After a year’s apprenticeship, Keith encouraged both Lia and Sandy, who was undergoing his own artistic transformation, to spend time studying in Europe. Armed with letters of introduction, the two young artists spent several months in Paris and Munich studying the techniques of European masters, both living and dead. During their sojourn, Sandy began to explore more deeply the theme of human suffering. His work was influenced, no doubt, by an ill-fated affair with a watercolorist named Pablo. Lia, more pragmatic, determined that even though portraiture was not her first love, it could be an excellent way to pay the bills while she gained a reputation for her work.
She was right. Since their return to San Francisco, she’d begun to earn small commissions which over time had led to more lucrative ones. Her current work, a dramatic mural depicting the Firestone family, was her most impressive to date. Her advance had been so substantial, in fact, that she had signed a lease on a small house with attached studio in the Marina district of the city. As much as she loved Sandy, it was time for them to have their privacy.
As if she’d been listening in on Lia’s thoughts, Mary asked, “When do you move into your new space?”
“Just after the first of the year.” Lia chuckled. “Sandy keeps saying he’s devastated, but I noticed him measuring my room the other day. I think he’s considering making it his new home studio.”
“Or maybe he’ll get a new roommate.” Mary busied herself putting out crystal flutes for the requisite champagne that accompanied any and all art shows.
“I hope you’re right,” Lia said. “Sandy was in the doldrums for a long time after Pablo tossed him over for that matador from Seville, but his new friend Roger has possibilities.”
“Good for him. By the way, Charles is stopping by tonight. He asked if you were going to be here.” She didn’t look at Lia as she spoke.
“Now Mary, you wouldn’t be trying to set me up with your stepson, would you? A modern woman like you?” Lia needed to get her point across lightly, but firmly. Charles Keith was attractive but didn’t ring any bells for her. She was beginning to despair that any man ever would.
“Who, me? Of course not. I wouldn’t dream of it.” Mary was the picture of innocence.
Lia gave her the look. “Oh no, of course you wouldn’t.”
Smiling, Mary held up a glass and scrutinized it in the light. Seeing a spot, she proceeded to wipe it by stuffing her cloth into the narrow mouth of the flute. “Ever wonder why beer isn’t the traditional drink of these shows? It’s so much cheaper, and the mugs are so much easier to clean.”
Lia snickered, glad for the change in topic, and picked up a cloth to help her friend. “You’ve got an excellent point, Mary. That’s what I’ll have at my next showing. Oh, make that my first showing.” The women laughed.
“You’ll be there sooner than you know, Lia, dear. Just you wait.”
“From your lips to God’s ear.”
A year after moving to San Francisco, Gus had put feelers out to buy a place on Nob Hill. It was illogical and impractical, but damn if he couldn’t pass up the irony of living on the same street he’d called home in Forty Mile back in ’96. Eventually a dry-goods broker down on his luck took the bait of twenty percent over market value and sold his estate to Gus with all the trimmings thrown in.
The Victorian-style mansion was too frilly for Gus’s taste. It reminded him of the Cliff House, and with all those curlicues and gewgaws on the outside it truly did look like a gingerbread palace. The fact that it was painted purple with green trim didn’t help. Those colors were the first thing to go; now, at least, the place looked more dignified in brown and beige.
He’d had the foundation shored up and the grounds cleaned up, and the following year he’d put in a garden because he never wanted to go without fresh fruits and vegetables again. Mr. Chou, the gardener, took whatever produce Gus’s housekeeper, Mrs. Coats, couldn’t use and sold it at the downtown market; the two employees made a fair amount of extra money that way.
Lots of work remained inside the place. Gus had stripped the walls of the girly wallpaper (why any self-respecting man would want to look at giant cabbage roses and pineapples all day was beyond him). He still had a few more rooms to repaint. But Will was right: now there were a hell of a lot of bare walls to fill up. Making the place presentable was something to work toward, even though he had to admit, it didn’t really matter how big and impressive your house was if you were the only one rattlin’ around in it.
