Chapter 8
Next day
A gentleman doesn’t gift a lady with property, unless she agreed to be his—
Well, she’d disabused him of that particular notion.
But what notion in particular? a tiny voice wouldn’t stop nagging. How had he been about to finish that sentence?
Unless she agreed to be his . . . wife?
Or something else?
Oh, how her heart had raced, how it raced today, faster than her feet as she strode along Curzon toward her destination, Queen Street. With so many parts of their conversation she could dwell on, it was those pesky words that refused to leave her alone. Like bad company, they popped in unexpectedly, vying for her attention with their boorish manners.
She gave her head an imperceptible shake, as if that could rattle them loose and free her of them. Free her of him. Except she hadn’t freed herself of him at all. She’d done the opposite.
For the hundredth time, she ran through the events of yesterday. She’d happened upon Lord St. Alban crammed into the tiniest desk imaginable for a man his size. They’d begun conversing. Miss Radclyffe needed a school. Olivia needed a powerful man’s name. An idea bloomed. A bargain was struck . . .
A flash of panic streaked through her. It wasn’t too late, no papers were signed. She could call off the deal and allow her family to take care of her for the rest of her life. It was what any woman of her class would do . . .
No. It wouldn’t do for her. She’d shaken his hand on the matter. It was a bargain sealed.
Her pace quickened, her heels a determined click-clack across gray cobblestones, her surroundings familiar—after all, she’d spent nearly her entire life in the West End—but also novel. Now that she might become an owner in this neighborhood, she took in with fresh eyes the busy street ahead, uniform rows of townhouses to either side, Shepherd’s Market one street over to her left. Even though their deal had been struck only yesterday, Lord St. Alban’s solicitors had moved swiftly, informing her first thing this morning of an available property and an arranged viewing.
Anticipation replaced panic. This could be it. This house could be the perfect launching point for her and Lucy to begin a new era of their lives.
But it might not be, fussed a thought the size of a sticky burr. Falling in love with and buying the first house she saw was a bit like falling in love with and marrying the first man she ever met. She’d all but done that with Percy. And that venture hadn’t worked out quite as planned.
A sliver of guilt forced its way in. She didn’t regret Percy. Never. It would be tantamount to regretting Lucy and not under any circumstances could that ever be. What she did regret was something in herself when it had come to Percy. Her eagerness. An eagerness that he be perfect . . . that she be perfect . . . that they be perfect together. A perfect fairy tale come to life was what she’d expected from her future with Percy.
And it hadn’t come to be. Not even close.
It would be best if she lowered her expectations for the first house she viewed. She needed to sample a few others as well. The second, or even third, house might be the better fit.
A gentleman doesn’t gift a lady with property, unless—
Why? Why wouldn’t the silly words go away? Why wouldn’t she let them?
She released a gusty breath. She knew why.
Lord St. Alban had shot an arrow straight to the heart of her insecurities regarding the method she was using to carve out this new life for herself. By involving him in her quest for a townhouse and her independence, she wasn’t really leaving men in the past. In fact, she was certain she’d undermined her vow.
In the moment, she’d seen an opportunity that she must seize. Today, she viewed it in a light more in line with reality: she’d again entangled her life with a man. A man who intrigued her. A man on the hunt for a wife, a proper wife.
She had no interest in opening herself up to all that could follow with an intriguing man on the hunt for a proper wife. Flowers. Family gatherings. Engagements. Marriage banns. Complications.
Yet there was an exception that allowed her to bypass all the usual rules surrounding courtship. She was a scandalous divorcée, after all. So rare was her particular sisterhood that no rules existed.
There could be another arrangement between herself and an intriguing man, one less formal. One that didn’t involve flowers or family gatherings or engagements or marriage banns. One that would remain uncomplicated.
A gentleman doesn’t gift a lady with property, unless she agreed to be his . . . mistress.
Like a siren’s song, those words, the very idea of them, called to her. It would most certainly end with her dashed across the rocks. No dealings with Lord St. Alban would long remain uncomplicated.
Ahead, Queen Street slipped into view, and in a score of steps she was rounding its corner, scanning the row of townhouses until she found the one at the end. Her townhouse, she couldn’t help thinking. It quite banished all thoughts of uncomplicated affaires to the periphery of her mind.
Like its neighbors, the townhouse was built in the plain, but classical, style of the last century. She approached the tidy, unobtrusive front stoop and, instead of taking the steps up to the crimson front door, she ducked her head and made her way down the side steps to the servants’ entrance. The key should be to the right of the glossy black door beneath a flower pot.
