“Wait!” Susan gripped Eugenia’s arm, her eyes wide and excited. “What about that rusty old skeleton key you found in the garden at Thistlewayte Hall? Didn’t the stone it was hidden under have ‘the key to your future’ etched into it?”
“Yes, it did!” Eugenia gasped, excitement jolting through every nerve in her body as she dug through her reticule and produced the rusty old key after only a few moments of frantic searching. Her hands shook as she slotted the key into the lock, turned it, and Ashbrook’s attic door swung open.
Inside the attic it was dark and dusty, the space filled with hundreds of cloth-covered shadows.
Edward held up the lamp to light the room.
“Right then. Let’s all start pulling these dust covers off, so that my dear sister may see what she’s inherited from our grandfather.”
Lord D’Asti went first, revealing a portrait of a rather voluptuously beautiful woman. She was lying on a couch with her head turned back towards the painter, sensually eating grapes. There was only a small cloth draped across her body, hardly enough to cover her most intimate areas, rather accentuating them instead. Eugenia blushed a deep crimson at the scandalous nature of the painting and shook her head. That painting was hardly fit for anywhere outside of the privacy of one’s bedchamber.
But, while she had been distracted by considering the nude, Marco and Neville had revealed yet more paintings, and Eugenia gasped as she turned to see them.
There were a wide variety of paintings, ranging from landscapes to more shocking nudes, to stately family portraits, to portraits of ladies posing in Greek mythology-styled poses. Thankfully, those were fully clothed, for the most part. The ones where clothing was distinctly lacking made Eugenia turn her head from side to side, staring and wondering if those women could really bend like that.
“Good heavens!” She gaped at the most scandalous looking painting, her face flaming with a mixture of shock, fascination, and some other sensation too dubious even to identify. “Is it really possible for people to do that? I had no idea those kinds of… nude acrobatics were even humanly possible.”
“Oh, my,” Marco gasped with a start. He was staring at one of the Greek styled paintings. “I know who painted these.”
“Apparently, someone who knew some impossibly flexible women. Who knew a body could bend in such ways?”
Eugenia blushed at having blurted her unfortunate observation out for everyone to hear. She was embarrassed that she had voiced her thoughts out loud, but they were true, nonetheless. Susan and Georgiana giggled, causing Eugenia to blush. She thanked goodness that the low light wouldn’t reveal the full extent of her embarrassment.
“Yes, well,” Marco cleared his throat. He was clearly holding back laughing at her comment. “These are all paintings by Benedict Chamberlain. I recognize his signature. His landscapes alone are worth a fortune, now, and they’re all the rage. I knewfor sure it was Chamberlain’s work, however, because of this portrait.” He stopped for a moment and motioned to one of the Greek-styled portraits, the laughter gone from his eyes. Eugenia felt pulled toward him unexpectedly by his sudden sorrow. “My mother is the woman in this painting. She was obsessed with his art, and had a vast collection of it. After she died, my father sold it off, nearly every single painting, because it reminded him of her, and he couldn’t bear to look at Chamberlain’s work ever again. He might as well have kept it, though, because he then gambled all the money away with stunning alacrity.”
It was Lord D’Asti’s turn to blush. Not that his father’s gambling was unknown, but it was far from proper to mention such things.
Eugenia walked over to the Count, gently placing her hand on his forearm. She looked at the portrait. The woman was posed in a Greek style dress, holding fruit in her hand… a pomegranate if Eugenia wasn’t mistaken. It was both sensual and innocent at the same time.
“Your mother was a beautiful woman.” Eugenia swallowed convulsively, even as her mouth ran dry. She had to pry her sandpaper tongue loose from the roof of her mouth and lick her suddenly parched lips. “You should have this painting.”
“No.” Lord D’Asti’s voice turned raspy and strained. He stepped back from Eugenia. “I did not mean to, that is, I have no ill will towards you owning it, my father was the one who lost it. I could never accept such a gift.”
“I cannot keep it when I can see in your eyes how much this portrait means to you… how much you must have cherished and adored your mother.”
“Truly, Lady Eugenia, I cannot take a part of your rightful inheritance away from you.”
“None the less it shall be yours.” Eugenia took Lord D’Asti’s hand and placed it back on his mother’s portrait. “As it should be.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Marco was so overcomewith emotion at Lady Eugenia’s generosity in gifting him the portrait of his mother that he was quiet, retreating inside himself for the majority of the drive back to Bellingham Park. However, when they were almost there, a snatch of the conversation between Lady Eugenia and Lord and Lady Seabury caught his attention.
“I must admit that I’m surprised that Grandfather left me an art collection.” Eugenia chuckled, shaking her head. “And I have no idea what it might be worth, though I imagine it’s quite a lot because Grandfather was adamant about providing well and fairly for each and every one of his grandchildren.”
His interest captured, Lord D’Asti leaned forward, curiosity getting the better of him.
“Why is it surprising that he chose to leave you an art collection?”
Lady Eugenia chuckled, and he thought that her cheeks might have reddened a bit, though it could have just been a trick of the late afternoon light, he supposed. She looked down at her handsin her lap, loose strands of her golden hair falling around her face and obscuring her eyes.
“Well… I’ve always preferred literature and the written word to art or music.” Her cheeks definitely reddened at that admission, and she gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “I had rather hoped that he might leave me a spectacular library. But he was always trying to convince me that art has just as much merit as the written word, so I should probably have expected him to leave me paintings, still trying to teach me something about his passion for art, even in death, I suppose.”
Marco cocked his head, studying her with raised brows.
“You don’t like art?”
“That’s not what I said, at least not exactly.” She looked as if she was resisting the urge to wag a finger at him. “I like art — and music as well, just for the record — as well as anybody. I enjoy them, but they don’t inspire passionate feeling in me in the same way that the written, or even spoken, word does. So, to answer your question, yes, I like art, but I love books.”
