by Bliss Bennet
But Adler paid him little heed, focusing all of his attention on his guest. “Sit here, will you, in the most comfortable chair. Will you take refreshment while we wait, my lord? Or would you prefer to step into the gallery first?”
To see such fawning behavior in the usually businesslike Adler would be comical, if only his plan to snare Dulcie for his granddaughter did not depend on handing over some of the best works in his collection to the rogue.
“If I were a true gentleman, I would insist we wait for Miss Adler to return. But will you excuse my impatience if I admit I would prefer the gallery?” Dulcie’s winning smile had charmed many a man even more assertive than Julius Adler. “Your granddaughter may view any of your paintings at any time she wishes, but my opportunities are far more fleeting.”
“Just now, perhaps,” Benedict said as he stepped between the two men. “But not so rare in future. Mr. Adler is to donate a portion of his collection to the nation, to form the basis of a national gallery.”
“Are you indeed, sir?” Dulcie’s eyebrows rose high over his bright blue eyes. “How public-spirited of you. I’m afraid that were I in your position, I would be hard-pressed to be so selfless.”
“Now, now, Pennington, nothing has been positively decided on that front, as you well know,” Adler said, his genial tone at odds with the sharpness of the look he cut at Benedict. “And I would not deserve the name of grandfather if I did not retain some of the pictures for Polyhymnia, for when she sets up her own household. Come, my lord, let me show you some of my favorites.”
Benedict followed the pair into the long gallery, intending to keep his eyes, and ears, attuned to his companions. Yet his breath could not help but catch at the sheer abundance of artistry on display on Adler’s walls. When he’d last been in this room, he’d been distracted by the chore of hanging a picture, by Adler’s impatience and Polly’s indecisiveness and frustration. But today, Adler’s now-familiar stories of how he had acquired this Titian and that Rubens lapping at the edges of his attention, he gradually slipped into his own mind, transfixed by the wonders before him. The ideals of virtue and beauty he had once foolishly thought to find in a mere human being hung embodied, here on these walls. He gave himself over to it, losing himself in their transcendent glories.
Dulcie’s voice broke Benedict’s silent worship. “And you think to open your gallery to the public, sir? Can such a wide audience be trusted to show proper respect to such works?”
Benedict fumed. Why should Dulcie, or even Benedict, be allowed to experience such sublime beauty when so many others, men and women far more worthy than he, might never be given the chance? What a loss, never to see the textures of paint on canvas, nor the subtleties of color and tint and shade. To have to be content with mere engravings, if one wished for a glimpse at all.
How many weary people passed in the street below each day, entirely unaware that such splendor, such sublimity, lay just beyond the door? The world would be a far better place if people could break free of the mundane details of their everyday lives, even for a few brief moments, to ponder such transcendent beauty. These paintings should not be the province of only the privileged few, but open to any pilgrim who wished to worship at their altar.
“How dangerous you look!” Benedict jerked from his reverie as Clair’s words whispered in his ear. “A knight on crusade, no, a holy martyr, fired by the passion and purity of true devotion—that is how I would paint you, if only I had the skill.”
How long had he been standing there, captive to his own frustrations?
He blinked, too aware of the warm body standing by his side.
“You favor the new Carracci? Saint John in the wilderness is a sight to inspire,” Dulcie continued when Benedict remained silent. Damn, his attention would fix on that painting, even when his thoughts drifted elsewhere. He took a deep breath, his upper arm brushing for an instant against Dulcie’s shoulder. A trick of the mind, to still expect that Dulcie would be the taller. But if he turned to face him, he would have to look down, not up, to meet those clear blue eyes, snapping with intelligence and laughter.
Dulcie laced a hand through Benedict’s arm and turned him to the opposite wall. “But my attention is drawn to Ganymede and his eagle. Was not the story told in one of the passages you once translated for me, Zeus abducting the most beautiful of mortals to be his cup-bearer in Olympus?”
And to be something more to the god, too, at least according to the passage in Xenophon young Dulcie had set him. Benedict’s toes curled in his boots.
