“You cannot wait until tonight. I sympathize with your plight. Truly I do. That is why the door is locked.”
Vera was sitting in his lap, and the evidence of his sympathy was physically apparent. “I will wait until tonight, as you have waited for the past five days, but I admit that I have been glad for the pause, Oak.”
“Anticipation and all that rot?”
“Maybe, but also… you are an attentive lover when lovemaking is not on the agenda. I have enjoyed that.” Lapped it up like an alley cat coming upon a defenseless dish of cream.
“I’m a competent lady’s maid?”
He was trying to make the moment light. Vera would think later about why that should be.
“You are an attentive lover,” she said. “You act as if you enjoy my company over a meal, over cards, or when we’re like this. In the middle of the morning, trying to figure out what to do with Dirk’s paintings.”
Oak went quiet, his cheek resting against Vera’s temple. “I do enjoy your company. I hope the feeling is mutual.”
Had she said something wrong? “It is. It very much is.”
He rose with Vera in his arms—how easily he did that—and set her on her feet, though he kept his hands on her shoulders.
“Vera, you could send me to Coventry, refuse to so much as acknowledge me at the breakfast table, and I’d finish the work you’ve tasked me with and be on my way. You don’t owe me a consummation to our dalliance.”
The word dalliance rankled, even in such a gallant context. “I want a consummation, sir.”
“Good.” He kissed her cheek. “As do I. Perhaps tonight we can talk further about what to do with Dirk’s naked treasures.”
Vera disliked the sense that she was being dismissed. “I’m distracting you, aren’t I?”
He dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Distraction is a mere nuisance, an off-key piano played in the next room. Far more accurate to say that you render me witless, and in your presence, I cannot keep my hands to myself, given our plans for the evening.”
She leaned close and took a sniff of him, merely because she could. “I don’t want you to keep your hands to yourself.”
“Yes,” he said, “you do, unless a tumble on a worn and itchy hearth rug appeals to you.”
Vera’s gaze went to the carpet. “It’s not that worn.”
“Out,” Oak said, taking her by the arm and guiding her to the door. “Out, out, out, or I will accomplish nothing this whole day save daydreams of you.”
What a lovely, lovely thing to say. “Until tonight, then. And I’ve decided we will simply return Dirk’s naked ladies to storage.”
Oak looked like he wanted to argue, so Vera patted his bum and slipped out the door, closing it softly behind her. She heard male laughter, then the metallic snick of the lock.
Discipline was a fine quality—in moderation. Vera told herself that her discipline was equal to the challenge of attending to necessary tasks for the rest of the day, though they had best be simple tasks. She had never finished her note to Richard Longacre, so she turned her steps in the direction of her private parlor, intent on completing that courtesy.
The encounter with Oak had been unsettling, not only because of the paintings he’d found, but also because of the man Vera was discovering beneath the artist. The artist was talented, ambitious, hardworking, and determined.
The man was decent, kind, honorable, good-humored, casually virile, and perceptive. Vera nearly hated the artist, precisely because she was falling in love with the man. The artist would hie off to London, never to be seen again, and he’d take a piece of Vera’s heart with him.
Not what she had planned where Oak Dorning was concerned, but she was looking very much forward to nightfall nonetheless.
Catherine was a talented artist whose gifts had been neglected. Oak became more aware of this each time he instructed her. She had an instinctive eye for composition and a quick, accurate hand.
“You truly have inherited your father’s ability,” Oak said as he assessed her pencil portrait of Jeremy Forester. “Your mama will have to find you a permanent drawing master when I leave.”
Forester had agreed to sit for her after lunch, while Oak had been busy with Alexander. The boy demanded to go outside now if the day was fair, and he dawdled and dodged when the time came to return to the schoolroom. Oak regarded both developments as positive steps toward typical childhood behavior.
With Catherine, Oak was more at sea. “You have caught Forester’s capacity for humor and his restlessness,” he said. “What else were you attempting to portray?”
