CHAPTER 6 #3
She stepped out of the house, not knowing whether to be insulted or amused.
The sisters Neville had not told her anything she had not already surmised about Gareth.
Of far more interest had been the reference to exotic techniques.
She wondered what in the world that meant, and why they apparently left women begging for more.
On her way home, she remembered the errands that had sent her to town in the first place. She fished into her basket for a letter that had come. She had picked it up while posting one of her own.
Sarah had written. She opened the letter, hoping she could give Rebecca good news. She made a little jump of joy after she read the first sentence.
Sarah had invited them to visit for a few days when next they went to Birmingham.
* * *
Eva tapped her fingertips against the gray-blue of the fountain, checking to see how tacky the oil paint remained. If she packed it carefully, perhaps it could make the trip to Birmingham along with the others. She would have to tell Mr. Stevenson to hang it immediately, however.
She had spent the last ten days finishing this painting, and the dress, and attempting to create miracles of improvements on other garments.
Right now Rebecca sewed by the light of the big window, attaching some new trimmings to an old pelisse.
The goal—the hope—was to appear not nearly as out of date as the age of those garments might indicate.
She lifted the painting she had copied. Wrapped again in its burlap, she rested its weight on her hip. “I am going now. I should be back in an hour or so.”
Rebecca looked up. “Can it not wait until we return from our journey? I had hoped to have your help with this.”
“He is gone now and may have returned by then. Best if this resides in its attic when we leave town.”
“I doubt he will miss it if it is never returned. You said that attic is hard to find. And should he discover it and somehow know something is missing, he is not likely to think you took it what with so much else missing too.”
“It is a painting of some value, Rebecca. A few chairs that would probably end up as a vagrant’s firewood are one thing. A Gainsborough painting is another. Honesty decrees I return it.”
“Go then. I will begin to warm the soup if you are not back soon.”
Eva let herself out of the house and strode down the drive to the lane. Albany Lodge sat no more than fifteen minutes north of their house. She reached the road that connected the two properties, and soon passed the crossroads with the other road that took one to Langdon’s End.
She rounded the bend and Albany Lodge jumped into view. It appeared no different from the past. Nothing indicated someone now inhabited it and that repairs were under way.
He would be gone at least a fortnight, Gareth had said. Erasmus and Harold had not been working at the property during its master’s absence. She trusted no one would be about this afternoon and see her complete her mission.
Tacking for horses, a jumble of cutlery, and an assortment of jars and crockery bowls decorated the lodge’s portico floor when she arrived at the lodge.
The citizens of Langdon’s End had done as she now did, and taken advantage of Gareth’s absence to return more of the items borrowed over the years.
This batch had perhaps been lured out of its temporary lodgings by the vicar’s sermon on Sunday, in which he preached on the commandment not to steal.
Gareth’s habitation proved more obvious inside than out. Refuse and dust had disappeared. A few items of furniture gave the reception hall a spare but lived-in appearance. Someone had even cleaned the fireplace and scrubbed the hearthstones. She looked in the library and saw similar improvements.
The painting grew heavy in her arms. Carrying it up the stairs proved a chore.
She soldiered on, up to the servant quarters then down to a small door tucked to the side at the end of the corridor.
She had missed this access to the upper attics her first few times exploring the empty house.
When she finally found it and ventured above, the contents had amazed her.
She clutched the painting firmly and maneuvered the narrow stairs into the dusty, warm space right under the roof of one of the stone wings to the house.
Little light penetrated because it had only one window, which was small and obscured by the deep eaves of the roof.
It would be easy to miss the forms against the walls, covered by blankets. She almost had.
She set down her painting, carefully positioning it so it stood in front of a large, flat surface hidden by a blanket.
She slid the blanket up. A bit of light caught the bright colors of tulips and glass on the canvas surface, rendered with such realism as to invite one to touch the different textures.
The painting was Dutch, she was sure, and probably from the seventeenth century.
She had been tempted to try and copy it, but it was just large enough to be impossible to carry home.
She let the blanket drop so that it covered the three little boys and the fountain, now returned to their stack of paintings. She looked down the wall at other small canvases that she would not be able to borrow now that Gareth had moved into the house.
