The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne (33 page)

She had made no such promise. He knew it too. It broke her heart that she could not know her own mind yet. Until she spoke to the man waiting in the garden, she did not have the freedom to offer herself under any terms.

He did not appear to notice that she left his assumption twisting in the wind. He held her and looked down at her, and she saw no expectation of a response in his eyes. Rather, the knowing of the night was there, as if he perceived much more than she could guess.

He kissed her forehead. “You are right. You must finish it. I do not want to share you with it any longer.” He released her and stepped back. His boot landed on the papers she had dropped.

He picked them up.

“Those are the documents on the Raphael,” she said.

He stuffed them into his coat and reached to lift the painting from the wall. “If ever a painting did not need provenance to prove itself, this is it. Be sure to thank the esteemed, discreet gentleman for me.”

A
s soon as Southwaite left, Emma called for Obediah. He emerged from the storage.

“I need you to do one more thing for me today, old friend,” she said. “There is a good deal of money in the office. Please find a sack and put the large pile into it. Bring it to me. Then you can leave.”

Obediah displayed no surprise at the instruction. He wandered back to the storage room to look for a sack.

After Obediah returned and handed her the heavy sack, Emma strode to the northwest corner of the exhibition hall, and let herself out through the garden door.

Her visitor was not visible when she entered the garden. She was halfway down a path before he revealed himself by whistling from behind a large shrub.

“I thought it best to stay back here,” he said when she went to him. “Didn’t want that man of yours wondering about us.”

She heartily disliked this man on several counts, but his lascivious smile now made him repulsive. “Do not insult me with your insinuations, or I will tell that man all about it, to your sorrow.”

“I will be glad to be done with ye; that’s for certain. I’ve known fishwives with more sweetness.”

“Then let us be done.”
You must finish it. I do not want to share you with it any longer.
“I intend to ransom the prize so this will be over.”

“You’ve the whole three thousand?”

She set down the sack. “I have fifteen hundred here. I’ll be needing to hear the favor.” She prayed it would not be passing shiploads of wine or something equally visible.

“Well, now, that be interesting,” he said, rubbing his chin
thoughtfully. “It were expected to be like this, but I said you would get the whole three if anyone could.”

“It appears those you work for understand more about the finances of auction houses than you do. Now, tell me the favor, or else tell me where to learn about it. Do not put me off, or you will take back not a penny.”

He looked over his shoulder and stretched to see the house. Neither caution was a good sign, and Emma steeled herself for a demand that she would not like at all.

Satisfied that he would not be heard, he spoke more clearly and soberly than he ever had previously. So clearly that Emma realized that Stupid Man was not nearly as stupid as she and Marielle thought.

“The favor would’ve been required, no matter how much ye pay, so in picking the fifteen hundred ye’ve cut yerself a bargain. Ye need to finish that which your father started,” he said. “It is to do that which he was doing when he took that bad step and fell.”

D
arius was half a mile from Fairbourne’s before he set aside the Raphael. A small painting, it rewarded close study. He decided that he would not hang it, but set in a case in the library so it could be held to close view just as he had held it for the last fifteen minutes.

The bulge in his coat crackled when he placed the panel on the opposite bench. He sat back and pulled out the packet of documents that Emma had given him.

It was a very complete provenance. Step by step, from the middle of the sixteenth century to that of the current one, the pages described the history of the painting’s ownership. There were references to documents and letters in support of the early claims, and to English inventories from the seventeenth century on.

The last entry, scribbled at the bottom of the final page, required deciphering because the ink had become blurred and faint, as if a liquid had dripped on it. It appeared to note that the painting had been offered at auction at Fairbourne’s fifteen years ago.

He held the paper to the window to make out the writing.
It had been bought by count…No, it had been bought
in on account
. That meant the auctioneer had bid against his own patrons, to purchase the work himself.

