Since the Surrender (23 page)

“Commissioned by an earl. It’s not a very good painting, all in all,”

the artist who must have been Wyndham called over his shoulder with cheerful candor. His back was to them; he was rifling among a row of jarred pigments lined on a shelf, each labeled neatly with their names, ready for crushing and mixing. He came away with OCHRE.

“Aye, but she’s pretty.” Chase was appreciative. Rosalind was regarding the painting bravely, without blinking. The woman truly was imposing: twice the size of a usual woman, sprawling lazily and round everywhere—round white thighs, round tum, round arms, enormous breasts, lush curls atop her head and between her thighs. A quite obvious brunette. A very earthy painting. Not painstaking, and not the least sentimental. Wyndham looked amused by the fact that Chase hadn’t disagreed with his own assessment of the painting. “A rich man’s mistress.”

“A fortunate man.”

They shared a manly grin while Rosalind struggled to appear sophisticated.

“My job is no hardship. I do make a fair living, current appearances notwithstanding. There are times of lean and times of fat. And so it goes.”

“As it so happens, I’d like to speak to you about commissioning a painting.”

“Commissioning me? You must frequent brothels. Or perhaps you’re contemplating opening your own, Mister…?”

“Charles.”

Mr. Wyndham turned fully around and took a good look at the two of them.

He was a lean chap, pale from a life lived indoors and, from the looks of him, gleeful nights of debauchery. He was decorated in vivid streaks of paint; his shirt was linen, loose and old, two buttons open at the throat, rolled up at the sleeves. Hair clipped short, the better to keep paint out of it, Chase supposed, and just a shade darker than a fox pelt. His eyes were sherry-colored, narrow, and glittered in the broad light of the room, mischievous, a bit jaded. It appeared that his nose had been broken once.

Wyndham’s eyes widened. “Please accept my apologies. My questions were asked in all seriousness—I’d wondered where you happened upon my work, or where you might have heard of me. I didn’t notice you had brought”—he studied Rosalind for a moment, then decided upon—“a lady with you. Though I doubt I’d be any less blunt in her presence.”

He smiled at her, and bowed, and Rosalind smiled, too. Chase could feel her tamping her flirting impulses. It was virtually the only way feel her tamping her flirting impulses. It was virtually the only way any woman could communicate with this man, he decided.

“But perhaps this is a social call? Mrs. Pomfrey!” Wyndham suddenly turned and bellowed down the stairs, “Will you please bring up tea for three?” Flirting.

“Ye didna gi’ me the blunt fer market, ye stingy bugger!” The feminine snarl came from somewhere in the bowels of the house.

“Canna buy tea wi’ air! Drink paint if ye’re thirsty!”

“I fear I cannot offer you any tea,” Wyndham confirmed gravely. “But I’ve…” He looked around the room. “Brandy!” He’d located it on a shelf beneath the window, tucked between jars of oil. “It was a gift from a friend. And he’s an earl, so it’s drinkable.” He rubbed his hands on a cloth tucked into the waistband of his splattered trousers and looked about, apparently for glasses, saw none, shrugged, dashed the bottle up to his mouth, took a slug, passed the bottle to Chase, who also shrugged, threw back a gulp, then held it out to Rosalind.

Who stared at him with burning incredulity.

He handed the bottle back to Wyndham, who settled it back on the table. Which wobbled, as one leg was clearly shorter than the other, or the loft itself slanted somewhat downward.

“You know of my work, sir? Where would you have seen it?”

“At the Velvet Glove.”

“Of course, of course. There’s the one over the settee, and several up in the rooms,” the painter confirmed.

“One of an angel…” Chase paused.

“Well, she isn’t quite an angel,” Wyndham modified. “Given what she’s doing.”

While the two men shared another manly grin, Rosalind was desperately seeking a safe place to land her eyes. Everywhere, there were naked things or bawdily smiling men.

“If you see my angels, like as not you’re in a brothel,” Wyndham agreed complacently. And then he turned to admire Rosalind quite baldly.

She returned his gaze evenly, taking his measure.

“I take it you don’t mean to explain your friend, sir. Fear not. I number among my favorite acquaintances all manner of unexplainable men and women. Did you wish me to paint her?

Perhaps she’d like some modeling work? Or…perhaps I’ll be quiet and you can explain to me why a man of obvious means is here with a beautiful well-bred woman.”

