Lady Charlotte.” King glided into the room with soundless stealth. His eyes slid over her altered appearance, though his expression didn’t change. “You look…well.”
Charlotte remained mute.
King stopped near his desk and leaned on his walking stick. “I was beginning to think that perhaps you didn’t receive my summons. Or perhaps you had had…second thoughts about our agreement. I was becoming concerned that you had chosen to travel elsewhere from Coventry.” There was a brittle quality to his words that Charlotte didn’t mistake as anything other than a threat.
She lifted her chin, strangely unafraid. Maybe because she had already lost everything that mattered. “My apologies if my temporary absence caused you undue worry. I can assure you I have no intention of reneging on our agreement.”
King eyed her coldly and silently.
“But you are partially correct. I did not travel to London directly from Coventry,” she continued. “I stopped at Jasper House to collect something that I think will interest you.” She gestured to the two covered canvases that were propped up against a massive bookcase behind her.
“I’m not interested in more forgeries.” His fingers were drumming on the silver top.
“And I’m not interested in showing you any.”
Curiosity flickered. “You have my attention once again, Lady Charlotte,” he replied.
“The Royal Academy.”
“What of it?”
“If one wished to have a painting exhibited, could you make that happen?”
King gazed at her. “I never took you as vain, my lady.”
“Answer the question.”
Pale eyes narrowed. “Have a care, Lady Charlotte.”
“Please answer the question,” she amended tonelessly.
A faint line appeared in his forehead. “Of course I can.”
Charlotte closed her eyes briefly before she turned and lifted the smaller of the two canvases. She pulled the wrapping from it and set it against his desk, feeling his eyes following her. She stepped back.
King’s eyes lingered on her before he turned his attention to the painting. “Very evocative,” he said slowly. “Masterful use of light and color. A contemporary piece, yet I see shadows of Raphael in this.”
Charlotte only nodded, her voice suddenly choked by the sadness and regret that rose hard and fast.
“But not your work, I think,” King continued, stepping closer to the painting.
She shook her head. “I have merely borrowed it for a time.”
“It surpasses everything currently on those pretentious Somerset walls,” he murmured.
“I know,” Charlotte managed. “That’s the idea.”
King turned to gaze at her in consideration as the Madonna continued to stare down in adoration at her son. “I can see it done.”
“Thank you.”
“Tsk, you get ahead of yourself with your gratitude.” He smiled an empty smile. “You have not yet provided me with something that makes my service worthwhile.”
Wordlessly, Charlotte returned to the bookcase and pulled the cloth from the second painting. She let the fabric fall to the floor, and the silence that followed was absolute. The woman in this painting gazed past her nude reflection in a mirror, as if searching for someone just beyond the frame. Her fingers played wistfully with a single strand of pearls at her throat, each tiny orb as lustrous as her skin. She sat against a background of deep midnight, a robe of rich garnet covering her lap, both the perfect foil for her fairness.
“You know what this is,” Charlotte said into the deafening silence.
“Yes,” King replied quietly, his eyes not straying from the painting. “I was told that this version was lost. And it was certainly not in the attics of Jasper House. My men would have found it.”
“No,” she said. “It was hidden in my rooms. My aunt had ordered it destroyed. Nudity of any sort offends her.”
King hadn’t yet moved. “This isn’t a forgery.”
“No,” Charlotte agreed, unsure if that was a question. “I have not yet attempted a Titian.”
The clock in the corner ticked on.
“There are two conditions that go with this painting,” Charlotte said into the quiet.
She saw King’s hand tighten on the top of his walking stick. “Conditions from a woman who comes begging my favor?”
“I trust a lost Titian should recompense any insult.”
His impenetrable gaze slid back to her then.
She didn’t wait for him to respond. “One, at no point in time should my name ever come up in conversation outside this room,” she said, repeating the words he had said to her what seemed like a lifetime ago. “Invent an acquisition story for this work that does not involve me.”
“And the other?” He looked almost amused now.
“When you sell this painting, you will not auction it off like a pretty mare in a Tattersalls ring.”
His amusement slipped, and red-gold brows rose. “And just what, Lady Charlotte, do you propose I do with it?”
“Sell it to someone who understands the deeper story that lies within this canvas.”
“Which is what?” He was studying her keenly.
“That love cannot be found in a beautiful reflection.”
King regarded her, his austere features revealing nothing of his thoughts. “Very well,” he said. “I will meet your conditions, and your Madonna will grace the walls of the Royal Academy within a fortnight hence. With all the appropriate fanfare.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve changed, Lady Charlotte,” King said abruptly.
“Yes,” she replied, because it was the only thing she could say.
She would not discuss how Flynn Rutledge had changed her. She would not examine the love and the joy that had set her heart and her mind soaring. She would not dissect the trust and the faith that had made her believe—truly believe—that she could do more. That she could be more. She would not dwell on the knowledge that she had been gifted with all those things and had let them all slip away. Because in the end, she hadn’t been brave or confident or courageous. In the end, she hadn’t reinvented herself at all. In the end, she had been a coward.
