The Painted Lady (25 page)

“You believe me, then? You felt it?” The duke put his arm around Lilyanne’s shoulder, to keep her from being jostled as the carriage started out.

“I have always believed you, Kasey.”

“Then I am not mad?”

“Not unless I am, also. I still don’t understand, and I suppose I might never, but I do believe in you.”

“Ah, my sweet Lily, you give me hope that I might find my way out of this dark corner into which I seem to have painted myself, with you holding the light.”

“You will make sense of it yourself, I am sure, whatever you decide to do about the painting.” She recalled Dimm’s words. “But I do think she deserves better than a cold attic. Would you not consider hanging the painting somewhere for everyone to appreciate? There’s not a woman in the world—in this world or any other—who would not be happier for a few admiring glances. I think I can understand why you might not wish to exhibit your work at museums and galleries, although I believe your talent deserves the acknowledgment of other artists and the recognition of experts. At least consider placing this one in your own library, for your good friends to see. She will be happier, I sense, and so will you, perhaps. It is worth a try, isn’t it?”

“I have been thinking about it, weighing the risks. But how can I trust my judgment, when I cannot trust my own eyes, my own ears?”

Lilyanne put both her hands on his, where he still grasped her shoulder. “Trust your heart, if nothing else. Remember, to thine own self be true. Whatever you decide will be right. I know it.”

“Ah, Lilyanne, what would I do without you?” Kasey pulled her onto his lap in the narrow cab, desperate to be closer to her. He kissed her tenderly, tentatively, then, when she did not resist, with all the warmth he’d been feeling for this slight, quiet female with smoke-colored eyes, who believed in him, not the duke, not the painter, just the man. She fit in his embrace like a part of himself, coming home at last. Caswell tried to let his lips express what he could not say in words, not with such confusion muddling his mind. He was not addled with her in his arms though, no, not at all.

“My precious, perfect flower. You are so wise and so warm.” And she was so willing, Kasey was ready to die from wanting her. His hand reached beneath her cape to brush across her ribs, his fingers touching the softness of one delicate, rounded, silk-clad breast.

Lilyanne gasped. “Please. Oh, please.” His hand stilled. “Please what, dear heart? Stop?” Lilyanne wanted to shout out “Never!” She wanted to tell him to please, please keep touching her, kissing her, whispering those sweet words. Please, she wanted to beg him, do not be a genius duke so far above plain Miss Bannister that her hopes were laughable. “Please,” she said. “Love me.”

She gasped again. “Oh, no, I did not say that! I never meant—you mustn’t think that I—”

Kasey pressed his fingers against her lips. “Hush, sweetings. Loving you is the easy part.”

* * * *

Kasey watched Lilyanne go up the stairs. Letting her go without making her his was one of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life, and perhaps the most honorable. No matter what she said, how could he bind Miss Bannister to a bedlamite?

He waited till she turned toward the guest corridor, before heading toward the library. Then he wiped his face.

Not tears, but bright red wine was dripping down his cheek onto his neckcloth and his white marcella waistcoat. “Dramatic, Junior, but effective, if you wanted to get my attention. Your purpose, brother?”

“I am calling you out, dash it! And stop calling me Junior as if I were still in short pants. My name is Jason, by all that’s holy!” Jason was in his shirtsleeves and in his cups, if the hectic flush and the glittering eyes were any indication. He was also in a towering rage. “I saw you walk Miss Bannister inside, saw how her lips are all swollen and your hand was inside her gown. You had no business sneaking her out of the house without a chaperone in the first place, but to bring her back looking like she’d been tumbled in a haystack? How could you do that, you knave?”

How could he not? Kasey wondered, blotting at the wine.

Luckily, Jason did not wait for an answer. “She is a guest in your home! A young lady under your protection. An innocent, at least until tonight, I’d swear. You make me ashamed of the family name we share, Caswell. Lord, is no female safe from your predation?”

Kasey dropped his sodden handkerchief to the ground. “Predation, brother? You believe I hurt those missing girls?”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore, if you can behave so dishonorably toward Miss Bannister. I do know you’ll discard her in a week or a month, the way you always do with your women. You could not even stay constant to poor Phillida.”

