The Viscount's Counterfeit Wife (56 page)

Tally offered him a
seat, which he took with alacrity. But he was clearly too keyed up to
remain seated, for no sooner down, than he jumped back up almost
immediately and took to pacing. She darted a quick glance at her
grandmother, who cast her eyes toward the ceiling in dramatic
fashion.

Tally hastily covered
her mouth with her hand to hold back the chuckle longing to escape.
What an irrepressible imp her
Grandma was.

“How did you know we
were here?” Lady Lawton asked him. “We only moved yesterday.”

Tally was amazed at how
smoothly her paternal matriarch implied she had been living with her
granddaughter all along.

“As I told Miss
Lawton, the butler next door directed me here.” Mr. Dubuc repeated.
“He seemed confused by the name, but told me the people who’d
been living there were living here now.” Then, rather rudely, he
asked, “Why have you moved?”

By now, Reed likely
knew Mr. Dubuc was here. Yet he hadn’t appeared. Guess he’d only
been jealous when he thought they were married.

“It’s a long
story,” she replied curtly. She had no intention of satisfying his
curiosity. “Suffice it to say that this is where we will be from
now on.”

Her annoyance must have
penetrated his thick skin, because he quickly changed tone. “I
apologize for calling so early, but I was distressed and I knew you’d
want to know immediately.” He paced nervously over to the window
and back.

“Know what? What is
the problem?” She couldn’t help reflecting that his actions
looked more like bad acting in a poorly conceived play, than true
distress. His clothes were impeccably turned out, as usual, and not a
hair on his head was displaced. Surely a man in such a lamentable
state of nerves would look a little more disheveled.

“The studio burned
down.”

“I beg your pardon,
what studio?” Her thoughts scattered. An ominous sense of
foreboding told her there was only one studio he could be talking
about. “Surely you don’t mean–”

But she knew, even
before he said it.

“My uncle’s
studio!”

It
couldn’t be!
She jumped to her feet. Her hand flew to
her mouth, but this time it wasn’t to stem her mirth, it was to
hold in a moan of agony. “Wh… what happened?” Shock had her
stammering.

“During the night...
flames destroyed the whole building and almost spread to the
neighbors’ homes. Luckily, the neighbors set up a pail brigade that
prevented the fire from razing their homes too, but my uncle’s
place burned to the ground. Nothing is left and, because it was well
doused with water, anything that might have remained is completely
ruined. The paintings…” He left that last word hanging, but his
meaning was clear.

“All the…” She
sat down again, heavily. “You mean all the artwork was… is …”

“Gone. Up in flames…
charred… nothing left.”

She heard only the odd
word of his disjointed account. Her grandmother’s “Dear me!”
and dropping of her embroidery added to the confusion.

She was stunned.
Shocked. Staggered!

Gone.
All her work was gone.

The words “nothing
left” kept reverberating in her mind. Nothing left. All her
planning, all her hard work, all for naught.

She’d have to start
over again. No Moreau. No paintings. No career.

She noted movement at
the door and glanced up.
Reed!

He immediately sensed
her distress and came to her side.

She didn’t even worry
about how to explain him to Mr. Dubuc, which should have been her
first concern.

Reed took care of that
by introducing himself. “Good morning, I’m Gordon.” He gave the
younger man a brief nod, before turning all of his attention back to
her.

She was so glad to see
him, now — when her whole world had been turned upside down —
that the thought of the whole charade becoming unraveled right here,
right now, never even occurred to her. It should have, especially if
Reed wished to punish her for pretending to be his wife. But,
frankly, at the moment she didn’t care. She was too shocked to be
worried about appearances.

Mr. Dubuc looked
puzzled. He was probably wondering who Reed was and where he had come
from unannounced. She looked at Reed and said, “My… er…
Monsieur’s studio burned down during the night. All the artwork...
my...” Suddenly realizing what she had almost revealed, she changed
what she had been about to say. “... my father’s paintings, were
in it and have gone up in flames.”

