The Painted Lady (3 page)

His Grace had woken to the smell of coffee, thanking the powers that be for efficient servants like his man Ayers, who knew the duke had to present himself at Caswell House, Grosvenor Square, before dinner. If not for Ayers, Kasey might have slept the clock around. As it was, the afternoon was well advanced and he had to start moving.

He sat up and took stock: no headache, no uncertain stomach, no aching muscles, and no voices in his head, thank goodness. A novelist friend of his had once said how the writing grew easier as the characters came alive, taking over the dialogue, moving the plot, directing the story. The duke had always thought his friend dicked in the nob. He still did. It was a bad dream he’d had, perhaps a touch of ague. Kasey tried an experimental cough. No, he was not sick, but the horse in the Stubbs painting hanging in his bedroom was not neighing, either.

What he did feel, aside from hunger, was a lingering euphoria over his latest artwork. If the portrait was half as good as he recalled, his painting had reached a new plateau, a summit of color and line and texture and expression. No, it could never be as good as all that, could it?

Kasey pulled on his dressing gown, tied it loosely at his waist, and sipped at the hot coffee. Then he took his cup up to the attic, to find out.

Zeus, the piece was better than he remembered. Better than anything he’d done, better than most of the stuff he’d seen exhibited at the Royal Academy in the past three years. Perhaps his painting wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste, but he doubted if any of the so-called masters there could find fault with the technique or composition.

Kasey might have moved the left hand closer to the body, better completing the classical triangle, and he could still paint over that gauze covering, but no, he decided to leave the piece as it was. A painter could rework a canvas forever; the trick was in knowing when to stop. This way the woman appeared both open to invitation and out of bounds, the eternal enigma of femininity. Dash it, Kasey felt as if he’d just created Eve.

His lady was so exquisite, it was no wonder he’d dreamed about her. What man wouldn’t? A fellow would have to be dead, aye, and a month underground, not to lust after this perfect representation of Woman. Even Kasey fell—

“Aren’t you done ogling, for heaven’s sake?”

Kasey choked on a mouthful of coffee. “I... I wasn’t ogling. I was admiring my work, that’s all.”

Those magnificent eyes flicked below the belt of his robe, and one eyebrow raised at the evidence of tumescence. “I call that ogling.”

Kasey found himself blushing like a schoolboy. “It’s just a morning thing,
I—” he began, then caught himself. He was not
going to defend his actions to a smear and smatter of paint, no matter how stunning. In fact, he was not going to talk to a blasted painting! “You do not speak. You do not exist. You are a painting, not a person, by all that’s holy!” he shouted.

“Oh, and you often yell at inanimate objects, do you, bucko? Told your tea cart to go to hell recently? Cursed at your credenza?”

He did not and he had not, but he was starting now. “You are a creature of my imagination. You said so yourself. Well, I have stopped imagining what would happen if one of my paintings came alive, so that’s the end of it, do you hear, lady?”

“I heard, and I am sure Ayers heard as well, and the butcher’s delivery boy next door. My, my, we are in a temper this morning, aren’t we?”

“We aren’t in a temper because we do not exist!” He yelled, but in a lower, hoarser tone. “It was an interesting experiment, but I do not like the results, so begone.”

“Too late, you ramshackle, randy Rembrandt. You can’t put the paint back in the jar, you know.”

“It is not too late. I refuse to let it be too late!”

“Oh, and you are a duke, so whatever you say becomes law? A pox on you and your arrogance, I say. You might be able to dismiss your mistresses with a flick of your fingers, but I am no paid plaything to be turned off with a pretty bauble or a heavy purse.”

Kasey’s eyes narrowed as he considered the woman’s words. “Very well, forget I am a duke. I am merely a painter. A drawer of pictures, if you will. And what I draw, I can erase.” He reached for the fresh rag Ayers had left on his worktable. “Your paint is still wet. I won’t even have to add a layer over it.”

“You’d destroy your own work? Your best work?”

“Rather than let it destroy me, yes.”

“Then you are a fool, besides being a heartless libertine who doesn’t know his own mind. Besides, it won’t work. I’d still be here.”

“You’re right,” he said, putting down the rag and reaching for his palette knife. “I’d do better to demolish the whole thing. Rip the canvas into shreds and cast the pieces to the winds.”

