by Bliss Bennet
Benedict leaned towards him. “And that will in turn increase the number of patrons of art—”
“And render them more competent judges of what constitutes truly fine productions—” Dulcie interrupted.
“And thus encourage improvement in our own native British artists,” Benedict concluded with a satisfied nod.
Lord, he’d forgotten how Benedict’s enthusiasm could set his own thoughts spinning. The sheer, uncomplicated joy of two minds sparking one off the other, Benedict’s rich imagination inspiring his own more rational brain to plumb possibilities neither would have reached by themselves.
If they were still boys, he’d have grabbed Benedict and wrestled, releasing this bubbling energy their collaboration bred in mock-fighting before it could grow into something different, something he hadn’t been quite sure he was ready to acknowledge then, or even name.
But they were not boys, not any longer.
“And what think you of your grandfather’s plan to donate such riches to the nation, Miss Adler?” Leverett’s words were directed at Polly, but his eyes were fixed on Dulcie and Benedict. “Are you not concerned that you will be deprived of a property you—or your future husband—might otherwise expect to inherit?”
Damn him for a fool. He’d simply intended to goad Leverett, not allow pleasure in sparring with Benedict to overtake good sense. Bandying about justifications for a national gallery with the man would hardly convince Leverett of his indifference. And now Leverett was taking his spite at being ignored out on Polly.
“I would miss living and breathing amongst those paintings, as you so eloquently describe it,” she answered, neatly sidestepping Leverett’s jab. “But if the new institution stipulates that ladies as well as gentleman will be granted access, I believe I might be persuaded.”
“But truly, Miss Adler, do you not think a public of the sort which could entrusted with art ought to be restricted to—”
A gong ringing from inside the theatre interrupted Norton’s protest.
“I believe that signal means the meeting is about to begin,” Dulcie said, winging an arm to Polly. “Miss Adler? The family box is on the second tier.”
Leverett laid a heavy hand on Dulcie’s arm. “A word, first, sir, if you please.”
“Stay, Dulcie. I’ll escort Miss Adler.” Benedict took her hand and placed it on his own sleeve. “Good day, gentlemen.”
Dulcie kept his eyes on the pair as they skirted the rotunda and turned up the grand Prince’s staircase, feigning indifference to whatever his rival might have to say. But Leverett did not wait, moving close beside him to whisper in his ear.
“Are you certain you wish to continue with our friendly wager? It seems you now have not one, but two, rivals for Miss Adler’s dowry.”
“Ah, but if Adler donates his paintings to the nation, then he cannot give them to Mr. Pennington.” He nodded at a passing acquaintance, bowed to another as the crowd scrambled towards the auditorium.
“But nor can he give them to you,” Leverett replied, his grip tightening on Dulcie’s sleeve. “Our bet is not just that Pennington will lose, but that you will defeat him. I could almost wish you success if your victory simultaneously scuttles Pennington’s ridiculous plan to allow the vulgar masses to gape and gawk at works which they have not the taste nor understanding to appreciate. What a mawkish, mollyish sentimentalist.”
Dulcie stared down at Leverett’s encroaching hand, his eyebrows raised. He was no molly, no matter what Leverett might insinuate about Benedict.
Understanding the silent message, Leverett took a step back. But the fellow still had not finished.
“Don’t underestimate Pennington’s wiles, Dulcie. He may appear to go along with Adler’s mad scheme, but in the end, he’ll show his true colors. He’s as concerned with his own welfare and advantage as either you or I. Or young Norton here.” He threw a companionable arm about the boy’s shoulder, just as Dulcie had back at the print shop. “Don’t you agree, my dear?”
Norton’s eyes flicked between the two older men, indecision written clearly across his round face. Leverett had spoken in such a low voice that he had no idea what the man wished him to agree to.
Dulcie put the poor boy out of his misery. “Thank you for your concern, sir. But I have no thought of reneging on our wager.”
“Then shall we add spice to the pot? Put a time limit, say, on your wooing?” Leverett smirked. “What would you say to an additional five hundred pounds if you can win her dowry by Michaelmas?”
