As he strode through the doorway connecting to the main set of rooms, Jake passed a small sign:
Scenes Beneath a Night Sky
This room was much larger, but no less crowded than the last. He skirted the edge of the crush, scanning the space for his quarry. His height of four inches above six feet made it easy to determine that the thief wasn’t in here.
Even though he’d never met the man, he knew one fact about him: he was Japanese.Jiro. In a closed society like London’s, a foreigner—particularly one whose features were unmistakablynot English—didn’t pass unnoticed. While it was possible another artist of Japanese origin could be here, it wasn’t probable. Were the man in the room, he would create a stir without once opening his mouth.
“Champagne, my lord?” a servant’s voice intoned.
Jake lifted a crystal flute off the servant’s proffered tray and downed the drink in a single swallow before venturing into the crowd and wending his way toward the room’s focal point, another staged scene like the one in the receiving room.
This scene was wholly different from the previous one. Where the other possessed a soft palette in color and theme, this one ratcheted up the drama ten times over. Hundreds of full-blown poppies filled every square inch of the tableau not occupied by the painting at its center. They even appeared to grow out of the floorboards to resemble a field lush with effulgent crimson blooms.
However, the cheeriness generated by the spectacular poppies was replaced by unease when the subject of the painting sharpened into focus: an opium den, and not the sort of the Romantics. No indulged lords lolled about on overstuffed sofas, content and oblivious to the world around them. In their stead, emaciated addicts, a puff away from starvation and death, lay about at odd angles, their gazes inward and grim.
To say that the cheery poppies threw the dire realism of the painting into sharp relief would be gross understatement. The irony was undeniable: beneath the surface of a thing of beauty could lay the seeds of one’s undoing.
An image of tonight’s hostess came to mind. Of her surface . . . Her eyes fluttering shut, lashes dark against her pale skin, parted lips reaching up, up, up . . . And her depths . . . The quality that made him want to forget his place, his purpose, himself, and dip his head and claim those lips until they were satisfied, sated. As if a mere kiss could accomplish satisfaction and satiety between them.
A soft swish of skirts whispered behind him, and a voice sounded in his ear. “Does it disappoint? Disappointment can leave one feeling decidedlyunfulfilled.”
Jake looked right, and the room fell away. There she stood, throwing that word at him again.Disappointment. The idea that he’d disappointed her had gnawed at him since yesterday. And now she was throwing another word into the mix.Unfulfilled.
While he had no desire to leave this woman disappointed, he certainly didn’t want to leave her unfulfilled. In fact, under a different set of circumstances for their acquaintance, he wouldn’t walk away from this woman until she was thoroughly . . . exhaustively . . . fulfilled, satisfied, sated . . .
He reined himself in and cleared his throat. “I’ve never encountered art like this.”
A subtle smile curled the corners of her lips. “Let me guess. To you, art is pretty and facile and forgettable.” She gestured toward the painting. “And this is none of those things. It’s brutal, dark, and unforgettable.” The blue of her eyes deepened to match the sapphire of her gown. “It’s real.”
“I may have misjudged you,” he said, the words out of his mouth before he could contain them.
“You wouldn’t be the first, my lord.”
Their eyes held for a beat longer before he broke the contact. Her directness had a way of muddling his intentions. It was time to snap back into focus. He was here to find an art thief.
“I must admit,” he began, “your knowledge of the art world fascinates me.”
He sounded like a disingenuous prig even to his own ears, but he needed to right this conversation before it fell off the edge and into uncharted territory.
“Does it?”
“Did your family or the Duke introduce you? Or, perhaps, his son?” He couldn’t bring himself to say herhusband, or whoever the blasted man was to her now. He despised the man sight unseen. If ever he came within arm’s reach of the man, he would clock him directly in the mouth.
“Percy?” An incredulous laugh escaped her. “My interest in the arts has naught to do with my marriage. I was a girl so in love with love that I didn’t have room for other interests.”
“In love with love?” An unexpected pang of jealousy flared through him, even as her words caught him a bit sideways. “You must have fallen in love with your husband during your courtship to have married him.”
“Our courtship was the most romantic courtship anyone had ever seen, I daresay.”
“And the marriage?” Why was he pushing the conversation in this direction? He had no desire to hear the details of that marriage.
“Not in the least,” she stated matter-of-factly. “And is love a requirement for the wife you’re seeking?”
“Of course not,” he said. A beat later, the weight of his confession hit him. He shouldn’t be speaking of love with this woman.
“Then what is the hurry, my lord? If you believe in love, you should wait for it.”
“My daughter needs a stepmother before the year is out. She’s of an age where the guidance of a lady who knows the ins and outs of thetonis necessary.”
