When the Duchess Said Yes (33 page)

“This is very fine, signore,” he said in Italian to the
artist. “Very fine indeed. With whom did you study in Rome?”

“Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, Your Grace,” Petrocelli answered, rolling the name off his tongue with considerable pride. “I was honored to be part of his studio in the Via Bocca di Leone, and assisted in his drawing academy.”

“I can see Batoni’s influence in the purity of your line,” Hawke said. The man should be proud of a connection to Batoni, in Hawke’s estimation the only modern Italian painter worth a damn. “I should like to see more of your work, if possible. Did you paint fashionable portraits in Rome?”

Petrocelli nodded, again close to tears. “I did, Your Grace, I did,” he said. “With great success I painted many English gentlemen who had come to visit Rome.”

“Yet you came here?” Hawke asked. Just as he’d earlier felt so ill at ease among the politicians, he was now enjoying himself tremendously. Speaking Italian, discussing art and painters: what could be better?

“I was invited by Master Sir Lucas Rowell, Your Grace, to your magnificent city,” Petrocelli answered in Italian. “Sir Lucas wishes me to inspire your English painters to greatness.”

“Sir Lucas Rowell,” Lizzie said eagerly, beckoning to a man of middling age and height whose face was dominated by a turnip-shaped nose. “Now, that much of your conversation I could understand! Here is that very gentleman, Hawke, waiting to make your acquaintance as well. He is a most esteemed painter, perhaps the most esteemed in London, and he’s painted Charlotte and March and, oh, everyone else. Hawke, Sir Lucas Rowell. Sir Lucas, my husband the Duke of Hawkesworth.”

Hawke’s smile grew more reserved. He didn’t know which of the portraits at Marchbourne House could be blamed on Sir Lucas, but he did know that most of those
he’d seen appeared to be dreary daubs, with flattery in place of talent.

“Your Grace,” Sir Lucas said, his voice lushly obsequious from long years catering to noble patrons. “Your servant, sir. I am most honored to make your acquaintance at last. There are so few Englishmen in the highest ranks who take a true interest in the fine arts.”

Lizzie nodded eagerly, fluttering her lace fan before her with excitement. “I’ve told them all about you, Hawke, how much you love your paintings, and what a wondrous collection you have.”

“Pray tell me, sir,” Sir Lucas asked, lowering his voice in awe. “Is it true that you possess a Titian Venus, and that she is here in London with you?”

Swiftly Hawke glanced at Lizzie. It was clear as day that she’d told these others of his treasures propped on the floor of his ballroom. She smiled in return and came to slip her hand fondly into his, unaware that she might have erred in sharing this particular information with others. Aside from his private attachment to the pictures, he was well aware of their rarity and monetary value, and wished she hadn’t described them so thoroughly in public, just as he wouldn’t wish her telling strangers of how much income his properties brought him each year.

But Lizzie, his Lizzie, was far too ingenuous to think that way.

“I knew you dreaded coming here tonight,” she said softly, so only he could hear, “and feared there’d only be stuffy older gentlemen who’d try to speak to you of Parliament. But I found the artists for you, didn’t I? I found you the guests who knew who Titian was, didn’t I?”

He smiled and lightly squeezed her fingers to show he appreciated what she’d done. Later, when they were alone, he could explain why it wasn’t wise, no matter her intentions.

“Yes, Sir Lucas,” he said. “I do in fact have a Venus by Titian, the prize of my little collection. After my wife, she is the beauty of our house.”

“Oh, Hawke,” Lizzie said, blushing before the others. “Not now.”

But Hawke wished it
was
now. No matter whether artists were present or not, when she looked at him that way, he longed for the evening to be done so that he might take her home, where they’d be alone.

“I congratulate you on your good fortune in both areas, Your Grace,” Sir Lucas said. “You are a lucky man.”

“Indeed you are, Duke,” Lady Merton said briskly. “Which is why I hope that we can prevail upon you to share your good fortune with others.”