She’d agreed upon this arrangement with Lord St. Alban’s solicitors to avoid gossip. If the rags caught wind of his activities on her behalf, complications would follow. All she wanted was a house and a fresh beginning. Not a scandal and a potential forced marriage.
Ha. She wouldn’t be forced into another marriage.
She tilted the flower pot onto its side and palmed the key. As she slipped it inside the lock, she took note of how very still an empty house could be. She’d never experienced a house that didn’t also contain, at least, five other souls. Such was the life of a woman born to an earl and married to the son of a duke. Not a bad life at all, but perhaps an inhibiting one.
As she made her way through the empty kitchen, up the servants’ stairs, and down the long dark corridor toward the foyer, the freedom of a truly and utterly empty house enlivened her more with each successive step. She could do whatever she pleased without a whiff of self-consciousness. On a whim, her feet spun her around, skirts swishing around her ankles as she came to a stop after a single rotation. An approximation of a giggle escaped her.
As an adult, she’d never spun through the halls of her home, rarely even as a child. It was exhilarating. She closed her eyes and did it again and again until she was dizzy with the sensation.
The image of a Flemish painting from the last century came to mind. Whirling Dervishes in Mevlevihane Pera. The smile on her face grew wider and wider with each turn. An ever strengthening light filtered pink through her closed eyelids, and she sensed she must have entered the foyer.
Her eyes popped open, and her stomach gave a lurch. A small cry burst from her throat, and her heart clanged about her chest. Her smile froze in place, a gray shadow of its former self.
A man stood in the shadow of the front door, facing her. In less than the blink of an eye, she knew him.
Lord St. Alban. Here. Watching her.
His arctic blue gaze holding her prisoner, he lifted his hands and began a slow clap, the firm line of his lips at odds with the levity of the gesture.
Flame shot into her cheeks. Feet suddenly turned to clay, she opened her mouth to speak before snapping it shut. She began again, “Lord St. Alban, what a”—Pleasant? No. Unpleasant? That wouldn’t do either—“surprise.”
Not every sentence needed adjectives or adverbs or even verbs.
The lift of a single eyebrow was the dratted man’s only response.
~ ~ ~
Cheeks soft with pink and chest heaving, Lady Olivia’s face looked impossibly open and fresh.
Well, her formerly open face. It was now entirely closed off to him. The hand clapping might have been beyond what was sensible, but he hadn’t been able to contain himself. She’d made a truly spectacular entrance with her arms spread wide and her face tilted to the ceiling. Unbound was the word that came to mind. He’d never seen an English woman so unbound.
His travels had taken him to locales that allowed women certain freedoms of dress and movement, but staid, old England wasn’t one of them, not by any stretch. Yet Lady Olivia defied his notions about who she should be at every turn. Yesterday’s ramble through London only reinforced that idea.
Her graceful throat undulated in a swallowing motion, and her eyes blazed. “Your solicitors informed me that I would have the house to myself,” she said, each word emerging on a note of rising virtuous pique.
“My day’s plans changed, and I was curious,” he said from his place across the room. He’d learned over the past few days that her physical proximity to his person had an inverse relationship with the rational functioning of his brain. Better he stayed over here and shout across the distance, if necessary.
She bit her plump bottom lip between her teeth and released it. “Is it your intention to inspect this house with me?”
“I don’t have anything better lined up for the afternoon.”
Incredulity spread across her face. “Can that be true, Lord St. Alban?”
A swell of pleasure expanded inside him. He couldn’t help it, he liked when she challenged him. “Might you be aware of the previous viscount’s penchant for indiscriminate spending?”
He caught a transient spark of humor in her eyes. “I might have noticed his affinity for bejeweled pinky rings on more than one occasion.”
“Ah, yes, the pinky rings.” He cleared his throat. “In the process of amassing his vast pinky ring collection, the late viscount also acquired a mountain of debt that could be rightly compared to the height and breadth of the Matterhorn. However, this morning I received my first bit of good news regarding the late viscount’s affairs. It seems that the Dowager Viscountess St. Alban, Georgie’s widow, has been running a Devonshire estate at a profit and is content to keep doing so for the remainder of her days. Her words, not mine. You should see her five-year agricultural plan for the property.”
Lady Olivia’s eyes widened, and he knew he’d overstepped the mark and struck an overly familiar tone. “I cannot imagine a scenario where that would be necessary.”
