Mr. Stone focused on the paintings once more. “They are quite good,” he said in all seriousness.
Caro’s hopes rose. Rembrandts were valuable, and perhaps their sale would clear the worst of the debts so Leo could grow up unencumbered by them.
“Excellent,” she said, striving for dignity. “I do not wish to be gauche, but how much exactly do you think they will fetch?”
“Mm.” Mr. Stone stepped to the self-portrait and very gently touched a corner. “As you say, they will have to be cleaned. But even then …”
“Yes?” Caro asked with some impatience.
Mr. Stone faced her again, his smiles gone. “Duchess—er, Your Grace—however I am to address you. These pictures are very, very good.”
“I am pleased to hear it.” Caro’s worry returned. “Has the grime ruined them? Surely, they are worth something even with that.”
“They would be.” Mr. Stone’s voice gentled, and his expression was, if anything, sad. “If they were true Rembrandts. What I am trying to say to you, Duchess, is that they are very, very good forgeries.”
Chapter 3
Eamon hated saying the words, but the duchess deserved the truth. The dismay that rushed over her face was heartbreaking, as was the sweet sparkle dying from her eyes.
Eamon fought the need to pull her into his arms, soothe her, whisper to her that everything would be all right. He’d fix it all for her.
But she was a duchess, and Eamon was nobody, the son of a gentleman swindler. Not allowed to touch a lovely duchess in distress. He could only stand in helpless anger and watch her despair.
At an ungodly hour this morning, Cheswell had commanded Eamon to hie himself to Grosvenor Square and value a few paintings for a widowed duchess. Eamon had obeyed with reluctance, expecting to find a withered specimen in black stumping about with a tall cane and a sour countenance. She’d harumph at Eamon’s assessment, no matter what he told her, declaring he was no better than a cheat.
Or else she’d be a frail thing who’d crumple to the floor if he valued her paintings too low. She’d have a steadfast companion at her side to wave a vinaigrette under her nose and glare daggers at Eamon.
He’d entered the drawing room in this vast house to discover who he’d thought was a pretty lady’s maid struggling to open the window. The visit, Eamon had decided, was looking up. Whatever else he had to endure, he could enjoy the aesthetics of gazing at a comely young woman.
The comely young woman now stared at him as though her entire world had crumbled around her.
Her eyes were the lightest brown touched with green and flecked in places with gray. Eamon was too much of an artist to simply say hazel. Her dark hair held waves that struggled against bonds that tried to tether it, unsuccessfully, to a fashionable style.
This woman should throw fashion to the wind and wander about with her hair flowing, her garments loose and gauzy, her feet bare. Eamon would paint her like that, without the strictures the labels of widow and duchess placed on her.
He’d briefly considered, when he’d seen the Rembrandts, that the duchess or her family was trying to trick Cheswell’s into paying for fakes. Her expression now told him she genuinely hadn’t known.
“How can they be?” she asked, her voice ringing with disbelief. “The Fifth Duke—my husband’s father—acquired them from a reputable dealer. There are papers …”
“As I say, they are very good.” Eamon had to admire the forger, even as he wished to beat to a pulp whoever had introduced these paintings into the house. “Dealers—and dukes—might be fooled.”
“The Fifth Duke was a canny man. Not easily duped.” The duchess stated this flatly, as though daring him to argue with her. “Mr. Stone, I have been warned that dealers will sometimes name a price too low, so that they may turn about and sell the paintings for their true value, reaping a profit. Please tell me you are not such a man. I shouldn’t like to think so.”
True that unscrupulous assessors and outright confidence tricksters apologized as they sadly claimed they could pay only a few pounds for a priceless masterpiece. Rubbed their hands in glee when they toted away the Raphael or Claude from under the ignorant owners’ noses.
“I understand your skepticism. But look.”
Eamon beckoned the duchess closer to the supposed self-portrait. She came to him without hesitation, her indignation overriding her earlier embarrassment when he’d caught her blatantly staring at his body. He’d been sorry to break short her scrutiny, regretful he’d had to interrupt what might have become a very interesting encounter.
“Rembrandt painted much of his work from the 1630s to the 1660s,” Eamon explained. “He rarely used bright green, yet both paintings have more than a few tints of it.” He indicated the artist’s sleeve that dipped toward the frame, where splashes of green glowed among the black and dark rust. A person might miss it, because the duchess was correct—these paintings were filthy.
“Perhaps he made an exception,” the duchess said tightly.
“Not when he painted this.” The self-portrait portrayed Rembrandt as an older man, his aging countenance shown without vanity. “He’d taken to only very dark colors and stark whites by then. And this.” Eamon moved to the painting of the lady in the sumptuous robes. “The model is Hendrickje Stoffels, but it should not be.”
The duchess regarded him in irritation. “Why not? Was she ill that day?”
“Hendrickje is one of his later models,” Eamon said. “He painted his wife, Saskia, as the goddess Flora, not Hendrickje. The original of this was done in 1634. Notice the brighter colors, the smoother textures, the shine on the fabric. The forger got much of it right—it is an exact copy, except for the model. I wonder why he—or she—did that? To avoid being called a forger? If caught, she could have claimed she copied it to practice her technique.”
