Lady Rogue

by Theresa Romain

  “Really? That seems an unlikely way to hurt one’s self.” He escorted her into a chair, then retook his own. He shushed the dogs as they showed their teeth.

  Perhaps they recognized her scent from the night before. Or perhaps this was nothing more than the ordinary sort of hatred they bore toward every living creature who was not the duke.

  Never mind the dogs. The duke could hardly allow a visitor to be torn apart in his home. She pasted a polite smile onto her face and replied, “An unlikely injury indeed. I cannot think how I managed it. I was most displeased with myself.”

  In case she was not a good liar, and she suspected she was not, she had returned to her bedchamber after breakfast to stumble from her bed in truth.

  He only watched her, but did not reply. If he and Callum ever had a staring contest, it would last until the end of time.

  “But you did not invite me to inquire after the state of my person, Your Grace.” Isabel made use of all the manners that had been drilled into her: keep a pleasant smile, never show a gentleman that your mind is wandering. The same method worked well for not showing apprehension. Wariness. Dread. “I am perplexed as to the reason, I admit. What business matter of yours can involve me?”

  “I was visited by housebreakers last night. They left behind their tools and a rope.”

  “Dear me,” she murmured. “Have you contacted Bow Street?”

  “I have not. You do not ask me what they took?”

  “If I thought it any affair of mine, I would. But I cannot see how it is. The housebreakers are not a business interest either.”

  “Not precisely, no.” He leaned back in his chair, tucking his chin to look at her sharply. “Then again, they might be. I have summoned you here—thank you for coming so promptly—to discuss the painting you see behind me.”

  She could almost hear her own heartbeat, thumping beneath her prim bodice of gray frogged and trimmed with black. “Oh? It is a lovely work. A Botticelli, of course. I enjoyed having a look at it the last time I was in your study.”

  But it wasn’t the last time she’d been in his study, and some flicker of expression must have betrayed her.

  “I recall your interest. Do tell me everything you know about it, Lady Isabel.”

  “Surely you learned all you required when my late husband sold it to you? He was the expert, not I.”

  “Indeed.” The duke smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. “But this is not the painting your husband sold me.”

  Her heart halted, considered its options, then began to sprint. “Of course it is! Why, it’s a genuine Botticelli. Look at the fine brushwork, the cracking of the paint that proves its age.” She had learned the vocabulary well enough. “It’s an Italian masterpiece.”

  “Exactly.” Ardmore leaned closer. “As I said, this is not the painting your husband sold me.”

  Gog and Magog, the two great hounds, stared at her like gigantic carvings from either side of his desk. She had the impression they were waiting only for the duke’s signal to tear her to pieces. Or were they? A faint smell of anise lingered, and their eyes were drowsy.

  She attempted to arrange her features into an expression of polite confusion. “I don’t understand your meaning, Your Grace.”

  “This. Is not. The painting your husband sold me,” he replied slowly, each word ground out heavily like a stone being fitted into a wall.

  “That cannot be. I’m not the expert he was, but it appears perfectly genuine.”

  A hard look from the duke. “Exactly.”

  “Are you displeased with it?”

  The duke considered. “It does not serve its intended purpose. I should like the other one back again.”

  Now this was odd indeed. He intended to use it to settle a debt knowing that it was worth little? Knowing that Andrew Morrow had once defrauded him?

  But if he knew, why had he never revealed the truth? How could he have been satisfied to receive less than what he’d paid for? Unless he had never paid for it at all, and Morrow was just another in the line of people to whom the duke was in debt.

  She bit her lip. “Why should you think this isn’t the same painting?”

  “A dodge, Lady Isabel?”

  “Mere curiosity,” she laughed. “Though of course for it to be other than the same painting you bought from Morrow is impossible.”

  “Is it? You see, I stamped the back of the painting when I brought it into my home.”

  She gasped, a reflex from her years as the wife of an art collector and dealer. “You stamped an original canvas?”

