“Oh—oh no, sir.” Her eyes widened. “I have no thought of leaving, especially having just arrived.”
“Good.” He cleared his throat. “You must stay, Miss Abbotts.” He prayed his words didn’t sound like a threat.
Unwilling to torment himself with the sight of Miss Abbotts’s buttoned-up, yet voluptuous form any longer, he gave her the afternoon off. It would likely take at least an hour to track down Charlotte again, anyhow. And Harmonia’s wedding was mere days away, meaning they would soon be leaving London, and Miss Abbotts no doubt had errands to see to before her departure. With a tinge of envy, he realized a pretty young thing like her likely had a beau, improper as it would be for her position. Well, she’d have to make her goodbyes now.
They left Oswine House without incident, with Harmonia and Bess still indolent or asleep, and Charlotte still out of sight. Though Ajax suspected the chit likely watched their departure from some hidey hole, given what he’d learned of her ways since she had entered his life.
Equally unwilling to torment himself with the sight of a blank page, Ajax decided to give himself the afternoon off as well. He grumpily exited his carriage in front of Arthur Tooth & Sons, deliberately choosing not to turn around and see the royal theater. Because then he’d be reminded of Nancy Jutton andhow good she’d felt, her breast more than filling his hand, her cunt slick and eager. And how now, taken down by consumption, she was no more. Memories of all the women who’d followed her into his bed sped past, flickering like a zoetrope. Those days were gone, days which hadn’t fulfilled him even at the time. If only he could stop looking over his shoulder, yearning for a peace and contentment that had never existed.
At least today I didn’t look back to the theater, he silently congratulated himself. He walked purposefully into the gallery and made a beeline for the small, untitled painting that he’d returned to purchase. He might not be able to possess Miss Abbotts, given his one last, desperate crack at respectability, but he could at least have her doppelgänger. The pretty, coy figure with her needlework on her lap, barefoot, with her curls down.
It was gone.
Ajax frowned, scanning the wall of smaller, cheaper pieces from unknowns, but it was nowhere to be found. He felt a hitch in his chest as he signaled over a gallery assistant, a severe young man in spectacles. It took him a minute to recall his name—Jones, he thought.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Sedley?”
“That small painting, the domestic scene. By a lady painter. Where’s it gone to? It was here just the other day,” Ajax said, a dismal feeling settling on him.
“Ah, yes, the Rose Verdier. Sold, unfortunately. Just this afternoon, as a matter of fact.” Jones cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder and leaned in toward Ajax, lowering his voice. “Specifically, moments ago, I’m afraid.”
Ajax followed the man’s gaze toward the long walnut table where transactions were conducted and receipts written out. He’d been so singularly focused upon entering the gallery that he hadn’t noted the imposing man standing there, holding anelegantly plain, gold-mounted walking stick. It took a moment, but he placed him. Joseph Palgrave.
He offered Jones a perfunctory thanks and crossed the gallery, a man determined.
“Palgrave. What the devil are you doing here? I didn’t take you for a patron of the arts.” Ajax flashed his easy, disarming smile that so often got him what he wanted. Which in this case was the painting that had been nicked from under his nose by his recent acquaintance.
Joseph Palgrave, younger and shorter yet exuding an air of superiority, raised an eyebrow, deliberately waiting a beat before acknowledging Ajax’s presence.
“Ah, that’s right—Mr. Sedley. How fortunate that we meet again so soon.” He spoke in the slow, perfect drawl of the aristocrats who’d pointedly ignored Ajax at school. That is, until they’d discovered his family coffers kept him flush with a topping selection of wines and spirits.
Palgrave asked his own question instead of answering Ajax’s. “And how is your niece? The lead-up is always a bit of a frenzy.” He chuckled before adding, “Or so I’m told.”
Ajax paused, realizing he hadn’t seen Harmonia since the dinner Mr. Palgrave had hosted to mark her upcoming nuptials. She was set to wed the man’s business associate (a generous title, if Ajax was being candid, which he tried never to be), Thomas Rickard, in a few days’ time. His eyes drifted to the table and fell upon a small brown package, flat and very nearly the size of a sheet of paper. The painting.
“Harmonia? She’s holding up,” he said, distracted. “Tolerably well.”
“Wonderful.”
“I say,” Ajax ventured, not content to exchange mere pleasantries. “You wouldn’t have purchased one of the small canvases from the back, would you? Twenty quid, about oh,yea big?” He indicated the painting’s tiny proportions with his hands.
“The Verdier?” Palgrave said, his thick black brows narrowing.
“Yes, that’s the one.” Ajax snapped his fingers, belatedly realizing his enthusiasm was being met with considerable tepidness on the other gentleman’s part. He cleared his throat and spoke with more detachment. “Right, I was wondering if you’d part with it for, say, eighty?”
Palgrave looked at him appraisingly for what seemed an eternity. Finally, his naturally stern expression broke, and he grinned. “I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
A footman appeared at Palgrave’s side. He indicated the package with a nod of his head, and the servant retrieved it, exiting the gallery with the object of Ajax’s desire, with no further acknowledgment of either gentleman.
“A bit of both, actually.” The younger man stared at something in the distance, then shook his head. He turned back to Ajax, his dark eyes intense as he leaned forward, both hands resting on his walking stick. “I’m not a patron of the arts. Just this artist. And her work turns up so rarely, you see.”
“It’s a lovely little oil painting, isn’t it?” Ajax managed, his spirits in the gutter.
“They all are,” Palgrave said, and raised his hat slightly, indicating he was done discussing art and done negotiating with Ajax. “Excellent to see you, Mr. Sedley. I should really get on.”
Ajax bade him goodbye and watched him leave, standing forlornly at the gallery desk. Jones walked over, his expression a bit less severe than usual.