“I would say you’re in danger of losing not only your wager, but also your wits.”
“Oh, but you haven’t yet heard what I demand of you if you should have the misfortune to lose. I’m a magnanimous fellow, so I’ll allow you your choice: at the British Institution’s next meeting, you must inform Stafford that you wish me, rather than yourself, to be given a seat on the Board of Directors, acknowledging me to be your superior in artistic taste and judgement. Or you must denounce Benedict Pennington as the talentless hack he so obviously is.”
Dulcie, responding more to the challenge in Leverett’s voice than to the meaning of his words, immediately thrust out his hand. He would never allow that man to get the better of him, or show him up in front of another gentleman. “Agreed.”
Leverett smiled as he took Dulcie’s hand. “Come, George, we’ll bid Lord Dulcie good-day. I’d rather be as far from his box as possible when Miss Adler learns she’s not even won a silver for her poor attempt at a Waterloo scene. As if a mere lady could do such historical work any justice. But her loss will give Dulcie an opportunity, no doubt, to offer comfort to the poor girl. Never say I am not a fair competitor, my lord.”
“But how do you know she has not won. . .” Norton’s voice faded as the two made their way through the rotunda and through the doors to the pit.
Dulcie frowned as the details of the wager slowly infiltrated his conscious brain. Why, no matter the outcome, Leverett had ensured he would be forced to repudiate Benedict Pennington in some way. That is, unless he swallowed his pride and gave him what he truly wanted: a seat on the British Institution’s Board.
Well, he’d been many a situation tighter than this one, and always managed to wriggle his way free. He’d find a way to come out the winner yet.
No one would ever get the better of Sinclair Milne.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he searched his pockets for a handkerchief with which to dry Polly Adler’s soon-to-be-shed tears.
“Good morning, oh loveliest of mothers in all the land.” Dulcie bent down and placed a light kiss on Lady Milne’s cheek, then snatched a buttered roll from her plate. “And how will you be spending your last day in our fair city?”
“My heavens, Dulcie!” Lady Milne blinked down at the table, as if surprised to find her plate empty. “Awake in time for breakfast?”
Dulcie’s sister Wilhelmina, seated beside his mother in the dining room, gave an exaggerated sigh. “We will be doing what we always do when it is time to remove to the country, which you would know if you ever paid attention to anyone but yourself. Packing, packing, and more packing. And then instructing the servants on how best to keep you and father in line until Parliament is dissolved.”
“Are you certain you will not come with us, my dear?” Lady Milne asked, patting at the air beside her. But Dulcie had already moved on to inspect the offerings on the buffet. “I can never understand why you would want to remain here in the city when Hampshire is so much more pleasant in the heat of the summer.”
He snorted silently. No, his mother would certainly not understand the attractions of a city—certain parks at night, taverns and public houses with private back rooms for the hire, even bog houses (if one could tolerate the stink)—for a man of Dulcie’s proclivities.
He reached across the table and snatched his sister’s cup, then took his usual seat opposite her. “Chocolate, Willa? Are you not afraid of coming out in spots?”
“Are not you?” she answ
ered as he tipped the cup to his mouth. “You’re the one a-courting, not me.”
“And that is precisely why Dulcie must remain in London,” Lord Milne said, shaking his head and pointing his knife at his son from his seat at the head of the table. “Only a fool would to leave as likely a prospect as Adler’s granddaughter to go traipsing about the countryside. Must secure her, Dulcie, the sooner the better. I want to meet the future fifth Earl Milne before I shuffle off this mortal coil.”
The fifth? Dulcie frowned at the too-familiar heaviness in his chest. His father was the third earl, and he himself would be the fourth. But each would be more likely to spot a chicken with teeth than to witness the birth of a fifth.
Dulcie shook his head. Why dwell on such unpleasant thoughts? And on such a beautiful morning!
“Oh, Father, you’re only upset because Miss Pennington’s choice of husband is depriving you of a valued secretary,” Dulcie teased, even as he picked to pieces the remainder of his stolen roll. “High time that Sir Peregrine fledged the Milne nest and began a political career of his own.”
