“To insult and harass.” Apparently finding a subject on which they agreed, the silent Frenchman finally spoke. “Miss Leonard, may I show you around?”
“Arnaud dislikes confrontation,” Thea whispered, leading Grey to a corner where several paintings were already hung. “He rather dislikes people in general,” she added sympathetically. “He has good reason.”
Grey watched the dashing émigré lead his slender assistant to unhung stacks of canvas. Miss Leonard was not seductive, he reminded himself. And impoverished counts preferred heiresses like Thea. His assistant should be safe.
Grey returned his attention to the stormy canvases exhibiting so much rage, he was amazed the rain and wind did not leap off the wall to inundate them. Or the fires decimating entire villages didn’t set the room ablaze. The count had suffered in the Revolution.
“Lavigne’s work?” Grey surmised. “Has he reached his pastoral phase yet?” Because the fury that painted these bordered on madness.
“That’s why he has agreed to sell these. They are painful reminders of a past he’d rather forget.” She sighed. “If I could only convince him that his value is in his talent, not coin, he might dare to propose. I would love to see his vineyards in France before I die.”
“He hasn’t proposed? You have enough wealth for a lifetime! The family is convinced he’s a fortune hunter who will have you locked in Bedlam while he runs off to France with your funds.” Grey knew the family considered Thea mad. They had tried to lock her up themselves, for the same reason—because they wanted the wealth she would inherit soon.
Thea laughed. “Like Gustav, they fling mud to disguise their own filth. It is human nature, I fear. And I do not come into my trust until my twenty-fifth birthday. Come, what do you think of his work? Will I ever see France?”
Grey didn’t have to think twice. That was more than raw talent in those paintings. The count had been classically trained, although his style was more in that of the Vernets than the more marketable romantics. “Your Frenchman has more talent than half the celebrated fools in London, but we both know talent is meaningless. People prefer nudes and portraits, not reminders of hell. I can recommend him to a few collectors, but my word is likely to be reviled when this new book comes out. You may prefer not to be associated with me.”
“Oh, come now, aren’t you being the slightest bit dramatic?” Thea took his arm to lead him deeper into the gallery. “I expect drama of artists, not staid old professors.”
Staid old professors? Damn, he was only a few years older than the filly. And staid? Never. Surely. She was naïve. “Ask your comte about the underbelly of the art world, my dear. All those passions demand outlet. I fear you have been sheltered by the aunties too long. You may come to regret this gallery.”
Grey watched shirt-sleeved artists crowding around his assistant, who apparently regaled her audience with some taradiddle from her impoverished, nonexistent life. Men would listen to any inanity from a woman’s lips.
Leonard had never been inane. Even as he watched, he noted half the men suddenly speaking at once, eager to outdo each other, perhaps.
Thea redirected his attention. “Look around you—we are not relying entirely on art to pay the rent. This space is too large for any one business, especially a gallery, so we are dividing it. We have an expert bootmaker in the corner behind the drapery. A clockmaker is taking a table in the back. We are hoping to find a tailor for the space in between. And there are tables for local craftspeople to show their wares. We are not London, of course, but isn’t this more pleasant than shoving your way through a crowded market in the city?”
Or alleys or muddy lanes anywhere, none of which Grey cared to traverse on foot—although he expected muddy lanes before they reached his new abode. But if rural anonymity would protect his book and his new employees from his enemies, he’d endure.
“Will the artists leave after you’ve hung their work?” Grey studied the motley collection of painters Thea had gathered. He didn’t know most of them, thankfully.
Thea gestured indifference. “The ones with homes, possibly. I believe several have occupied one of the vacant cottages and are. . . repairing. . . it to suit their needs.”
More likely slapping canvas and paint on barren walls. Grey was intimately familiar with the art world. “I gather they do not actually own said property.” Starving artists seldom owned anything.
“Ask Arnaud about the lawsuit between the manor and the bank over the ownership of village properties. I have no interest in legalities. Let me show you some of our talent.”
Before they could go farther, a familiar face deserted the group around Miss Leonard. “Greybourne, you old fraud, what are you doing outside your palace? Looking for new victims to destroy?”
Grey hid his grimace. Percival. What the devil was a London Grub-Street hack doing in the outer limits of nowhere?
A scandal-monger, Percival did not bode well for Thea’s enterprise.
Five
Eleanor
El hid her relief when the very large Mr. Lavigne abandoned her to deal with the rude fellow evidently hoping for a brawl. She had no idea if the professor engaged in fisticuffs. At Harrowby, he usually sliced any antagonist to ribbons with words cutting sharper than any sword.
Still, if it came to a physical fight, Grey hid a great deal more strength behind his tailored coat than his rather pudgy blond nemesis.
Beside her, one of her companions commented, “The bailiff claims it has been almost two months since the last murder. Percival must be hoping to end that record.”
Murder? This rustic Shakespearian village concealed killers? What had Greybourne led them into? Worrying about killers and brawls, she watched as, across the room, Grey narrowed his eyes at the rude lout.
“Only local disagreements, Miss Leonard.” One of the younger artists took her gloved hand and patted it reassuringly. “Don’t let Tiny scare you with silly fables.”
Tiny was actually tiny, a short, hungry-eyed, skinny man she assumed to be a starving artist.
