Chapter 2 #2
The scholar hadn’t responded to the apology in Merida’s tone, so Bull did. “Fine. I’ll meet Hoyle at the Gallery tomorrow at ten, aye? It’s nae like we need ye to act as chaperone.”
Was it his imagination, or did they both jerk slightly at the joke? Perhaps it was not his best. He didn’t feel his best.
Merida’s smile seemed forced as she glanced back at Bull. “Of course you do not need me! My dear friend knows his way around the gallery, but…well, do you want to go on your own, darling?” she asked the scholar. “You can always send a report to Bull.”
The man opened his mouth, but Bull spoke before the ‘expert’ could get a syllable out. “I’ll go with him,” he growled, not sure why it suddenly mattered so much.
He had other cases he could spend tomorrow working on, but none as intriguing as this one.
The moment he’d unwrapped that portrait and seen that woman smiling up at him, bedecked in a fashion from the beginning of the last century, he’d known this case would be his first priority.
He wanted to know who this woman was, and what secret she held that could threaten his family.
Now, though, his attention was on the couple staring at said portrait. Well, Hoyle’s attention was locked on the portrait, and Merida was watching him…with a crease of worry between her eyes.
Why? Did she think Bull was going to give her friend shite at the National Portrait Gallery? Did she doubt he could hold onto his manners for a few hours, even if the scholar’s rudeness irritated him?
She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t to know that.
“What do ye say, Hoyle?” he finally prompted.
The other man nodded. “Ten tomorrow,” he said in that low voice. “But the artist himself may not be crucial. The identity of the painter might not be necessary…”
“Aye,” Bull agreed, surprising himself. “The subject herself. That is who we actually need to identify. And I have a verra good place to start.”
Merida glanced at him, then back to Hoyle. “You do? Why? What do you notice about her?”
Hoyle’s fingers hovered over the woman’s lips. “You…you do not recognize her, Meri?”
Meri? Bull rolled his shoulders to try to contain his unbridled reaction to such familiarity. How well did his cousin know this man?
But Merida was shaking her head, leaning closer. “Should I? Remember, landscapes are my purview.”
To Bull’s surprise, Hoyle snorted softly. “Aye, and forgeries.”
Bull’s glare snapped to the other man. He—he knew? Merida had told him about the jobs she’d done for Bull? He opened his mouth to growl angrily, but Hoyle interrupted him.
“Your aunt, Meri.” The man tipped his head slightly—not necessarily glancing at Merida, but inviting her to study what he saw. “Or perhaps even…your mother.”
Merida gasped when she finally saw what Hoyle—and how the fook did this mousey scholar know what Merida’s family looked like?—and Bull had seen all along.
The woman in the portrait looked remarkably like Merida’s mother, and her aunt: Aunt Georgia, Demon Hayle’s wife.
Rosie’s mother.
Dinnae think of her. Ye have another year before ye have to see her again, barring Rupert’s wedding, and by then she might be the one to be married off to some lucky bastard.
“She…she does look a bit like my mother, does she not?” Merida was whispering as she leaned closer to the portrait. “It is in the shape of her jaw.”
“Her smile,” Hoyle corrected. “It is more obvious when you stand back.”
“Her face,” Bull grunted, and realized his fingers had freed themselves from his rigidly controlled fist and were tapping out a tattoo against his thigh.
Once again he clenched his fingers, although it didn’t help with the restlessness thrumming through his veins.
“She has yer aunt’s eyes. Yer mother’s too. ”
Since Merida wasn’t Aunt Danielle’s biological daughter, they didn’t share the same features, not the way Aunt Georgia and Rosie did—
Stop thinking of Rosie.
The point was—regardless of any resemblance to any women of Bull’s generation who may or may not have names that start with ‘R’, thankyeverramuch—that the woman in the painting bore a ridiculously strong likeness to Georgia and Danielle.
But how did Hoyle know?
Merida was shaking her head. “That is not Aunt Georgia, nor my mother.”
Bull’s snort was dismissive. “Dinnae be serious. The gown she’s wearing is from at least seventy years ago. That will help us date it.”
“Or she was wearing an old fashioned gown,” Hoyle pointed out. “A very old one.”
But Bull growled, “Ye’re doubting my sartorial knowledge?” In his youth he’d studied fashion at the famous houses in Europe—not that this codswallop knew that. “That gown appears new in the portrait, and likely made in the first half of the 1830s.”