  The duke looked taken aback by her disapproval, but he soon recovered. “In this case, I rather think it was not Botticelli’s original. But I am in the habit of stamping my acquisitions. If you’ll indulge me? Come, look at this picture in the corridor.”

  They stepped out of the study, and the duke lifted down the nearest artwork at hand. “You see? This one is stamped.” He replaced it, lifting down a Restoration-era portrait to its left. “And this one too. I trust you’ll believe me that all of my paintings are stamped. And the one in my study, which I intended to sell, is not.”

  Of course he was telling the truth. In the dark, she had not noticed that Butler’s painting was marked by a stamp, which took the form of the Ardmore crest. The duke used a brown ink scarcely darker than the canvas backing, like weak tea spilled on vellum.

  “I cannot believe you stamp directly on the paintings themselves,” she said again. “But if you’re convinced it’s a real Botticelli, then there is no problem is there?”

  “Only if one doesn’t want to sell a real Botticelli.” The duke’s smile was humorless. “Something your late husband knew something about, I’ll warrant.”

  The smell of aniseed was stronger in the corridor. At her back, she felt the presence of the music-room door like a pressure between her shoulder blades. “I am sorry, Your Grace. I was never a part of Morrow’s business dealings before his death.”

  “But what about since?”

  “Your Grace, I really cannot say.”

  He looked tired, suddenly, and she wondered how old he was. Not as young as his energy led one to believe. “Come, let us sit down again.” They returned to their chairs in the study. Gog and Magog eyed them beadily, quivering against the command to sit.

  “Lady Isabel, I did not summon you here idly. My questions apply to far more than one painting.”

  “I can’t imagine what you mean.” This, at least, was honest.

  “Fortunate you.” He seemed disinclined to say more, and for a minute they merely blinked at each other across the desk.

  “Well.” Isabel cleared her throat. “If there’s nothing more, I’ll—”

  “Father, you’ll never believe it!” George had approached the study, unheard, and now stood in the doorway. “Since Knotwirth vanished, the betting at White’s is up to—oh! Hullo, Isabel.”

  Gog and Magog had sprung to their feet when George appeared, and his voice was all but drowned out by their frenzied barking. A tiny portion of Isabel was relieved at this return of their usual temper; she hadn’t wanted the laudanum-laced cakes to have an ill effect on the duke’s beloved hounds.

  “Sit,” she ventured. The dogs looked at her with almost human annoyance, then plumped their haunches onto the study floor in their accustomed spots.

  “Well done,” George approved.

  “You told me it was the only command they obey.”

  “From other people it is,” said the duke. “I can get them to r-o-l-l o-v-e-r and p-r-a-y and play d-e-a-d.” Spelling the words so as not to set off a flurry of tricks, Isabel supposed.

  “George.” She turned her attention to her old friend. “You look well.” The polite words were truer than they usually were. He looked more alert than the last time she’d seen him—could it have been only the morning before?—with no circles under his eyes.

  “I slept last night. First time I haven’t fallen asleep in church since I was a schoolboy.” He shrugg
ed. “Might even make a habit of it, and stay awake during the day. It’s making a world of difference.”

  “What, spending the night asleep? Why would you go to such an extreme?” she teased.

  “Realized I wasn’t enjoying myself as I used to. And my waistcoats don’t lie nicely anymore.” He rubbed at his abdomen, looking mournful. The gold-shot blue silk of his waistcoat bulged, the buttons tugging at their holes instead of lying flat.

  “Ah, there’s the real reason.”

  “Indeed.” He leaned against the doorframe, all lazy unconcern. “Not even I could have two wardrobes made in a single Season. The excess.” He winked.

  In truth, George was far less of a dandy than many young men of society. The clothes, she suspected, were an excuse to cover his lack of enjoyment. A young man of fashion couldn’t simply say he’d had enough, could he?

  It was too bad George wouldn’t do for Lucy. He was not steady enough, though, and Lucy would wilt having a terrible duke for a father-in-law. That was one of the nicest things about being married to Andrew: he had no family whatsoever.

