An Artful Seduction (3 page)

She glared at him. “I’ll keep my end of the bargain. But remember this: Our arrangement does not include a liaison.”

He chuckled and released her hand. “Don’t fret. I’ll keep my distance.” Walking to the drawing room door, he held it open for her. “Expect me at your shop at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Have a name for me.”

She halted halfway to the door. “Tomorrow? So soon?”

His mouth quirked with humor, and he nodded. “Time is of the essence. If the Rembrandt is to be recovered, we must act swiftly.”

…

Clutching her leather case, Eliza departed Huntingdon’s mansion. Her nerves were wound as tightly as clock springs. It wasn’t only because of the arrangement she’d just struck with the earl, but because of her unexpected physical response to him. When he’d held her hand and stepped close to kiss her, her heart lurched and her knees grew weak. She shook her head at her foolishness. An attraction to the Earl of Huntingdon was dangerous—certainly something she couldn’t risk.

At least the visit wasn’t an entire failure. Huntingdon knew about the forgery, but he’d offered her a deal, and if she played her part well, she’d get the forgery back. Her goals would be achieved: the print shop would survive and her sisters would be protected. As for how she would find her father’s old acquaintances, she didn’t know. But she’d think of something…she always did.

The hackney had remained just as Eliza had instructed. The driver was standing outside, and he opened the door as she approached. “I have your guest, Miss.”

“Guest?” Eliza frowned as she stepped inside the cab.

“Hello!”

Eliza was startled to see a smiling, young girl sitting on the opposite bench seat. She was pretty with curly, dark hair and brown eyes. Eliza guessed she was no more than fifteen.

“Hello,” Eliza said. “Are you in the right conveyance?”

“Oh, pardon. I’m Sara, Huntingdon’s sister. I saw you come into the house to visit my brother.”

Eliza was surprised to find Huntingdon’s sister sitting across from her. “How old are you, Sara?”

“I’m thirteen.”

“I see. Does Lord Huntingdon know you’re here?”

Sara shook her head, and her curls bounced on her shoulders. “Of course not. He’s too busy with the artists to find time for me.”

Eliza felt sad for the girl. Huntingdon’s reputation in the art world was considerable and she could only assume he spent little time at home.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lady Sara. I have two sisters of my own,” Eliza said.

Sara’s brown eyes widened. “Really? I’d love a sister, but my parents died in a carriage accident when I was young.”

“I’m sorry. My parents died also.” Or at least her mother had when Eliza was five. Her father had abandoned them, but if she shared Amelia’s opinion, then he was dead to them as well.

“I just had to meet you. You see, ladies don’t visit Grayson. Well, no ladies other than Lady Kinsdale, and I don’t even consider her a lady.” Sara wrinkled her nose as if she’d just smelled something foul.

“Goodness. That doesn’t sound very nice.”

“It’s true. Lady Kinsdale—or Leticia, which she insisted Grayson and I call her—often visited him late in the evening, even though I wasn’t supposed to know about
those
visits. I never liked her. She’s quite full of herself and cold. She may call herself a lady, but she doesn’t act like one.”

Eliza stifled a laugh. Sara was so refreshingly honest, she couldn’t help herself.

“You’re friendly and kind,” Sara said.

“How do you know that? We just met,” Eliza pointed out.

Sara raised her chin. “You haven’t scolded me or told me to leave. Lady Kinsdale would have.”

Footsteps sounded outside, and seconds later, the door swung open. Huntingdon loomed in the doorway. Tall and muscular, his broad shoulders blocked out the sunlight. His frown was focused on his sister. “Go inside,” he said tersely.

Sara sat up straight. “But we were just talking—”

“Inside. Now!” he ground out.

Sara grasped her skirts, slid across the seat, and departed from the cab with a huff.

“Good-bye, Sara,” Eliza called out.

The girl turned around to give a jaunty wave, then fled into the house.

Eliza almost felt sorry for Huntingdon. He had his hands full with his thirteen-year-old sister. Eliza vividly recalled Amelia and Chloe at that age.

Eliza’s sympathy fled as Huntingdon’s dark gaze focused on her. “I apologize for her behavior,” he said.

“No apologies needed. She’s lovely.”

A glint of surprise reflected in his eyes. “She’s good, just a bit stubborn and willful.”