“You might direct those questions to me, Mr. Wyndham. I am standing right before you.” Rosalind could be stern, too. He looked genuinely startled.

“I beg your pardon, madam. The sort of women accompanied by men to my loft generally leave the talking to the men. I’d be delighted to address anything at all to you.”

A leading statement to be sure—“the sort of women,” indeed—but he said it so disarmingly that the rays of his charm were surely felt as far away as the banks of the Thames. Surely people were basking in them even now.

Mr. Wyndham could likely get away with nearly anything. Mr. Wyndham could likely get away with nearly anything. Chase liked him for no particular reason except that he seemed entirely himself.

He was also certain he would never allow Wyndham anywhere near any of his sisters.

“We do admire your technique, Mr. Wyndham,” he said smoothly.

“Have you ever painted anything other than bordello art? We thought we’d like something a bit…pastoral. For a country home. The Duchess was certain your skills extended beyond…”

“Togas and tits?”

“Precisely.”

“Pastoral, hmmm?” Wyndham studied them with his sharp eyes. Intrigued. Amused.

“I’m fond of cows,” Rosalind offered brightly.

“She’s fond of cows,” Chase reiterated.

“I have, in fact, painted cows,” Wyndham admitted. He said nothing more.

Rosalind was rigid with anticipation.

A few days ago, when he was listening to Colin, Chase had never dreamed that talk of cows would fill him with such anticipation. But he realized he would have to tread carefully here. Mr. Wyndham was nobody’s fool, and he had the air of someone who cared not the least what anyone thought of him. Which made him a man not easily frightened or swayed.

“Perhaps I can view this pastoral painting or something like it to ascertain whether you can paint what we wish to purchase?”

He’d just done a wonderful imitation of a prig. Genevieve would have been proud.

“Well, in truth, I’ve painted landscapes for the Earl of Rawden, who does God only knows what with them, as I haven’t yet seen them hanging in his home. I painted another, a much larger and more complex work featuring cows, though never met the gentleman who commissioned it, in truth. Though I was happy enough to take his money. A gentleman approached me and asked me to paint something that could be mistaken for an Italian Renaissance painting. Ha! Was I amused! I was informed that it was for a wealthy client whose mistress was a bit of a snob but wasn’t particularly educated and wouldn’t know the difference. And I was told that more commissions would be forthcoming if I were discreet about it, as he didn’t want anyone to know he’d learned of me from the Velvet Glove. A married man, I imagine. So I painted cows and horses and cherubs and I threw in an angel because I can paint them easily enough and he wanted one. He wanted me to add a moon, too, and moons are quite easy, too. Just a…” He made a sweeping, curving motion in the air. “Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?”

He’d just neatly described the Rubinetto painting at the Montmorency.

But Chase knew he couldn’t ask Wyndham whether he painted under a different name without revealing what he already knew. It was also entirely possible Mr. Wyndham hadn’t even signed the painting himself. That Rubinetto had been added later. So he asked a question Mr. Wyndham was certain to understand.

“Does your threshold of discretion come with a price?”

Mr. Wyndham’s head went back in appreciation of this gambit. He smiled slowly. “What did you have in mind, sir?”

“Ten pounds.”

“It was commissioned by a Mr. Welland-Dowd.”

Chase stared.

Wyndham grinned. “I’ve the morals and loyalty of a cat,” he confessed. “And I need to pay my housekeeper.”

“Bleedin’ right ye need to pay yer ’ousekeeper!” The voice was unnervingly close. The sound of a broom being violently applied to a corner was heard at the foot of the stairs. Slam, slam, slam.

“A time of lean?” Rosalind inquired sweetly.

“She’s merely expressing her frustrated love for me via the broom,”

Mr. Wyndham explained, sotto voce.

“Do you know Mr. Welland-Dowd’s direction, perchance? Or anything else about him? I should like to see the painting. I’m wondering if I’m acquainted with him or can affect an introduction, as his name sounds familiar.”

“Hmm. Cannot say where he lives, but I can tell you he’s a nondescript chap. Thin, a bit pointy in the nose, but that describes half of the men in England. Had a squint, but it was bright in here the two times I saw him, so I’m not certain it’s a defining characteristic. Not dressed expensively. Or interestingly. Blue coat, boots of no discernible pedigree. A bit diffident, all in all. My favorite of his characteristics were his deep pockets.” Wyndham winked. There was a ring of the bell down below, the sound of a broom flung aside, stomping feet and a door flung open. Bam.

