That made her stupid, probably.
She wasn’t sure she cared.
“I can tell you now, if you’d like,” he said. “Or you could wait until we get there. Which would you prefer, Thalia?”
She knew she was confirming his suspicions as she said, “I’d prefer to wait.”
“As I thought.”
She played nervously with her skirts as they moved through London. The city never slept, and despite the hour, there were other coaches and horses and people on the roads. Taverns spilled drunken men onto the pavement; late carriages lined outside grand houses waiting for their turn to be admitted. But they passed all these before rolling outside of London entirely.
“Trust me,” the Duke said, putting a hand briefly on her knee as though to steady her. “It’s not far now.”
They had been traveling for nearly forty minutes by the time they saw lights in the distance. Behind them, London sat like a sunrise, so close she could almost touch it.
“Thisis it,” Maxwell said with satisfaction. “And now, Thalia, you will have the opportunity to experience an artist’s party the way it ought to be done.”
Thalia gaped, staring at him as though doing so might reveal a lie. After the disaster of the last ‘artist’s party’ she had attended, she had discounted them entirely.
But this… in the company of the Duke…
“I will introduce you as Miss Partridge,” he said, offering her his hand to help her out of the carriage. “No one here will recognize you, and no one will be looking to. Here, it is not someone’s identity that matters.”
Thalia stared up at the lights gleaming from the windows. As she watched, a woman in a plain white robe moved against the curtains, briefly illuminated. The image burned against her eyes like a flare.
“How did you get an invitation?” she whispered.
She’d heard rumors of these kinds of events, but they were highly exclusive. Not everyone got an invitation, and as far as she knew, Maxwell was hardly a closet painter.
He chuckled, his hand curling around her elbow. “Believe it or not, Thalia, I have friends.”
“Artistfriends?”
“Sponsors of the arts,” he said. “Does it matter? I knew this would be something you would appreciate. They meet monthly, I believe. But”—his fingers tightened on her elbow— “you must not be too shocked by what you see.”
The final vestiges of surprise dissolved, and she grinned up at him. “Now then, Your Grace. When have I ever been shocked by the things I subject myself to?”
Maxwell couldn’t stop himself from keeping a hand at the bottom of her back as he ushered her into the manor house. This was the first time he had attended, but the moment they stepped inside, his old friend Gregory Plainchett approached, holding out a hand. Plainchett hosted these events, largely because he wanted a place for artists to feel as though they had a safe place to practice.
And, of course, because Plainchett was somewhat of a voyeur, he wanted to see the process at every step, and bringing the artists to him was a means for him to do so.
“Marrow,” Plainchett said, extending a hand. He wore nothing more than a shirt and breeches, his forearms bare and covered in plaster dust. “You made it.”
“I said I would,” Maxwell said, turning his attention to Thalia, who was looking around in wonder.
Little surprise there, Plainchett’s manor was a collection of what he considered to be the greatest works in the world. If one wanted, he offered private tours.
For a price, of course. The man never failed to pass up on an opportunity to profit from his ventures.
“This is my friend, Miss Campbell,” he said.
Thalia glanced back at Plainchett, her smile switching back on her face like the sun emerging from clouds. She never did know the effect she had on men; Plainchett blinked several times, and although he had done nothing untoward, Maxwell had to fight the urge to punch his friend.
“Thank you so much for extending the invitation to me,” she said, coming forward and offering her hand. “It’s such a pleasure and a privilege to be here.”
“Do you paint, miss?” Plainchett said, taking her hand and bowing over it, but not kissing her knuckles, to Maxwell’s relief.
“Not paint, but I do dabble in the world of sculpture.”