Eliza smiled. “I deem both admirable character traits in a girl.”

He arched a dark eyebrow. “Perhaps for a girl, but not a woman.” His look clearly said he thought Eliza possessed both traits in ample abundance.

She opened her mouth to argue, but he didn’t give her a chance. “Until tomorrow, Mrs. Somerton,” he said, and closed the door.

Chapter Three

“You lucky devil, Grayson. Who was the fetching female that I just saw leaving your home?”

Grayson shut the study door and turned to his long-time friend. “What are you doing here, Brandon?”

Brandon St. Clair, the Earl of Vale, leaned against the fireplace mantle. “I stopped by to see if you wanted to go to White’s. Kent and Rodale are placing another ridiculous bet on the books about who will be the first to bed the new Drury Lane actress. But just as my carriage pulled up to your front door, I saw your sister dart inside and the dark-haired woman leave in a hackney.”

Grayson frowned. He really needed to do something about Sara. But Eliza hadn’t minded the girl’s meddling. To the contrary, she’d been polite and friendly to his sister.

Don’t be fooled,
he told himself.
Eliza Somerton comes from unscrupulous stock.

“Well?” Brandon prodded. “Who’s the woman?”

Grayson crossed the study and went to the sideboard. Reaching for a crystal decanter, he poured whiskey into two glasses. He handed one to Brandon.

“She’s Jonathan Miller’s eldest daughter.”

Brandon’s jaw dropped. “You’re jesting. How on earth did you find her?”

Grayson took a sip of the whiskey. “I didn’t. The Duke of Desford’s man of affairs located her.”

Brandon stared, clearly baffled. “The duke? I don’t understand?”

“Thomas Begley—the duke’s man—contacted me to request my assistance in finding a piece artwork that was stolen from the duke. A priceless Rembrandt,” Grayson said.

“What does that have to do with Jonathan Miller? The criminal hasn’t been seen in London in years.”

“True. But he knew all the immoral art brokers who could sell stolen and forged artwork. I believe second best to Miller is his offspring. She agreed to aid me.”

“In exchange for what?”

“She is to help me find the stolen Rembrandt, and in exchange, I’ll return a painting she forged.”

Surprise flickered across Brandon’s face. “She’s an artist?”

“No. She’s a forger.”

Brandon chuckled and took a sip of his drink. “Go on.”

“She was at an auction desperate to reclaim one of her own pieces. She claims she is now the owner of the Peacock Print shop,” Grayson explained.

“I take it you don’t believe her.”

Grayson scoffed. “She’s the daughter of the ‘forger of the
ton
.’ Would you?”

“You think she’ll willingly help you find the stolen Rembrandt?”

“If she wants her incriminating painting returned, then she has no choice.”

Brandon regarded him thoughtfully. “Don’t jest with me, Grayson. Why did you agree to help?”

“Isn’t it enough that I prevent a stolen Rembrandt from being squirreled away in a wealthy man’s private collection never to be displayed in a museum for the public’s enjoyment?”

Brandon chuckled. “No. What else are you after?”

Grayson drained the remainder of his glass in a single swallow and poured himself another. “I want to find her father. See justice served.”

“You’re still bitter about the past?”

“Miller sold me a forgery and humiliated me amongst my peers. A critic’s reputation is everything.”

“I take it she believes you just want to find the Rembrandt,” Brandon said.

Grayson shrugged. “She asked me if I wanted to find her father, of course. But I told her the stolen painting was my foremost concern.”

“Careful, Grayson. You have a vengeful side, and Jonathan Miller’s daughter had nothing to do with her father’s crime against you years ago.”

Grayson shot Brandon a hard stare. “She’s hardly an innocent widow. She’s a forger…a charlatan, just like her father.”

Brandon took another sip of his whiskey. “Perhaps. But she’s also a beautiful woman. Well-shaped, too. Even a monk would notice those breasts.”

Grayson raised his glass, ignoring the comment as if he hadn’t noticed Eliza Somerton’s beauty. But the problem was he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She had stood in his drawing room minutes before and glared at him with willful defiance and stubbornness. Yes, he’d noticed her beauty
and
her breasts.

Damn.
Why couldn’t Jonathan Miller’s daughter be a homely, chicken-breasted widow?

“Ah, you’ve noticed, too,” Brandon said.