Ignoring the innumerable fallacies in his brother’s last accusation, Kasey said, “Do you actually think that killing me in a duel will restore Miss Bannister’s honor, assuming it has been besmirched?”

“Perhaps not, but you will not be around to ruin any other young women. I have no doubt you can defeat me at pistols or swords—Satan knows I’ve never bested you at anything, not even billiards—but you’ll have to flee the country for shooting me or running me through. That will be enough.”

“Ah, and you do not pity the women in Spain or Italy?”

“Are you making light of this, by Harry?” Jason forgot about his lofty intentions and shook his fist in his brother’s face. “We can settle it now, then.”

Kasey knew he could, indeed, settle his brother with one blow. He outweighed the younger man, and had sparred at Gentleman Jackson’s for years. The gudgeon would likely not recall the circumstances in the morning, either way. “No, I will not fight you,” he told him instead. “There is no cause.”

“No cause? Are you calling me a liar? I know what I saw, dash it.”

“No, you know what you think you saw. Miss Bannister is not compromised.”

“Oh, no? If I saw you hand her out of that coach and kiss her in the hallway here, any number of servants could have seen the same. The old fool of an uncle could have seen you, if he wasn’t in a stupor after supper. Would you tell him his niece is as pure now as before you met her? He might be gudgeon enough to swallow that, considering he’s eating everything else in sight. No, he will not defend his niece’s virtue. Our aunts? They think you hung the moon, with Ticket’s help, of course. No, there is only one way to make this right.”

“Exactly, brother. My way.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Caswell was not going to let his brother’s poison touch Lilyanne. For that matter, he was not going to let his brother, or any other man, touch her... or dance with her, hold a door open for her, or help her into a carriage. He was deuced tired of having the male population of London at his doorstep, seeing more of his Miss Bannister than Kasey himself did.

Charles was not yet up, so Kasey left a message on Warberry’s desk with his projected itinerary. He also left a note asking Charles to inform Lords Stivern and St. Claire that he would meet them at the Cranmoor Gallery late that afternoon, if they were still interested in having him look over those new paintings.

His plan was to take Lilyanne on a tour of London’s museums and galleries, even a few private homes with extraordinary collections, to see if she still thought his work measured up. After she saw the quality and caliber of current art, then they could speak again about putting his paintings on exhibit. First, though, he’d take her through the Royal Botanical Gardens, which had the advantage of being nearby, closed to the general public, sure to interest Lilyanne, and big enough that they could lose her maid for a stolen kiss or two.

Lilyanne wrapped a couple of sweet rolls in a napkin, rather than take time for breakfast, she was so excited. She was going to have a whole day with Kasey, all by herself, finally. Except for her maid, of course, and the coachman, and Mr. Dimm, when he joined them inside the carriage. Lilyanne offered him a roll.

“Thank you, miss, don’t mind if I do. Detecting is hard work, don’t you know. Missed my own breakfast, showing the picture of His Grace’s man down at the docks.”

“Did you find anything?” Kasey asked. “Has anyone seen Ayers?”

Dimm took a bite of his roll and chewed slowly. Kasey rapped on the roof with his walking stick. At least the carriage could get started.

“The picture was so like Ayers that the cove at the shipping office recognized him right off. Now you take the sketches we usually have to work with. They could be Alfie Ayers or they could be his Aunt Agatha, for all the likeness we get.”

“Yes, but did he say where Ayers is? Nothing has happened to him, has it?” Kasey wanted to know, much more than he wanted to know the Bow Street man’s opinions of his drawing.

“Well, nothing bad’s happened to him, leastways not yet. As for where he is, I’d guess he’s in the middle of the ocean right now. Headed toward the tropics, he was, aboard the Golden Eagle.”

“He left England? Without giving notice? Without saying good-bye? That is deuced peculiar, considering he’s been with me for four or five years.”

“Not so peculiar when the fellow at the shipping office recalled your man booking passage for his sister a fortnight or so ago.”

“I didn’t know he had a sister.”

“Neither did his mother, I’d wager.” Mr. Dimm took out his notebook and found the appropriate page. “The clerk, one Daniel Brown, remembers Ayers particularly because he had to carry his sister on board her ship, The Challenger. Headed for”—he flipped the page—“Jamaica. She’d passed out celebrating her departure, Ayers told the captain, who was none too happy, according to Mr. Brown. A bit more money changed hands, the captain looked the other way, and the girl was snugged down in her bunk.”