Before he could take a step closer to the easel, the figure raised her hand. “Stop thinking with the wrong end of your brush, Duke. Think about this: Where did I come from? Your head, that’s where. Now where do you think I’ll go back to, if you wreck the painting?”

Kasey put the palette knife down and sank onto his work stool. “Oh, God.”

“Exactly. I’m no happier than you are about this, you know. You can’t think I like being leered at, do you? Even your man Ayers was practically drooling when he cleaned up this morning. I mean, hanging in a museum is one thing, respectable, don’t you know. But an attic of a rake’s retreat? No, and I don’t like being shouted at, either, while we are on the subject.”

Kasey hadn’t thought the wishes of a nonexistent shrew were the subject under discussion, not at all. He put his hands over his ears, trying to close out her impossible voice, which, of course, echoed right through his fingers.

“Any of it,” she was going on, as if his suffering were irrelevant, “even being stuck on an easel for the rest of eternity, is better than mucking around in your mind, laddie. The place is bound to be a mingle-mangle of manhood and misguided notions of honor and duty, all muddled with color wheels and rules of perspective.” She shrugged delicately, so delicately Kasey might have missed it if he’d blinked, but he had a very bad feeling that he would see her shrug even with his eyes shut. “That, sir,” she concluded, “is no place for a lady.”

His boat was rocking here, and this phantom creature was making waves. Kasey moaned. “What do you want, then? What would it take to get rid of you?”

“What do
I
want? What every woman wants: love, respect, security, a new bonnet, a cup of chocolate in the morning. It’s more a question of what you want, though, Duke. You find that out, and perhaps I would not have to be here at all. Meanwhile, let’s talk about frames....”

“Ayers! Get up here. Now!”

* * * *

Alfie Ayers liked his job. Working for His Grace was a lot softer berth than working for His Majesty in the Navy. Besides, no one else was likely to hire him, not at his age, and not after that contretemps with the Admiralty. Here in Lonsdale Street Ayers got to run a whole house, giving orders to the day maids, seeing to the provisions and the accounts, arranging for the stabling of His Grace’s cattle, like a real butler. He even got to escort the duke’s high flyers in the hired hackneys, stopping for the occasional heavy wet at his employer’s expense, once or twice with his employer’s expensive ladybird. Best of all, after years in the Navy, he did not have to wear any blooming uniform, not when the duke didn’t want anyone knowing his man was shopping at places that mixed paints and sold rolls of canvas.

The duke was easygoing about things like livery and dust on the furniture, so long as his studio was shipshape. Real particular, His Grace was, about that attic and keeping it a secret. Alfie’s lips were sealed, for without the duke he’d still be a-sailing, only this time he’d be headed to Botany Bay with a one-way ticket, if he wasn’t hung first.

Alfie didn’t understand why His Grace was so private about his painting when he didn’t care who saw him with his paramours, but he wasn’t about to ask. If the Navy had taught Alfie Ayers one thing, it was not to question orders. So when the duke shouted down three flights of stairs for Ayers to present himself, Alfie put down the cans of hot water posthaste and took the stairs as if they were top-rigging.

Blimey, he thought, puffing with the unaccustomed effort after five years ashore, what if he’d forgotten to shut one of the studio windows when it came on to rain? Ayers couldn’t recall. He had to air the place out, didn’t he? Otherwise they’d all be liable to get a lung disease from those fumes. Maybe that last batch of paint from Mr. Irvington wasn’t any good, or not the right colors? Most likely, Ayers figured, His Grace was in a taking over a spilled paint pot or some other petty problem for, in the former sailor’s experience,
officers
—and now gentlemen—worried overmuch about the small things. If Alfie had half the duke’s blunt, he’d worry over where to build his next castle, not where his favorite paintbrush had rolled to.

Ayers hurried through the attic door and had to remember not to salute. His Grace was looking so formidable, with his arms crossed over his broad chest and a scowl on his face. “You called, Your Grace?”

The duke nodded, then jerked his head toward the easel that stood, as usual, in the center of the room. “I want you to look at this.”

“I never moved it, Your Grace, never touched a thing except them rags and your wineglass. I—”

‘The painting, man. Look at the painting.”

