To his credit, Gregory led the girl out of the shop and into the safety of the carriage without as much as a twitch of his lips. After her prim apologies in the carriage earlier, he could imagine how she felt about the painting they had just found.
Tempting though it was to comment on them, she would not appreciate his admiration of the artist or his amusement at the subject. It would take an amazing amount of self-control on his part to sit in the carriage with her and look her directly in the eye, without bursting into ribald laughter.
Once he was back in the shop and well out of her sight, he reverted to his true expression and grinned, hurrying back to the painting for another private viewing before calling to the shopkeeper, ‘Oy, Barnstable! I’ve found the one I want.’
The old man joined him, smirking down at the picture before jerking his thumb in the direction of the waiting carriage. ‘Thought you said the missus was looking for something to hang in the drawing room.’
‘We will find something anon. I am buying this one for me.’
The man nodded in approval. ‘Just as well. Ain’t what I’d call blue, either.’
‘Mostly pink,’ he agreed.
‘Especially the tits,’ said Barnstable.
‘The scarf is blue,’ Gregory said with a shrug.
‘Looks more like a hanky to me. Don’t cover much, do it?’
It certainly didn’t. The cloth the subject was holding at her hip was barely large enough to conceal the most intimate part of her anatomy. Other than that, she wore nothing but a sly smile. Her magnificent bosom was clearly on display, as was the round of her belly, the curve of her shoulder, the hollow of her waist.
‘The artist was truly gifted,’ Gregory added. There was no mistaking the identity of the subject. But that was only because patches and powder had been out of style for a generation. If the woman’s hair had been its natural brown, he’d have assumed it was Hope Strickland and not her grandmother. The eyes and the shape of the face were the same and the come-hither smile identical to the one he had seen Hope practising in the mirror.
If the family resemblance continued below the neck to include what was hidden under his companion’s fashionable morning gown, she would not need practised smiles and rehearsed curtsies. She had but to unbutton her bodice and she could have her choice of any man in England.
‘Thirty quid,’ Barnstable said, still staring at the painting.
‘Twenty,’ Gregory countered, unable to look away.
‘Twenty-five. And I’ll wrap it up tight so the missus don’t see what you bought.’
With the deal settled and a holland cover tied over the canvas, Gregory returned to the carriage. Miss Stickland, who had pulled the shades and removed her bonnet again, was resting against the squabs, her eyes closed.
He took his place across from her and signalled the driver with a tap of his cane and they set off for the town house.
‘You have it?’ she asked, not opening her eyes.
‘It is tied on top of the carriage. And very well wrapped. No one need know the subject but ourselves.’
She opened her eyes suddenly and stared at him as if she’d hoped to catch him leering at her.
He had anticipated her fears and made sure to meet her gaze with his most distantly professional expression. ‘If it helps to remember the fact, I was chosen by Mr Leggett for my discretion. No one shall ever hear about what we discovered today.’
‘If only my grandmother could make the same promise,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Things were quite different, a generation ago.’
‘So I have been told,’ she replied. ‘At least, that is the excuse that Grandmama gives, each time something like this comes to light.’
‘Have there been many such incidents?’
‘None as bad as this,’ she admitted. ‘There is usually no one to notice but my sisters and myself.’
‘I am no one,’ Gregory replied.
It was a foolish thing to say. Even more so if he had done it expecting her to deny the fact and reassure him that, in the universe she inhabited, he had any kind of personal worth. Instead, his announcement was greeted with silence that remained unbroken until they reached their destination.
* * *