Reed wouldn’t
understand what that meant to her. He couldn’t know it spelled the
end — for a long while — of all her hard fought dreams. Even more
so if Monsieur didn’t return soon!

Nor could he be aware
that the financial bind she was in had just gotten significantly
worse, until her attorney wrested control of her funds back from her
brothers.

He knelt down on one
knee beside her and took both her hands in his. “I’m so sorry,
sweetheart.”

Mr. Dubuc’s loud
intake of breath as well as her grandmother’s gasp pulled her out
of her gloom and made her realize what Reed had just said.

Thank God, Foster had
the quickness of mind to come next door and tell Reed that young
popinjay was visiting Tally at this unseemly hour. The Frenchman’s
jaw clenched when he observed their entwined hands. An angry snarl
twisted his handsome features before he quickly masked it with a
polite smile, when he noticed he was being observed.

Putting his antipathy
for the fellow aside, Reed concentrated instead on murmuring
encouraging words to comfort Tally. Being an artist himself, he could
sympathize, even if he was still upset with her for refusing to
consider marriage when he’d tried to do the honorable thing.

He’d wanted to wait
until he’d finished his mission before seeing her again, and there
was still a lot of interviewing to do in the aftermath of the
Vanisher and his gang’s capture. But she needed him now. Foster
told him she’d just lost everything that mattered most to her —
her whole body of artwork. He was grateful her loyal retainer had
finally decided to trust him. It must be a case of ‘better the
devil you know than the one you don’t’!

Dubuc took his leave
shortly thereafter. He gave a formal bow and wore a phony smile on
his beatific face as he departed. Yet Reed swore he could feel the
other man’s anger seething beneath his angelic exterior.

Reed didn’t like the
shifty look on the Frenchman’s face. He was suddenly convinced
there was more to this fire than had been told. Damned if he wasn’t
going to go have a look around the charred premises.

* * *

No trace of a picture
frame or burnt canvas to be found amid the smoldering remains of what
had once been Monsieur Moreau’s home and studio. The acrid stench
of doused fire assailed his nostrils, as Reed stepped carefully
through the debris. He’d covered the entire area, from corner to
corner… end to end. Given the scant smoldering vestiges he’d
found, either the place had been remarkably empty or someone had
removed most of the furniture prior to the fire.

So... not a simple
fire. His gut was telling him this fire hadn’t just happened. It
had been set.

A neighbor came to
stand nearby, gazing sadly at the ruins.

“A shame, isn’t
it?” Reed said. This woman had come from next door. She may have
seen something.

“
Non
.
A crime.” The middle-aged woman, one of Moreau’s countrywomen,
sounded angry. “It was, how do you say? Arson.”

“You think it was set
on purpose?” He came over to stand beside the petite brunette. They
stood side by side, staring at the pile of scorched remains. “Why
do you say that?”

“We watch men empty
the place late last night. They think we all sleep.” She cast her
eyes up to the heavens, blessing the stupidity of the criminals.

“They walk
sur
le bout des pieds
… you know on tippy-toes and whispering
so not to wake us. Next thing we know, there are huge flames up above
the roof.”

Her accent was getting
stronger, her voice shriller. She was reliving it all again. “We
sound the alarm and rush to stop the fire. More than twenty of us
throw buckets of water on it for too many hours.” She rubbed her
arms, unconsciously trying to ease their ache. “We have to protect
our own homes, which we do,
dieu
merci
, but
hélas
,
Antoine’s studio could not be saved.” She looked defeated. Then
she pointed to several spots that seemed worse hit. “You know, the
fire it starts in more than one place.”

Yes, he feared he did
know, all too well. The place had been torched. The fire had been no
accident.

“Poor Antoine will be
heartbroken when he returns.”

“He’s away?” Ah…
now perhaps he’d get some answers for Tally.

“So his nephew tells
us.” The lady sounded skeptical. “It is strange. One day he is
there with us, the next, he is gone with no goodbye to any of us.”

“He would have told
you when he left?”