Ayers looked, then turned back to his employer, wondering what the duke was wanting to hear. Surely not that Ayers thought the female ought to be wearing more clothes. Naked women belonged at the bow of a ship or in a man’s bed, in the dark, according to the old sailor’s values. “Aye, I saw it this morning,” he said. “She’s a rare beauty, she is. A’course I can’t tell if you got her likeness perfect, but it sure makes a pretty picture. I especially like that filmy stuff you used around her, uh, prow. Looks like she’s wrapped in a rainbow, it does.”

“Thank you, Ayers. I am sure you make as excellent an art critic as the gentlemen who write for the newspapers, but I wish you to look at the woman, not me. Stand closer, man, and look straight at her. Now tell me, does she speak to you?”

Ayers studied the portrait, as ordered. “Aye, she talks all right. She’s telling me I can’t afford a fancy piece like her.”

“She told you that?”

“Not in so many words, a’course, but a chap can tell, even without her clothes on. The way she holds her head, for one thing. Dignified, she is. No serving girl has that kind of pride.”

“She is a scheming, interfering bitch.”

Ayers whistled. “Gor’blimey, but you made her look a lot nicer than that. You were, uh, trying to do that, weren’t you, Your Grace? Make her look pretty?”

“I have no idea what I was thinking when I painted her. You might say the deuced canvas painted itself.”

Wasn’t that just like an officer, spouting fustian? “Who is she anyway, Your Grace? Nobody what’s been here on my watch. A fellow’d have to be half drowned to forget a face like that.”

“She’s just a ... a lady.”

Ayers slapped his thigh. “I was right, then. She comes by that pride natural-like, along with the title.” Titled ladies were not the duke’s usual fare, not at Lonsdale Street at any rate. There was something havey-cavey about the whole business and Ayers thought he knew what: “Has a husband, does she?”

“Lud, I’d pity the poor sod if she did.”

Ayers kept studying the portrait. “I don’t know, Your Grace. I can think of a lot worse things than waking with the likes of your lady alongside.”

So could Kasey. Waking up with the painted lady inside was a whole lot worse. “You’re certain you don’t hear anything?”

Ayers cocked his head to the side, listening. “Mice in the wainscoting, Your Grace. I’ll call in the rat-catcher in the morning.”

“He’s not allowed on this floor, remember.”

“Fine, I’ll tell the mice they’ve gots to go below.”

Kasey wasn’t listening. That is, he wasn’t listening to the old tar. He was staring at the painting, straining his ears to hear a sound that never should have been heard in the first place. “Thank God, she’s gone.”

“What’s that, Your Grace?”

“I, ah, said, you can get going. I’ll be wanting my bath in a moment.”

Ayers bowed and walked out of the room. Kasey followed, looking back for one final glance at the woman in his masterpiece.

She winked back at him.

Kasey passed his man on the stairs. “Ayers, forget about the bath. I cannot stay here. I do not know when I’ll return, either. Urgent business at Caswell House, don’t you know. It just came up.”

No messenger had arrived. No letters were shoved under the door. Alfie just shook his balding head.

“I am sure you can be depended on to keep the place in Bristol fashion. Carry on, man.”

The duke was halfway out the front door when Ayers cleared his throat. “You might wish to consider getting dressed first, Your Grace.”

That noise was the mice, laughing in the attic, Kasey swore to himself. Wasn’t it?

Chapter Four

“‘Tell me, Aunt Maeve, Aunt Mirabel, has insanity ever run in our family? In either branch, that is?”

Kasey was in the parlor of Caswell House, sharing a pre
-
dinner sherry with his maiden aunts. He had already admired their evening ensembles, his father’s spinster sister Mirabel Cartland in watered gray silk, pearls, and a scrap of lace for a cap; Maeve Wyndgate, Kasey’s mother’s unmarried sister, in pink satin with a purple turban, and strands of glass beads. Aunt Mirabel had the Cartland height, while Aunt Maeve shared the blue-green eyes Kasey had inherited from his mother. The pair had absolutely nothing in common except their love of gossip, brangling, and their two nephews, in that order, their shared residence at Caswell House, and their pug dog, That’s the Ticket.

The dotty old dears did not need to hear voices, Kasey reflected from his position near the window, as far from the aunts’ couch as possible, not when they had Ticket whining between them for a sip of sherry. The wretched little beast should have been called Lickit, Kasey always thought, for that’s all he did when he wasn’t begging for scraps or paying his devotions to the furniture legs or Kasey’s Hessian boots.