Again, he cleared his throat, if only to mask the groan that wanted out. “All of which is a long way of saying that I have nothing but time for you, Lady Olivia. Into the evening, if need be.”
Her right foot tap-tap-tapped white marble, effectively conveying simmering vexation. Perhaps he’d gone too far. Except what he’d said didn’t feel untrue. Truth be told, he enjoyed spending time with the woman. But that particular truth had no place in this room. It was a different truth he should be pursuing.
Pointedly, he glanced around the room and set about using his time with Lady Olivia toward that end. “You must see immense potential in these blank walls. Like blank canvases to an artist’s eye.”
“Are you an artist, Lord St. Alban?” Her head canted to the side in assessment. “The subject often comes up in our conversations.”
“You mistake my meaning. ’Tis you who is the artist.” Now that he had her attention, here was his opportunity. “For example, the sketches of the Japanese scene that you”—He just stopped himself from saying dropped. Their recent conversation in the Duke’s study assured him no good would come of using that word—“rendered were quite well done.”
“A few drawings rendered do not an artist make,” she said, irritation unmistakable in her tone. “I do not care to be patronized.”
Jake swallowed another groan of frustration. There had to be some combination to her locks. He pressed on with yet a different configuration. “I was always interested in art,” he said, sounding no better than a floundering suitor. “But I never took the time to learn much about it.”
“Hmm,” was all the response she gave.
She didn’t want him here. That was clear. Whatever joy she’d been experiencing as she spun into the room had been effectively quashed by the sight of him. But she wouldn’t be rid of him just yet. Not until he’d maneuvered some usable information from her.
“Much of the Eastern art for sale in the London market comes and goes on long-haul ships like the ones my mother’s family operates.”
“Undoubtedly,” Lady Olivia replied, her tone transitioning from annoyance to disinterest. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
“Some paintings are gotten by honest merchants. Others have provenances less transparent, shadowy at best.”
He waited for a glimmer of recognition, even the scantest hint that she knew of one such painting. A set of paintings, in fact. But no such admission emerged. “To be sure,” was all she replied, her face now tilted up toward the skylight.
“In fact,” he continued, “I’ve only seen that sort of art in Japan, in a Japanese residence to be exact.”
Her gaze swung to meet his, curiosity kindling a light in her eyes. “Were you invited into Japanese homes often?”
“Once. Europeans aren’t allowed on the mainland of Japan, only on the trading island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki.”
“Yet you were allowed?”
“By special dispensation. My uncles had been a year negotiating a trade deal with a powerful Nagasaki family, and they brought me along to observe the final signing.” He shifted on his feet, readying himself for the meat of the conversation. “In the room, there was a set of paintings—”
“What was it like?”
At last, he was getting somewhere. “The paintings? There was more than one of—”
“The residence.”
A disgruntled snort wanted release. He suppressed it. Patience. “Spare, sumptuous. Rich woods of cream, red, and brown. Somehow it was more than the sum of its parts.”
She nodded, slowly, as if confirming something to herself. “You mentioned a set of paintings?”
“Yes, the subject was very like your sketches.”
“Is it such an unusual subject?”
“Not at all. But what’s unusual about these paintings is that they were stolen a year later.”
Her shoulder gave a little shrug. “Art isn’t like English land. It can be bought, sold, traded, and transported,” she said, tossing the words he’d spoken in the Duke’s study back at him. “It can be stolen, too.”
“But you’re a lover of art. Doesn’t it bother you that someone would take it from its rightful owner?”
“Who truly owns art? Or has the right to?” she asked, her passion for the subject evident in her voice, her eyes, her entire demeanor. “What matters is that it’s appreciated and loved. Besides, it’s rare for art to stay in one set of hands for any length of time. Consider how many paintings from the Continent landed in England after the wars with Napoleon. It wasn’t that long ago.”
“Who knows where the Japanese paintings ended up. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Indeed,” she replied, unbothered, indifferent.
The point was this: she was exactly who knew. But did she know?
His gut told him no, but he couldn’t pursue the matter further right now or she might sense that he was fishing for information. He slouched back against the front door and waited for her to make the next move, but she seemed incredibly interested in the gray veins twisting through the white marble floor at her feet.
The tip of her tongue began absently worrying her crooked tooth, and he caught himself gazing at her mouth, captivated. He had to get her talking if only so her distracting tongue would be otherwise engaged and he could stop leering at her like a perverse wretch. “In your opinion, what would be the best type of art for a room like this one?”