He set down the documents, surprised, and lifted the panel again. Maurice Fairbourne had owned this. He was the esteemed gentleman from whose collection it came.

Why would Emma sell such a treasure? Prior to the count’s collection being consigned, it might have made some sense if she sought to enhance the auction’s offerings, or if she needed funds to maintain her household. By the time the auction was held, however, she knew that she would see enough from its proceeds to be secure for many months, and the Raphael, while a significant addition, was not essential anymore to garner prestige.

There was only one explanation that made sense. Like Lady Cassandra, and many of the other people who sent family heirlooms to auction, Emma must need money. A lot of it, if she sacrificed this painting.

He doubted she needed money for the normal reasons. There was no indication she gambled. It was possible she had run up debts at modistes and milliners, but he had not seen evidence of extravagance.

He could not ignore that she had been very secretive about this too. She might claim she sought only privacy in her personal finances by creating the ruse that an anonymous client consigned the Raphael. It was a lot of trouble to go through without a better reason than that, however.

He did not think he would enjoy this painting as much now. Something had coerced her to sell it, and he would think of that each time he viewed it.

He told his coachman to turn the horses and return to Fairbourne’s. He would give it back to her, as a gift. If she tried to refuse it, he would leave it at the auction house, so she had no choice.

He would not ask why she had done it either. Although he badly wanted to know, he suspected the answer would
not reflect well on Fairbourne’s, or her father, and probably not even on her.

He called for the coach to stop before it arrived at Fairbourne’s door. Something had caught his eye that needed to be addressed first.

He put his head to the window and looked out. Tucked amid the horses tied nearby was a large chestnut. Its rider calmly hand-fed it pieces of an apple that he lazily cut with a small knife. The presence of that horse and rider here, ten doors down from Fairbourne’s, infuriated Darius.

“I told you not to follow her,” he said. “I told you to leave her alone.”

The owner palmed the rest of the apple under his horse’s mouth. When it was gone he walked over, set his elbows on the windows lower edge, and looked in. “I am not following her. I am not even watching her. That was to be your role, remember?”

“Then what the hell are you doing here, Kendale?”

“Maybe I am having a new coat made at that tailor there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

It was Kendale’s way of pointing out that it was a public street and he could be here if he chose. Which it was. But Darius doubted Kendale had ordered a new coat in many months. Other things occupied his time and mind.

“Are you saying that you are not here because of Fairbourne’s?”

“I’m saying I did not come here because of
her
. If you are angry because she matters to you in some way, it may be good that you are here now too, though.”

“Why? Is she having another rendezvous with Marielle Lyon?”

“She did that yesterday. If you had been watching her like you are supposed to, you would know that.” A frowning scold formed. “You and Ambury have proven useless.”

Darius opened the door and stepped down. “That is because you are on a fool’s errand. It would be impossible to keep watch on every person in England around whom the
vaguest rumors and suspicions fly. I will not insult law-abiding citizens to satisfy your—”

Darius broke off his speech when Kendale abruptly tensed and all but pointed like a hunting dog.

Darius followed Kendale’s sharp gaze to Fairbourne’s. A man walked along the side of the building, carrying a sack. The fellow wore ill-fitting clothes and a flat-brimmed, low-crowned hat.

“Who is he? A thief?”

Kendale shook his head. “He is very nonchalant for a thief. I do not know his name yet.”

“Why do you know him at all?”

“He visited Marielle Lyon two weeks ago. From the sharp words exchanged as he left, she threw him out. Since she spends most of her days in that studio she runs, I’ve left a footman to watch her and took to following this fellow instead some days.”

“Why?”

“Mostly because he smells wrong,” he said. “However, when Mam’selle Lyon threw him out, she castigated him soundly, in French. She said he was too stupid if he came to her, and would bring her nothing but more trouble. I thought that of interest. So I pick up his trail some days. He moves through town a lot.”

And now he had come here.

