“Fine,” Bull growled. “We’ll go there.” He glanced at Merida, who was looking worried again. “Now?”
“Oh, we cannot go now, it is closed early,” said Merida blandly. “Such a shame.”
Of course it had. Bull tried to rein in his inexplicably short temper. “Tomorrow?”
But she was already shaking her head and as he watched, she touched the sleeve of Hoyle’s coat. “I cannot. I have a meeting of my own with my pigment supplier.”
The small scholar hadn’t dragged his attention away from the painting, hadn’t even glanced at Merida. Bull shifted so he could study the man’s profile—what little he could see between the mustache and oversized hat. There were a few strands of brown hair peeking around his ears, but most of his features were shadowed.
Artists are eccentric as hell.
And this one seemed far more interested in the painting than Bull’s beautiful cousin.Hmmm.
The scholar hadn’t responded to the apology in Merida’s tone, so Bull did. “Fine. I’ll meet Hoyle at the Gallery tomorrow at ten, aye? It’s nae like we need ye to act as chaperone.”
Was it his imagination, or did theybothjerk slightly at the joke? Perhaps it was not his best. He didn’t feel his best.
Merida’s smile seemed forced as she glanced back at Bull. “Of course you do not need me! My dear friend knows his way around the gallery, but…well, do you want to go on your own, darling?” she asked the scholar. “You can always send a report to Bull.”
The man opened his mouth, but Bull spoke before the ‘expert’ could get a syllable out. “I’ll go with him,” he growled, not sure why it suddenly mattered so much.
He had other cases he could spend tomorrow working on, but none as intriguing as this one. The moment he’d unwrapped that portrait and seen that woman smiling up at him, bedecked in a fashion from the beginning of the last century, he’d known this case would be his first priority. He wanted to know who this woman was, and what secret she held that could threaten his family.
Now, though, his attention was on the couple staring at said portrait. Well, Hoyle’s attention was locked on the portrait, and Merida was watching him…with a crease of worry between her eyes.
Why? Did she think Bull was going to give her friend shite at the National Portrait Gallery? Did she doubt he couldhold onto his manners for a few hours, even if the scholar’s rudeness irritated him?
She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t to know that.
“What do ye say, Hoyle?” he finally prompted.
The other man nodded. “Ten tomorrow,” he said in that low voice. “But the artist himself may not be crucial. The identity of the painter might not be necessary…”
“Aye,” Bull agreed, surprising himself. “The subject herself.Thatis who we actually need to identify. And I have a verra good place to start.”
Merida glanced at him, then back to Hoyle. “You do? Why? What do you notice about her?”
Hoyle’s fingers hovered over the woman’s lips. “You…you do not recognize her, Meri?”
Meri?Bull rolled his shoulders to try to contain his unbridled reaction to such familiarity. How welldidhis cousin know this man?
But Merida was shaking her head, leaning closer. “Should I? Remember, landscapes are my purview.”
To Bull’s surprise, Hoyle snorted softly. “Aye, and forgeries.”
Bull’s glare snapped to the other man. He—heknew? Merida had told him about the jobs she’d done for Bull? He opened his mouth to growl angrily, but Hoyle interrupted him.
“Your aunt, Meri.” The man tipped his head slightly—not necessarily glancing at Merida, but inviting her to study what he saw. “Or perhaps even…your mother.”
Merida gasped when she finally saw what Hoyle—and how thefookdid this mousey scholar know what Merida’s family looked like?—and Bull had seen all along.
The woman in the portrait looked remarkably like Merida’s mother, and her aunt: Aunt Georgia, Demon Hayle’s wife.
Rosie’s mother.
Dinnae think of her. Ye have another year before ye have to see her again, barring Rupert’s wedding, and by then she might be the one to be married off to some lucky bastard.
“She…shedoeslook a bit like my mother, does she not?” Merida was whispering as she leaned closer to the portrait. “It is in the shape of her jaw.”
