“How long has the painting hung on the wall there?”
“Some months.”
Bloody unspecific answer for a man who likely had an encyclopedic knowledge of the entire museum.
“You see, MacGregor, the reason I ask is that I thought I recalled another painting hanging on that wall, and I came in hoping to see it. But I could well be confusing the Montmorency with the British Museum.” It was useful to mention a rival, he decided. “Perhaps you’ve moved paintings within the museum? We’ve—the Eversesas—an Italian painting or two we might wish to share with the art-loving British public.”
“I cannot recall moving paintings, sir. We’re simply happy to have a painting the…caliber of the Rubinetto to hang on that wall.”
Another answer that wasn’t an answer.
Which in itself, as far as Chase was concerned, was an answer. Of sorts.
He suspected MacGregor had been instructed by someone to be less forthcoming. If not to everyone, then specifically to him.
“The reason I asked about the Rubinetto is that it’s hung in such a fine location. The room is snug, protected from too much light that might fade the paintings. Our donation might be contingent upon hanging our painting on that very wall.” This had the faintest hint of regretful warning. “I saw no other location quite so appealing. The painting I had in mind would beautifully suit the room.”
“Such things are decided by committee, sir,” MacGregor said cautiously. “But I shall share your preferences with the museum board.”
“Perhaps I have friends on your board who might be amenable to a bit of influence. Would you mind sharing a few of their names with me?”
“Oh, I’m not privy to the names of the board members, sir. I’m merely a clerk.”
In just two days, a very helpful man had become vaguely and politely obstructive.
Chase scowled at him.
The clerk flinched. But said nothing more.
Information. Chase sifted through fragments of it. Perhaps connected, perhaps not. A bit like an archeological dig. It added up to very little as of yet.
“May I visit the wing once again? To ascertain whether it would suit our bequest?”
“You’re always welcome to visit the wing during visiting hours, sir,” said MacGregor bravely.
And yet he of course knew how to parlay his limp as a lever, and it led him to the next question, and made him feel brilliant. “Perhaps there is another, more convenient exit from the museum closer to the East Wing?” Chase suggested delicately.
He looked speakingly at his walking stick. Then back at the former soldier. Shameless of him.
“We’ve only the tradesmen’s entrance—perhaps you’ve noticed it to the right of the building, near the front?—but it’s kept locked at all times except when we’re expecting a delivery, of coal or cleaning supplies, or when we allow in our cleaning staff in the morning. I fear the tradesmen’s entrance is no closer to the East Wing than to this exit, sir.”
“You must have a veritable battalion of cleaning staff. Silent as mice, and unobtrusive. I haven’t seen a member of it yet.”
“We appreciate your appreciation, sir. It is not so much a battalion as a dozen or so efficient and very careful individuals who dust and polish the entire place but once every Tuesday, so if you have not yet been in on a Tuesday, you would not have seen them. Occasionally we’ve craftsmen in for repairs and maintenance. We’ve someone who sees to the candles every morning and evening.”
Chase glanced over at the open page in the book. Only four names were scrawled on it, and none were names he knew, and none were Callender.
“I don’t suppose you require the staff to sign the book?”
“Oh no, sir. That’s only for our guests.”
Some go in and dinna come out. Some go out and dinna come in.
Chase made a great show of signing his name in the book.
And then Rosalind leaned forward to sign hers, and stumbled forward with an “Oh! Goodness!”
And swept the big book from the table. It crashed to the floor, barely missed landing on Chase’s boot. “I am so clumsy. I’m terribly sorry!”
The clerk dove for it, but Chase was faster. “Allow me, Mrs. Smithson.”
Chase took his time lifting it up, and as he did, he casually, nosily—surreptitiously, he hoped—once again rifled through the pages of the book.
His eyes were quick.
He hadn’t seen Callender’s or Ireton’s names in the Montmorency Museum’s book when he had his first flip through it. And he didn’t see them now.
Nor did he see the names of any other “rich coves,” for that matter, at least none with whom he was acquainted. London circles, and the circles that encompassed the Everseas, were simply riddled with rich coves.
Was Liam lying to them? But why? To impress them with his knowledge of rich coves?
He heaved the great book back up onto the desk and spread it back open to the page of the day.
“Thank you, Sergeant MacGregor.”
Rosalind paused to finish signing her name in the book: Mrs. Smithson. She beamed at MacGregor, who could not seem to smile in return, and followed Chase into the museum.
A quick circuit of the museum revealed only one other guest, a young man who appeared to be a scholar or a painter, seated before a Renaissance painting, sketching busily with his tongue between his teeth.
They saw Callender nowhere.
And they were now before the Rubinetto once more.
Chase looked about, just in case someone was watching, and surreptitiously lifted the edge of the frame. The wall beneath it was the same color as the wall surrounding it.
If the painting had indeed hung for some months, the wall behind it would have been brighter, untouched by dust or elements that might dull it.
Which meant the painting hadn’t hung for very long in that particular spot.
He glanced at Rosalind, who glanced back at him. She understood why he’d done it.
“All right, Rosalind. Look very closely at the angel.”