Thoughts of his Mattie and his daughter Annabelle intruded as they so often did. Little Annabelly would be seven and a half by now. He fought the anger that surged through him at the fact that he hadn’t seen his little girl grow up. Hadn’t seen her take her first steps, or say her first word, or lose her first tooth, or anything. Where had Mattie taken her? For years he’d had a standing order with the Pinkerton Detective Agency to let him know if reports of anyone resembling his family ever crossed their desks, whether they were still living or not. Nobody had ever fit the bill.
Partly out of loneliness, Gus put off going home the following Friday evening. Once he’d left the Montgomery Street office, he’d worked out at the gymnasium, still able to bench press nearly three hundred pounds, and punched the bag until sweat poured down his shoulders. Fellow gym rats called him loco, but something inside him warned him never to get soft, in case he lost everything and had to go back to earning his keep through hard physical work. That inside voice had never steered him wrong.
Afterward he showered and changed and moseyed over to a bar on Clay Street for a steak and salad. A full meal and two drinks later he checked his watch. It was nine thirty-five. William Keith’s studio happened to be on the same street, only two blocks up.
“What the hell,” he muttered, and headed over to learn the language of old money that Will spoke so well.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A handsome middle-aged woman greeted Gus at the door. He removed his hat and extended his hand. “Good evening, ma’am. I’m August Wolff, a friend of Will Firestone’s.”
“Yes of course, I know you, Mr. Wolff. You show up in the papers from time to time. I’m Mary Keith.” She smiled and shook his hand. “Will told us you might stop by this evening. He mentioned something about you wanting to practice your language skills, although you seem perfectly fluent to me.”
Gus gave her a grim smile. He really was going to punch Will the next time he saw him. “Why thank you, ma’am. I’m sure Will was joking about the language barrier. Always a prankster, that one.” He couldn’t tell if she picked up on the sarcasm in his voice. “Is he here?”
“No, unfortunately he and his lady friend had to take their leave. Apparently she’s an ‘early to bed early to rise’ miss.”
Right. The question was, whose bed? “Ah, that’s too bad.” Maybe I can hightail it out of here. He looked around the foyer.
“At any rate, you’re here now, and welcome. Feel free to explore the studio. We have many of my husband’s paintings on display, and some of our students’ work as well.”
“Thank you kindly.” Gus wandered deeper into the home which had been converted into both a working studio and informal art school. The largest room was filled with people chewin’ the fat while drinking champagne and nibbling on what looked like shrimp on some crackers. Good thing he’d eaten.
The older bearded man sitting in one corner with a cane by his side was no doubt the artist. Keith was surrounded by several young people and a few men who looked like they had money to spend. More power to them.
Keith’s paintings were hung in a pleasing way on one wall of the room. The man obviously loved the outdoors and had been all over California. When the crowd thinned he’d take a closer look, maybe even buy a couple. Will was no rube when it came to knowing investment-grade art; he wouldn’t steer Gus wrong.
To kill time, Gus wandered through the house, eventually finding himself in a hallway on the way to the kitchen. He noticed a painting that stopped him cold.
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It was a picture of a wooded area, but at night. Moonlight filtered through the trees, barely lighting up a stretch of bank near a river. The image was haunting, a memory.
“What do you think?” he heard a pretty voice say from behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw a young woman carrying a tray with two champagne flutes on it. For the second time in as many minutes he was stopped cold. She was one of the loveliest females he had ever seen.
“I’m sorry?” he said.
“What do you think of the painting?” she repeated.
“The painting?” He’d forgotten all about it.
The girl let out a huff. “That impressive, was it?”
Gus shook his head slightly. “I’m sorry, you…you distracted me. Nice of you to bring me this, though.” He took one of the flutes and drank half of it before pointing to the painting. “I’ve been there,” he said.
The girl frowned. “You have?”
