Reckless in Red

by Rachael Miles

  “Then I’ll be going; my Ella will be waiting. By the way, the canvas maker sent round a boy to collect his last payment.” Louis cast a sympathetic look at Lena.

  Lena stiffened, but did not reply, appearing to be completely engrossed in her examination of the damaged painting.

  “I’ll see Louis out.” Clive followed Louis to the back door of the Rotunda.

  “I hate to say this, but it has to be one of the crew doing this damage. Harald never leaves the door unattended, so someone couldn’t sneak in repeatedly. But someone could hang back and hide until the Rotunda is closed.” Louis rubbed his chin. “You stay close to her.”

  “I intend to do just that.”

  Louis stuck out his hand, and Clive shook it.

  Clive watched the older man until he reached the street and disappeared into the heavy pedestrian traffic. No more Rotunda craftsmen were going to be losing their lives, not if Clive could stop it. Clive examined the door of the Rotunda, its hinges, latch, and lock. Everything seemed sound, but whoever was tampering with the exhibition had found a way in.

  * * *

  Back inside the Rotunda, Clive found Lena under the exhibition platform near a large supply closet built into the back wall. She’d already filled a basket with two lanterns, matches, various paints, brushes, and solvents, and she was loading wood into what appeared to be a kiln. Beside her was a narrow wheelbarrow holding a pot, a bucket of wax, an iron, and several large strips of linen.

  “I understand that you must repair the damage yourself, but could none of your craftsmen paint?”

  “The portrait painters are all gone.” She flung kindling into the kiln, her movements sharp, even angry. “I paid them their last wages before Horatio disappeared. Those who remain are builders, like Louis, not painters.”

  “Can you call them back?”

  “I haven’t the money to call them back.” Instantly, her fury became visible. “Horatio took it, every penny that we hadn’t yet spent, all that remained of the subscription fees, everything. Without Lady Wilmot’s advance, I’d have had to ask everyone—my crew, my suppliers, the musicians at the gala, and a dozen more contractors—to extend me credit, hoping that the fact I’ve paid so promptly before would vouch for me.” She flung more wood into the pile.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “And confirm that I have a motive for killing the man in Horatio’s bedroom? You said it yourself: ‘The only way this could be worse would be if Calder’s absconded with all the money.’” Lena brushed her cheek with the back of her hand and met his eyes defiantly. “How would you have responded if you’d known?”

  “I would have done exactly as I did.” He stepped close to her, close enough to feel her frustration, rising in waves. “I don’t know what is going on. I don’t know why you seem to have become a target. But I don’t believe you killed your partner, or your crew, or that you are responsible for any of this.” He watched as her shoulders lowered and her tension seemed to abate. Helping her to her feet, he enclosed her in his arms. “However, I do believe this: we will find the answers together.”

  She leaned her head forward into his chest, forehead against his breastbone. He put his hand against the back of her head, cradling her in his arms. They stood still for several moments, him offering her the kindness and support that she needed. She lifted her head, looking into his eyes, searching for the answer to a question she hadn’t yet asked. He waited for the question, but after a moment, she tapped his chest with her fingers, letting him know their embrace had ended.

  She returned to the fire, lighting it with skill. She placed the iron directly on the wood, then hung the pot of wax above the flames. As the wax melted, she brushed it onto the linen, permeating the fabric. When all the strips were waxed, she moved them to the wheelbarrow, then she placed the iron, now red-hot, in a deep iron bucket in the cart.

  Pushing the wheelbarrow, she quietly made her way to the back door. There a split in the canvas gave her access to a three-foot-wide space between the canvas and the exterior wall. The narrow wheelbarrow fit perfectly. He respected her silence, recognizing in her deliberate movements the concentration of an artist. He followed her, not because he could help, but because he needed to be near her and needed to ensure she was safe.