Catherine selected a cherry from the bowl on the table and popped it into her mouth. “I’m not sure. Mr. Forester is not that well known to me.”
They were in the kitchen, where the best still lifes were assembled. The ubiquitous pears and apples were out of season, so Catherine had chosen a bowl of cherries for a study Oak would have her do in pencil, pastels, and watercolors.
And oils. She really should be given at least a passing acquaintance with oils.
“Cherries will be difficult,” she said. “Why must I work with fruit at all? It’s not as if fruit is inherently fascinating.”
“Fruit doesn’t fidget,” Oak said, “even if the project takes hours. Fruit doesn’t drop its petals or scratch its nose. Fruit does not require pleasant conversation by the hour, as you start over, change your mind about a pigment, or realize you’ve sketched an element of the composition all wrong. Fruit doesn’t mind if you need to heed nature’s call, and yet, the challenges of its contours and colors are formidable.”
Catherine munched her cherry, then went to the slop bucket and spit out the pit. “You talk to me like I might be an artist one day. Women aren’t artists.”
Oak snorted. “Tell that to Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman. They were both founding members of the Royal Academy. Tell that to Anne Seymour Damer, whose sculptures have been exhibited at the Academy for decades. If you want depictions of violence that exceed even what your father was able to convey in his battle scenes, find some of Artemisia Gentileschi’s biblical subjects.”
“Who?”
“Precisely. Just because you haven’t heard of her doesn’t mean she didn’t set the world on its ear in a less narrow-minded day.”
Catherine slid into the seat across the table, her movements conveying neither a child’s casual slouch nor a young lady’s self-conscious deportment. She had an inherent grace that would serve her well in adulthood.
“Papa set the world on its ear. He said if England is determined to conquer the world, the price of that conquest should be made apparent. Nobody likes his battle scenes, but they gawk at them endlessly.”
“Art can inform,” Oak said, helping himself to a cherry. “It can make people think, can bring joy or sorrow. Perhaps you won’t become an artist, but if you wish to paint as your father did, I can show you the basics of working in oils.”
Vera might object. She probably should object, in fact.
“If I remind you that women don’t work in oils, Mr. Dorning, will you lecture me again?”
“Possibly, if your point of view is in want of the salient facts.”
“I like your lectures.” She held up the portrait of Forester as if trying to determine whether she liked him. “I was trying to convey that Mr. Forester isn’t as clever as he thinks he is.”
And how had Catherine come to that conclusion? “Put a hint of fear in his eyes.”
“How?”
Oak took the drawing and added a few lines around the eyes, a bit of shading beneath the brows.
“Oh my. That is Mr. Forester to the life.” Catherine studied the portrait, frowning. “How does one know, Mr. Dorning, if one is being flirted with?”
Forester apparently needed a severe lesson in manners. “If the flirtation is competently done, the lady can be sure that humorous banter has taken on harmlessly amorous undertones. If the flirtation is of the bumbling variety, the lady is l
eft feeling uncertain, insulted, or angry. Did Tom Treeble try out his flirtations on you, Catherine?”
She set aside Forester’s portrait and opened her sketchbook to a clean page. “Something like that. The whole business strikes me as silly. Papa was a flirt, and you flirted with the Davies sisters after services. Everybody knows you don’t mean anything by it, so why flirt at all?”
The questions one half-grown female could ask… “I was merely passing the time with new acquaintances.” Oak considered what Catherine had not told him, considered the sketch, and considered the slight awkwardness between Catherine and her step-mother. “If a fellow’s attempts to flirt are unwelcome, Catherine, you simply tell him so.”
“Tell him he’s a bumbler? Are you much acquainted with young men, Mr. Dorning? They do not cope well with unflattering truths.”
I am a young man. Except in Catherine’s eyes, Oak was apparently among the doddering ancients.