“Well, not there, precisely. At least I don’t reckon so. But I feel as though I’ve been there. I’ve slept on a riverbank just like that many times with not a penny to my name, and hoped the night didn’t swallow me up.” He grinned and spread his arms. “As you can see, it didn’t. What do you think about it?”
The young woman stepped up to the painting and looked at it closely. She cocked her head one way, then the other. Finally she stood back. “Looks like a bunch of black and brown globs of paint all mushed together with a little bit of yellow thrown in here and there.”
Gus laughed out loud. Who was this delicious creature? Her rich, dark brown hair fell halfway down her back, the curls held back from her face with combs. What a pretty face too. Heart-shaped and lightly tanned, not pasty like so many society women. And those eyes. He’d never seen anything like them. Not just blue, they were almost purple. Like jewels, they were. A man could get lost in them and never find his way out.
She was just a little thing, but her modest blouse dipped into a tiny waist and outlined what must surely be the world’s most perfect breasts. A girl in some ways, but most definitely a woman in the ways that mattered. He swallowed.
“So, Miss Art Critic. Do you have a name?”
She hesitated a bit. “Um…Ruth. Ruthie.”
Damn if she wasn’t blushing, that petal perfect skin turning ever so pink. “Tell me, Ruthie, do you work here?”
“Sometimes,” she said.
“And what do you do when you’re not working here?”
“Oh…a little of this and a little of that.” She licked her lips.
Now why would she be nervous? It couldn’t be because of him, could it? He smiled slowly at the thought. May as well test the waters. He stepped closer to her and gently took the tray from her hands, putting it on the little half-moon table underneath the painting. He purposefully moved into her personal space and touched her cheek. “Well…Ruthie…maybe I could escort you home after you finish here and you could tell me more about ‘a little of this and a little of that.’”
At that moment a man came walking toward them with Sir Galahad written all over him. Ruthie saw the man and grabbed the remaining champagne flute off the tray.
“Excuse me,” she said, and hurried to meet the man. “Charles,” she called. “Look what I saved for you.” She handed him the drink and took his arm, steering him back out to the large room.
Gus sighed. Hell and Damnation. That was a bust. He waited for his blood to cool before heading back out to find Mary Keith. He’d look at her husband’s paintings more closely, but for damn sure he’d buy the one in the hallway.
Lia barely managed to make it to Charles without spilling the champagne, and wouldn’t that have been charming with the Wolff watching. She tried to ignore her still-thumping heart and listen to Charles, who had obviously misinterpreted her action as interest in him. They strolled back to the main exhibition area and moments later, from across the room, she saw the Wolff talking to Mary. It was a perfect opportunity to extricate herself from Charles with the excuse that she had to fetch more champagne flutes. Charles offered to help, but she politely declined. No way was she going to find herself alone with him, even if he was her mentor’s son.
Once in the kitchen she took a moment to collect herself. The man she’d encountered in the hallway was no stranger, even though she’d never met him. He was August Wolff, one of the richest men in San Francisco, and by all accounts one of the fastest when it came to women. Since she’d been back from Europe she’d seen his photo many times, usually with some beautiful dancer or singer. Angel Lindemann was his latest conquest. She was a golden beauty like Lia’s sister Emma, with an exquisite voice to match. The notion of Lia being with someone like him was like inviting a warthog to a garden party—it just wasn’t going to happen.
But in all her twenty-eight years, she had never, ever reacted to a man that way. His pictures didn’t do him justice. In person he was big and dark and so…so male. Unlike her former husband, George, who wore formal attire so effortlessly, this man seemed to put up with his suit, the muscles in his chest and arms not exactly bulging through his clothes, but waiting patiently to be set free. His hair was longish and tousled, and his striking face with cleft chin held the faint shadow of a beard. When he’d looked into her eyes and touched her cheek, she’d gone numb, almost paralyzed, as if she would do whatever he asked on the spot. As if she were drugged. Thank God Charles had picked that moment to walk down the hall; she couldn’t stand the feeling of being out of control.