She withdrew the original missive that he had sent her and set it on the desk. “May we get on to the business at hand?”
King watched her for a moment more before he moved, settling himself behind his desk. “By all means, Lady Charlotte.”
“I prefer Charlie. Charlotte, if you must.” She held her head high, as if that gesture could overcome the relentless pain that had lodged deep within her heart and would never leave. “Lady Charlotte posted a letter to London from Coventry informing her family that she was seeking her fortunes abroad. Lady Charlotte, as she once was, no longer exists.”
“Very well.” His eyes slid from her hair to her baggy coat and trousers once more.
“Good. I understand you have a painting for me to forge.”
* * *
Flynn looked around the cramped space of his rented London rooms.
There was nothing that he wished to take with him. Nothing that he regretted leaving behind.
Liar, a little voice in his head whispered. He was leaving love behind.
His eye fell on the small canvas that lay flat on the top of a table, the figure of Adam reaching out to be touched. Unable to help himself, he picked it up. He hadn’t known what to do with it. He still didn’t know what to do with it. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy it, nor could he bring himself to pack it away. Instead, he found himself gazing at it more than was healthy or smart. Because every time he looked at the painting, doubt crowded in, making him question his decisions.
He closed his eyes, unwilling to think on it any longer. No matter her protestations and declarations, love meant trust. Trust meant truth. And in the end, Lady Charlotte Beaumont hadn’t been able to give him that. He needed to forget her.
He set the painting inside an open trunk and slammed the lid with too much force. Charlotte Beaumont was nothing but a mistake.
Then why was this so hard? And why did leaving feel like the mistake?
There was a soft knock on his door, and Flynn almost tripped in his haste to answer it. God, he needed a diversion. Any sort of diversion. He yanked open the door.
And recoiled. Any diversion but this.
“Flynn,” Lady Cecelia greeted, stepping into the tiny flat. Her pretty mouth made a predictable moue of distaste at the small confines before she smiled at the sight of his trunks. “Thank God. You’re finally moving. It’s about time. I’ve always told you that these rooms are beneath you.”
Flynn didn’t budge from the door, as baffled as he was repelled at her presence. “What do you want?”
Cecelia fluttered her lashes and sauntered back in his direction. “That’s not much of a welcome for an old friend, Flynn.” She reached out an expensively gloved hand and stroked his forearm.
Flynn stepped back. “We are not friends.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly before they widened again. “Don’t be like this, Flynn. We both know that we were quite spectacular together.” She advanced another step closer. “We could be again,” she breathed.
“I’m sure your Italian count might have an opinion on that,” he said coldly. “Good day, my lady.” He held the door a little wider.
“That Italian does not possess half the skill you do,” she purred, seemingly undaunted by his rudeness. “In the studio or otherwise.” Her sooty lashes were fluttering again. “I admit, I should never have let you go.”
“You didn’t let me go, Cecelia. I left.”
She waved her hand as if she hadn’t heard him. “I always knew you were destined for great things, Flynn.”
“Well, right now, I am destined for Italy. And I need to finish packing. Goodbye.”
She blinked, this time in what looked like genuine surprise. “Italy? What are you thinking?”
“That Italy is far away from London.” And you, he refrained from adding.
“But you can’t leave. Not now.”
Flynn was hanging on to his patience by a thread. “Watch me.”
“But you’re famous. Together, we’ll be feted like royalty.”
“I can assure you, Cecelia, that I am no more famous now than I was a year ago. Just a whole lot smarter.”
She was shaking her head. “Now is not the time to be humble, Flynn,” she snapped. “Not when you have princes offering patronage. Now is the time for you to embrace your celebrity.” She preened slightly. “And I will be there at your side every step of the way.”
Flynn was frowning. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. And I certainly don’t need you anywhere, least of all at my side.”
Cecelia laughed, and it wasn’t a pretty sound. “Come now, Flynn. Start acting like a gentleman and not an ignorant urchin from the stews. Your exhibit that’s opening at the academy this afternoon will only get you so far—”
“I beg your pardon?” Flynn felt himself go hot and cold all at the same time.
Cecelia’s lips twisted. “Manners, Flynn. They must be as flawless as your work. I believe I’ve mentioned this in the past, and it’s clear that I need to do so again.” She poked a finger at him. “You need me now that you’re going places. Though I would suggest that you stay away from exhibiting subjects that have a religious context in the future.”
There was a dull roaring in his ears that had almost completely drowned out the sound of her voice. He could feel the edge of the door cutting into the palm of his hand, and he held on, afraid that if he let go, he might simply spin away. The room around him seemed to steady then, and a curious calm descended. He straightened, his limbs oddly numb but obeying the commands of his mind nonetheless. “I have to go,” he mumbled, urgency propelling him through the door and down the stairs, heedless of Cecelia’s furious shrieks.
He had to go. Before he made another mistake.