for the museum? That you will instead do all in your power to secure Mr. Adler’s paintings for your own private ends?” he asked, his voice harsh with disappointment.

  Dulcie gazed up at Benedict for a long moment, a smile playing about his narrow lips. “I am only resolved to act in a manner which will, in my own opinion, constitute my own happiness.”

  “And what would constitute your happiness, my lord? I confess, I have often wondered,” Polly Adler’s voice asked.

  Benedict’s attention jerked to the doorway, to where Polly stood beside his
sister, Sibilla, both with slightly puzzled expressions on their faces.

  “To escort Miss Adler to tomorrow’s meeting of the Society of Arts,” Dulcie said with a flourishing bow in that lady’s direction. “I confess, I am quite eager to hear who has won this year’s medals for original oil paintings. Did you know that one of our friends has entered her work for consideration?”

  Benedict’s eyes darted to Polly, whose face flushed with pleasure and embarrassment at Dulcie’s declaration. How the hell had Dulcie known such a thing, when Polly had not even told Benedict she’d taken such a step?

  “Oh, how I wish I could join you, Miss Adler!” Sibilla’s unruly curls bounced with excitement as she turned to offer her congratulations to Polly. “But I’m promised to Sir Peregrine tomorrow. May I call on you later this week, so you may tell me all about it?”

  “Thank you, Miss Pennington. I would be honored,” Polly answered with a shy smile. “But Mr. Pennington, you will accompany Lord Dulcie and myself?”

  Benedict could not resist the hesitancy, nor the apology, in Polly’s voice. “I would be equally honored.”

  He would also be damned if he allowed Dulcie to spend any more time alone with Polly, not if he could prevent it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Excuse me, that’s a good fellow. If you will just step one pace to this side I believe we might just squeeze through. . . Ah, yes, a million pardons, my good woman, I did not mean any insult to that finest of bonnets. . . An award for a new kind of rat trap, you don’t say! Now, if you will excuse us. . .”

  Dulcie used equal parts charm and elbow to guide himself and Miss Adler through the throng assembled in the spacious Hall of the Drury Lane Theatre for the annual meeting of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. A far different crowd here this afternoon than when he typically frequented the theater. While the honorary premiums for polite arts were reserved for the nobility and gentry, the bulk of the Society’s prizes were awarded for agricultural and industrial innovations, hardly the province of the ton. What else should one expect, though, from a Society which continued to consider artists as mere craftsmen, on par with the inventors of an improved ribbon loom, or a more cunning trap for vermin? Yet the public had taken such an increased interested in the Society that its annual meeting had been moved from its own building to a local tavern, and now to this spacious theater.

  He’d far rather spend his time at the Royal Academy Exhibition, or even at the exhibition of the painters in water colours at the Egyptian Hall, than amongst such a crush. What other sacrifices would he be forced make in pursuit of Miss Adler’s dowry?

  Or in pursuit of Benedict Pennington?

  Yes, that instinctual attraction was still there between them, that strange spiritual chemistry that had flared during those few brief months they’d been together at school. The younger Benedict’s strong feelings and deeply held beliefs had often tempted adolescent Dulcie to delve below the surface of gaiety and charm he typically showed the world, even though he knew that revealing such vulnerability never profited in the long run. But yesterday, alone with the adult Benedict for the first time, he’d had to fight hard to keep his prattle charmingly superficial.

  Because even though Benedict was no longer an eager-eyed boy, he still had a way of making Dulcie reveal more of himself than he ever intended. Witness Dulcie mentioning his desire to be a respected arbiter of aesthetic taste. He’d spoken flippantly, yes, but still, he’d said it, given voice to his most ardent desire. And then the fellow had had the cheek to make him feel a twinge of guilt at the selfishness of that wish with his avid devotion to a far more public-spirited cause.

  Toying with Benedict Pennington, no matter how his senses leaped to inconvenient awareness in that gentleman’s presence, would not be the safest course of action, not for either of them.

  But Dulcie’s angel of righteousness never did speak as compellingly as his angel of iniquity. . .

  Dulcie glanced behind them, to make sure Benedict had not fallen behind. But the other man still stood by the theatre’s entrance, engaged in conversation with Sir Charles Long, one of the original founders of the British Institution and a trusted advisor to the King. Some wags said that when it came to choosing which artists to patronize, George IV saw only through Long’s spectacles. Benedict must have been hoping to persuade the King, through Long, to support his national gallery plan.

  “Dulcie. Well met, sir!”

  Dulcie quashed his annoyance and donned a practiced smile as he turned to greet his unwelcome greeter. “Leverett. And Mr. George Norton. What an unexpected pleasure. I did not know you were interested in matters commercial and industrial.”

  Young Norton blushed and bowed. “Lord Dulcie.”