“I am surprised Mr. Adler allows it to be displayed where his innocent granddaughter may see it. But perhaps he is not as familiar with all of the versions of the myth as we are. Or he assumes Miss Adler’s ignorance.” Dulcie strolled farther down the gallery, stopping before Adler’s Poussin. “I wonder how he explains the meaning of this bacchanalian scene to the poor girl.”
Yes, that particular picture, with its whirling satyrs and naked men, its fleshy nymphs and fat Silenus too cup-shot to stand, was licentious enough to give even a collector like Adler pause. Yet it was one of the most accomplished, and most dazzling, works in the entire gallery. He was glad he had encouraged the man to purchase it, despite Adler’s doubts.
“You have no thoughts, Mr. Pennington?” One side of Dulcie’s mouth rose, always a dangerous sign. “I suppose I must ask Miss Adler herself, then.”
“Clair, no,” Benedict said, but it was too late. Polly must have come downstairs while he had been lost in his own musings.
Dulcie’s eyes sparkled—damnation, had he truly spoken that old pet name aloud?—as he waved to Polly, encouraging her to join them rather than linger by the door waiting for her grandfather, who stood discussing some matter with a servant. “Come, Miss Adler, we must have your opinion.”
“My opinion of what, my lord?” she asked as she joined them.
“Of depicting vice in art,” Dulcie answered, his voice heavy with affected concern. He gestured to the painting. “Are you not afraid of being condemned by the moralists for hanging such a scene on your walls?”
Polly frowned. “The Poussin? Grandfather says it is one of the master’s finest works.”
“But it depicts the most outrageous of bacchanals. No pious orgy that! Who can view such mad-headed, tipsy revelry without wanting to emulate it? Should not our finest artwork promote virtue, rather than vice?”
“Certainly! But no man of discernment would scorn to display a scene taken directly from mythology of the Greeks.”
“Ah, it is its classical subject which excuses it,” Dulcie said, nodding in apparent agreement.
“Not just its subject, but its execution,” Benedict interjected, unable to keep silent even though he knew Dulcie was only teasing. “Have ever you seen such prodigious draftsmanship? Such high-wrought expression? It would be a crime to condemn such mastery.”
Dulcie raised an eyebrow. “Does the purity of the drawing, then, make amends for the impurity of its subject?”
“Yes,” Polly said before Benedict could answer. “The same subject, badly executed, would hardly be endured.”
“Indifferent pictures, like dull people, must be absolutely moral!” Dulcie exclaimed. “And those persons of more gallantry than discretion, who think that to have an indecent daub hanging up in one corner of the room is proof of a liberality of taste and a considerable progress in virtue, quite mistake the matter.”
Dulcie and Polly’s shared laughter drew the attention of her grandfather, who smiled, no doubt pleased by the pair’s growing accord.
“And when will a painting by your granddaughter adorn these walls, Mr. Adler?” Dulcie asked.
“A painting by Polyhymnia? Amongst the Old Masters?” Adler looked taken aback. “I doubt any woman, particularly one gently bred, will ever be numbered amongst the true geniuses of the art.”
Benedict cringed inwardly at Adler’s lack of sensitivity. “If ladies are never given the opportunity to practice and study, as men are,
then I would have to agree with you, sir.”
“I wonder if Miss Adler might consider the opportunity of painting a portrait?” Dulcie asked. “I have been considering having my own likeness taken, in anticipation of sharing it in the not too distant future with a—well, the least said on that front, the better. I had thought to engage Northcote, or perhaps Beechy, but after viewing Miss Adler’s work, I am taken with the idea of a portrait painted by a lady.”
Damn, but the man knew how to flatter. After viewing her work on Benedict’s portrait, any sensible man would flee from the prospect of having Polly’s critical eye limn his likeness. But Polly’s shoulders, which had drooped so at her grandfather’s comments, suddenly straightened, and she clasped her hands to her chest.
“What a charming thought. So gallant you are, my lord,” Mr. Adler said before Polly could offer her own assent. “But here is a better idea. Why not have Pennington undertake the task? Sitting for one’s portrait is tedious at the best of times, but Polyhymnia could read to you, or engage you in diverting conversation, while Pennington sketched and daubed. Yes, far more proper, a far better idea.”