  Which reminded her of her own brother, dutifully playing cards with Lucy while she conducted her mysterious errand. “You must excuse me,” she told the two men. “I have to return home. My brother, Lord Martindale, is visiting me.”

  George held out an arm. “See you out? Unless you two are still talking.”

  Isabel forced herself to meet the cold blue eyes of the Duke of Ardmore. “I think we have said everything that is to the point.”

  “For now,” said the duke. “I will not keep you any longer.”

  It ought to have sounded like a mannerly farewell. Was it unreasonable, therefore, that Isabel perceived a threat?

  * * *

  When she returned to her house, she found Martin in the drawing room. Cards had been abandoned atop a table, and he was holding a note and pretending not to be picking at the seal.

  He jumped to his feet. “Just arrived for you. I was checking to see whether it was properly sealed.”

  “Thank you. How thoughtful. And where is your fellow card player?”

  Martin glared at the cards. “She won all my pocket change, then lost interest in the game. She’s off playing with Brinley, maybe, or doing some sort of sketch.”

  “Good guesses. She spends ninety percent of her waking hours in one of those two activities.” With her thumb, she cracked the seal and skimmed the letter’s brief lines. It was a new communication from Septimus Nash, the house agent.

  “News? Something you need help with?” Martin was crowding her, trying to read over her shoulder. He never could be convinced that she handled her own affairs perfectly well.

  “Yes to the former, no to the latter. The house agent has located another property in which I might be interested.”

  The owners want to let it, said the note, but I do not believe they are in a financial position to decline a good offer of purchase.

  The house was in Bedford Square. It was not a tonnish part of London, but she knew Bedford Square to be the home of success nonetheless. Wealthy tradespeople, nobles closely involved in politics rather than land-holding, scientists and reformers and writers. They would make for respectable neighbors, and interesting ones.

  Well done, Nash, she thought. This time he had deigned to consider Isabel’s preferences. Perhaps being saddled with an incontinent beagle in an unsuitable house had done him good.

  Martin tugged the note from her hand in the most irritating elder-brotherly way. “Bedford Square? Ah, you’re still pursuing this scheme of moving households.”

  “It’s not a scheme. It’s a plan.”

  Martin’s hand, still holding the note, dropped to his side. With his other hand, he scrubbed wearily over his eyes. “Look here, Isabel. You needn’t put yourself through the trouble of moving to a smaller place. If you want more money, I can arrange it from our father’s holdings.”

  “It’s not a matter of money. It’s a matter of choosing where I live.”

  “How could you want more than this? You have a fine home.” He spread his hands, looking about the drawing room. Elegant, elegant. Andrewish, Andrewish. The house was a showplace, not a home.

  And besides that, there was the secret studio. The stacked-up paintings of women, naked in every way.

  Isabel replied coolly. “Would you like to live in a house where a man had shot himself?”

  Martin blinked. “Er. It wouldn’t appeal to me, I suppose. Though his death was an accident. Wasn’t it? There’s no shame in that.”

  She had thought it an accident—though Martin was wrong; there was shame aplenty in the circumstances of their life together. The death was but the epilogue to a story she had never much liked.

  But if Callum wasn’t certain Andrew had died from an accidental gunshot, the remaining possibilities were disconcerting.

  “Accident is a tragedy,” she said. “Suicide is a scandal. Which would you prefer to live with?”

  “Why, neither of them—oh. Yes. I see what you mean.” He understood, then, in a way that was meaningful to him.

  She wasn’t sure which it was better to live with now that time had blunted shock. What if the accident was a lie, a suicide the truth? A tragedy brought one pity; a scandal brought one notoriety.

  None of it should have been hers. But a man and wife became as one flesh once wed, and anything Andrew Morrow did reflected on her as well. The Duke of Ardmore had proved that once again.

  Managing a smile, she drew Nash’s note from her brother’s hand. “I would like to see this house. I will make an appointment with Nash to view it tomorrow. You may come along, Martin, but you will not advise me in any way.”

