A Thief in the Nude

by Olivia Waite

  Hecuba snorted.

  Rushmore ignored this. “It shouldn’t surprise me to learn you’re a colorist. There’s more than a little alchemy in that, you know. Taking a substance, separating its elements, purifying them and recombining them to make something new and surprising.”

  He leaned forward, one hand coming to rest on the arm of the sofa. “When something isn’t right in your eyes—when someone, for instance, has sold something that ought to have come to you—you do something to change it.”

  “That adventure did not go precisely as I planned,” Hecuba pointed out, with a quick glance at Aunt Pym.

  “No,” Rushmore concurred, lowering his voice, “but you adapted your plans to suit the events that followed. You wanted those paintings back. You will get them—and you’ve transformed both my life and yours in the process.”

  “Two lives do not make up a world, Mr. Rushmore.”

  “They can, Miss Jones,” he replied. His gloved hand brushed her shoulder—a touch invisible but not unfelt.

  At that moment, Anne returned with a stoppered vial in her hand. She presented it to Rushmore then threw herself on her proverbial sword by taking an empty seat beside her mother. Aunt Pym immediately directed her attention to Harold Egley, apparently giving Evangeline up as a lost matrimonial cause, at least for the present.

  Rushmore was holding the vermillion in the light, turning it around to watch the fine red grains tumble against the surface of the glass. “This is quite a pure hue, Miss Jones,” he said. “May I keep it?”

  “So long as you do not keep it for long,” Hecuba said with a mischievous smile of her own. “It was made to be used, not simply bottled up and admired.”

  He grinned and tucked the vermillion into a pocket. “There is a particular vision I should like to attempt—say, in two nights’ time.”

  “Two nights,” Hecuba agreed softly. The assignation thus arranged and with her relatives none the wiser, she smiled demurely into her teacup.

  Chapter 9

  The next morning John slept quite late and spent his afternoon buying more canvas and supplies. He was going through them at a rather alarming rate—not even his generous funds would support this forever—but he felt as though he were making up for years of lost time. He could afford to be temperate in his old age rather than in the prime working years of his artistic life.

  With that in mind, he stopped in at his club for supper before heading home.

  The whole house was ablaze when he returned—odd, since Simon hadn’t mentioned any social engagements to him. But indeed there was the clink of plates, the faint odor of a feast recently devoured, and the oceanic murmur of a dinner party on its third glass of wine. Baritone and bass voices swelled like the tides, while the altos and sopranos shimmered above them like foam.

  The earl met him in the hallway, glass of champagne in hand. “Where have you been?” he demanded, but just as quickly waved the question aside. “No matter. Evening clothes—now.”

  John’s answer was a ludicrously deep bow with several elaborate curls of his hand. Simon snorted and returned to his guests.

  Vickery had already laid out the proper attire. John handed over the parcel of painting supplies and began unbuttoning. “Shall I take these up to the north attic, sir?” the valet inquired.

  John’s hands paused mid-button. “The north attic?”

  “That is where you’ve been painting, sir, is it not?”

  Unease bubbled up from the depths. “Yes it is,” he admitted. “But you can leave them here—I’ll take them up myself.”

  “Very good, sir.” Vickery helped John into his coat and approved the knot of his cravat. John’s anxiety trailed him like a ghost as he descended the stairs to the card room, where the party seemed to be centered.

  Simon met him at the foot of the stairs and handed him a glass of champagne. “For the nerves,” he said enigmatically.

  John could only stare at him. “What is all this?” he asked. It was not the most eloquent of responses but it had the benefit of being to the point.

  Simon tapped his nose with a finger. “A surprise,” was all he would say.

  John downed the champagne in a single draught.

  The voices ebbed as he entered the room then surged again to an even higher pitch. He recognized almost everyone present as part of the fast Bohemian set: school friends turned rakehells, poetic types, sloe-eyed widows, and known eccentrics. One ancient and regal woman in a turquoise turban winked at him. There were no blushing debutantes, no stolid, red-faced landholders, no withered members of parliament or ice-eyed social patronesses in sight.