“Not before he explains all his duties and methods to his replacement,” Lord Milne declared. “Won’t have my affairs muddled by an uninformed clerk.”
As if any poor clerk could put Father’s affairs into any more of a muddle than the man himself. Still, Per had been a damned good secretary, as well as a pithy writer. Dulcie had even trusted him to document and catalog each new addition to his own art collection. Who would he ask to do so in the future?
Benedict Pennington?
“Have you chosen a new secretary?” Wilhelmina asked, her focus sharpening on their father. Poor Willa, still unmarried at five-and-twenty. If Father had not thought Sir Peregrine, a baronet, worthy of his only daughter, Per’s replacement was not likely to prove proper suitor material either.
But if the new fellow proved attractive, perhaps Dulcie might indulge? Per had not proven susceptible to his charms, silly boy, but his replacement just might. Father had a rule about not dallying with dependents, but a secretary was not precisely a servant. And Lord knows he could use a good flirt to distract him from plaguing thoughts of a certain viscount’s son. Especially since said viscount’s son was supposed to be arriving this morning with Miss Adler for Dulcie’s next portrait sitting.
“A new man?” Lord Milne answered. “Yes, Sayre is to bring him by today. That is, if he can tear himself away from his lady love for a morning.”
“I can indeed, my lord. At least for long enough to deliver an invitation to our wedding breakfast. I do hope you all will be able to attend.”
Peregrine Sayre stood in the doorway, an uncharacteristic smile on his narrow face. Yes, Per’s betrothal to Sibilla Pennington certainly had done wonders for the fellow’s typically dour spirits. Dulcie silently congratulated himself again for being the making of that match.
Lady Milne smiled as she held out a hand for the proffered invitation, patting at the table about her with the other. Poor dear, forever forgetting where she had left her spectacles. Dulcie plucked them from where they perched atop her head and slid them over her nose.
“What a good boy. Thank you, my dear. But who is this you’ve brought with you, Sir Peregrine?”
“Did you not hear, it is Father’s new secretary, Mama,” Willa said. But when Per stepped farther into the breakfast room, it was not a stranger who followed.
“You all remember my soon-to-be brother-in-law, Mr. Benedict Pennington?” Per asked.
Benedict, hands full with paintbox and sketch books, gave Lady Milne a clumsily endearing bow. His dark, wary eyes flicked over to Dulcie, then skittered away.
Dulcie straightened in his seat and shot a glance down the table. Surely Father would not recall the name of the writer of that long-ago letter?
“The son of a viscount for a secretary, Father?” Dulcie shook his head in mock sorrow. “Surely you can do better than that! Are there no sons of dukes with an interest in politics and pockets to let?”
“Pennington?” Lord Milne asked, ignoring Dulcie’s attempt at distraction. “Thought you said the fellow’s name was Cummings, Sayre?”
Dulcie settled back in his seat. Praise heavens Father had a memory little better than a sieve.
Per nodded, well used to needing to explain the obvious to Lord Milne. “Yes, but Mr. Cummings is yet to arrive, my lord. Benedict accompanied me from Pennington House, as he has some business with Dulcie?” Per turned to Dulcie, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes, business of the most pressing kind.” Dulcie swallowed down a last bite of roll then jumped to his feet before his friend could interrogate him further. “Did I tell you, mother, I’m to have my portrait painted? As a gift to my future betrothed, whoever she may be. And Mr. Pennington here is to undertake the task.”
Willa laughed. “Dulcie? Able to sit still for long enough to have his likeness taken? When the Thames stops flowing, perhaps.”
Benedict’s head dipped in acknowledgment. “Your brother is proving a difficult subject to capture, Lady Wilhelmina.”
“Yes, my first sitting proved particularly unfruitful, did it not, Pennington?” Dulcie said, patting him on the back with sympathy. An appealingly broad back, its strong muscles shifting under his fingers. What might it feel like, without these layers of clothing between them?
