“We will be gone by then, I am sorry to say.”
“Pity. Do your copies of Jasmine’s collection, and draw often. Hire a man to model for you, if you can find one willing to pose unclothed. With time you will improve, if you have talent like Jasmine thinks. It is a worthy goal.”
“Thank you. We will see ourselves out.”
Back on the street, she and Rebecca paused.
“I think she is dying,” Rebecca said.
“I think so too.”
They walked down the street, subdued. Slowly the sun and breeze lifted them out of their sad reveries.
“Eva,” Rebecca said with an impish smile. “Which of the men in Landgon’s End do you think will pose nude for you?”
***
As soon as Gareth entered the presence of the Duchess of Devonshire, he decided he did not mind at all that Ives walked beside him. He wondered if Ives felt the same way about him.
With difficulty he forced out of his thoughts the subject that had occupied him all morning and most of last night. He needed to charm answers out of the duchess, not address her with the surliness that colored his mood. Having left the house without seeing Eva had not helped. He was not accustomed to jealousy, and the effects of it sat badly on him.
To say the last duke’s second wife knew her exalted status would be an understatement. She sat regally in a blue upholstered chair designed to complement her size and form. Her eyes regarded them much the way medieval queens must have looked at serfs. Considering that Ives was the legitimate son of a duke, and a lord in his own right, that took a good deal of boldness on her part. But then, this woman had made her way into that chair by playing a very long, calculated game.
Ives’s manner as he greeted her struck just the right note of respect without descending into deference. Her thin smile suggested she would like the latter.
“We have come on a matter of personal interest to the Prince Regent,” Ives said. “It is possible you can help us with an inquiry undertaken at his request.”
“If you are going to use a preamble like that, I suppose I must help if I can.”
“It involves some items stored in one of your late husband’s properties. The house just north of Chatsworth. In the course of posing some questions to the servants there, my brother learned that you may have some knowledge of those items.” Ives turned to him, cuing him to jump in.
Before he could, the duchess sliced down his body with a sharp gaze. “You must be the bastard.”
“I am.”
“Your father and my husband had a friendship of sorts, largely based on what they had in common in that regard. Have you met my first son? He chose a career in the Naval Service. As I hear it, your life took different turns.” Her knowing smile insinuated much into the carefully enunciated last words.
“On occasion I occupy myself with less pleasurable pursuits. Such as this inquiry.”
“Inquire, then.”
He repeated what he had learned about her visit to the house after the death of the last duke. Despite his effort to suggest nothing untoward, she took insult. “I trust you are not so bold, or so stupid, as to accuse me of removing these items you seek.”
“We only wonder if the men who served you had any cause to go up to the attics, and if so, whether they commented on its contents.”
“They did go up. There was a lovely table from Italy that could not be found in its chamber, so I sent two men to search for it there. I do not remember any talk afterward. What might they have said?”
“Nothing alarming,” Ives said. “Perhaps they mentioned it was hard to search, because of a great many crates there? Or alternately noted it was peculiar that one attic contained very little at all.”
“If they had cause to move crates, comments pertaining to their weight, whether very heavy or oddly light—” Gareth prompted.
She appeared to give it honest thought. “It did take them a long while to come down, and they never did find that table. One was not happy because he scraped his hand. I overheard him complain to the others about all those damned boxes. Could he have meant the crates you speak of?”
“Possibly,” Ives said.
“Among the furnishings those men carried out for you, were any of them paintings?” It had to be asked, and Gareth decided to throw himself into the fire.
“Only an Angelica Kauffmann that I had long admired. The duke did not favor it, so had banished it there. He told me it was mine if I wanted it.”