“What warm-blooded man wouldn’t?” Grayson snapped.

The truth was that working with Eliza Somerton was going to test his self-restraint, but Grayson’s goal was more important than a tempting bit of flesh. After years of wanting justice for Miller’s crimes, the perfect opportunity had presented itself. Eliza Somerton was the key to finding her father.

Nothing more.

…

“He wants you to help him find a thief?” Amelia dropped her brush on the workbench and wiped her hands on her apron.

“Not the thief. Just the stolen Rembrandt.” Eliza picked up the discarded brush and set it in a glass jar of turpentine. It was full of other brushes waiting to be cleaned.

There, in the back workroom of the shop, canvases leaned in stacks around the perimeter of the room. Chloe was busy organizing shelves lined with art supplies, glass jars, oil paints, and cakes of watercolor. The odor of turpentine and drying paint permeated the space.

Amelia removed the kerchief that covered her hair and tossed it on the table next to a bowl of red and green apples. She had been painting a still life of the bowl of fruit and wore an old gown and paint-stained apron.

“He knows who we are. He wanted to know father’s whereabouts, but when that failed, he bargained for me to help him,” Eliza said.

“He thinks you know how to reach father’s friends?” Amelia said.

“By ‘friends’ he’s referring to the art brokers who sold father’s forgeries. It’s been years, but I have an idea where to start.”

“What if you don’t succeed and the Rembrandt is never recovered?” Amelia said.

“Huntington promised to return the Jan Wildens painting. He knows about you and Chloe, but thankfully, he believes the forgery is my work, not yours,” Eliza said.

Amelia frowned. “How is that good? You are not guilty.”

“I don’t want you or Chloe involved in this mess. You are both beautiful, young ladies and I want you to meet fine men and marry.”

Amelia’s lips puckered with annoyance. “I don’t want to marry now, and Chloe is too young.”

Chloe set down a jar and whirled around. “Don’t answer for me, Amelia. I want to marry a rich lord of leisure who can afford to buy me a new dress every week.”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Chloe. Gentlemen of the
ton
marry for title or money or both and we have neither.”

“But Papa was a knight,” Chloe argued.

“That was before,” Amelia admonished.

Eliza watched her sisters. They were so different in their coloring—Amelia with her striking auburn hair and Chloe with her fair beauty. Amelia was the painter in the family and she had the talent and patience to create carefully crafted forgeries. Chloe was impulsive, free-spirited, and obsessed with men, but she was skilled with a burin and engraved her own original landscapes.

Eliza, for all her love of art, had not inherited the ability to create masterpieces, but the shrewdness to run a business and accurately keep the books and account to the last shilling. They often bickered, but each other was all they had left in this world.

And her sisters were her responsibility.

Eliza stepped forward to end the argument. “Huntingdon is coming to the shop tomorrow. Amelia, you must hide all of your questionable work. Only your originals and Chloe’s engravings should be displayed in the workshop.”

“Where will you take Lord Huntingdon?” Amelia asked.

“I’ll reach out to Mr. Cain first,” Eliza said.

Amelia looked at her in surprise. “Mr. Cain? That blackguard won’t tell you a thing.”

“Mr. Cain is as unscrupulous as they come. If he believes there’s profit in it for him, he may be tempted to speak. Besides, I need to purchase supplies. You need paint and brushes, and the fancy gilt frames he imports have helped to sell every painting they’ve framed.”

“What if you refuse to help Lord Huntingdon?” Chloe asked.

“He threatened to notify the constable of the forgery.”

Chloe’s blue eyes widened. “You believe him?”

An image of the earl’s face rose in Eliza’s mind. Dark and handsome, but also dangerous. If she intended to help him find the stolen Rembrandt, she’d have to be very wary of him. “I have little choice. He’s determined and powerful. A volatile combination.”

…

Eliza was ready for Lord Huntington the following morning. The little bell above the door rang at exactly ten o’clock and Huntington swept inside with a blast of cold wind that extinguished one of the wall sconces. He was as strikingly attractive as she’d remembered, and his great coat billowed about him.

Eliza moved from behind the counter to greet him. “Good morning, my lord.”

His eyes immediately swept the interior of the room, and she knew his dark gaze missed no detail.

“Your print shop is charming, Mrs. Somerton,” he said simply.