“My fault, of course,” Dulcie continued, removing his palm from the tempting expanse of Benedict’s shoulder. “All the tools of the artist’s trade in Pennington’s studio fascinated me, and I could not seem to hold one position for any length of time. Miss Adler suggested I might be less distracted in my native milieu, as it were, and thus Pennington has come to me today, rather than I to him. But was Miss Adler not to accompany you?”
“She sent a note saying she would meet us here.” But Benedict’s frown suggested some doubt about the matter.
“But I do not understand,” Lady Milne asked. “What is Miss Adler to do with your portrait?”
Dulcie could not help but smile. A changeling he must be, left here by a sly fairy to be forever teased by parents too slow to keep up with his own quick wit. Still, mother was a dear.
He bent down to place another kiss upon her soft, powdered cheek. “Miss Adler is to keep me occupied while Mr. Pennington goes about his work.”
Lord Milne seemed as puzzled as his wife. “Curious way to go about wooing a chit.”
“Really, Dulcie?” Willa crossed her arms. “You expect us to entertain in the midst of all our packing?”
“If today is inconvenient,” Benedict began, “I can certainly return another time—”
“Don’t be silly,” Dulcie said as he chivvied him back towards the door. “We will be in no one’s way upstairs. I am in desperate need of advice: shall I don the same waistcoat I wore during our last sitting? Or will blue be more flattering? Mama, please have Miss Adler sent upstairs when she arrives, will you?”
They climbed the wide staircase together, leaving the clatter of the breakfast room behind. Half-way up, Dulcie jumped a bit ahead, to give Benedict the chance to admire the snug fit of his frock coat, the fabric of his pantaloons clinging to his calves. It was always delicious to have the eyes of another fixed upon one, but knowing the eyes behind him belonged to Benedict Pennington—well, that made the warmth radiate not just through his chest, but to the farthest reaches of his fingers and toes.
Dulcie stopped to glance into the drawing room, then his mother’s sitting room, but both were filled with maids folding gowns and packing shoes and jewels and other female frippery into trunks. Father and Per would be nattering away in the library, and they’d have to dodge footmen hauling boxes in the front hall. No, his bedchamber it would have to be.
“The light here should not be too bad if you are only making sketches. Should I change my frock coat? Put on a more colorful waistcoat?”
“Not necessary. A feel for the line, the form and the shape, that’s all I’m after today. But before we begin, I wish—”
He paused, his hands playing with the metal clasps on his paint box.
“You wish?”
Benedict looked up, his brown eyes wide, unguarded. “I wish to thank you for defending the idea of a national art museum to your friends. And to apologize for my assumptions about your interest in Miss Adler. No one who comforted a lady with such kindness after her disappointment in not winning a prize for her painting could be intent on wooing her only for her dowry. And no one who spoke with such insight about the benefits of a national gallery could truly want to keep Mr. Adler’s collection solely for his own private use.”
Dulcie pressed his lips tight to keep from smiling. Benedict had clearly not outgrown his boyish penchant for idealizing his fellow man. Nor, it seems, had Dulcie outgrown the pleasure of being the subject of such idealization. His words in favor of the museum project had been said more on a whim than in earnest, but he need not disillusion the fellow, not just yet. Hanging, taut, in that delightful tension between the poles of multiple possibilities was too delicious to give up just yet.
“Your thanks, and your apology, are both accepted, sir.”
“I doubt your arguments will change the minds of men deeply entrenched in their own aristocratic privilege,” Benedict continued, opening his paint box and drawing out a stick of charcoal. “But younger men might find your reasoning persuasive. May I use your arguments when I speak with Sir Charles Long, and other gentlemen I need to convince of the worth of the project?”
“Of course you may. But come, we should not waste the morning nattering on about a museum when we have far more important tasks to address. Have you decided yet how you wish me to pose?”
Benedict shook his head. “I would think you would have your own opinion on the matter. A sitter usually does.”
“Oh, I know the traditional pose for the male figure of rank. Stand tall, face front or three-quarter turned, pull your shoulders back, but do not round them, place one foot gracefully behind the other, thus”—Dulcie illustrated each directive as he uttered it—“and for all that’s holy, never, ever smile.”