“You say something along the lines of, ‘Mr. Treeble, I hope you aren’t attempting to flirt with me. I have no patience with that sort of foolishness, and I have always admired your great good sense.’” Oak had raised the pitch of his voice to a clipped falsetto, though, really, why should a young woman have to offer false flattery to get a fellow to desist with his melting glances and bad puns?
Catherine peered at him over the top of her sketch. “That is very good. I will practice saying that in the mirror. What if I want him to flirt?”
When had an art lesson become something else entirely? “Catherine, might you have this conversation with your mother?”
Her pencil moved more quickly over the page. “That’s twice you’ve referred to Step-mama as my mother. She’s not my mother, and while I love her and am grateful to her, I am not her daughter.”
“Is that what Miss Diggory tells you?”
“Yes. Aunt says the same thing. My mama was Papa’s muse, while I am his by-blow. Merlin Hall is not my home. I am here at Step-mama’s sufferance, and should she send me off into service as a governess,”—Catherine’s expression conveyed endless dread—“I will have nothing to say to it.”
Oak took the sketch of Forester and added some lines about the mouth and nose. “Catherine, Merlin Hall is most assuredly your home. Do you know why your step-mother is selling some of the older works?”
“Because they are cluttering up the attic.”
“Because she wants you to have a considerable dower portion. Because she wants to be able to afford finishing school for you.”
Catherine looked up, gaze narrowed. “Step-mama told you that?”
“She did. She has no use for the money herself, having a life estate here at Merlin Hall. The funds will go to assure your security.” And why the hell would Tamsin Diggory imply that Catherine was destined for a governess’s life?
“By-blows don’t go to finishing schools, Mr. Dorning.” Spoken in faintly amused, condescending tones.
“My beloved niece is a by-blow, and her mother was a tavern maid. Tabitha will start her second year at school in the autumn, and she’s having a grand time. We miss her very much at Dorning Hall.” Oak missed her very much. Casriel’s pining for his daughter went beyond mere missing. “You and she would get on famously.”
Though, of course, they’d never meet.
A beat of silence went by while Catherine’s pencil made short, sharp strokes on the paper. “Why do you want to go to London so badly?” she asked.
Oak had expected more questions about flirtation, or perhaps—this was an art lesson, at least in theory—a query about the differences between oils and watercolors.
“You wield your verbal arrows with the skill of an Amazon, Catherine Channing.” Oak put the last touches on Forester’s eyes. “I am bound for London because the Royal Academy is there, impressive commissions are more likely to be found there, and all the best exhibitions are held there.”
Financial independence lay in London, professional recognition, a commercial and aesthetic demand that Oak could supply. It wasn’t a stretch to say that Oak’s self-respect dwelled in the capital. Among his siblings, he was an oddity, an affectionately tolerated eccentric. Among fellow artists, he could maunder on about brushwork and light and balance, and they would maunder right back at him.
Catherine passed over the drawing she’d been working on, and it was not of cherries in a ceramic bowl on a wooden table.
“You can paint anywhere,” she said, “but if you go to London, I can’t tell you the things I tell no one else. Nobody reassures me that I can stay here. Nobody else has ever said this is my home. I don’t want you to go, and Step-mama and Alexander have been happier since you came here. You should stay.”
She gathered up her effects and would have left Oak sitting at the table, reeling from her broadside, but he had the presence of mind to hand her the sketch of Jeremy Forester.
“Catherine, if Jeremy ever missteps with you, you must promise to tell your step-mother. Not Miss Diggory, not your aunt, not Bracken. Tell your step-mother.”
“I’d rather tell you.”
“I won’t be here.” Though he admitted that he wanted to bide at Merlin Hall. He wanted to stand by, fists at the ready, should Forester overstep with a fourteen-year-old girl. Oak wanted to drop in on the schoolroom and assure himself that Forester was instructing his little charge more than he was intimidating him. Oak wanted very much to be Vera’s lady’s maid for the rest of her days and her lover for the rest of her nights.