“A hoor is ’ere to see ye, ye useless benighted malodorous codpiece!” his housekeeper bellowed up the stairs.

“Benighted!” Chase mused, impressed. “An underused word, to be sure.”

“She’s positively Shakespearean when she’s had enough liquor. She can cook adequately when there’s food in the house, and she does keep the place clean. It’s as if she can’t help it—the cleaning

—even when she isn’t paid.”

He turned to bellow in return.

“Which hoor, Mrs. Palf—Oh, good afternoon, Minette,” he said as a woman’s head appeared at the top of the stair. “She isn’t actually a whore,” he explained to Chase and Rosalind. “She’s a model.”

Minette nodded her head rapidly in agreement, and beamed at them, ducking a curtsy.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear they beheld the angel from the Velvet Glove, and, as fate would have it, from the Rubinetto painting.

He wondered if Rosalind recognized her, too. He thought he saw her sneaking a glance at her bosom, and then at her face, and—yes, yes, there it was: the dawning of recognition.

And a not entirely warm fascination.

“Pay the angels, or pay the housekeeper? How is one to choose, Mr. Charles?” Wyndham said, coming forward to bow to Minette and escort her forward by the arm. He brought with him an interesting smell of debauchery: oil and beeswax, the kinds of things artists mix into pigments to create paint, brandy, a bit of old sweat, lingering cigar smoke.

“I’m on the side of the angels, Mr. Wyndham.”

“I thought you might be.”

Minette dimpled at Chase.

Rosalind seemed disinclined to take sides regarding angels and housekeepers, but she’d gone rigid as a cat ready to attack. Which Chase found gratifying, somehow.

He found ten pounds—a fortune indeed for the painter—in his coat and handed it over to him.

“I thank you for your consultation, Mr. Wyndham.”

“Do let me know what you decide about the cows, sir.” Wyndham was quite ironic. “Now, Minette, my dear, today you’ll be posing as a mermaid…”

They dodged the housekeeper and her viciously applied broom and saw themselves out. She spared them a withering glance.

“Good day,” she said with some dignity. But slammed the door behind her.

“The house was spotless,” Chase conceded as they made their way down the steps.

“You noticed?”

“I was a soldier. We were trained to keep things quite neat and to notice when they were not. Ironic, when one also learns to sleep in the mud and dirt. But it’s the little things that hold our worlds together. Old habits die very hard.”

Rosalind knew this to be true, particularly when it came to Chase.

“Do you think Kinkade is Welland-Dowd?” she wondered. Chase burst into laughter so booming that every head on the street rotated, startled.

Oh, God. She’d just understood when she’d said it aloud. Welland-Dowd.

Well-endowed.

“Well, I’m not one to judge, and when compared to me, of course, no one is, but I have gone swimming in the same swimming hole with the man, and I can tell you he has nothing at all to be ashamed of—

”

“Don’t don’t don’t don’t.” She covered her ears. He was still laughing. He was gorgeous when he laughed. Bloody bawdy soldier.

She couldn’t hold it against him: his laughter was glorious, and it struck her that he did it so seldom these days. Her heart became a kite and sailed, sailed away. Unfamiliar and a bit frightening to feel so light, so unmoored, so tempted to give away control at every turn. With an effort she furled her heart back to the concern that turn. With an effort she furled her heart back to the concern that kept her anchored:

Lucy.

With every clue, with luck, they would be led closer to Lucy.

“We know the painting was commissioned for a purpose,” he said,

“a purpose about which Mr. Wyndham seems to have been kept in the dark. If he was trying to hide something from us, he would have lied. So the Rubinetto was painted by a brothel artist and hung in a museum from which men seem to go and not come out, or go out but not come in. We need to have a look around the museum in the dark. Tonight. Something is definitely amiss.”

“A look ’round the museum tonight? After it’s locked for the evening?”

“We can likely get in through the service door. My guess is I can easily pick the lock or otherwise force the door. Failing that, I shall try a window.”

He noticed she was regarding him with mystification. “When on earth did you learn to pick locks?”

“My brothers. Unless you’d prefer not to accompany me?” he added, reconsidering the wisdom of taking her.