  And by now nearly everyone had turned to look at him. John felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift. “Simon?” he murmured again.

  “It’s all right,” his brother said. “I just wanted to show you that the family is proud of you.”

  “Proud?” John asked. His brain felt as though it were rusted over, the wheels and cogs unable to turn and complete the process of comprehension.

  “As a painter,” Simon said patiently.

  And then John saw them.

  His canvases and sketches, all of them, ranged around the room in pools of candlelight. Everywhere Hecuba’s half-captured form, painted and posed and displayed in all its evident glory. In pride of place were the three large oils—Circe, Hylas and the Naïad and—oh God, no—Aurora.

  The pose that had seemed so intimate and worshipful when he’d painted it became lurid and debauched in the presence of so many avid onlookers. The red background, the tumbled sheets and most of all that obscenely tied cravat that brought a male, modern presence into the painting and charged it with sexual immediacy.

  From the flames that surrounded her, Hecuba smiled.

  John looked wildly around but it was clear from the knowing looks and behind- hand whispers that at least one guest had recognized the model. Word was spreading. The scandal had its wings already.

  John rushed out of a side door to the garden and retched into a bush. He kept heaving long after his stomach was empty, sliding down to his knees with his hands on the wrought-iron railing, breathing in great gulps of cold night air.

  Simon’s hand came down on his shoulder and a glass of water appeared. John ignored it, despite the burning in his throat that made it hard to force the words out. “You. Have ruined. Everything.”

  “Oh, get up,” Simon said, patting his shoulder. John shook him off but rose to his feet, hands clenching and unclenching restlessly. His brother continued, “I know it’s a bit of a shock, but now no one can deny your talent as an artist. And your model has quite a promising start as a professional beauty.” He threw out a suggestive elbow. “No wonder you’ve been keeping her to yourself—she’s a staggering creature! Though there is something familiar in the face...Did you find her at the opera? Covent Garden?” John could only sputter on hearing that, which only made Simon’s grin wider. “Somewhere even less reputable?”

  That was Simon—the elder brother, the heir, always so smug, always so right. In a flash John had him up against the wall, hands fisted in Simon’s lapels, choking the superior breath right out of him. “Do you recall,” John managed, though it was hard to unclamp his jaw against the fury, “two weeks ago when we went to Lord Heatherton’s ball?”

  Simon fought against his brother’s grip but was too shocked to succeed. “Let go!” he choked.

  “We met the ladies of a charming family, rather new to London,” John ground out.

  Simon froze. John watched the moment of realization pass like a shroud over his face, paling everything beneath. “The sisters...” he breathed. “The cousin with the red hair.”

  “Miss Hecuba Jones,” John confirmed. He gave Simon one more small throttle for good measure, then released him and stepped away. “A lady—not an opera singer and not a whore. I won’t claim we’ve behaved with all due propriety, but we were managing just fine between us.” He scrubbed at his mouth, bitterness all he could taste. “Until to
night.”

  Simon brushed his hands down the front of his coat, smoothing away the wrinkles. He narrowed his eyes. “Next you’ll be telling me you didn’t fuck her, though you obviously spent a great deal of painting time staring at her tits.”

  John’s pulse spiked high with a rage so sudden that it dizzied him. “That’s none of your damn business.”

  “So you have fucked her.”

  “I was hoping to marry her!” John shouted, bringing Simon up short.

  “That’s good to hear, dear brother,” he said after a moment, “because that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”

  John’s night, from that point, proceeded to get even worse.

  His brother ended the party abruptly and sent the guests away. John chafed at the thought that this would only give more speed to the rumors, but the thought of trying to smile his way through the rest of the night was intolerable. The last candle in the card room had barely been extinguished before Simon was ordering the carriage and demanding that John tell him where Hecuba lived. “It’s always better to confront the problem head-on,” was all the earl would say.