  The damage was obvious: each long cut let in a stream of light from the exhibition platform. Lena worked quickly, placing the linen strips on the cuts, then using the iron to melt the wax and meld the two fabrics together. By the time the iron had grown cold, she was done. She ran her fingers around the edges to ensure they were well-affixed. Satisfied with her work, she nodded him back the way they had come.

  Back at the storage case, she let him help her empty the wheelbarrow, then she put in her basket of supplies. This time, he lifted the handles before she could. She started to object, but instead, she led him to the scaffold. There, she tied a rope to the basket and then climbed up, pulling the supplies behind her. By the time he’d climbed up, she’d lit the lanterns.

  The damaged section presented a group of British soldiers helping their wounded peers from the field. To accommodate the distance between the viewing platform and the painting itself, Lena had designed the figures to be more than life-size.

  Clive examined the repairs that now appeared like long cracks in the painting. “With just the wax and linen, you might not notice the repair from twenty feet away.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on. In an easel painting, I’d never repair it this way because eventually the surface will craze.”

  Clive sat beside her as she mixed paints on her palette. “I know you like to work in silence, but would you mind explaining how the repair will work?”

  Lena’s face softened. “I’m mixing lead white with flesh-colored pigments to match the parts of the face. Eyebrows. Lips. Skin.” She pointed at the blobs of paint with the palette knife. “While it’s still wet, I’ll wipe on a lean damar varnish mixed with turpentine. That will give enough of a shine to hide the repair.”

  Where the linen had been joined with the wax, Lena began to fill the crack with the various paints, then when done, she took a stiff bristle brush and smoothed out the textures so that it matched the surrounding surface.

  Clive watched her complete the process twice. “I can’t paint, but I could do the final smoothing with the bristle brush.”

  She looked torn, but interested. “Show me.”

  She watched his every movement, giving him tips along the way, and when he had finished, she agreed to move on to the next repair, letting him do the final smoothing.

  They worked in tandem, him smoothing the previous repair, while she moved on to the next face. In between, he watched her paint, her sure skill transforming each long crease back into a face.

  She looked up, clearly pleased with her work. Once more, he felt the pull of her, a deep sense of connection that went beyond anything he’d ever imagined. She wet her lips with her tongue, its pink tip fascinating him, and he imagined kissing her. She blushed as if reading his thoughts.

  “This one will be ready for you in a few minutes.” She waved him away with her paintbrush. “Go look at the rest of the panorama. You are distracting me.”

  “My dear, you are the distraction.” Clive resisted the impulse to lean down and nuzzle her hair.

  “Go.” She pressed her brush into the paint, dismissing him. “I’ll call you back when I’m ready to move on.”

  Though reluctant to leave her side, Clive stepped back to examine the section. He considered every detail: the uniforms of the British soldiers; the eyes of the horses, wide with terror; the sky filled with gun and cannon smoke. Past that, at the far end of the section, two officers consulted a map, one pointing the viewer’s attention to the center of the painting (still hidden by a curtain), where, Clive assumed, the central part of the battle was depicted. “This section is magnificent. If the rest is half as good as this, your panorama will be the talk of the town for months.” He moved closer to
her, focusing his attention on one of the wounded men. “Who is this?”

  “It’s just a face.” She rubbed out a bit of chin and started over. “Horatio joked that we should sell the faces for a bit of extra profit. But I didn’t want to depict a known coward as a hero merely because he’d paid for it or to show a man at the battle who hadn’t served. We agreed that the only identifiable faces would be Wellington and the other officers, though sometimes we do include the face of a man known to have died heroically.”

  “Well, this man didn’t serve. He’s the proprietor of a poorhouse near Lincoln’s Inn Fields and completely lame.” He pointed to a man binding another man’s wounds. “And this man here. He just opened a new anatomy school near Covent Garden. Why would Calder include these men?”

  She moved to the next damaged face. “I’ve given up trying to figure out what’s going on.”

  Clive stepped back, looking at the painting at large. “How many faces were destroyed?”

