A Fresh Perspective, A Regency Romance (21 page)

He gestured toward the nude Venus. “What about people? Did a real young lady pose for that?”

She studied the Venus. “I would say yes, based on the very realism of her form. There is nothing better for the artist than to work from reality.”

“Uhm, have you, I hesitate to ask, have you ever. . . posed. . . for Reed?”

“Oh yes,” she answered without hesitation. “Many times.”

His startled gaze no longer centered on the Venus, but on her, brows raised.

“Not like that of course,” she gestured toward the canvas.

“No?”

“No!”

“Never?”

“Do you mean to suggest you think I would have posed in the nude?” She blushed.

He was staring at her in a disturbingly searching manner, as if imagining her without her clothes on. She had never suffered such an insulting perusal before. It left her itching with the desire to slap him.

“Really, Harold, I am surprised at you, and disappointed.”

“I have had a letter from my mother.”

“Oh?” She frowned. “What have letters from your mother to do with our current topic?”

“She was most distressed.”

“Really? Why? Does she think I have posed nude for Reed?” She smiled at the ludicrous idea.

He was not smiling. “Yes.”

“What?” Her voice rose loudly enough to echo in the stillness of the gallery. Aunt Winifred’s lorgnette raised in their direction. Megan lowered her voice. “Whatever gave your mother such a frightful notion of my sense of propriety?”

“She writes of a lewd bronze that she has seen at Talcott Keep. She claims it can be no one other than you.”

“Oh dear!” Megan covered her face with her hands, laughing.

Aunt Winifred’s stick thumped irritably. She laughed even harder.

“From your reaction, I hazard to guess you are familiar with this bronze?”

“Yes,” she choked back her amusement. “Well, yes. I know the bronze. And while the face is mine, the rest of it is culled from Reed’s imagination.

Her words did not have the desired calming effect.

“Reed sees you that way?”    

“Well. . .” She studied the question as she studied again the Venus. “Not at the time. The sculptor was to blame.

“The sculptor? Has he seen you in the altogether?”

His words triggered another fit of laughter from Megan, the noise of which spurred an absolute tattoo of censorious thumps from Aunt Win’s stick.

Megan stifled her amusement. “Of course not. I have never been to Italy.”

“Italy? What has Italy to do with anything? I will not be distracted from the matter, Megan. Mother says you are attacked by a bronze man who is half goat.”

“True.” Megan said with a nonchalance that seemed to further provoke Harold’s concern.

“Is he naked as well?

“Of course not, Harold. I have never seen a satyr depicted with anything but hair for breeches.”

“Sounds disgusting.”

“Not disgusting in the least, Harold. It is art and mythology and though it would take a great deal of effort to explain, it is all very innocent.”

“Your definition of innocent would appear to be far removed from mine. More than half of the paintings in this display do not fit my definition of decent.”

“Really, Harold. I had no idea you devoted so much thought to indecency.”

“I wonder if you have given much thought to my proposal?” He caught her completely off guard with the question.

“Your proposal? But of course. I have given it a great deal of thought. Why? Is there some connection between your proposal and Reed’s bronze?” It occurred to her he meant to cry off regardless of her wishes or explanations.

“I have given my feelings for you a great deal of thought,” he said.

“And have you had a change of heart?” The idea left her relieved. She did not want to become Mrs. Harold Burnham. Never had really. Strange, but she was, in a way, disappointed as well. To have lost a man’s affections, no matter how little she valued them, was a loss. She could not deny it.

His gaze strayed from her face to the Venus and back again. “Our interests would appear to be of a vastly divergent nature.”

“They are,” she agreed. “And bound to be a source of unhappiness between us. Perhaps it is best if we mutually agree that we do not suit, Harold.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Perhaps best.”

Odd, Reed thought, how it all came together before scattering, like a seedpod in the wind. Wagonload after wagonload arrived at Christie’s Auction house: furniture, rugs, china, silver and artwork--from the Keep, the country home, the townhouses and hunting boxes. The combined accumulation of carelessly acquired riches, were all gathered together under one roof.