  John fought the urge to wipe that arch expression right off Simon’s face with a well-thrown right to the jaw. “There is no way in hell you are coming with me,” he growled.

  Simon sent him the exact same glare their father had used, back when the worst trouble his sons caused had been to switch the salt and sugar in the kitchen. “This was my mistake,” Simon said, “even though you laid the foundations. I refuse to relinquish my share of the consequences. The family must preserve some honor.”

  John turned his face away and let the argument die. He was already twisted and breaking inside at the thought of what he had to tell Hecuba. Of her image, splayed out for the titillation of his brother’s guests. Of what the news would do to her and their fragile, hard-won trust.

  He thought of telling her that she had no choice but to marry him and knew at once that she was going to refuse.

  Rage was doused and turned to ash by the sickening awareness that he’d lost everything important in his life.

  Oh, he would recover from the scandal eventually. The gentleman always did in cases like these. There would be a few high-placed sticklers who would write him off as a lost cause, but far and away the majority would gasp and giggle and forget all about it over the course of a few quietly lived years.

  Hecuba, however, was irrevocably ruined. Painted in the nude then displayed for all his friends to gawk at! It was beyond shocking. It would destroy her whole family.

  God, he hadn’t even had a chance to tell her about the third painting! He’d presumed so much. He’d believed he could keep a secret by sheer willpower. He’d borrowed her likeness without her knowledge and used it as a weapon against her. How could he ever paint again after this?

  How could he paint without Hecuba?

  How could he live without her?

  How was he going to tell her about all this?

  The Pyms’ windows were dark and the household abed when they arrived, but it did not remain so for long. The family gathered in the parlor, rubbing the sleep from their eyes and smoothing their hands over hair disordered by blankets and pillows. John’s palms were clammy and his knees shaky. He locked them in place, looked directly at Hecuba and forced himself to begin the story.

  He explained, for the benefit of her aunt and uncle, that they’d had an arrangement to trade her mother’s paintings for the new ones he would paint with Hecuba as a model. He left out her attempted theft and especially their mutual seduction, because if he had to profane that mystery as well he would be sick all over again. Hecuba narrowed her eyes at his obvious omissions, but allowed them to stand.

  However, he was now at the difficult part.

  “I painted a third painting,” he said, twisting his hands behind his back. “Yesterday morning, without Hec—Miss Jones. No malice was intended, but I’m afraid I let myself get carried away. I...I painted something that I shouldn’t have.”

  “What was that?” Hecuba’s uncle demanded.

  John flicked him a glance but the bulk of his attention remained on Hecuba herself. “A nude.”

  Aunt Pym shrieked and sank to the floor. Anne and Evangeline ran to help her, though they looked shocked and shaken themselves.

  Hecuba only folded her arms. “And?” she said.

  “What do you mean, ‘And’?” her uncle spluttered.

  “I want to know what happened between yesterday morning and the present late hour,” Hecuba went on. “He didn’t rush over to apologize for the painting then—what makes an apology necessary now?” Her face was serene, but there was a curious thickness in her voice. John ached to wrap his arms around her and tell her everything would be all right, but he knew it wouldn’t be—and he couldn’t touch her until he’d told her the full story.

  John allowed himself one deep breath. “Tonight, as a surprise, my brother invited a number of people he thought would appreciate the new paintings he’d found I’d been making. He was trying to show me he was proud of my work.” The word proud slithered off his tongue, bitter as poison.

  Uncle Pym let out an oath that degraded several generations of the Rushmore family. Simon, to his credit, never flinched. “And this vile painting—you exhibited it? In public?” Uncle Pym demanded.

  “We showed all of them,” John admitted, the sentence falling like a stone into the stillness of his audience. “All three paintings, plus a number of sketches and studies. All of Miss Jones.” His breath rattled a little in his throat under the weight of the next bit. “Someone recognized her.”

  Aunt Pym let out a wail.

