His Wicked Reputation

by Madeline Hunter

  “Where did you get this?” Eva cried. “It must have cost a fortune.”

  “It cost nothing but time.” Rebecca laid it down on the bed. “I used one of Mother’s old dresses and redid it, took another dress for the underskirt, then took the lace off yet another garment. We must fit it once we are in town, but I think it will be close enough.”

  “The laces and fabric in that trunk were for your wardrobe, not mine. You were supposed to—”

  “I have not slighted myself, Eva. I just used some of what was left for this. If we have a chance to attend an assembly, you cannot go otherwise.”

  Eva had not intended to attend such events at all. Rebecca would do better with their cousin at her side, anyway.

  She fondled the satin. She embraced Rebecca and gave her a kiss. “It is a wonderful gift.”

  “I am glad you like it.” Rebecca smiled impishly. “You will turn every head when you wear it. Why, we will probably find you a suitor before we come home.”

  Eva watched her sister leave, then turned to her packing, shaking her head. Sweet Rebecca had it all backward.

  * * *

  Go to Chatsworth. The steward Montley will speak with you.

  That had been all Ives’s letter had said. It needed no further explanation. If such an introduction had been obtained, the chance should not be lost. So Gareth had ridden up to Derbyshire, and the main estate of the Duke of Devonshire.

  Gareth approached Chatsworth’s manor house in late morning. He had already ridden through extensive grounds almost as large as some counties. One of the most famous houses in the world now beckoned beyond the river. He stopped his horse on a rise of land to admire the building and its placement, and the evidence of improvements being showered on the estate by the current duke.

  He could not guess what his reception would be. Presumably this steward would not pretend a higher station. The man would have had some experience dealing with bastard children of dukes, as the last Duke of Devonshire had sired two.

  Grooms took his horse at the house. The butler took his card. Shortly he was escorted to a back office where the steward, Mr. Montley, sat at a high secretaire of incalculable value. A library table beside the desk carried stacks of account books.

  Greetings completed, they moved to two chairs that looked out over the back garden.

  “I should explain that I am not actually the steward,” Montley said. “My position can best be described as a special secretary. With all of the properties, His Grace felt the need for someone to watch and coordinate all the estate stewards.”

  “If you are the man who knows something about these pictures that have gone missing, then you are the man I need to speak with.”

  Thinning dark hair and spectacles made Montley look older than his years, which Gareth estimated to be the late thirties. Perhaps he had been a friend of the duke, and thus more trustworthy than those stewards. He bore the air of gentility and education. A younger son of some peer, most likely, for whom this position had more appeal than the church or the army.

  “I know what little there is to know. I regret that the actual events that led to the misplacement of the pictures remain unknown.”

  “Misplacement. That is a word not used before in the matter.”

  “It is our belief that when the last duke died nine years ago, and the estate was in transition, that these pictures were inadvertently removed from their resting place and sent elsewhere due to some misunderstanding on the part of the household that held them.”

  In other words, it was not our fault.

  “Will you share with me the reason you believe this?” Gareth used all the charm he could muster to say it. There was no profit in challenging Montley.

  “It is the only logical explanation, of course. In addition, the caretaker remembers the inventory made at that time, and a good many objects removed. The other properties have been searched in an attempt to see where the pictures were sent. During the last few years I have personally traveled to each one, because there is no point in sending a list of paintings to butlers who would not know a Raphael from a Rubens.”

  Gareth pictured the many properties of Devonshire, all stuffed with art. He could believe it had taken years to go through it all. The duke owned eight major estates and many smaller ones.

  “You visited each and every one? I envy you. You probably know more about the duke’s collections than he does.”

  Montley gestured to the table. “I took the opportunity to make a complete catalogue. The inventory made at the last duke’s death, while lengthy, had some ambiguities and omissions. Lest you wonder if those were not omissions, but instead the inadvertent incorporation of the missing paintings into the duke’s own collection, let me assure you that I do know Raphael from Rubens. Unfortunately, none of the pictures belonging to his fellow peers could be located in those houses.”

  “Do you have a list of those paintings? My brother has sought to obtain one, but is meeting some resistance.”

  “Perhaps someone fears the list will be published, to the embarrassment of all if it is released.” A meaningful gaze all but said that Devonshire did not want that list circulating.

  “Without such a list, I can hardly help. You will be on your own in this mission.”

  “That might be for the best.”

  “The Prince Regent does not agree. He charged my brother with investigating. I am here instead, due to the death of my half brother. If Devonshire wants no one except you involved, he should tell the Crown that, and I can go about my other business.” He leaned forward companionably. “No one thinks there has been negligence on your part. Yet after, what, four years, the mystery remains. A new pair of eyes and less fastidious methods might yield new facts.”

  Montley laughed. “Less fastidious methods? What, do you intend to beat information out of the servants?”

  Gareth just looked at him.

  Montley frowned. “I am sure your brother would not approve.”