“In a perfect world?”
He nodded. She was giving him something, even if it was a crumb. He could live on crumbs from her table.
For now.
Eventually, he would have the whole cake.
“A work by a Flemish artist called Vanmour. His paintings of the Ottoman court caused a bit of a commotion a century ago.” Her lips curled into a secret smile. “Particularly his painting of the dervishes. And in a perfect world that painting would be right”—She looked up at the skylight and advanced to a specific point along the wall before tapping it with her forefinger—“here in the crook of the staircase.”
Encouraged by her sudden openness, he continued along this improvised path. “Your eye would see possibility in every wall of this house.”
“Not every wall needs to be filled. There is beauty in negative space, too, my lord,” she called out as she left the room, the click-clack of her boot heels echoing through the empty house. He liked the way my lord sounded on her lips. It almost felt like an intimacy.
He followed her into what would be the front drawing room as she made her way toward its bow window. A sudden craving unfurled within him to see her spread her arms wide and take a spin, again offering a flash of slender ankles and a flash of her true self. There was apparently no end to his reactions, desires, and cravings around this woman.
A part of him—a part he would rather deny—longed to know more of her beneath the façade, more of her beyond the information she could provide him.
But it couldn’t be. He had a use for her. Just as she did for him, he reminded himself. In his experience, women didn’t take well to being used, and he couldn’t risk telling her the secret of Mina’s birth. He didn’t know enough about her relationship to the thief and the paintings. Mina deserved better than exposure to unknown risk.
“And this room, my lady?” he asked. “What pieces would you use to fill its walls?”
She glanced at him over her shoulder, a subtle smile playing about her lips. “I’d paint the walls crimson and hang Las Meninas by Velázquez. I’ve never seen it in person, but I’ve heard it’s quite magnificent.”
Graceful as a swallow in the sky, she turned in an efficient, swift swivel to face him, cheeks flushed and eyes brimming with excitement. Lady Olivia had thoroughly warmed to her subject, embodying the air of youth, bright and fresh. He couldn’t look away.
“It does seem strange, doesn’t it?”
“What’s that?” he asked, his voice a frayed rasp in his chest.
“That a proper Mayfair townhouse could contain something so magnificent as the work of a Spanish master. Have you ever attended a dinner at Wellington’s address, Apsley House?”
He shook his head.
“Suffice it to say that we English are insatiable when it comes to having the best at the world’s expense.”
“The Dutch might rival the English when it comes to insatiability.”
Surprised blue eyes widened, and her ivory throat emitted a small, self-conscious laugh. A nervous tic of a laugh. An intoxicating laugh. He felt like sharing in it. Like forming a conspiracy with her.
“Shall we see what more this house has to offer?” she asked.
A buoyancy to her step, she flitted past him into the next room, leaving behind only her scent of lavender and sandalwood. The scent was much like her: simple and expected on the surface, but complicated with the earthy and unexpected just below. He inhaled, helpless to the urge, no choice but to follow.
“In here,” she said, her voice echoing out as she performed a slow three hundred and sixty degree turn, “I would rein in the drama. A soothing robin’s egg blue for these walls.” Her eyes drifted shut as if her entire being was concentrated on absorbing the essence of the room. “I would bring Sir Joshua Reynolds back to life to paint a four-year-old Lucy in the style of his The Age of Innocence and place the piece adjacent to the fireplace.”
Eyes shimmering with passion and vibrancy found Jake’s. And the light within no longer faded at the unwelcome sight of him.
“Perhaps even a portrait of Lucy’s first dog, Poochie the First. We now have Poochie the Second.” A smile, diffident and helpless, pulled at her lips, and she lifted one shoulder in a Gallic shrug.
Jake followed, like a pup at her heels, as she led them back to the foyer, occasionally poking her head into an empty room. Lady Olivia had never been the same woman twice around him. She’d always been a combatant in one form or another, but somehow in this empty house she’d become more companion than combatant. In this state, she was an intriguing wonder to behold.
“This foyer . . . have you ever seen anything like it?” She didn’t pause for an answer. “Observe the way the staircase winds around the room like a loose coil all the way up to the skylight.” The same beatific smile he’d witnessed yesterday in her interaction with the washerwoman illuminated her face now.
The full glory of her beaming gaze landed on him, and he basked in its warm glow.
“Shall we investigate the bedrooms upstairs?”