The great bovine stared out at them from the middle of the painting with soulful eyes, its swishing tail upraised. Up in the corner, the angel was still strumming her harp, her body arched so that her white toes pointed skyward, her toga slipping down around her plump calves, her bosom spilling forward, pink nipples exposed. Her lips were curved in a smile of dozy contentment; a pair of fluffy white wings held her aloft. She was a brunette.
“She would plummet to earth and land face first in a cow pat with wings like those.” Chase was irritated. “They would need to be at least three feet wider to get her airborne at all. She would never be able to fly, let alone be able to hold a harp while flying.”
“Thank you, Icarus,” Rosalind said. “That’s fascinating.”
He turned slowly to her and smiled with pure pleasure. She smiled back: it was impossible not to. They beamed at each other for perhaps longer than necessary.
“All right. Rosalind, if you saw this angel again in a different context, would you recognize her? If she were painted in the same colors, with the same…physique…in a…well, similar pose?”
She hesitated. “She’s rather distinctive, isn’t she?”
“Distinctive is certainly one way to describe her.”
She carefully did not look at Chase.
As the context in question was of course a painting in a brothel in which the angel was likely doing something much less innocent than strumming a harp.
She suddenly felt very shy, very green again, and she half resented him for it. It brought back the early days of her marriage to Colonel March, when she’d been so in the dark about nearly everything, from proper etiquette at a formal dinner to what precisely would happen to her on her wedding night.
She could not pretend to sophistication. She knew Chase wouldn’t have to pretend at all. About any of it. She sensed the sheer magnitude of the man’s sensual knowledge every time he touched her.
Involuntarily her thoughts steered her gaze to the room next to her, the room where she thought she’d seen a ghost, and lingered upon that grand, arrogant, sensual, curtained bed. She sucked in a short sharp breath, as desire and memory pierced.
It cannot happen again, she’d told him last night. Because in Callender’s library she’d begun to sense that there would be no end to the pleasure that could be had from him. And she knew it was because the man’s very presence—exhilarating and unnerving—even now, tempted her to do anything at all he might ask of her. She didn’t dare.
Chase, inscrutably, followed the direction of her gaze. They lingered on the bed speculatively, too. Returned to her face.
Rosalind jerked her eyes—and a warmer face—back to the angel. Who still looked pleased with the world. But she didn’t seem to have any answers, either. About anything.
Rosalind gazed at her. And then turned to Chase with a rueful, almost apologetic smile.
Her breath caught at the expression fleeing from his eyes.
It occurred to her then that her very presence was a constant razor strop to his desire, and perhaps an unfair test of his own control.
How had she come to play this role in his life—the woman who must ever be at arm’s length? The woman who lured him into trouble? It seemed unfair. She knew how badly he wanted her.
But then life, she thought ruefully, was seldom about “fair,” or about what we wanted.
Chase was once again all composure, as if the expression in his eyes had never been.
“I probably would recognize her,” Rosalind said softly. “The angel.”
He nodded shortly. “If you should like to see the angel at the Velvet Glove, send for me tomorrow morning, Rosalind. Keep in mind, if it’s the same angel, we might be able to discover who Rubinetto is and why this painting is here, and if it has anything at all to do with Lucy’s disappearance.”
The forceful Captain Eversea, despite his formidable powers of persuasion, was giving her a gift: he was patiently leaving the decision in her hands.
Chapter 13
When they emerged from the museum, Liam was standing on the steps holding in one grubby hand a piece of bread folded over what appeared to be a wedge of cheese and was bringing it to his mouth.
Chase asked, “Liam, can you count beyond ten?”
He tucked the sandwich into his pocket, much to the mutual dismay of Rosalind and Chase.
“Aye, I can count. But not on me fingers. Only wi’ shillings and pence. I can add them and subtract them, and the like. I’ll show ye now. If ye’ve shillings and pence.”
He thrust his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his dirty heels. And grinned. He directed most of the radiance of his grin at Rosalind, perhaps thinking she would be a softer touch.
“Very witty, Liam,” Chase said. “How many apples are stacked on the bottom row of the costermonger’s cart?” He swung up his walking stick and pointed out into the street.
“Five of them.” Almost instantly said.
“How many pigeons are currently eating…whatever that might be?” He gestured to a group of pigeons, who were doing what pigeons do best, clustering about a great puddle of something and having the pigeon version of a luncheon party.
With a flourish, Liam’s finger stabbed the air eight times in the direction of the pigeons. The boy ought to have been on stage.
“Eight pigeons.”
“Very well. I’ve an assignment for you.”
“Assi…?”
“A job.”
The boy’s eyes lit. A job meant money.
“Can I trust you with an important job?”
“Aye, Captain Eversea.”
“I should like to know how many people go into and how many men go out of the Montmorency Museum while you are here. Can you write?”
“Nay!” Liam snorted. Why would he be able to write?
“How is your memory for detail?”
“Detail’ is…”
Rosalind surprised Chase by taking his arm and turning him abruptly away from the boy. “Liam, what color are Captain Eversea’s eyes?”
“Blue” came instantly from the boy.