Adler knew his granddaughter well enough that he realized she’d be far more intent on her own art than on being pleasing to Dulcie if she were to paint him. And he no doubt thought he was doing Benedict a favor, by suggesting he take on the commission in Polly’s place. But the thought of sitting for hours gazing at the mere shell of beauty that was Sinclair Milne—no. Benedict would never undertake such a thing, even if doing so would cause Polly no hurt.
“Sir, while it would be a privilege to take the viscount’s likeness, I hardly think—”
“No need to think, Pennington,” Adler interrupted, intent on arranging things to his own liking, as was his wont. “Just to paint. You could use Polly’s room, bring in any materials, take as much time as you like.”
When they had traveled together on the continent, Benedict had valued Adler’s ability to organize and to plan, and been more than content to leave all the mundane details of tickets and timetables to the older man. But he was beginning to understand how Polly could find her grandfather’s need to control more than a little frustrating.
But when he turned to Polly for support, the girl was smiling, not frowning. “What a wonderful idea, grandfather. But you cannot ask Mr. Pennington to bring his materials back and forth between his house and ours each time the viscount comes to sit.”
“Bah, he needn’t do any such thing. John the footman can do any carting required.”
“But Grandfather, you cannot imagine the trouble it would cause Mr. Pennington, asking him to move his things.”
“And an artist needs to be free to create whenever the inspiration overtakes him,” Dulcie added. “In the middle of the night, at the first blush of dawn, even, if he is not the most pious of men, on the Sabbath. If his best brush, or the precise pigment he needs, are not immediately to hand—well, I would never wish such frustrations on an artist I admired.”
“You wouldn’t?” Adler said, clearly caught between his desire to please Dulcie and his wish to keep any meetings between the man and his granddaughter under his own roof.
“No indeed. Just imagine the portrait that might result, if the poor painter took out his frustrations on canvas.”
“Yes, grandfather, I think it far better for me, rather than for Mr. Pennington’s things, to be the one to travel back and forth. You would not mind calling at Pennington House, my lord, while the necessary sittings are required?” she asked Dulcie.
“No, not at all,” he answered with a grin. “Though Miss Pennington is betrothed to another, she and I are still on cordial terms.”
“Well, then.” Adler’s brow furrowed. “But would it not be an imposition on your brother, or his household, Mr. Pennington?”
“Oh, Saybrook won’t mind,” Dulcie answered before Benedict could even open his mouth. “The more the merrier with him. And besides, I’ve practically the run of the place myself already.”
“Then it is all but settled, except for the day we shall begin,” Polly said with a clap of her hands. “What say you to Friday?”
Benedict blinked. But the moment to protest seemed already behind him. Dulcie and Polly were engrossed, fair curls bent to chestnut knot, planning and scheming, with Adler interjecting the occasional offer of a carriage, servants, and supplies.
What in heaven’s name was Polly up to?
And why did she wish Benedict to play chaperone while she did it?
Benedict threw down his charcoal and glared at the face he’d just roughed out. His father, drawn from memory with quick, flowing lines, smiled back, even though in Benedict’s rendering he looked more like a mocking ghost than a human being. Laughing at Benedict’s feeble efforts to capture his likeness, no doubt. The late Viscount Saybrook, the epitome of sociability, had never understood how a son of his could prefer being alone with his pencils and sketches rather than engaging in the rough and tumble of the political wrangling he so thrived on himself.
With a grunt, Benedict jerked the sheet from the easel he had set up in his attic studio and crumpled it into a ball. Trying to draw from memory rather than from a model hadn’t helped him shake off the damned pall that had shrouded his creativity ever since he’d returned to England. Perhaps he should take himself back to Paris after his sister’s wedding, or maybe even to Rome. He’d thought he’d learned all he could from studying the glories of classical antiquity and the great masterpieces of the Renaissance one encountered every day in that ancient city, thought he’d been ready to move forward into something fresh, something new. But perhaps he needed to go back to the beginning, back to the roots, to recapture the inspiration London had snuffed right out of him.
