Chapter 3
Eamon hated saying the words, but the duchess deserved the truth. The dismay that rushed over her face was heartbreaking, as was the sweet sparkle dying from her eyes.
Eamon fought the need to pull her into his arms, soothe her, whisper to her that everything would be all right. He’d fix it all for her.
But she was a duchess, and Eamon was nobody, the son of a gentleman swindler. Not allowed to touch a lovely duchess in distress. He could only stand in helpless anger and watch her despair.
At an ungodly hour this morning, Cheswell had commanded Eamon to hie himself to Grosvenor Square and value a few paintings for a widowed duchess.
Eamon had obeyed with reluctance, expecting to find a withered specimen in black stumping about with a tall cane and a sour countenance.
She’d harumph at Eamon’s assessment, no matter what he told her, declaring he was no better than a cheat.
Or else she’d be a frail thing who’d crumple to the floor if he valued her paintings too low. She’d have a steadfast companion at her side to wave a vinaigrette under her nose and glare daggers at Eamon.
He’d entered the drawing room in this vast house to discover who he’d thought was a pretty lady’s maid struggling to open the window. The visit, Eamon had decided, was looking up. Whatever else he had to endure, he could enjoy the aesthetics of gazing at a comely young woman.
The comely young woman now stared at him as though her entire world had crumbled around her.
Her eyes were the lightest brown touched with green and flecked in places with gray. Eamon was too much of an artist to simply say hazel. Her dark hair held waves that struggled against bonds that tried to tether it, unsuccessfully, to a fashionable style.
This woman should throw fashion to the wind and wander about with her hair flowing, her garments loose and gauzy, her feet bare. Eamon would paint her like that, without the strictures the labels of widow and duchess placed on her.
He’d briefly considered, when he’d seen the Rembrandts, that the duchess or her family was trying to trick Cheswell’s into paying for fakes. Her expression now told him she genuinely hadn’t known.
“How can they be?” she asked, her voice ringing with disbelief. “The Fifth Duke—my husband’s father—acquired them from a reputable dealer. There are papers …”
“As I say, they are very good.” Eamon had to admire the forger, even as he wished to beat to a pulp whoever had introduced these paintings into the house. “Dealers—and dukes—might be fooled.”
“The Fifth Duke was a canny man. Not easily duped.” The duchess stated this flatly, as though daring him to argue with her.
“Mr. Stone, I have been warned that dealers will sometimes name a price too low, so that they may turn about and sell the paintings for their true value, reaping a profit. Please tell me you are not such a man. I shouldn’t like to think so. ”
True that unscrupulous assessors and outright confidence tricksters apologized as they sadly claimed they could pay only a few pounds for a priceless masterpiece. Rubbed their hands in glee when they toted away the Raphael or Claude from under the ignorant owners’ noses.
“I understand your skepticism. But look.”
Eamon beckoned the duchess closer to the supposed self-portrait.
She came to him without hesitation, her indignation overriding her earlier embarrassment when he’d caught her blatantly staring at his body.
He’d been sorry to break short her scrutiny, regretful he’d had to interrupt what might have become a very interesting encounter.
“Rembrandt painted much of his work from the 1630s to the 1660s,” Eamon explained.
“He rarely used bright green, yet both paintings have more than a few tints of it.” He indicated the artist’s sleeve that dipped toward the frame, where splashes of green glowed among the black and dark rust. A person might miss it, because the duchess was correct—these paintings were filthy.
“Perhaps he made an exception,” the duchess said tightly.
“Not when he painted this.” The self-portrait portrayed Rembrandt as an older man, his aging countenance shown without vanity.
“He’d taken to only very dark colors and stark whites by then.
And this.” Eamon moved to the painting of the lady in the sumptuous robes.
“The model is Hendrickje Stoffels, but it should not be.”
The duchess regarded him in irritation. “Why not? Was she ill that day?”
“Hendrickje is one of his later models,” Eamon said.
“He painted his wife, Saskia, as the goddess Flora, not Hendrickje. The original of this was done in 1634. Notice the brighter colors, the smoother textures, the shine on the fabric. The forger got much of it right—it is an exact copy, except for the model. I wonder why he—or she—did that? To avoid being called a forger? If caught, she could have claimed she copied it to practice her technique.”
“Why do you suppose a woman did this?” The duchess sounded indignant.
Eamon quickly shook his head. “I don’t—I am only speculating.
In any case, whoever did paint these, man or woman, might be long deceased.
Some of these pigments are no longer obtainable, or not easily so.
And it has taken a while for so much grime to build up.
But it might have been a woman who painted it.
Talent is the same whether one is male or female, in my experience. Look at Madame Vigée Le Brun.”
The duchesses’ stare told him she wasn’t interested in discussing art history.
“What you mean is, these paintings are worthless,” she stated.
Eamon tried to soften the blow. “To the right collector, they are not. They will never fetch the price of genuine Rembrandts, but someone interested in forgers might pay a few guineas for them.”
“A few guineas.”
The duchess abruptly turned and strode away from him down the gallery, her slippers whispering on the bare wooden floor. Eamon wondered if she’d shout for her butler to show Eamon the door, but she turned at the far end of the gallery and headed back.
Her pace slowed as she neared the paintings, her fingers splayed across her mouth.
Eamon watched the duchess try to calm herself, to make herself not care that someone had cheated her family out of tens of thousands of pounds.
“If not these, then perhaps other paintings might be valuable,” she said. “The previous dukes amassed quite a collection.”
And why, Eamon wondered, was she so desperate to sell?