  “I’m returning to Kent in the morning, so I won’t be able to join you.” He looked at her askance. “Isabel, you seem different.”

  “So you told me yesterday. Surely it would be unconscionable if I wasn’t, after being widowed so suddenly.”

  “No, it’s more recent than that. You’re surer of yourself now.” His expression was considering. “You don’t blush so much.”

  She had certainly blushed the night before. The memory made her smile genuine. “I know now that I have done nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “That’s the sort of thing I mean.” Martin paced, rumpling the nap of the expensive carpet. “Everyone has done something he is ashamed of.”

  “Why, Martin! You hint at a most interesting tale.”

  And now he was the one blushing, and she laughed. “Please give my love to Father when you return to Kent.”

  “Ah. Well. Could you write it in a note? It’ll mean more coming from you.” Which meant that he didn’t want to utter the words of embarrassing emotion.

  “I will. And one for your lady and my dear nieces and nephews, too.”

  By the time she had penned the notes, and Martin had departed for the family’s town house, Isabel was tired and her ankle was aching like the devil. She thought of Gog and Magog, the constantly enraged hounds made peaceful by laudanum, and wished for a drugged cake or two for herself.

  * * *

  Callum did not consider himself a superstitious man. Based on observation, not superstition, he had concluded that if Monday began quietly in the Bow Street magistrate’s court, the rest of the week tended to be quiet as well.

  This would not be that sort of week. When he pushed through the door of the familiar old building, the whole courtroom was thronged—and not with the usual sort of petty criminal or weepy inebriate. No, today’s crowd was well-dressed and sober. Indignant and puzzled. All male, mostly elderly, with the ascetic look of scholars. More than one wore a flannel waistcoat at odds with the already-warm day.

  Callum scanned the crowd, found the Benton siblings. He made his way toward his friends and asked, “What brings the Royal Society to our door?”

  He’d meant it as a joking reference to the appearance of the crowd, but Cass shook her head. “Wrong group. It’s the Royal Academy. Not all of them, o
f course, but the president’s here. Benjamin West.”

  She pointed out an elderly man with wiry gray hair and a thin, suspicious face. He was small and stringy, with a puffed-up look of self-importance.

  “I don’t know if we deserve the honor.” Callum frowned. “Why are they all here?”

  “Not for us. For a man named—what was it, Cass? Butter, or Butler, or something like that.”

  “Butler,” Cass confirmed. “An artist. West says he’s committed some sort of crime.”

  “But Fox disagrees,” Charles said of the magistrate, who wore a harassed expression along with his usual wig. “And all the artists, if they are all artists, are going to stay here until Fox changes his mind.”

  “Or until they get hungry. They’ve been here for quite a while already,” Cass noted. “And men who wear flannel waistcoats aren’t accustomed to going without creature comforts.”

  “The orange sellers ought to be here any time,” Callum said. “Unless . . . you bribed them to stay away, didn’t you?”

  Charles grinned sheepishly. “Can you blame me? I feel for the man, Butler. All he did was copy a painting, and that’s not a crime.”

  “Right,” Callum said, using a vague tone to cover the unpleasant swoop taken by his insides. He looked around the room for the artist’s familiar dark face. There. Butler sat calmly on one of the benches, looking beatific to be awaiting his turn in court.

  “Think I’ll talk to Butler, see what’s happened with the Royal Academy,” Callum told the Bentons. “A cool head can straighten this out, surely. We’d like our courtroom back.”

  “And our orange sellers,” sniffed Cass, elbowing her brother.

  “What happened to your boot, Jenks? It looks even worse than usual.”

  Damn. He’d been hoping no one would notice the slice in the leather. The bullet’s track on his calf was a ropy scab now, bandaged and shoved into the boot. For the boot itself, there was no remedy.

  “Met with a misadventure,” he grunted. “Part of the job. It still covers my foot well enough.”