But oh, the way he made her feel. Like a woman, at last.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“And how is the gentleman farmer doing this morning?” Will Firestone made his way down to the lower garden where Gus, in shirtsleeves despite the chill December air, was pulling out the last of the beanstalks and tilling the soil before adding compost for the winter. Although Mr. Chou spoke very little English, he was an expert at assigning the jobs—usually requiring hard labor—that he wanted Gus to do. Gus could have hired someone else to do the work, of course, but truth be told, he enjoyed it. If his brother back in Iowa could see him now, he’d laugh himself silly. But they’d see each other soon enough over Christmas. Maybe he’d even let him in on the joke: the teenage boy who hated farming now can’t get enough of it.
“I’m bustin’ my tail, which is more than I can say for you.”
“Yes, well, one of these days you’ll learn that when one has money, one can pay to have others get their hands dirty.”
Gus stuck the shovel in the dirt and wiped his face with a handkerchief before putting his jacket back on. “You’ve got a point there,” he said. “Come on, I’ll buy you a hot toddy.”
The two men walked up to the house, where Mrs. Coats did indeed have hot whiskey, sugar, and spices waiting in the library, along with some freshly baked ginger cookies. Gus poured himself and Will a drink, pulled a chair in front of the fireplace, and stuck out his stockinged feet to warm them up. “Damn that feels good.” He nodded for Will to join him. “You brought the papers to sign on the Ballentine merger, I take it?”
Will stretched out himself. “Yep, no hurry, though. I’m heading up to Seattle tomorrow to talk with Rochester about that container deal, so I wanted to make sure they didn’t get lost on your desk.” He took a sip of his drink. “So I hear you stopped by the studio after I left.”
Gus was still annoyed at the botched flirtation with the pretty young maid. “Bad news travels fast, I see.”
“Not so bad from their perspective. It seems you bought two of Keith’s works plus one of Amelia Starling’s early pieces. Did you meet her while you were there?”
“Amelia Starling? Never heard of her, didn’t meet anyone by that name. I just saw a picture I liked, so I bought it.”
“Ah. Well I have good news, then. I’m having a small dinner party on Christmas Eve, to which I’ve invited Miss Starling and her partner. Join us and you’ll be able to meet her.”
“What do you mean, ‘partner’?”
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bsp; “Honestly, I’m not sure. She moved here from the East Coast with a man named Sander de Kalb; supposedly they’re ‘cousins’ and they have a place in the Castro District. That’s all I know.”
“Hmmm. Sounds quite…bohemian.”
Will smirked. “Exactly. Now you’re getting the picture. So, can we count on you?”
“Not likely. I’m taking the train to Vinton to see my brother and his family.”
“Let me guess, while you’re there you’re going to quietly slip an envelope under the tree that has the deed to his farm, paid in full. Am I right?”
Gus shrugged. “Something like that.” Will was spooky sometimes, or maybe just too damn nosy for his own good. “You conspiring with our man Hansen, again?”
“No. Just being logical. That’s definitely a Gus Wolff kind of maneuver—low key but effective.” He looked at Gus. “You don’t talk much about your family. Why not?”
“Not much to tell. They couldn’t afford to feed me so I went off to feed myself.”
“Looks like you can pretty much gorge yourself every night now.”
Gus smiled briefly and closed his eyes. “Yep. Pretty much.”
They talked about business for a few more minutes. Will finished his drink and got up to leave. “We’ll miss you on Christmas Eve, but you’ve got another chance on New Year’s Day. My parents are unveiling a mural they commissioned from Miss Starling and insist on showing it off to ‘a small group of friends,’ which translates to a crush of two hundred or more. The artist will be there, so you can actually meet the woman whose work you admire so much you actually plunked down some greenbacks for it.”
Gus sounded bored. “So, you’re inviting me to another ‘language lesson’?”
Will grinned. “Mary chuckled when I told her about that. She’s old city money herself. And she’s a love. She gets it.”
Gus closed his eyes again. “Maybe I’ll be there.”
The Art of Love: Origins of Sinner's Grove Page 11