“Yes, yes, Hawke, you must listen to this,” Lizzie said. “I’m certain you’ll agree that it’s wonderfully important.”

If he’d heard only the others, he would have refused even before they’d asked, but because it was Lizzie asking, he listened.

Sir Lucas cleared his throat portentously. “I’m sure Your Grace is aware of the sad state of painting in Britain, and specifically in London,” he began. “For a land that is so blessed in other ways, we are without any galleries for inspiration, any museums, even any academies for instruction and furtherment. How can our own native painters prosper in such a parched wilderness?”

“Sir Lucas is opening an academy of art,” Lizzie said, helpfully slicing through his rhetoric. “He needs patrons.”

“Patrons with an understanding of pictures, and an appreciation of the suffering of the soul that a true artist must endure,” Lady Merton said solemnly. “Recognizing so noble a cause, Lord Merton and I were among the
first patrons of the new academy. Of course His Majesty was first, as is proper.”

“We should become patrons, too, Hawke,” Lizzie said earnestly. “You’d like it.”

“Of course,” Hawke said, happy to oblige her in so small a way. Though Lizzie might not realize it, such appeals for support were common, and he subscribed to all manner of charities and noble causes. It was part of being a duke. He’d speak to Wynn in the morning about this one, and have their names added to the list with a suitable contribution to match. “We shall be honored to be included, Sir Lucas.”

“I am the one who is honored, Your Grace,” said Sir Lucas, bowing with a sweeping arm more fit for an actor than for an artist. “I dare to hope that one day I might show my students the matchless beauty of your Titian Venus so that they may drink in her loveliness.”

Hawke made some sort of vague reply, neither listening nor caring. Like so many such noble projects of admirable intentions, this one probably would never come to fruition, and besides, he was more concerned with encouraging Lizzie to bid farewell to the company than with hearing more of Sir Lucas’s bombast.

Yet when they were at last back in their carriage and she was nestled comfortably beside him, Hawke had no choice but to return to Sir Lucas, Signor Petrocelli, and his own precious pictures.

“I understand that you meant it for the best, sweeting,” he began, “but I’d prefer if you didn’t cry out to the world that I have a Titian and a Tintoretto sitting in my ballroom.”

She twisted around to face him, her head leaving his shoulder: not a good sign. “But Sir Lucas and the signore are artists themselves, Hawke. I thought you would enjoy speaking to them about paintings, the way you do with me.”

“I did, and I thank you for it,” he said quickly. “At least I enjoyed speaking with Petrocelli. Rowell is a self-important bag of wind.”

But she was shaking her head, her jewels clinking softly with the motion.

“You’re always saying how in Italy, art is a part of life,” she insisted. “I thought you’d be happy to share your pictures, and by doing so perhaps make London a little bit more like Italy. Sir Lucas and Signor Petrocelli would
understand
the magic, just as you do.”

Hawke sighed, wishing this were going better. “Lizzie, you and I look at my pictures and see their magic. Others will look at them and see only their great monetary value. They’re priceless.”

“That makes no sense, Hawke, even from you.” The passing light from lanterns outside fell across her face, showing her unhappiness. “How can your pictures be of great monetary value and yet priceless?”

“Because if they were lost or fell into the wrong hands, they would be gone forever from my life,” he said finally. “I can explain it no better than that. They cannot be replaced, not for all the money in the world.”

“Like you,” she said wistfully.

“Like me?” he asked, not following.

“Like you, Hawke,” she said again. “You could never be replaced in my life or my heart, not by any other man, ever, ever.”

He hadn’t expected that, not at all. He could just make her out in the shadowy corner of the carriage, hugging her arms to herself. She was watching him, her eyes filled with an impossible sadness, as if they’d somehow already been parted.

“Come here, love,” he said gruffly, reaching out to pull her close. “You know you could never be replaced in my heart, either.”

Yet even to his own ears, it all sounded hollow and
false, words spoken more because they were expected, not felt.