  “Eight.”

  “Eight,” he repeated. “Could your Horatio be sending us a message? I’ve been searching for a single villain, but after our experience at the cemetery, perhaps it’s an entire gang.” He returned to the scene with the two officers examining a map. “And what’s this?”

  “A map of the field of Waterloo from the British perspective.” She didn’t look up.

  “It’s not Waterloo; it’s England, though a distorted England.” He leaned in. “The midlands are enlarged, making the west of England bulge badly toward Wales.”

  “That can’t be.” She lowered her brush and looked down toward the map. She rose and touched the paint of the map. It was still tacky, but not overly so. “This has been repainted, three, maybe four days ago.”

  “A vandal would destroy, not paint.”

  “But if this map is a message, I’m not sure what it means.”

  “We can review Calder’s notes once you’ve finished here. But for now, think. Did Calder say anything about the midlands, Lena? Anything at all? Did he leave you any other message?”

  Without thinking, she touched her bodice where she’d hidden Horatio’s note. She closed her eyes, trying to remember anything Horatio might have said or done before he disappeared. She worked her way forward in memory, from the last time she’d seen him, to his note, his rooms, the body, the lemons.

  The lemons. She removed the tightly folded piece of paper from her bodice.

  Clive tried not to let his eyes linger on her generous bosom. He recognized the packet—it was the one he’d saved from the laundry without reading.

  “Horatio left me a note.”

  “When?” He walked back to meet her.

  “I found it a moment before you arrived to burgle his office.”

  “I wasn’t burgling.”

  “Did you take anything away?” She searched his face.

  He avoided her eyes.

  “That’s a confession. Burglar.” She began to unfold the note, but stopped. “What did you take?”

  “A wood carving of a bird was wedged in the back of a drawer—I practically had to take the desk apart to get it out.”

  She grew very still. “It’s not a bird. It’s a tavern called the Pelican, or the Albatross, some seabird. Horatio bought the carving there several weeks ago, and he’d sit at his desk for hours, just turning it over. Whenever I would ask about it, he would change the subject.” She unfolded Horatio’s note and held it out. “Perhaps it was meant to accompany this.”

  Clive read “RUN” written large in the middle of the paper and remembered her in the office, shoulders back, spine straight, defying him. “No wonder you pretended to be someone else. You must have been terrified. I wish we’d met under better circumstances. Perhaps if I had been introduced to you by a trusted friend at a crowded ball, you might believe that I wish only to help you.” When Lena didn’t respond, he added, “Were you supposed to run to or from this tavern? I believe the bird is a heron. Does that sound familiar as its name?”

  “I don’t know. I never went with him.” Lena pulled the two lamps close together to create a bright pool of light. “But Horatio might have left more than that one word. Remember the lemons?” She held Horatio’s note carefully over the lamps, her face narrowing with concentration.

  The lemon juice darkened into an image, drawn in thin lines. At the top was an ornate gate, flanked with a row of trees on either side. Yews, for Horatio had sketched a leaf beside them. Beneath one yew stood an angel, hands clasped in prayer. A line led down the page, past a series of hasty, short lines in rows. Some of the lines squiggled upward. He’d numbered the rows: eighteen. Near the bottom of the page was a sort of building.

  “What is it?” He watched over her shoulder.

  “I’d say it’s a graveyard.”

  “Any indication of which one?”

  “No. It’s not a pauper’s cemetery: pauper’s graves don’t have markers. The angels, oaks, and gate could narrow the options down. But why leave me an image of a cemetery?”

  “Would Horatio leave you a memento mori?”

  “No. He’s more likely to leave me a statement of which tailors have yet to be paid for his suits.”

  “Might I have a closer look?”

  She pushed the note into his hand, frustrated and scared. Horatio’s original message was bad enough. But to find the image of a cemetery on the back of his note was even more disturbing. What did it mean? Was it, as Clive suggested, a memento mori reminding her that death was always at hand? Or some other message? She had no idea.