“
Certainement.
We’re close. We’re all artists and artisans who live in this
neighborhood. Many from France. We take care of one another.” She
placed the palm of her hand against her chest. “I have this bad
feeling here, ever since he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Had
he gone searching for an informant, Reed doubted he could have found
a better one. This tiny French woman had a lot on her mind. Maybe
she’d decided he looked like someone who would do something about
it.

“
Oui.
He never left like that before, without telling us or asking us to
take care of his home.”

“But his nephew,
Dubuc, is there to do that, surely?”

“That one!” She
clearly didn’t think much of Dubuc. “Antoine never trusted that
one to take care of his studio. We always did it. We live right next
door.” She gestured toward a small, well-kept building next to
where they were standing. “It’s easier for us than for Victor who
lives farther away.

“Yes, I see.” He
saw that something was definitely wrong here. Where had Moreau gone
and had he gone willingly?

“You will do
something to find Antoine, Monsieur?” She seemed glad to have
someone to turn to. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to justify her
belief, but he intended to give it a good try. If he could help it,
he wasn’t about to let “Angel Face” Dubuc take Tally’s art,
her heart and soul, away from her.

“I will try.”

“You came here the
other day, with that lady, the pretty one who comes many times to
find Monsieur Moreau. She must be distressed. You will do it for her,
oui
?”

This stranger had found
his weakness without even knowing him. Were his feelings for Tally
written on his face for all to see?

“If you find news,
you will let Lisette know, please?”

“Yes, of course.”
He bid the helpful neighbor goodbye. As he walked away, he decided a
little visit to Dubuc’s home might be in order.

But it was late that
evening before he was able to discover the nephew’s address. Too
late to do anything about it then. He’d persuaded Jace and Max,
along with his brothers and a few of their fellow Spares, to help him
find the address and to learn what they could about Dubuc and his
uncle.

An unexpected bonus was
information about Tally and her family.

He shouldn’t have
been surprised to learn she was using a fake name. Or that Foster had
remained loyal and never divulged that Wendal Lawton was her father.
Reed couldn’t believe what a slow top he’d been not to figure it
out. After all, he knew her grandmother was Lady Lawton.

But recovering his
memory, he was discovering, did not happen in an instant or even in
one day. It might take a while to put all the pieces of his life
together properly. He was just enormously thankful for recovering
most of it and was confident the few remaining gaps would be filled
in time.

He’d learned that
Tally was the youngest of four and everyone seemed to think she was a
homebody and the only one in a family of artists with no artistic
talent.

Now that was shocking!

He didn’t reveal her
secret but how was it possible that no one knew?

He remembered her
forbidding him to enter the studio. She’d deliberately concealed
her gift all these years! How difficult that must have been! Must
still be!

Tally was feeling out
of sorts.

“He’s not for you!”
She repeated to herself for the hundredth time. “And, what's more,
you don’t want him.” No, but it seemed her heart, willy-nilly and
against her own wishes, had been hoping he could be.

Foolish girl! Happy
endings only happen in fairy tales and gothic novels. It’s not the
way real life stories finish. You know that! He’s a member of the
ton and, as such, is beyond your reach.

“Why are you all
dressed up? You going somewhere, Missy?” Foster asked.

“Mr. Dubuc sent word
that he has news of Monsieur. He said he might even take me to meet
him. I don’t much feel like it, but I must go. Poor Monsieur must
be heartbroken about his studio.”

“Mebbe ye should wait
until Mr. Mason can go with you,” Foster said in a worried voice.

“Why? Didn’t we
decide that those attacks were the work of Mr. Go– Viscount
Selwich’s enemies?” She stood in front of the hallway mirror to
adjust her bonnet. “I’m taking Joseph with me, so I won’t be
alone. And I have my blue pelisse on.”

“That’s good. But
I’d feel happier if you were accompanied by a man or at least, an
adult. What about your grandmother?”

“She’s gone out.
Besides, you know she can’t come with me. She doesn’t know about
my painting.” Tally finished pulling on her gloves. “She wouldn’t
understand why it is so imperative for me to see Monsieur.”