Lady Olivia stepped forward and landed a quick kiss on her sister’s cheek before vanishing into the crowd, which appeared to have doubled in volume since his arrival.
“Shall we?” Lady Nicholas asked.
Jake nodded, and they strolled together in silence, the crush creating a raucous cacophony that both surrounded them and strangely insulated them from its din.
“What do you think is the true purpose of this soirée, my lord?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea, my lady.” In truth, he hadn’t considered it beyond its usefulness to him. Again, he scanned the crowd for the thief. Again, he turned up nothing. “Would you care to enlighten me?”
“About a year ago,” Lady Nicholas began, “an artist, who was a vital part of the arts community, perished of a long and painful lung ailment brought on by malnutrition and lack of medicine. He was only four and twenty years old. Olivia’s response was to begin hosting a soirée featuring a different artist every month. Each piece you see is for sale, and every last farthing goes to the artist with Olivia shouldering the cost of the soirée.” Lady Nicholas gave a short laugh. “She claims to be no crusader, but I have my suspicions.”
“It looks to be quite a monumental and meticulous undertaking for no—”
“Return?” Lady Nicholas interrupted. “Careful, my lord, one might catch a whiff of trade about you.” She cut him a speculative glance and slid her arm out from his as easily as she’d slipped it in. “Now, if you will excuse me, I see a dear, old friend to whom I simply must give a piece of my mind.”
Jake pitied that dear, old friend. He suspected Lady Nicholas’s curious and playful exterior masked an intellect and will of tempered steel.
Alone, he glanced about this new room. Corner to corner, a sumptuous spread of delicacies lined its four walls, tables heavy with roasts of all varieties: lamb, ham, pheasant, quail, even an entire roast pig. It was a feast fit for royalty. Yet there were no dining tables, no chairs, no silverware, no servants offering to fill plates, no invitation to feast on this banquet.
It struck him: the room itself was the stage. He pivoted by degrees until he located it: above a table laden with the most desserts he’d ever seen outside a sweet shop was the painting at the heart of this tableau.
The subject was a small boy curled into himself in sleep. Except this child bore no resemblance to the cozy lambs fast asleep in the receiving room. This child slept on a squalid sidewalk. His only shelter, a stone staircase; his only protection, himself. Where the lambs were white as snow, this child’s skin was stained with filth.
But these details were only background for the focal point of the painting: the boy’s face, pointed up to a vast, indifferent sky, a hollowed out shell resembling a man of eighty years, rather than a boy of eight.
Again, Jake surveyed the room. The roar of the crowd hadn’t followed him in here. Instead, the atmosphere was silent . . . chastened. Just as it wasn’t for the nameless boy, this feast wasn’t for them. He and his fellow guests were part of the performance of the piece.
We English are insatiable when it comes to having the best at the world’s expense.
Yesterday, he hadn’t given her words much thought, but tonight, in the context of this room, he understood what they said about Lady Olivia Montfort. How had a beloved daughter of thetoncome to embrace such a radical perspective of the world?
All at once, a tingle raced down his spine, and he turned unerringly toward its source. Thereshestood, engaged in a conversation with a group of her guests. Presented in profile, he was confounded by how small she appeared. She’d begun to loom so large in his imaginings that the reality of her took him by surprise. From this distance, he could take in the entirety of her at his leisure.
She wore a simple, elegant gown of sapphire silk, deeper than the translucent blue of her eyes, expertly fitted to her petite body and cinched at her waist. He could only guess that she was dressed in the first stare of French fashion. Yet any woman who could create this atmosphere out of thin air and sheer will wouldn’t be a slave to fashion. After all, she tramped about London clad in an overcoat the hue of sidewalk sludge.
Still, she possessed a sense of her station. In here, she would dress the part. Lady Olivia understood roles, and when to play them to suit the moment.
The corner of her mouth quirked up into a smile for a male guest, and Jake’s insides gave a lurch. Then he noticed a detail that allowed him to relax: her smile for that man was polite, controlled, the sort of smile one offered a guest as a token. Quite unlike the one that had spread across her lips and shone for him yesterday. That smile had been glorious, lacking any hint of politeness or control.Shehad lacked the slightest hint of politeness or control.
Again, that word came to him.Unbound. And, again, he wanted her that way.
Her face angled to the side, and her eyes cut toward his. The room shrank down to him and her. Time had a funny habit of standing still around her. The indulgent smile dropped from her lips, and her expression transformed, as if she was considering him in some way.
A guest leaned forward and spoke a few words, pulling at her attention. It would be rude for her to ignore the guest, yet he refused to release her. But, alas, she didn’t need his permission, and she returned her attention to her guests and her duty. Time resumed its steady tick-tock.
He resisted the impulse to stride over and reclaim her for himself. Instead, he forced his feet to move in another direction, away from her. A strange restlessness simmered at her easy dismissal of him. It made it simpler to do what he needed to do. If the thief wasn’t here, then perhaps he could churn up some evidence of the man.
A quick glance to his right revealed a stocked sidebar. He wasn’t sure which variety of amber-colored liquid he was pouring into a tumbler, but it hardly mattered. Two, nay, three fingers of whiskey would make the task ahead more palatable.
He strode through to the next room and located an unobtrusive door tucked away in a shadowed corner. He turned the handle and was through it before anyone could notice. The door clicked shut behind him, and he stopped, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
A strip of light peeking out from beneath a door some twenty feet ahead of him revealed that he stood in a narrow corridor. He began moving forward, his stride purposeful and direct.
Lady Olivia’s apartments were bound to house secrets.
Chapter 11
Lord St. Alban wasn’t exactlyforbidding.