  “You do not know my brother well, do you?”

  Montley flustered. “I see.”

  “Those paintings did not grow legs and walk out of storage.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Someone knows something about this. That person has not confided in you. Perhaps he will confide in me.”

  Montley gazed out the window a long while. Finally he stood.

  “I am authorized by the duke to take you to the house where the pictures were stored. It is not far from here.”

  * * *

  Most families would be proud to have Dunbar Green as their main estate. For the Duke of Devonshire, however, it was an uncelebrated property far down on the list of his holdings. It suffered from Chatsworth’s proximity a mere hour’s ride away, no doubt, although Gareth considered that it had probably been a convenient secret refuge from the big house for lovers over the centuries.

  Not as big, not as handsome, not as lucky in its designer, Dunbar Green also showed some signs of neglect. Montley noticed Gareth eyeing the eaves as they approached on horseback.

  “There is work to do in the attics,” he mentioned. “We will get to it soon. At the moment, His Grace is distracted by plans for a new wing at Chatsworth.”

  His Grace probably had not visited this property in years, if ever. “Does anyone live here?”

  Montley shook his head. “He may sell it. The estate came to him unentailed, if you can believe it. The flexibility it has given him to alter the family’s investments from land to more current profits could be an argument against tying the land up that way.”

  “If every heir were wise, that argument might stand. Too many would gamble it all away if given a free hand. Or so I am told.”

  “Or their wives would,” Montley said dryly. Gareth assumed he referred in part to the last Duke of Devonshire’s first duchess, whose gambling debts would have been ruinous to all but a handful of peers.

  As an uninhabited house, Dunbar Green had few servants. The white-haired man wh
o took their hats upon entry looked old enough to have been there many years. Bent and filmy-eyed, and barely alert to their presence, he studied the floor while shuffling to his duties.

  “We will be going up to the attics,” Montley said to the man, even as he led the way to the stairs. “Have the horses fed and watered.”

  The attics were above the servant quarters, with small windows in dormers over the eaves. The usual remnants of a house’s long history filled it. Montley gestured around. “As you can see, most of the furniture and such was moved to this end, to make room to store the pictures over here.”

  Gareth walked over and examined the space. He judged it large enough to hold at least one hundred framed paintings if they were boxed and lined up front-to-back in long stacks against the wall. The center of the space, under the roof beam, would be high enough to accommodate the largest canvases, those of palatial size.

  “I imagine they were shocked to find it empty,” Gareth said.

  “That is putting a fine point to it. The arrangements were made twenty years ago, of course, and with the last duke’s permission. The current duke was not even aware of them, until he received a letter from the Prince Regent informing him that men were coming to retrieve the goods.”

  “Are any of the Prince’s treasures involved?”

  “He does have a home on the coast. A few choice works from Brighton were included, I am told.”

  They left the upper reaches of the house and went outside.

  Gareth took in the lay of the land around the house. “Are there any external buildings that I cannot see? Could they have been moved somewhere right on this estate?”

  Montley shook his head. “A few servant cottages and a vicar’s house. All have been searched.” He stepped down as the horses were brought around.

  “I think I will ride a bit, all the same,” Gareth said.

  “What are you looking for?”

  Damned if he knew. Still, there was nothing more to learn from Montley.

  “Well, return when you are done with it. We will put you up, and you can spend the evening with the collection, if you like. But I doubt you will get through even a tenth of that which is out for public view.”

  “I will be there.”

  Montley trotted his horse down the lane. Gareth began to mount when he noticed the servant who worked the door looking out a window. Rather suddenly the man did not appear so old and filmy-eyed. Leaving his horse, Gareth returned to the house.

  The man held the door wide and stood aside, asking no questions.

  “A word with you,” Gareth said.

  “Me, sir?” He squinted up, confused.

  “Yes. You have served here a long time, I assume.”

  “Fifteen years. Was at Chiswick House until I began to slow. This is where they put those of us getting on in years. I’m to be pensioned off next year.”

  Fifteen years. That meant he came after the pictures were hidden in the attics. “When the last duke died, were there any big changes here?”

  “Changes?”

  “Movement of household goods. Visitors wanting to go through the attics or peek under the floorboards.”

  He laughed. “Getting what they could before any inventory, you mean.”

  “That is what I mean.”

  “A lady came by. She took a pillow from one of the bedchambers. A relic of fond memories, she said. Perhaps she had enjoyed a particularly pleasant house party.”

  “Nothing else? In all that time during the transition?”

  He set his face into a placid mask and shook his head.

  “Come now. You will not be criticized for telling me. No one will challenge that pension. Devonshire needs to know this. I ask in his name.”

  “One day the second duchess arrived. A wagon accompanied her. She explained that the late duke had given her permission to take what she wanted for her own house, from any of his properties. I expect she chose this one because there would be no one to gainsay her.”

  “What did she take?”

  “Chairs and tables, I suppose.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I discovered the obligation to be occupied elsewhere during most of her residence.”