  “Certainly we’ve no interest in the bulk of the awards,” Leverett said, skipping the niceties. “But Norton and I, we’ve made a few wagers on who will win the Gold Medal in each category of the Polite Arts, and who must settle for the Isis. Would you care to place a bet of your own?”

  Mr. Norton, better-mannered than his companion, turned to Miss Adler. “Will your companion permit an introduction, my lord?”

  “Yes, Dulcie, please introduce us,” Leverett seconded with a knowing smile. He’d maneuvered George Norton into attending this meeting, no doubt, suspecting Dulcie would invite Polly Adler to attend. And hoping to pour poisonous gossip about him in her ear. Dulcie silently applauded. Leverett always proved a worthy rival. But his own budding friendship with Miss Adler wasn’t likely to be overset by any spoke Leverett could toss in its wheels.

  He raised a questioning eyebrow to Polly, who gave a brief nod.

  “Miss Adler, may I present Mr. Lattimer Leverett and Mr. George Norton? Both are avid patrons of the arts, as well as fellow members of the British Institution. Leverett, Norton, Miss Polyhymnia Adler. Granddaughter of Julius Adler, of Pall Mall. She is one of the artists competing for a prize today.”

  George Norton bowed. “I applaud your bravery, Miss Adler. I would never have the courage to show my own poor artistic attempts to the public.”

  “Miss Adler,” Leverett said as took her hand in his. Ingratiating dog. She’d not invited such familiarity. “I know your grandfather by reputation, naturally, but I have never had the privilege of viewing his renowned collection. What a joy it must be, to live and breathe amidst such treasures!”

  “A joy, yes, indeed,” Miss Adler said as she drew her gloved hand from Leverett’s. Not one for idle chit-chat, was she? Especially not with an encroaching stranger.

  Dulcie’s angel of iniquity prodded. “A joy you may soon have yourself, sir, if the gods smile upon you.”

  Leverett leaned forward, his nostrils flaring. “Indeed? You have the run of Adler’s collection already, do you?”

  His rival rarely showed his rapacity so openly. How it must gall him, knowing Dulcie had access to a collection of such quality when he did not.

  “Oh, I would hardly call it that,” Dulcie said with an easy smile. “No, I speak of a quite different opportunity. Did you know Miss Adler’s grandfather is considering donating his collection, or at least part of it, to our fair country? To serve as the basis for a national gallery of art?”

  Leverett grimaced. “Surely you jest, Dulcie. What intelligent collector would turn his life’s work over to the state?”

  “One who believes that the general taste of the public will be improved by having models of real excellence in painting constantly before them,” Benedict said, nodding to Norton and Leverett as he joined their small group.

  “The general public? Do you mean such a gallery would be open to anyone, just like the British Museum?” Norton, poor boy, looked a bit sick at the idea. And Leverett, why, he seemed almost on the verge of an apoplexy. What fun!

  Dulcie waved his hand to the crowds about them. “To the higher orders, to the middling classes, why, to any milkmaid or stableboy who wishes to visit! Even to fellows as unworthy as you and I, Leverett.”


  Norton frowned—trying to make sense of a scheme that everything in his upbringing told him was irrational? “But why would a milkmaid or a stableboy be interested in viewing a painting? I could understand opening such a gallery to our own artists, so they might study the techniques of their betters. But—”

  “I doubt even constant study of the Old Masters could improve the English school of art,” Leverett interrupted. “I would never disgrace my collection by hanging the work of a native upon my walls.”

  “You are wrong,” Benedict said, waving a hand in clear dismissal. “Since my travels on the Continent, where I was exposed to artists, nay, entire schools of art, that I would never have seen had I remained at home, my approach to painting has changed entirely. But many of England’s artists never have the chance to study abroad, and thus lack the opportunity to become acquainted with what is really fine in art.”

  “And it is not only our artists who would benefit from a gallery in the heart of London,” Dulcie added with a sly glance at Leverett. “Think of all the foreign visitors such a collection would draw! And those visitors would add to the prosperity and riches of our metropolis, would they not?”

  “London is crowded enough without dirty foreigners cluttering up our streets, don’t you agree, Norton?” Leverett interposed.

  “I had not considered that, Dulcie,” Benedict said, ignoring Leverett completely. Oh, how that would grate! “But the gallery in Dresden, and the Pitti palace, yes, even the Louvre, they all draw more people to their cities than would ordinarily visit, don’t they?”

  The respect in Benedict’s eyes, a respect he hadn’t seen since their schooldays, fired Dulcie’s brain. “Indeed. And you’ve overlooked perhaps the most important advantage. Such a gallery will lead to an improvement in the general taste of the public. By visiting such an institution, by gazing on the admirable models contained within its walls, those who never had the chance before to see the best that the world’s artists have created will now have a just and proper standard of excellence before them.”