“No one is doubting you, darling,” Merida said soothingly, patting his arm. “That is helpful to identify the artist. Or the woman. At the very least, the era. Mother’s mother was born in the early 1840s—”
“That is not your grandmother,” Hoyle pointed out, still studying the painting. Or was it just that he didn’t want to look over at Merida and Bull?
And how in the shite would this scholar Bull had never heard of know Merida’s grandmother?
Perhaps there is something going on romantically between them?
Merida was shaking her head. “Bull, you told us—well, you showed me the letter, and I told Robert—that this was a portrait of Allie’s great-grandfather’s mistress, yes? Our—my grandmother was married to an Earl. She would not have permitted herself to be the mistress of a minor Scottish baron.”
“Are you quite sure?” Hoyle asked gruffly before Bull could even open his mouth. “Her husband was not a nice man. She did not have a happy marriage.”
Och, that was enough. Finally Bull whirled on Merida. “How in the shite does yer friend ken so much about yer family, Merida?”
The redhead back away, eyes wide. “What?” she scoffed. “Bull, you and your nonsense! This is hardly a secret! Grandmother was married to Bonkinbone, remember?”
Bull remembered. He remembered being sixteen years old and making the split-second decision to kill the man’s brother.
Bonkinbone and Blackrose had terrorized his family—his extended family—for far too long, and that was all he’d been thinking about as he’d thrown that knife into the bastard’s eye to save Princess Louise.
Oh aye, Bull remembered.
“Bonkinbone’s family tree is well known,” he growled, suspicions not lessened. “His personal life—such as how he treated his wife—less so.”
But Merida turned to him, effectively blocking his view of Hoyle, and laid her hand on his forearm comfortingly. “My mother once told me that her mother was raised mostly at boarding schools and Grandmother—who died long before I was born—viewed marriage to Bonkinbone as an escape.”
“Bonkinbone was an arsehole,” Bull muttered, turning away and stalking toward his desk. Anything to move away from the infuriating gentleman in the room.
If he really was a gentleman…not just a cad preying on Merida.
“Yes,” Merida called after him, “so imagine how bad her childhood must have been.”
Bull reached into his pocket to pull out the deck of cards, then yanked open a drawer in the desk to drop them in to hide his irritation. “That woman isnae yer grandmother? Ye’re sure?”
From the corner of his eye, Merida shrugged. “I will write to ask Mother more about her parents’ marriage—and no, I will not tell her details of the case.”
Why no’? Ye already told them all to Hoyle, what will it matter?
Bull bit down on the words and nodded stiffly. “Find out if there’s any way her mother might’ve been Allie’s great-grandfather’s mistress. Or was the blackmailer’s letter all lies? But if she’s no’ his mistress, why the fook would Allie’s father have a portrait of an Earl’s wife?”
Still staring at the portrait, Hoyle shifted his weight, looking ridiculous all bundled up in his outerwear. “So we are back to the artist. If we can identify the painter, we might have a better clue as to the sitter.”
Bull scowled as he crossed his arms. “Aye. Ye think the Portrait Gallery will hold clues?”
For the first time since laying eyes on the painting the other man glanced his way. Just a brief glance, not long enough to study his features beneath that outrageous mustache, but a glance nonetheless.
“Yes,” he finally said quietly. “If I can find another piece done in a similar style—perhaps with that ruby necklace, among the donated and lesser-known rooms—we will have a better understanding of her identity.”
We.
Bull’s lips curled into a snarl, which he hid by pretending to dig through the drawer, at the thought of having to work with this man.
Why? He had friends in all walks of life, and Bull prided himself on how fooking likable he was.
He genuinely enjoyed the company of others and meeting new people, so why in the shite were his hackles raised by this mousey little scholar and his unfashionable facial hair?
“Tomorrow, then,” he finally agreed, yanking his wallet from the drawer and bumping it closed. “Ten o’clock, outside the gallery. How much do I owe ye for consultation?”
To his surprise, Hoyle waved a gloved hand dismissively, eyes not even glancing at the money. “I do not need to be paid. I enjoy the study.”
Bull raised a brow at Merida, who shrugged helplessly, looking a little sick. “Artists, eh? So eccentric.”
Artists. Fook me sideways.
Tomorrow’s trip to the National Portrait Gallery had better yield results. Not only did he want this mystery solved and relieve the tension on Rupert and Allie’s shoulders, he wanted to spend as little time as possible with Merida’s friend.
Just get it over with.
Aye, tomorrow.