  Hecuba’s lips thinned and she closed her eyes.

  John didn’t feel any better now that the truth was out. “I’m sorry,” he said. “So terribly sorry.”

  “Sorry?” yelled Uncle Pym. He took a great step forward and planted a fist in John’s face. John let the blow fall without resistance, let it rock him back until he staggered up against the wall. His eye throbbed and pulsed and he knew it would be fully black by morning.

  He still didn’t feel any better. Hecuba hadn’t yet opened her eyes.

  Simon decided this was his opportunity. “Of course,” he said to Uncle Pym, “my brother will marry your niece as soon as possible.”

  Just like that all the color began to leach out of the world. Anything John could say now was tainted. He could shout that he loved Hecuba, that he had wanted to marry her anyway, that he only hoped she would accept an idiot like him as a spouse—and all they would hear was the shiny sound of a good boy doing his duty and following his brother’s orders. “Miss Jones,” he said, “would you allow me a few moments in private?”

  Hecuba opened her eyes and oh, they were so cold. John had never seen eyes that cold in all his life. “No,” she said.

  “Hecuba, you must accept the gentleman—” said Aunt Pym.

  “I will not.” She said this calmly enough but it threw the rest of the family into an absolute uproar. Evangeline began to cry, Anne began to argue and Aunt Pym began another impossibly sustained howl of grief. Hecuba looked at John with the barest hint of pity in her expression. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Rushmore.”

  He’d known what she would say, yet still John’s heart broke under those quiet words as though they weighed as much as mountains. If he opened his mouth the sounds would be inhuman, garbled noises of anguish, so instead of speaking he bowed to indicate his understanding.

  “I could marry her myself,” Simon offered, still addressing Uncle Pym. “People would be much less likely to speak out openly against a duchess, no matter how she came to the title.”

  John had only begun to comprehend the magnitude of his horror at this suggestion when Hecuba spoke. “I appreciate your strategy, my lord, but I refuse your offer as well.” John let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, and slumped harder against the wall. “I have other plans for my future,” Hecuba continued. “They do not
include marriage—not even to save myself from scandal.”

  John’s last feeble spark of hope winked out like a candle dropped into the sea. Aunt Pym’s wailing climbed several steps in pitch.

  “What plans?” Uncle Pym demanded.

  “I’m going to be a colorman,” said Hecuba. “Or woman as it were.”

  Even Aunt Pym went silent, at least for long enough to take an uneven breath. “You’re going into trade?” she whispered with a shudder.

  “I am going to make and sell pigments,” Hecuba confirmed. “Mother always said I had a talent for it, and she was right. I have been practicing for some time now and feel confident in my skills. It will only take a very little money to get me started—supplies and a space to work in.”

  “And where are these funds going to come from?” her uncle sneered. Hecuba pressed her lips together and maintained a stony silence.

  “Shameless trollop,” gasped Aunt Pym.

  Uncle Pym’s brow furrowed. He gripped his wife’s shoulder and glared at his niece. “You take too much after your mother. I am ashamed to have treated you like a proper member of this family. You will gather your things in the morning and be gone—I won’t permit you to spend one more night beneath my roof.”

  Anne leapt to her feet and her cousin’s defense. “This roof was rented with money he gave you,” she said, pointing to John, “for paintings you had no right to sell! And now you dare to cast her out, when you are the cause of all these troubles in the first place?”

  “Which of my daughters told me the thing they wanted most in the world was a Season and a good match?” Uncle Pym replied in clipped tones. Anne cried out in protest but her father remained adamant. “If we do not show our disapproval swiftly and decisively, your prospects and your sister’s will be sacrificed to your cousin’s feeble moral judgment.”

  Anne strode over to stand beside her cousin. Hecuba looked far more surprised by that than she had by John’s initial revelation. “Society can be cruel,” said Anne, “but it would be crueler of us to treat its rules as gospel.” She wound her hand around Hecuba’s and raised her chin. “If you throw her out, I’m going with her.”