She ignored his comment. “What of your paintings? You said you wanted to see them? What do they have to do with The Althenaeum Order?”
Now was not the time for a childish act-out. “I’m not sure. There are two. One is set in the dregs of London on the Thames. Near Black Friars—”
She fell back against the brocade. “Dear heavens. Wasn’t that where—”
“Vlasik Markov.”
“Who?”
“Kimpton told me that is where Vlasik Markov was shot by the Earl of Griston.” Harlowe gripped his head. “Vlasik was the trafficker for the Slavs,” he said through gritted teeth. “He was the one who took charge of the noble children and smuggled them out.” Harlowe had followed him. He’d escaped Vlasik that time. “Addle Hill. The building I painted is a crumbling monstrosity on Addle Hill.”
The memory rushed over him in nauseating detail. Whisperings of another location. This one in the country. Tranquil Waters Asylum. “I took Corinne and Rowena to Essex County. What a bastard I am. I might as well have killed them myself.”
Maeve grabbed his hand. “Stop it. I refuse to listen to this nonsense.”
He couldn’t breathe. The need for a brown vial hit him with brutal and devasting force. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying? I used them as cover. Vlasik spotted me and took a pipe to my head. He must have thought me dead. How else could Holks have ended up with me and doctoring me to health?”
“Tell me of the other painting.”
“A summer in the country. It was of Rowena. It was similar in nature to the one I did of Corinne.”
A frown marred her brows. “It doesn’t sound as if they have anything in common.”
“Buildings.”
“Buildings. Yes. That make sense. But how did Chancé end up with two of the paintings? And Lorelei with the one of Corinne?”
Harlowe rose from the settee and paced. “Rowena. She insisted I send the one of Corinne to Lorelei.”
Maeve nodded. “Ah. Miss Hollerfield was a resourceful woman. It was likely her guarantee to ensure Corinne’s place as your wife.”
Harlowe stopped and stared at her, stunned. “Of course,” he said softly. “Yet, that still leaves the matter of the other two works.”His lips felt like curved marble. “I believe I donated them to her little salon.”
“So what is the significance of the buildings in Essex?”
“I’m not sure—”
A knock sounded at the door. It was soft, almost tentative. Maeve jumped, and her eyes darted to his. “You shouldn’t be here,” she hissed in a whispered panic.
He smiled. Sooner or later, she would see that hedidbelong there. “Enter,” he said.
Irritation flared in her eyes, usurping the panic.
The door swung back, and a shocked Agnes filled the arch.
Harlowe waited. This was Maeve’s home. He’d already taken a step farther than he should have.
Maeve straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “What is it, Agnes?”
“’Tis Penny, ma’am. She’s had a nightmare, and Mary can’t calm her.”
Maeve was off the settee and dashing from the room in her bare feet. The floor must be freezing.
“Who is Penny?” But Harlowe was speaking to an empty room. He saw Maeve’s slippers near the foot of the bed and swooped them up, then followed the flickering flame of Agnes’s candle up the backstairs to the nursery level. Maeve ran down the hall to an open door and rushed in. Heart wrenching cries from within filled the hall. Something in his chest tightened at the anguish in those cries.
Maeve sat on the side of the bed and swept a small child into her arms, hugging her, smoothing her hands over the child’s tangled locks, reassuring her. “It’s all right, darling. You’re safe.”
“Blinda. He hurt-ed Blinda. We has to find her ’fore he does somethin’ awful.”