Or perhaps he only needed to escape this infernal English rain. Who could create anything of beauty in such a dismal climate? With a curse, he kicked the crumpled ball of his drawing towards the far too large pile of half-finished canvasses leaning on the studio’s back wall.
“Foot-ball, Pennington? I don’t recall you being particularly fond of the playing fields when we were at school,” drawled a voice behind him.
By the holy poker of hell! Benedict closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck, stilling the small hairs that had stood on end at the sound of that familiar voice. Bad enough to have demons of the imaginary sort haunting his only sanctuary; now he had to suffer its invasion by one in the flesh, one that he’d been stupid enough to invite in himself.
Benedict turned, taking in the sight of Sinclair Milne as he leaned against the door frame in a pose of studied casualness, one clearly meant to draw the eye. Immaculately turned out in a dark green coat, full-length trousers, and an elaborately knotted cravat that must have taken his valet hours to perfect. Though the peacock couldn’t quite bring himself to completely follow Brummell’s austere sartorial dictates; feathered paisleys of a rich green and coppery-gold danced across the breadth of his showy silk waistcoat. Benedict laughed under his breath. Hardly surprising that Dulcie should wear a garment that would require the use of king’s yellow, a pigment known for its dangerous fumes and offensive smell, to reproduce on canvas with any degree of accuracy.
Benedict’s muscles tightened. Dulcie stood by himself in that doorway, no footman or Miss Adler beside him. As a boy, Benedict had seized any opportunity he could to catch the popular Dulcie away from their fellow schoolmates, but since returning to England, he’d made sure never to allow himself to be with the man alone. How had he made his way up to the Pennington House attics without anyone to guide him?
“Dulcie. Was not Miss Adler to accompany you today?” he asked, shaking out the stiffness in his drawing hand as if this heightened awareness of Dulcie might be shaken off along with it.
“Oh, she did,” Dulcie replied as he pushed off from the door frame and made his way into Benedict’s studio with a practiced smile. “But we met with your sister on your doorstep, and were asked to admire her betrothal gift for Sir P
eregrine: a miniature of her lovely self, painted on my recommendation by Mr. Heaphy.” He picked up a paintbrush and twirled it between nimble fingers. “I did wonder when she requested my advice why she did not ask you to undertake the commission.”
Benedict shrugged. “Miniature work is of little interest to me.” But Dulcie’s offhand comment stung. Sibilla had never once broached the subject of a portrait with him. He and his sister had never been close—Benedict had been sent off to school when she had been barely out of leading strings, and then had spent her adolescent years traveling on the Continent—but she must know he’d have been more than happy to attempt her likeness.
Or perhaps she didn’t. He hadn’t been at all happy to be dragged in by their eldest brother Theo to help in the search for a suitable mate for their sister. Benedict’s complaints had often sounded bitter, even to his own ear. To his mind, any mate besides Viscount Dulcie would have done. But Sibilla had been far more fastidious, and far less tolerant of Benedict’s warnings than he had liked.
“You do know some of these pigments are poisonous, don’t you?” he asked as he reached for the brush in Dulcie’s hand. His entire body tingled, just as it always had whenever his schoolboy fingers had accidentally brushed against Clair. At twelve, innocent and untutored, he’d not understood why he should respond with such ardency to the older boy, why even the most glancing touch should fill him with such painful longing. But his travels on the Continent had introduced him to more than new ideas about art, and he now knew well the passions of both spirit and flesh. His mind might no longer be infatuated with Dulcie, but his wayward body still flamed to life in his presence, damn it.
“I didn’t touch any of the paints,” Dulcie said, one corner of his mouth lifting as it used to when he was amused by some silly behavior of one of his peers. “And that brush was clean. Would you be sorry if I were to die a bitter death at the hands of your paint-box, Mr. Pennington?”
Benedict yanked the brush from Dulcie’s hand and threw it back down on the table. “I’d be sorrier to be thrown into gaol for murdering a mere dandy. Now tell me, what has Sibilla’s miniature to do with Miss Adler’s disappearance?”