Though a noble title did not preclude a peer from being insolvent, dukes seemed less susceptible to the whims of economic change.
Dukes were lofty beings, raised high above the other titled nobles, often with blood ties or very close friendships with the monarch—not that monarchs were very good at keeping accounts themselves.
Eamon had noted no fire in the reception room, though he’d assumed that was to encourage unwanted guests to leave. There hadn’t been one in the drawing room he’d been taken to, and its closeness indicated it hadn’t been used in a long while.
Instead of a dozen footmen scurrying about to light the mistress’ way up and down the stairs, there was only the spindly butler who might blow over in the next strong gust.
Cheswell had said, Go charm the Duchess of Aylesworth out of a few paintings we can turn a profit on, without giving him much information on the Aylesworth family itself.
The duchess’s lavender gown was several years out of date and covered her from neck to ankles.
She’d come out of full mourning, but Eamon was acquainted with ladies who spent their mourning year planning their future wardrobe down to the last button, donning it the moment the requisite time of grief was officially finished.
Either this woman had respected and loved her husband too deeply to leave off dull half-mourning for frivolous gowns, or she had no other choice of garments.
All signs indicated that the once-wealthy Aylesworth dukes were now skint.
Eamon’s wisest course would be to apologize to the duchess and claim he couldn’t help her. Cheswell’s gallery did not have time or resources to waste scouring a collection of forgeries to try to assist a bankrupt. He’d put it in more polite terms, of course.
Eamon opened his mouth and found himself saying something quite different.
“You are likely right, Duchess. This gallery might hold many treasures, and the rest of the house as well. I can go through it all for you, catalog and value it. Who knows what we will discover?”
Eamon liked the way her eyes lit with hope, though the hope quickly vanished.
“That is kind,” the duchess said. “But I am afraid I will not be able to engage your services.”
She couldn’t afford the fee, she meant. Her attempt to hide this fact behind a chilly, aristocratic dismissal increased Eamon’s admiration for her.
“Duchess, do you still have my card?”
She blinked then reached into a slit in her gown and pulled out a rectangle that had been curled in her warm pocket. Eamon tried not to envy the card.
“Will you read what it says to me?” Eamon asked as she held it up.
“Eamon Stone, Esq. Assessor, art collections. Paintings, sculpture, objets d’art,” the duchess said in a clear voice. “And so forth. I did glance at it when Singleton announced you,” she finished with impatience.
“The last line, if you please. There.” Eamon stepped closer and touched the bottom edge of the card.
The duchess drew a breath, her fetching bosom rising. “No fee for consultation.”
“Precisely.” Eamon made himself increase the space between them, though it was cold anywhere not close to her. “I am happy to rummage through your home and see what I can turn up. I only take a commission on the sale.”
The card curled further as hope glimmered in her eyes once more. “My husband employed a curator,” she said, as though persuading herself to argue. “I’m certain he left a detailed record.”
“His records will help,” Eamon acknowledged. “But he did miss these rather obvious forgeries.”
Or perhaps he hadn’t. Could the curator himself have long ago disposed of the real Rembrandts and hired a forger to replace them?
“That is so,” the duchess agreed. Eamon heard the worry behind her words. What if the rest of the so-called priceless collection was worthless?
“I promise you, I’ll find something,” Eamon heard himself say. “Something hidden in the attic, maybe, well-guarded from thieves and forgers.”
“I will have to consult with the dowager,” the duchess said quickly. “Her husband purchased many of these things.”
“By all means.” Eamon made her a bow. “You consult and then write to me at Cheswell’s. I shall eagerly await your missive.”
The duchess relaxed into a sudden smile. It beamed from her, revealing her sincerity all the way down. It warmed the chilly room, that smile.
A dozen ways went through Eamon’s head for coaxing out the smile again, including her drowsing beneath him in a tumbled bed. She’d gaze up at him with her green-brown eyes, and the smile would turn sultry. Eamon, she’d whisper, and his name would be music.
Eamon shut off the thoughts lest they show on his face—or lower down his body.
“I will write,” the duchess said, her politeness less brittle. “Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Stone. You will hear from me soon.”
Her tone said the interview was over. As much as Eamon wanted to linger, he knew when it was time to leave.
He bowed again, resisting the urge to seize her hand and press a kiss to it, and headed for the stairs. The butler appeared like a ghost on the landing, waiting to show the barely tolerated guest out.
Eamon couldn’t resist a backward glance at the duchess as he descended. She stood where he’d left her, in front of the false paintings. She was like a pillar of flame in that cold room, a light in Eamon’s darkness.
He’d be back. No matter what he had to do, Eamon would return, would spar with his duchess again.
When Eamon set his mind on something, it fell into his hands, even a pretty duchess troubled about funds. He’d solve those worries and lay her troubles to rest. On this, he was determined.
“Thank you, Singleton,” he sang at the butler as he passed. “I know the way.”
Eamon skimmed down the rest of the stairs and out the massive front door, breaking into a whistled song as he sailed into the street.
“Ah, I have it,” the dowager said, gazing into mid-air.
Her attention had wandered when Caro, dry-mouthed, had explained that the Rembrandts were forgeries. The dowager had listened without change of expression then returned to the puzzle of Mr. Stone.
“I recall now,” the dowager continued. “His father was Sir Benedict Stone. Knight of some order I can’t remember, deceased.
Came from Dorset, or so he claimed. Sir Benedict was quite a one with the ladies.
A rogue of the deepest kind.” The dowager turned to Caro.
“Tell me, daughter-in-law. Is his son as handsome?”