“Not the Ophelia, I hope?”
All three men were looking at her blankly.
“I came to see the Pre-Raphaelites,” she told Mr. Matthews. “The Ophelia in particular.”
“No, the Ophelia is in perfect condition,” he was quick to reassure her.
Damaged artwork might explain the painter who lingered behind Mr. Blackstone with a bored expression—he was probably the restorer. It did not explain why she had been mauled. The only way to explain that was if they had all taken her for one of Mr. Blackstone’s fancy women. . . . She felt herself pale.
Mr. Matthews tugged at the knot of his cravat. “My profound apologies, Miss Jones. Perhaps there was a confusion at the post office.”
“Please, don’t trouble yourself.” She forced a smile to put him at ease. The Royal Mail service was in perfect working order for all she knew. But her cancellation letter would have gone to her collaborator in Cambridge, and for some reason, Miss Jones hadn’t notified her of the change in schedule on time. Also, she, Hattie, had failed to stop by her pigeonhole at Oxford to collect her mail this morning, preoccupied with mentally practicing the steps for her escape from Mr. Graves in Oxford’s University Galleries.
“Matthews,” Mr. Blackstone said abruptly. “Tell Nicolas to take Miss Jones home.”
She took a step back. “Thank you, but that is hardly necessary.”
He cut her a dark look. “It is.”
Mr. Matthews was already hurrying down the hallway on lanky legs.
“How kind of you to insist,” she said to Mr. Blackstone. “But I merely require assistance with hailing a cab.”
“My coach is faster, more comfortable, and is waiting out the back.”
She shook her head, her heart pounding unpleasantly fast again. “I don’t wish to inconvenience you, sir.”
“I’ll be blunt, then, Miss Jones,” he drawled. “It may have bypassed your delicate ears, but I have a reputation.” He nodded at her bedraggled, lopsided appearance. “And if you care to keep yours, you’d better not be seen limping out of my front door unchaperoned.”
She hadn’t thought her cheeks could burn any hotter, but they did. A lecture on propriety from such an ill-bred man, well deserved no less, had to be a peak of humiliation in a young woman’s life. She raised her nose. “Fine.”
Mr. Blackstone bared surprisingly strong, white teeth in a smile. His left canine tooth was badly chipped, a continuation of the scar splitting his upper lip. His gaze holding hers, he rolled down his sleeves in a hopelessly belated attempt at decency. The sight of rumpled cotton and cuffless hems grazing his wrists worked to the contrary, as a man would probably look just like this when he hastily dressed after an illicit encounter. She glanced away, her throat strangely tight. Her lips were still tingling from his kiss; her left palm still stung from the collision with his cheek. Her ankle was on fire. The truth was, had it been the fastest available means of transportation, she would have ridden out of the gallery on a donkey.
Chapter 3
A distinct sense of foreboding crawled down his spine as he watched his carriage containing the red-haired baggage join the London traffic. Odd, because Lucian Blackstone had long ceased to believe in fate and preferred to forge his destiny by way of his own machinations.
“She was one of Greenfield’s daughters, wasn’t she?” he said.
It had dawned on him when he had studied her face in the corridor, when she had finally stopped flailing, screeching, and smashing antiques. It would explain the visceral pull in his gut when first clapping eyes on her, a sensation every seasoned thief knew when he had spotted something precious.
“I believe so, sir.” Matthews sounded more nervous than usual. “The red hair, the short, plump stature—”
“I have eyes, Matthews. You—” He turned to Renwick, who had come to lurk on the backdoor steps with him and Matthews instead of resuming his work. “Why had you thought she had come here to fuck?”
Renwick scratched the back of his head. “She was unchaperoned?”
“A necessary but not sufficient condition, you fool.”
“And I understand ladies are seeking you out for a tumble now and again—”
“In bright daylight?” snarled Lucian. “And coming through the front door? Here it is, Renwick: even if the great big whore of Babylon comes a-knocking, you don’t let her into my house.”
He rarely slipped into the Scottish vowels of his youth; today, it kept happening—whore had just come out as hoore. Next to him, Matthews shifted uneasily.
“She was raising a racket,” Renwick said stubbornly. “Banging away at the door as though a rampaging regiment was at her heels.” A shudder ran through his long body—he loathed noise.
Lucian’s eyes narrowed.
This caught Renwick’s attention. “All right,” he muttered. “No visitors.”
“Good,” said Lucian, and he left it at that, for while Renwick was the type who would inadvertently let spies into Lucian’s home, his talent as a painter still made him the best man in London to discreetly restore a five-hundred-year-old canvas.
When the door had fallen shut behind the sulking artist, he turned back to Matthews. “Now. When exactly did I approve gallery tours for the public?”
His assistant looked ready to bolt. “Approximately two months ago, sir,” he said. “Part of the measures you approved to, erm, bolster your reputation.”
“Two months?” The memory flashed, and lo, he recalled a list. Vaguely. Matthews had presented it to him the moment he had emerged from his annual week of drunken stupor, his week of disgrace, nursing a black mood and a heavy head.
“Matthews.”
The man’s eyes widened with alarm. “Yes?”
“I’ve trouble comprehending how having toffs stroll around my collections would endear me to the House of Commons.”
Matthews ran his fingers over his mustache. “Philanthropy is a winding path,” he said between mustache strokes. “It is a gradual strategy, and it includes a variety of activities such as inviting the public into your collections, being a patron of the arts—”
“I know what philanthropy is. Remove everything from your list that invites people onto my properties. Now, hail us a cab to Belgravia. And think. I want to know all you know about the Greenfield girl.”
The two miles to his town house were slow—the roads were wet and cluttered with debris left behind from the gushing rain pipes and overflowing gutters, and carts and carriages formed haphazard clusters rather than move along in manageable queues. The cab windows were foggy and the smell of damp fabrics cloyed the interior. Pity his clean, competently driven two-in-hand was presently occupied with delivering wayward heiresses.