Rosie just frowned. “I am not in a snit.” She plopped herself on the bed, unable to help the way her gaze was drawn to the mirror and her new hair style. She did look different. Perhaps, when he saw her?—
“Bull asked for my help.”
Rosie froze, staring at her own wide green eyes.
She…wantedto ask for more information, ask why Bull needed her cousin…but she also didn’t want to appear desperate for details about his life. Or interested at all, really. That meant the sound which emerged from her closed mouth, when it eventually did, was more of a, “Herrrhh?” than anything else.
Merida didn’t immediately respond. In fact, she crossed the room, drawing Rosie’s gaze…then reached the door and turned back. It took a moment to realize Merida waspacing, and concern—for my cousin, she told herself—forced Rosie’s jaw to unclench.
“Meri, what is wrong?”
A turn. More pacing. “You know I have done jobs for Bull’s detective agency, yes?”
“Yes, of course.” Merida was a brilliant artist, with “M. MacMillan’s” landscapes gracing parlors across Britain. But thanks to her father’s and grandmother’s connections to the underworld, Rosie was also aware that her cousinwas a skilled forger, a skill Bull had used more than once. “Is that what this is about?”
Merida stopped her pacing and turned to Rosie, chewing on her lower lip. “He wants me to…” She winced. “He wants to meet me at the office next week, when we are all back in London. To study a painting he has come into possession of.”
Rosie’s brows went up. Since when wasBullan art aficionado? “He wants you tostudyit?”
“He is trying to determine the artist, because it is unsigned.” Her best friend hesitated. “Actually he is trying to identify the subject, and is hoping that by determining the artist, he can track down the woman who sat for the painting.”
Despite her vow to remain uninterested in anything related to Bull Lindsay, Rosie felt her heart beginning to speed with excitement as she planted her palms on the mattress and leaned toward her cousin. An unknown artist? A mystery subject?
“What is the style?” she whispered.
Merida shrugged. “I have not seen it, although he told me some of the details of the case. But youknowthis is not my area of expertise, Rosie.”
No. It is mine.
Her brother had inherited their mother’s obsession with plants and growing things; Endymion’s greenhouses were the envy of Scotland, if not farther. But Rosie shared their father’s love of learning, and at a young age had fallen in love with art history. She read everything she could on styles and theories and techniques, and although hertalent with a paintbrush was middling to mediocre at best, she could identify most painters just by their brush strokes. One of her favorite ways to spend an afternoon was wandering through a museum or private showing, trying to recognize the artist without looking at the plaques.
And judging from the way her cousin was watching her now—half-wary, half-hopeful—she had remembered that too.
“I cannot do it, Rosie,” she whispered. “At least, not alone.” At Rosie’s scoff, Merida continued. “I do not know portrait work—you haveseenmy attempts, remember? I am a landscapist. I study nature, not people. And I am self-taught, and…”
Oh. Suddenly comprehending her best friend’s doubts, Rosie sprang to her feet and lunged for Merida’s hands. “You are Britain’s favorite painter, Meri,” she insisted with a comforting squeeze. “You are so very talented. Never doubt yourself.”
Merida’s smile was a little rueful, though she didn’t pull away. “Yes, well, I have notstudied, not the way you have. I would have told Bull no, but...”
Rosie’s brow raised. “But what?”
“I told him it was outside my area of expertise, but I could bring a colleague to help…someone who could identify portraiture and artist’s work with a single glance.”
It took a moment for Rosie to understand, then her eyes widened. “Me? You expect me to helpBull?” Oh, absolutely not! “He has made itveryclear, Meri, that he wants nothing to do with me?—”
“Then we will disguise you!” her cousin interrupted, tugging on Rosie’s hands. “Please? He pays well, I am building a nice little nest egg between his fees and my paintings—” When Rosie scoffed, knowing she had no need of more pocket change, her cousin’s gaze turned wily. “And think of how satisfying it would be to provide Bull the help he so desperately needs. To know you fooled him, without him knowing it wasyouall along?”
Rosie’s certainty began to waver.
Hmmm. The image her cousin was paintingwasquite compelling…
Sensing her impending victory, Merida leaned closer. “Think about it, Rosie. You at my side, saving the day, giving Bull Lindsay exactly what he needs…without him knowing it is you? What a trick you would play on the trickster!”
It was tempting. After all, it had been Bull who had refused to teach her to pick pockets all those years ago. His sleight of hand would be nothing compared to her triumph if she could pull this off…
Rosie sighed in surrender, then untangled herself and turned away toward the hearth where the remains of the Great Hair Mutilation of ’00 still lay. “Fine.Fine. I will tell my parents I am visiting you in London for a fortnight—if we come up with an itinerary, perhaps involving the National Portrait Gallery and a few private collections, they will have no reason to suspect.”
“Excellent!” Merida actually bounced on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands, her now-shortened hair swinging about her shoulders. “Of course weshallgo to the museum and all the private galleries of your dreams aswell, so as not to make a liar out of you. But we willalsopop by the offices of the Bull Lindsay Detective Group, and swiftly save the day.”