“You know I love you,” he said, trying again. “You must know that, Lizzie.”

She sighed and curled against him, letting him hold her close.

“I know you love me,” she whispered against his waistcoat. “I know you do.”

But the sorrow in her voice betrayed her doubt, and when he began to think of all he’d said that night, he could not blame her. Damnation, he could not.

Lizzie sat on the edge of the chair, sipping her chocolate and pretending that everything was as it should be. Outwardly it was. She was dressed in her favorite striped silk dressing gown, taking breakfast with her husband. Earlier, he had made extravagant love to her, so long and well that it had been nearly eleven by the time they’d risen, and this breakfast should more rightly have been called dinner. The day was warm and sunny and full of languid promise; the windows were open to the garden, and she could smell the heady late-summer scent of the ripening plums and peaches on the trees nearby.

But things weren’t right. While they’d still been abed, Hawke had announced that he wished to take breakfast in the ballroom with his pictures, a tacit reminder of all he’d said last night in the carriage. It hadn’t exactly been a quarrel, but it hadn’t been pleasant, either. What she’d been left with was the distinct impression that somehow his pictures were worth more to him than she herself was. She’d been shocked, but most of all she’d been hurt, wounded more grievously than he’d ever know.

Ladies of her rank often discovered to their sorrow and chagrin that they shared their husbands’ affections with a mistress. But how was she to fight back if his other love wasn’t flesh and blood but old pieces of
stretched canvas covered with oil and pigments, items that represented a time in his life that she’d no part of? She’d thought the pictures were something they’d shared. She’d never dreamed they were her rivals.

Now he sat in silence beside her, his coffee in his hand, studying the one picture that made her most uncomfortable. It wasn’t the Venus that Lady Allred had wished to banish. It was the scene from his window of his villa in Naples. On the first day he’d brought her here to the Chase, when she’d climbed over the wall to make him run after her in the garden, he’d proudly explained to her how this house, a country house in Somerset, and another in Scotland would all belong to her, too, once they were wed.
Ours:
that was what he’d told her.

But he hadn’t included Bella Collina among those houses, not once. The villa was unquestionably his alone, and never more so than now. He sat sipping his coffee and studying the painting propped before him with his back to the open window, pointedly preferring the painted Italian scenery to the real English one behind him.

He was so lost in the picture that there was no conversing with him, which made the task before her infinitely more difficult. Last night while they were riding home she’d meant to tell him what she’d done earlier, to confess her impulsive act. But once he’d told her how badly she’d erred by telling Sir Lucas and Signor Petrocelli about his pictures, there was no possibility of a confession. In most circumstances, she considered herself to be brave, at least braver than most other women. But she’d been a wretched, hopeless coward over this, and each silent moment that passed was only making it worse.

With no stomach for her chocolate, she poked her finger at the foam on the top, chasing the iridescent bubbles around the edge of the cup. It was almost noon
now. Perhaps they wouldn’t come. Perhaps they’d interpreted her invitation as only an idle pleasantry, not to be acted upon. Perhaps—

The knock at the door echoed so loudly in the room that Lizzie jumped, spilling her chocolate on her gown. She leaped to her feet and grabbed a napkin, furiously blotting at her skirts as Hawke called for the footman to enter.

But it wasn’t a footman. It was Mr. Betts, the butler, signifying something or someone important.

“The Countess of Merton and Sir Lucas Rowell are here to see you, Your Grace,” Mr. Betts said as he stood before Hawke. “Lady Merton says they have come at Her Grace’s invitation.”

“Impertinent woman,” Hawke said, scowling. “Doubtless the countess suspects me of not keeping my word and comes to dun me in person for her scheme, with her pet painters in tow. Tell her we are not at home, Betts, and that she is mistaken. Can you imagine that, Lizzie? For her to say that you—”

“I did, Hawke,” Lizzie said miserably, crumpling the chocolate-stained napkin in her hand. “Last night I invited them to come view your pictures … it was before you—you informed me that it displeased you so.”