  “Lemon juice isn’t a medium for much detail. The gate, yes. We can see something of an unusual design, but it would help to know what sort of trees flank it. At least he’s numbered the rows for the graves. May I heat it a bit more?”

  She stepped back from the lamps.

  “I think there might be something more here.” Holding one corner of the candles, he teased out additional lines.

  “Why not simply tell me an address?”

  “Perhaps he was afraid someone other than you might find the note.” He turned the note face up. “Have you noticed RUN is spaced unevenly? Look at this odd, long ornamentation before the downstroke.”

  She leaned in close, breathing in the comforting scent of him. “Is that a D?”

  “Then we have the R in RUN, but there’s an odd mark I can’t make out behind it.”

  “The U is bisected to become a B.”

  “I can see it now. Look here.” He pointed at the N, where a faint line from the back made it into an oddly shaped Y.

  “DRBY.” She repeated the letters. “Between the D and the R, that squiggle could be an A or an E.”

  Looking away from Horatio’s note, he pointed to the panorama. “The map the officers are holding is distorted to emphasize Derbyshire. That map leads us to the shire; your note leads to the city and, using these details, to a particular cemetery.”

  Lena suppressed a niggle of discomfort. At least the map didn’t lead to Kent or to Gravelines in France. She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Horatio would know that I can’t leave the panorama to find some crypt just because he has told me to run and given me an ambiguous clue.”

  “I could investigate for you, but whatever is hidden in that crypt might be something that only you will understand.”

  “How? I know almost nothing of Horatio’s past before coming to London, except that he’s originally from Edinburgh. Where he’s been in between, or even recently, I have no idea. He wasn’t a man to share his secrets easily—and we’ve never spoken of Derby.” Her voice broke, but she did not cry.

  “We know this: he’s left you two maps.” He held Horatio’s note up to the map on the canvas. “He wants you to go to Derby, and once there, to a cemetery.”

  “And still we know nothing.” She sat down in front of the fourth face, her lower legs dangling off the edge of the scaffold.

  He sat beside her, watching her mix the flesh tones. Her colors were impeccable, her techni
que flawless. He watched and waited.

  “There,” she announced as she finished the fifth face.

  “We need to go to Derby, Lena.” His voice was gentle. “Derby may be smaller than London—only about thirteen thousand residents—but it’s still too big to investigate alone.”

  She sat unmoving. He took her paintbrush from her hand and set it on her palette, then he drew her close to him. He simply held her, her body tucked into his side. Eventually, the tension in her back and shoulders began to release into his embrace. “Trust me, Lena. Let me help you. . . .” When she didn’t respond, he added, “As a friend.”

  “What if I don’t want to be friends? What if . . .” Her voice trailed off. She lifted her face to his. Then without waiting for his response, she pressed her lips against his, replacing her fear and frustration with desire. He returned her kisses each for each, matching her pressure, her pace, until neither of them could think past the next sweet touch. He pulled off her mob bonnet and released the pins holding her hair. It fell around her shoulders in thick waves. He ran his fingers through the heavy mass, cradling her head, as he plundered her mouth.

  Lena focused on the feeling of him, his firm shoulders, solid chest, muscled belly. Without thinking, she let his kisses pull her forward until she was half lying on his chest. Their legs were entwined on the platform, and her passion rose as she realized she could have him under her. She placed her hands on either side of his head, then with one quick motion, she positioned herself over him, her chest to his, her legs to either side of his narrow hips.

  “Ah, Lena.” He whispered her name with such longing that her heart ached. He ran his hands down the sides of her body, holding her against him.

  Their hands were greedy, feeling each other’s bodies as if there weren’t layers of clothing between them.

  She realized a moment before he did that her typical work uniform left them few options, short of undress.

  “Trousers.” He groaned against her mouth. “For all the appeal of a woman in breeches, I discover a disadvantage.”