“Imagine my surprise to see him visit Miss Fairbourne,” Kendale added with exaggerated blandness. “It is probably just another coincidence, though.”

“You do not know he visited her. She may not be there.”

“She has not left since you did, and her carriage is still down the street. She is there.” The man in question was far down the street now. Kendale untied his horse and swung up into the saddle.

“You saw me leave?” Darius said.

“I did. Now, move, please. I think I will see where that sack is going.”

Kendale angled his horse away and proceeded down the
street at a slow walk. From his height on horseback he would be able to see his quarry from a good distance.

Darius told his coachman to move down to Fairbourne’s. He reached in the carriage, removed the painting, and walked the short distance.

He had intended to require no information when he returned this, but he doubted he would be able to avoid a few questions now. For one thing, if Kendale had seen him leave half an hour ago, that meant Emma’s final visitor had led Kendale to this street before that. The man had not been visible at Fairbourne’s while Darius settled his account, however.

The revelations troubled Darius more than angered him. Apparently Emma kept more secrets than he had guessed. Worse, perhaps whatever had been preying on her mind now preyed in other ways too.

The door to Fairbourne’s was unlocked. He looked down the street. Kendale was still visible, slowly pacing along. Emma’s carriage waited there too.

Darius let himself in. The exhibition hall, so recently crowded with paintings and luxuries, quaked with total emptiness now. He heard no evidence that anyone was here. Riggles had gone, it seemed.

He looked in the office for Emma, expecting to find her at the desk pouring over accounts. Instead he saw only the remnants of the auction’s revenue, a small heap of coins and drafts left out for the taking should he be a thief. He could not imagine Emma being so careless.

He set the painting against a wall in the hall and let himself out through the garden door. He saw her then, standing in the garden, unmoving and unseeing. Her expression reminded him of the passing preoccupation that claimed her at times, even in the aftermath of pleasure. Only now it owned her totally.

His questions about the Raphael did not matter much anymore. Nor did the coincidences that Kendale kept finding. She looked lost there, as if she did not have a friend in the world.

“Emma,” he said, so that maybe she would decide she had at least one.

She did not hear him. She did not notice him. She stood in the waning sunlight, her black dress stark against the backdrop of verdant leaves, frowning with dismayed worry. It was obvious something had happened within the last hour to distress her beyond her ability to contain her emotions.

What did she contemplate? Nothing happy. It affected her whole body and the way she hugged herself for warmth. It showed in her eyes. She saw nothing of her surroundings, but only her own thoughts, and those thoughts made her afraid. Very afraid.

He knew, just knew, that whatever haunted her right now was much bigger than a few lots of illicit goods auctioned at Fairbourne’s. And it had something to do with that man with the sack.

He did not call her name again. He did not think she would welcome his seeing her like this, or be relieved to share her burden. She had been carrying it for a while already, after all, and had never asked for his advice or help. She did not trust him with it. Perhaps she dared not.

He returned to the exhibition hall and hung the Raphael on the wall. Then he let himself out, and told his coachman to catch up with Kendale.

E
mma did not move from the garden for a long while after she brought the money to her visitor. Waves of nausea plagued her and would not stop. Unpleasant shivers wracked her, but she did not feel cool. Rather the opposite. The illness centered in her heart, but it affected her in physical ways.

She would never call her visitor Stupid Man again. He had proven very shrewd. If anyone had been stupid, it had been her.

Not about everything. She had been smart enough not to share her problem with anyone. Even when tempted again
and again to confide to Southwaite, she had held her tongue. Thank God for that.

This was turning out very badly. Any cooperation with smuggling would look like child’s play when it was done. Even if she did not miss a step, even if she had Robert in a reunion embrace a fortnight hence, she would never live down agreeing to what had been demanded.

A favor, they called it. Hardly a favor. She should have given more weight to Marielle’s revelations yesterday. The young French woman’s experiences had honed her perceptions well. What had she said?
This stupid man will get me hanged if I am not careful.