“What color are Mrs. March’s eyes?” Chase countered. Rosalind closed her eyes immediately.
“Green. ’Er ’air is brownlike. Soft voice, ’cept when she’s stern. Tall fer a girl. Smells nice, like roses. Is that what ye mean by detail?”
Was the urchin mocking them? Chase wondered. Or reading his mind?
He was definitely grinning, the little devil.
Rosalind opened her eyes then. But her cheeks had gone the color of the aforementioned roses.
They both studiously avoided looking at each other.
The boy was still grinning at them.
Chase cleared his throat. “Very well. I think we’ve established you’ve an eye for detail, Liam. So I should like you to count how many men you see today and remember anything of significance, and report it to me.”
“I know only so many words, Captain Eversea, and signiwhatsit isna one of ’em.”
He wasn’t going to humor this bright bugger.
“‘Significant’ means ‘important,’ or in this instance, ‘unusual.’ Remember the word, as I may use it again. Remember anything that seems unusual and then tell me tomorrow in the morning.”
“But the puppets might be in the square tomorrow if the weather is fine. I love puppets!”
Dear God. Did everyone love puppets? What was wrong with the world?
He sighed. “Then we shall discuss it after the puppet show.”
Anticipation was like a gong. It woke Chase early for a change. He all but bounded downstairs, nearly frightening the staff to death by being awake so early and by the bounding, which seemed an inordinately sprightly thing for the lately dour, limping Captain Eversea. If he’d told them it was because he was waiting for a message from a woman he hoped to take to a brothel, doubtless they would have all crossed themselves.
Or perhaps not. Most of them had worked for Everseas for decades now and had come to expect nearly anything.
But no message from Rosalind had yet arrived.
Resigned, he took himself outside.
The day was indeed fine—if “fine” meant dense heat, nary a rain cloud in sight, a breeze like a fetid breath, and a generous layer of coal smut once again jaundicing the London sky. Dull yellow—now that was a proper London color. Blue was for Sussex, when the sky wasn’t washed with fog or filled with thick rain clouds.
He wished he could tell Rosalind what a sacrifice he was making on her behalf by attending a puppet show. He hadn’t had the nerve to tell Rosalind that he thought the puppets might be speaking directly to him, possibly about the painting in the Montmorency.
Nevertheless.
Delighted people were already clustered in the square. Chase craned his head: sure enough, the marionettes were already twitching on strings on their miniature stage. He stared in something like disbelief. He’d seen a man convulse after being struck by a bolt of lightning once.
Watching the marionettes was just that pleasant.
Only a need to grasp upon anything that might help Rosalind could drag him closer. He didn’t see Liam in the crowd, but then again, the boy had a talent for blending into his surroundings, especially if the surroundings were grimy.
He could hear the squeaky puppety voices rise up in a crescendo—delivering the joke, no doubt—and then they were drowned out in a roar of laughter.
He saw a friend in the audience and shouldered his way over, employing the gold horse muzzle head of his walking stick once to prod someone in the arse when they refused to shift. He shrugged one shoulder somberly when the arse shifted and a head turned to aim a glare at him, and continued to maneuver through the crowd, exaggerating his limp.
Shameless. But he had an objective.
He was close enough to see the puppet’s painted eyes flash turquoise as they turned this way and that. He could have sworn they were
seeking him out.
He wondered if this line of thinking meant he ought to drink more or drink less.
“Mr. Charles!”
“Why, Mr. Martin.” Chase touched the brim of his hat. Martin, hatless, nodded pleasantly and held out an apple. It was an early one—small, pale yellow, exquisitely shaped, and covered all over in a flush of red. Chase thought of Rosalind and her earlobes turning pink with fury and her face flushing with desire and her sweet, smooth, small apple arse and how neatly it fit into his hands, and he took the thing with pleasure, closed his fingers over it slowly.
He was tempted to close his eyes for just a moment, just to allow himself again the imaginings that had kept him awake much of the night. The feel of her peach-firm arse, for one, the smooth tautness of her skin.
Ah, Rosalind.
He suspected he was doomed to see her metaphorically in everything from now on. Apples. The backs of women in crowds. The shapes of clouds. Bad paintings. The color green.
Probably not marionettes.
“Gets ’em from a costermonger up Black Cat Lane. Worcester, they come in from.”
Chase finally took the apple out of bonhomie. Mr. Martin watched until he took a polite bite. Admittedly, it was a very fine apple. A pearmain. Later in the fall the flavor would be too cloying, but now it had a near perfect balance of sweet and tart.
And there it was again: another way of thinking of Rosalind.
Chase held the apple in his mouth, savoring it, and felt the slightest twinge of competition; an ancient apple orchard stretched out over Eversea land and on the farm that Colin was running now; it fluffed into bloom in early autumn, and then wagons of harvested russets headed to London to sell to the likes of Mr. Martin. He could hardly grow up in Pennyroyal Green without knowing a bit about farming.
Granted, not nearly as much about farming as Colin seemed to want to know. But Everseas had farming in their blood along with roguery.
He wondered what kind of farmer he’d be if ever took it up.
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