  Wise man. No wonder he had lasted so long in a duke’s service. He could not report what he had not seen, nor answer questions should they be asked.

  “Were there any other such visits during your tenure here?”

  “A few overnights while journeying elsewhere, on the part of relatives or nobility who did not want to impose on the main estate. There was one house party before the late duke passed. Mr. Clifford brought some of his naval officer friends here for a long hunting weekend.”

  Clifford was old Devonshire’s bastard, by the same woman who later became his second duchess. The same duchess who had raided the place after her husband died. “Did you discover the need to be occupied elsewhere that time too?”

  “Why, yes, sir. How did you know? My old aunt was feeling poorly, and since Mr. Clifford had brought his own servants, I took a short journey to visit her.”

  “Were there any other times you discovered the need to be elsewhere?”

  “Due to my aunt’s condition, I took the opportunity to visit her whenever visitors came with their own people.”

  Gareth took his leave, mounted his horse, and set out to ride the property looking for who knew what.

  He did not like that two of the people who now had to be questioned were the last duke’s wife and bastard son. If Ives had suspected where this would turn and had thrown him into the fire, he intended to thrash him soundly.

  CHAPTER 9

  Going to Birmingham proved a complicated matter. Since she needed to also transport the paintings, Eva hired a wagon to take them to town. She and Rebecca sat in the back hoping it would not rain and ruin their bonnets.

  The first stop upon reaching Birmingham was Mr. Stevenson’s stationery store. A short, bald man with bulbous eyes, he greeted Eva with a bigger smile than normal. She assumed that was because beautiful Rebecca stood at her side this time.

  “I have brought ten paintings,” she explained. “I hope you can take them.”

  Mr. Stevenson beamed with delight. “Of course. In fact—” He gestured to the walls of his shop.

  Eva looked around. Only three of her paintings decorated the walls, and they were all landscapes she had painted with no more inspiration than her own eyes and middling talent.

  “The rest were all bought last month,” Mr. Stevenson said, enjoying her surprise. “A buyer from London took every one. He expressed interest in more. I think, Miss Russell, that we have found a most lucrative patron.”

  “Why would anyone want so many paintings? I am grateful and relieved, of course. I feared we were close to your having no more room for new ones.”

  “I think, but may be wrong, that this patron has his own picture shop, and is reselling them there.”

  “Truly? What is his name?”

  “He did not say. I did not press him. I was too happy to care overmuch.”

  “How will you let him know we have more, then?”

  “I will find a way. Now, come, come. I have your money and a handsome amount it is indeed.”

  Eva gestured for the waggoneer to bring in the paintings, then followed Mr. Stevenson to his back office. There, with some ceremony, he opened a strongbox and counted out pounds.

  She stared at the banknotes as the stack grew. There had been ten paintings here. The final stack contained twenty pounds. She had seen two pounds per painting, far more than in the past when ten shillings would make her dance.

  “You can see why I am excited by this development,” Mr. Stevenson said. “You will be bringing more, I trust.”

  Her own excitement cracked and crashed. She had no idea if she could ever bring more. Her source of paintings to copy had been closed. “Had this buyer no interest in the landscapes?”

  “I fear not, Miss Russell. He did admire them, but they wer
e not what he sought.”

  She tucked the banknotes into her reticule. “I understand. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. It appears our alliance has finally born the best fruit. I will write and alert you to when I am coming with another group.”

  “Please do, please do.” He fawned pleasantries on her while he escorted Rebecca and her out to the street.

  “He was lying,” Rebecca said as soon as the shop’s door closed behind them. “He knows the name of that patron, and is writing to him already to say he has more. Only you will not see the money until you bring him additional paintings, which you will not be able to do.”

  “I am embarrassed that my little sister’s shrewdness surpasses my own,” Eva admitted. “I was so mesmerized by all that money that my wits deserted me.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Regarding Mr. Stevenson, I do not know yet. However, there is one thing I most definitely intend to do immediately.” She gestured for the waggoneer. “Sir, please go and procure for us a hackney cab. Once it comes, you can commence your journey back to Langdon’s End.”

  With twenty pounds in her reticule, she would be damned before they arrived at their cousin’s house in the back of this wagon.

  * * *

  Cousin Sarah, red-haired, plump, and vivacious, extended both warmth and the best hospitality. She and her husband, Wesley, lived on a fine street of newer houses, all of them tall and elegant and white. The less savory elements of Birmingham, bred of its industries, did not touch their neighborhood. Five servants tended to their needs inside, and two more took care of their carriage and horses at the back of the large garden.

  The family had adopted a high degree of gentility in its workings. Mr. Rockport might leave the house each day to tend to trade, and late nights on the town might be a rarity, but Eva grew nostalgic for her youth beginning the first day. She might have been sent back in time, to before the deprivations and frugalities. From breakfasts in the morning room to evenings of card play in the library, she found so much of her visit painfully familiar.