Eliza had prepared for his visit. The floor was swept, the counter polished with linseed oil until it gleamed in the sunlight from the large front window, paintings hung on the walls, prints were displayed in racks around the room, and most importantly, Amelia’s forgeries were well hidden in the back workroom.

She took great pride in the welcoming character of her shop, ensuring it was well lit, comfortably warm during business hours of the winter months, and offering her customers a pleasant experience.

But now with Lord Huntingdon—the important and influential art critic—standing in the center of her shop, studying his surroundings, she felt oddly nervous. She couldn’t help but wonder what he thought. She knew the shop didn’t compare to the opulence of Ackerman’s. Her customers were wealthy merchants, not aristocrats or members of the
beau monde.

And she certainly never, ever entertained art critics.

She bit her bottom lip as he moved about the room. Sunlight from the window glinted off his dark hair and highlighted his chiseled features. The lighting was one of the reasons she had initially rented the building. The artwork could be displayed in the most favorable natural light. The rent was costly and there had been months she feared they couldn’t afford to pay the landlord.

Huntington flipped through several prints on a rack. “I must admit I’m pleasantly surprised. Your establishment is not what I expected.”

Looking up, his gaze caught hers and he smiled. There was something lazily seductive in his look, and she felt a flutter of excitement in her stomach.

“Impressive, very impressive, Mrs. Somerton,” he said.

Sweet heavens! Was he still speaking of her shop?

Feeling self-conscious, she smoothed the skirts of her gray alpaca gown. For a brief moment, she wished she was wearing a fine gown like the ladies of his acquaintance, then inwardly shook herself at her folly. The dress she’d worn to the auction and to visit him at his home, had been her finest and a previously owned and made-over gown. But the dresses she wore during working hours were plain, respectable for a shopkeeper, and much less costly. She was no longer in his realm.

“The artists are unknown, but the paintings are of good quality. How do you afford to buy the artwork?” he asked.

“I don’t. Local artists need a place to sell their works and agree to display their prints and paintings in my shop. Once a piece sells, we split the profits. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement,” she said.

He pointed to Amelia’s landscape of Hyde Park. “Did you paint this?” he asked.

The signature in the bottom corner wasn’t legible. It was one of Amelia’s tricks. Many customers didn’t want works of art produced by female artists, and they always assumed the work belonged to a male.

“Yes,” she lied.

“What about your sisters? Are they artists as well?”

“Oh, no. They help me with the day-to-day business of the shop. Nothing else.”

“Are they present?”

“Of course.” Eliza went to the bottom of the stairs leading to their living quarters above the shop and called out their names.

Her sisters came down, exactly as they had rehearsed. Chloe carried a tea tray, with a steaming teapot. Amelia’s paint-stained apron was gone, and she had changed into a different dress.

“May I introduce Amelia and Chloe,” Eliza said. “I took the liberty of preparing tea.”

Lord Huntington bowed gallantly before the two women. “It is a pleasure to meet both of you lovely ladies.”

Amelia curtsied properly, but eyed him speculatively.

“Thank you, my lord,” Chloe said, her blue eyes widening at the sight of the earl. She curtsied with enthusiasm. “It’s a pleasure to have you in our shop.” She set the tray down on an end table beside the settee.

“Go on, girls,” Eliza said. “There’s work to be done in the back room and Lord Huntington and I have business to discuss.”

“Thank you for the tea, ladies,” Huntingdon said. “Your shop is quite lovely, but pales in comparison to you both.”

Amelia tugged on Chloe’s sleeve to get her to leave. Chloe tripped as she strained to glance back.

Once they were alone, Eliza motioned for him to join her on the settee, poured the tea, and handed him a cup and saucer.

Dark eyes surveyed her. “Have you learned anything of interest?”

“I doubt you will believe me, but I recall very little of my father’s acquaintances.”

He sipped his tea. “You’re correct. I don’t believe you. Have you a name for me?”

She sat forward. She was expecting him to be difficult and was prepared with her answer. “There is a man who owns a warehouse. He knew Father. I buy art supplies from him, and gilt frames for the artwork I display in the shop. He may have information. I shall meet with him and relay anything I learn—”

“I shall accompany you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I shall accompany you and question the man,” he said firmly.

“You don’t trust me?”

He flashed a wolfish grin. “As much as you trust me.”