Christie’s had, in the past few hectic, rainy days, begun to feel like a transitory sort of home to him. The smell here was even a bit like home if he closed his eyes--all beeswax and polish. Everything that came in Christie’s door was given a fresh shine. And, for the moment, front to back, floor to ceiling, the rooms were packed with what had once been home.

The staff at the auction house had become temporary housekeepers to him. Soft voiced and thorough, they were not in the least inclined to sentimentality or dawdling and had, with businesslike efficiency, led each of the Talcotts through the most grueling few days Reed had ever experienced. Together they had carefully examined, assessed, tagged and catalogued hundreds of items from the Talcott estate. As a result, he knew each of the attendants, sales clerks and pricing experts by name. The staff in turn, knew a great deal more of Talcott’s than their name.

Discreet, polite and respectful as they remained, they had to realize, every last one of them, how dire was the Talcott’s current need for liquid assets, that they would dispose of so many things at one time. Pounds and pence, every employee in the place began to formulate a picture of just what the Talcotts were worth. It was a considerable sum. Enough, Reed figured, to clear all debts and begin to establish a promising future for Talcotts to come.

Perhaps the most intimate detail of all, the Christie’s staff knew that Lord and Lady Talcott when they arrived, came in separate carriages and generally at different times of the day. When their paths, by happenstance did cross, the two did not acknowledge one another in any way.

“I have come to assist in cataloguing the wine.” Lord Talcott informed Reed halfway through the second day of pricing.

Reed looked up from a case of gold, silver and ormolu snuffboxes. “John, will you give us a moment?”

“Certainly, sir.” The clerk who assisted him promptly took himself off.

“How did the horses do at Tats?” Reed asked. His father looked exhausted.

“Good God, my boy!” With a heartfelt sigh Lord Talcott sank heavily into John Jones’s abandoned chair. “Toughest thing about this whole business, selling my hunters. Foster and Blue Boy are safe, Buckingham has them. He is a knowing one with horses. The bays and the dapple gray have gone to good homes as well. But Old Foster looked confused when he was led away by a complete stranger and I came very close to knocking down the young buck who dared to suggest he meant to bob tails on both Great Day and Tassle! Can you imagine Tassle without that sleek, black broom of his?”

“I am impressed, sir, by your restraint.”

“You have not heard the half of it,” his father crowed. “Told the cloth-head he must do as he saw fit, but that he risked throwing both of the animals completely off their stride in whacking off their tails. I take some pleasure in the fact that he paid through the teeth for both of them. The bidding was quite stiff. You can congratulate yourself on having a father who knows his horseflesh. The returns were gratifying.” He sighed again. “If difficult to bear.”

“I am pleased to hear it! We shall need every penny. Word is out. Bill collectors hounded me all the way into the building today.

“I know, I know. They were camped out on my doorstep this morning. But never fear. They shall all be paid in the end. My hunting boxes have been snapped up. Word arrived yesterday that an offer has been made for the property in Mayfair and closing papers are on their way from Bath.”

“In a more positive vein. . .” Reed found it difficult to contain his excitement “there is a slate quarry in the Coniston Fells, another near Kirkby, on which I am negotiating. In addition, our agent in Kent has located a promising property--an orchard--apples, pears, also blackcurrents, raspberry and loganberry bushes. The house is in disrepair. We will want to add on or tear it down and rebuild, but it is close to the proposed canal improvements as we had discussed. He mentions hop vines have recently been staked and that they grow very well in the area. What do you know about the growing of hops?”

“Hops, you say? Not a blessed thing other than that they are required to make ale. The trick is to hire someone who does know.” Beaming, Lord Talcott clapped Reed on the shoulder with pleasure. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh? Why not give it a go?”

Strange, Reed thought, that he felt closer to his father now, in the middle of this fiasco, than he ever had when things were going well. “We do move merrily along with this business, don’t we, sir?” he said.

Again his father clapped him companionably on the shoulder. “We have stepped out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary, my boy, and very invigorating I find it. High time and no sense dawdling, eh? Now, where is the wine kept? They have been careful not to stir the sediment have they not?”