Foolishness, all of it. He was at the Hall to restore a few old paintings. Anything else was… Oak didn’t know what it was. An unlooked-for boon. A harmless frolic. Temporary madness.
Catherine gave him an unnervingly adult perusal. “Right. You’ll be in Lon-don, but will you be happy in stinky old London, far from the fresh air you adore and from people who like you? I’m not sure I could be.”
She left, her sketching pencil tucked behind her ear, her sketch pad in hand.
“The work is good,” Richard Longacre said, pulling back draperies to let afternoon sunlight strike Endymion de Beauharnais’s latest creation. “Almost too good to be one of old Shackleton’s portraits.”
De Beauharnais remained silent, very likely seething at the near insult. He excelled at seething, but thank heavens he was even more adept at mimicking other painters’ styles.
“Let’s have a drink to celebrate another success,” Richard said, changing the angle of the portrait’s easel, the better to illuminate the brushwork. “You never disappoint, de Beauharnais. That has become a rare quality among today’s younger talents.”
Richard poured two glasses of excellent brandy and passed one over to his guest. De Beauharnais accepted the drink, probably because he was unable to afford such fine libation at his own quarters.
“To your talent,” Richard said, lifting his glass. And to your ambition.
“And is my talent sufficient to gain me admittance to the Academy, Longacre?”
Richard sipped his drink, needing the moment to marshal his strategy. De Beauharnais was useful only to the extent his objective could be withheld from him, though that objective must appear to dangle ever closer to his grasp.
Richard offered a genial smile. “Your ability is quite the talk of the Exhibition Committee. They are unanimous in their willingness to invite you to contribute to next year’s showing.”
De Beauharnais tossed back half his drink at once, an abomination against the cult of Dionysus, if not against basic manners.
“I exhibited this year, Longacre, and last year and the year before.”
“And you shall exhibit next year. I promised you admittance to the Academy, my friend. I also cautioned you that such a promise cannot be quickly kept. Every flatulent, wheezing pensioner who ever sketched a royal princess’s lapdog thinks he should be the next academician, and his cousin, nephew, or brother-in-law has announced the same conclusion to all of polite society. One must proceed delicately.”
In fact, one usually
had to proceed for decades, producing the right art for the right people, in the right style, before Academy membership was a possibility. Young men with no connections, no wealth, and questionable personal habits stood little chance of admission, no matter their talent.
Life was so unfair.
“You are using me.” De Beauharnais offered not an accusation, but a sadly amused conclusion. “You will never allow me to become even an associate, no matter that I paint better than three-quarters of the current members, including you.”
“You are discouraged,” Longacre replied, adding more brandy to de Beauharnais’s glass. “Rheumatism has left me intimately acquainted with discouragement, but with your abilities, you must persevere. Nobody lives forever, particularly not a lot of profligate old painters and sculptors. Your talent is enormous. We simply need to keep you in coin until the right moment comes along, and you can take your proper place in the art world’s pantheon.”
Flattery was an art demanding every bit as much skill as forgery. A light, sincerely complimentary hand was needed, along with a dollop of ruthlessness.
“I am done with your schemes, Longacre,” de Beauharnais said, taking a more moderate taste of his brandy. “I am talented, I am hardworking. Everybody comes to you for suggestions when they seek to hire an artist. You consign me to your dirty little projects when you could instead refer paying commissions to me.”
Richard set aside his brandy, fished a quizzing glass out of the library’s desk drawer, and moved to stand before the general’s portrait. The old boy would have to spend a few weeks gathering dust and the scent of mildew in the attics, but he’d serve his intended purpose more than adequately.
“I did refer you a paying commission just last week. Mrs. Hambleton Finchley must have a portrait of her twin daughters as they prepare to leave the schoolroom. Bring Tolliver along as your assistant for the commission contemplates that expense. Your fee will be timely and handsomely paid, and she’ll have you back next summer to paint her favorite hunter or canary.”
Tolliver might someday be useful. No reason not to toss a few coins his way.
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