“Dolly?”

“I ‘spect so, though no one got a good look at the sister. All bundled up, she was, in a fur-lined cape. Dolly weren’t the first one, neither, I’d wager. I have men checking the passenger lists, but he mightn’t of used the women’s real names.”

“But why would the duke’s man be sending women out of the country?” Lilyanne asked, Ayers not being the only one at sea.

“Like I always say, look for the money. Didn’t I tell that to Your Grace when we started this investigation? Nine times out of ten, your criminal is after the money.”

Lilyanne still did not understand. Dimm looked to the duke for an explanation, and Kasey damned him under his breath. “I, ah, gave the women who sat for my paintings a parting gift, payment for services, you see.”

“I thought the women in the pictures never knew about them.”

Kasey’s collar was a tad too tight. “Yes, well, they needed to be paid anyway. Ayers was the one who delivered the monetary reimbursement.”

“Right generous, His Grace was, all the ladies say.”

Lilyanne’s young maid was hiding her face in her hands.

“All the ladies?” Lilyanne repeated.

Kasey did not go into details, but he did glare at Dimm. This was not a proper conversation for a lady.

Ignoring him, Dimm took another bite of his roll and dabbed at his mouth with his handkerchief. “Must of been too generous for Ayers. He kept the money and got rid of the girls before they could peach on him.”

“Do you think the young ladies are all right?”

“Ayers paid for a cabin for Dolly, so she wasn’t tossed to the sailors. Pardon, Miss Bannister, Miss Fanny. Likely she found her way to the captain’s, ah, table. Girls like Dolly usually land on their feet.”

They landed on their backs, Kasey silently amended. If Ayers wasn’t a week at sea, he’d have the dastard aboard a different ship, headed for Botany Bay. Ocean passage was dangerous, especially for a woman, and who knew what awaited the girls at the end of their involuntary exile from their homeland? “Can you send messages and money for Dolly’s passage home? At my expense, of course, and for any other of the women Ayers might have abducted.”

“Aye, by the next ship out. It’ll take a while, but I ‘spect Dolly’ll write to her mum when she reaches port, so we’ll know she’s safe.”

“What about Ayers?” Lilyanne asked. “He cannot simply get away with the money, can he, not after he robbed and kidnapped and transported those poor women?”

“Likely drugged them, too, the dirty dish.” Dimm brushed crumbs off his waistcoat. “But we already have messages going out to the authorities in his direction, too. A ship was just leaving port this morning. She just might be fast enough to overtake the Golden Eagle. We’ll get him back.”

“Then the case is closed? No one else is in any danger?”

“That’s right, Your Grace. But you paid for my watching after the lady through the week, and that’s what I mean to do. Asides, I’ve a mind to see some more fine art. Thinking of becoming a collector, when I retire. I already have your drawings of Dolly and the gallows bait, Ayers. Are you going to eat that other roll, Miss Bannister?”

* * * *

Dimm sat on a bench at the gardens, saving his feet for later, he said. Saving for her future, Lilyanne’s maid accepted Kasey’s coin and joined the officer on the concrete seat. She was more interested in hearing about Dimm’s hardworking nephew than hibiscuses, besides.

Exotic orchids? Carnivorous cacti? Medicinals, ornamentals, poisonous plants? They could have been weeds, for all Lilyanne noticed. But kisses, embraces, sweet words of love behind the lianas? Ah, Lilyanne did so enjoy growing things!

After a day filled with sightseeing, and seeing some of the finest artwork in the city, they headed toward Cranmoor Gallery. At that hour, fashionable London should have been parading in modest building off Bond Street. The small place was so crowded, though, that Kasey’s coachman had to leave them off down the block. Dimm waved the duke and Miss Bannister ahead. He wasn’t about to hurry his poor feet to see more fruit bowls, dead hares, or ladies in wigs.

Inside the gallery, finely dressed men and women were bowing and curtsying, chatting and carrying on their flirtations the same way they would in the park. Still, it was easy to tell where that new artist’s work was hanging, because the most people surrounded that area and the visitors were actually looking. The others had come because it was the thing to do, this week.