“They have been very careful, sir, very helpful. The wine is this way.”

As they set off, a woman’s voice echoed from the room behind them.

Lord Talcott picked up the pace. “Your mother, Lord bless her,” he said a trifle breathlessly. “She will not care to set eyes on me.”

“The two of you will have to face one another eventually,” Reed fell behind, refusing to be rushed.

Lord Talcott continued to advance rather more briskly than was called for. His voice carried in a muffled manner over his shoulder. “As you say, but perhaps it is best arranged when this nasty auction is over with. Lady Talcott cannot be in the most congenial of moods at the prospect of losing so much finery. I know I am not.”

Reed settled his father with a clerk named Phillips in a room stacked with the contents of three emptied wine cellars and headed back through the viewing rooms in search of his mother. He walked swiftly, eyes glazed a little to blur the sight of so much that was Talcott on every side of him. It would not do to look at the sale items too keenly.

He paused in the room where his landscapes hung, unable to blindly pass the beloved views that would soon hang on other men’s walls. A weight descended on his chest whenever he stood still long enough to regard his treasures. He would have liked to claim it was the weight of promise, and not regret that pressed in on him, but though his future hung here, its potential suspended for the moment in these treasures from his past, he could not help but mourn the loss.

Jaw set, he put the room behind him. He was not the only one who suffered. His mother and father met the challenge with the bravest of fronts. Reed had never known his mother to work so diligently, even bravely. She had resorted not to handkerchiefs or histrionics in the disposition of her china and silver once it was made clear to her that debtor’s prison or the Colonies were her only other options.

She came today to catalogue her jewelry. Meeting Gerald Smythe, the pricing expert, Reed discreetly recommended, “An idea, Mr. Smythe! I wonder if you would be so kind as to present the jewelry for my mother’s examination first in paper form in detailed description with values assessed, then, the jewels themselves, so that she is not compelled to look at her lost baubles overmuch.”

“I understand entirely,” Smythe agreed. “It shall be just as you say.”

“I understand your father is here?” his mother said tartly, when Reed joined her. Her manner was unusually stiff. “Does he mean to avoid me?” she asked.

“Yes. He thought it best due to his uneven temper. He has just come from the sale at Tattersalls.”

“His hunters. That must have stung.” There was the faintest trace of sympathy in her voice. “Did he get a decent price for the beasts?”

“He said it went as well as could be hoped.”

She wore a glassy, stunned look more often than not these days. “There is some consolation in that, I suppose. Tell me again, Reed, about this connection you have made between canals and your proposed investment in slate quarries, coppice wood and fruit trees. I would be clear in my mind why I am giving up my jewelry.”

Reed patiently explained for perhaps the fifth time. “Water is the key, mother.”

“Water? You have said something about the water to me before, have you not?”

“Yes, no matter. This is all a trifle overwhelming, is it not?”

“That is a masterful understatement,” she said with a trace of her normal bite.

“Yes, well, via canal, anything may be more easily transported; stone, wood, fruit. With London growing at a great rate here in the south and Birmingham and Manchester booming in the north there will be a growing need for building materials, charcoal and food. We mean to provide them, hopefully in great enough quantity that the Talcott fortune will begin to rebuild itself.”

“And what does Megan Breech say to your plans, Reed?”

“I have no idea. I have yet to tell her.”

“Well, get on with it, get on with it.” She waved her hands briskly, though Reed had no idea whether she spoke to him or Mr. Smythe, who entered the room at that moment, bearing a large stack of velvet boxes.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I
t was time, Reed decided, as his mother suggested, to talk to Megan--to tell her what plans he had laid for his future, a future he hoped she would share. He set out, therefore, on foot, in the misting rain, the half dozen or so blocks it would take him to stroll to Megan’s Aunt Winifred’s townhouse on the east edge of Mayfair. He knew the address well enough. Twice he had walked the street, twice decided to wait to talk to Megan. What he was waiting for, he could not quite put a finger on. That he would know when he was ready--of that he was certain.