He had no intention of buying the cheap gewgaws, but they inspired an idea of finding a diamond necklace for Caro. She deserved something of her own instead of having to borrow from her friends.
Eamon let himself imagine standing behind her while he lowered the glittering necklace to her throat. Caro’s warm hair would brush his fingers as he affixed the clasp, and she’d turn and smile at him.
My duchess in diamonds, he’d whisper before kissing her cheek. As you should be.
The interior door banging open once more tore away these pleasant thoughts.
The man who stepped through the opening must be Mr. Clive. He was of middling height, with a paunch for a stomach and a head of thick, graying brown hair.
His face was broad but had strength, his dark eyes holding a flintiness he tried to hide behind a beaming smile as he came out from behind the counter.
“My dear sir. I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting.” Clive had a loud voice, not deep, but one a person could hear across a crowded room. “What sort of artworks did you have in mind, Mr. …?”
“Wolfe,” Eamon extemporized. “Dominic Wolfe.”
He wasn’t certain why he’d invoked Wolfe’s name, but he’d learned to go with whatever popped into his head. Wolfe would understand. Eventually.
Clive’s eyes widened. “I am honored, my lord.”
The man must have memorized Debrett’s Peerage if he recognized Wolfe’s name, but it was clear he did not know what Wolfe looked like.
“Quite,” Eamon said gruffly. “I’m here to view paintings, not exchange pleasantries.” He imitated Wolfe’s arrogant bark well, he thought with some satisfaction.
“Yes, yes, of course. Would you care to follow me?”
Clive strode swiftly to the very back of the shop, beyond the tables of wares. Eamon passed an eight-foot-tall torchiere, wonderfully carved and gilded, ready to hold one of the silver candelabras locked behind the counter.
Mr. Clive led him through a door in the shop’s rear, which gave onto a small corridor ending in yet another door. Clive unlocked this and ushered Eamon into a warehouse of sorts.
Bookcases and shelves lined three walls of the vast room, each holding still more valuable things than those displayed behind the shop’s counter. The fourth wall was hung with a large collection of paintings—the floor below these were stacked with canvases five or six deep.
Clive swept his arm to encompass the hung artwork. “What strikes your fancy, my lord? I have many quality pieces here, both from the great masters and more recent artists who have started to be in demand.”
Most of the paintings were very good copies, Eamon could see. Rubens was prevalent, as the man had produced mountains of artwork in his long life. A few faux Titian paintings and Mantegna engravings hung among them, next to vague landscapes and still lifes that could have been painted by anybody.
There was true art among the dross. Eamon could feel it pulsating, calling out in distress.
He feigned a sneer. “Is this all?”
Clive blinked in surprise before he gave Eamon another once over. “Ah, I see you have discerning tastes, my lord. Perhaps this is more to your liking?”
Clive moved to the canvases on the floor and seized three from the middle of a stack. He removed the cloths that protected them, turned them around, and leaned them against a rare empty space of the wall.
One was a genuine Rubens, featuring a large, golden-haired woman in flapping draperies, another, Guercino’s almost serene depiction of Cleopatra’s death, a painting Eamon had last seen in a country estate in Yorkshire.
It was the third picture, however, that seized Eamon’s attention.
The aging face of Rembrandt van Rijn, his small eyes peering over his bulbous nose, regarded Eamon with frank interest from the canvas. The painting was an undisputed masterpiece, and an excellent copy of it now hung in the gallery in the Duke of Aylesmore’s home.
Chapter 15
Eamon gazed at the picture for some time, while Rembrandt regarded him from under his drooping beret. Eamon didn’t realize he was holding his breath until his chest began to burn.
The copy Caro had shown him was almost identical. Barring the few gaffes that only an expert would notice, Caro’s painting was uncannily like what Eamon viewed now, except that this one glowed with the authenticity of its artist’s brush.
Forcing himself to breathe again, Eamon stepped back. “Provenance for this one?” He gestured at the Rembrandt, striving to sound immensely skeptical.
“I have plenty of documents, my lord, if that is what you mean, all the way back to the 1600s. The Duke of Aylesmore acquired it in 1780, from a Frenchman, I believe.”