He had not found this attic yet, but eventually he would. Then he would most likely move the paintings back to the walls below, from where they had no doubt been taken when the house was closed up after the last time the duke visited.
Even if he never found them, she could hardly cart one out right under his nose, or return it the same way.
Could she?
She walked to the final stack of paintings and lifted the blanket.
She had intended to borrow the ones here.
Without them, she was not sure how she and Rebecca would live once the money from the current group was spent.
It might be impossible to build new lives, too, let alone have the fun she so proudly informed Gareth she intended to have.
If Gareth made journeys like this one with any kind of frequency, and if she did not tell him about the attic, might she on occasion still ply her copyist trade and earn a few shillings?
She lifted the front painting, a small landscape with peasants in front and a ruined castle in the background. She thought the subject would appeal to many of Mr. Stevenson’s patrons.
Her conscience debated with her practicality over the temptation to leave with a bundle just as she had arrived. While she concentrated on her conflicting inclinations, an intuitive awareness crept into her mind.
She froze and listened. Nothing. And yet—she sensed she was no longer alone in the house.
Perhaps Erasmus had come by, or Harold. Should they see her leaving, she expected she could come up with a passable excuse. All the same her heart thudded and alarm sharpened her senses. She set down the painting, tiptoed to the attic’s top stair, and listened again. More silence.
She tried to tell herself she was being a goose, but she still felt someone’s presence. Not up on the servant’s level, but below somewhere. She felt more than heard footsteps.
What if it was not Erasmus or Harold, or even someone from the town? What if a thief who knew the house had returned, unaware that it now was inhabited? What if one of those strangers who seemed to always be around had entered? She did not want to come face-to-face with such a man.
She also did not want to get trapped up in this attic.
Listening hard, sure she was wrong but knowing she was right, she descended the stairs as quietly as possible. She pulled the door closed behind her, and aimed for the servants’ stairs to the lower levels.
By the time she reached the first storey, she convinced herself she had conjured up ghosts out of thin air. All the same she slipped quickly past the doors to the main staircase, making as little noise as possible.
Light poured over the threshold of the door closest to the stairs. She tried to recall the house’s arrangement. That door led to a bedchamber, like most of the rooms up here, but it had not been a big one or very grand, as she remembered. It had been emptied of everything years ago.
All the same she attempted silence while she approached. She cautiously peered around the doorjamb.
Her memory had failed her. This was not a minor bedchamber. It was the entrance to a large dressing room. Worse, the owner of the house now occupied it.
And he was naked.
Gareth stood with his back to her, without a stitch of clothing on. He appeared to be preparing to dress. Garments waited on a chair nearby, and he worked at unfolding a shirt. Water pools glistened on the floor near the washstand.
Every inch of her body tensed and demanded she leave, fast, and make her escape. Her mind refused to listen. She just stared with breathless fascination.
She had seen her brother naked, of course.
Even as an adult, since she had taken care of him.
But by then he was wasted and thin and nothing like this.
This man was in his prime, with tense, broad shoulders and tight skin and muscles and hard, round swells for his bottom.
She found that part especially compelling, although she looked hard at his legs.
He set aside the shirt, and reached for trousers. Suddenly his hand froze a few inches above the garments. Awareness flexed through him like a ripple. His profile hardened into dangerous planes and his mouth into an uncompromising line. His other hand stretched toward the dressing table.
Alarmed, she turned and scurried back the way she had come, to the servant stairs. She prayed the garden door below would be unlocked.
* * *
Damnation. Gareth acknowledged the prickle in his blood for what it was. A warning. Someone else was in the house, and not far away.
He reached toward the dressing table. Upon arriving back, he had set his dagger there when he undressed. He never traveled without one, after being the victim of a highwayman when he was at university.
His hand closed on it, and he turned. He saw no one in the chamber, or at the door. Someone had been there, however. He had all but felt the thief’s breath.
He threw the dagger down, pulled on his trousers, grabbed the weapon again, and strode out of the dressing room.
He’d be damned before he allowed trespassers to make free with the lodge, especially while he was inside it.
One confrontation, one capture and strong warning, and word would spread that the situation had changed.
Faint sounds came to him, from the back of the house. Whoever had intruded now descended the servant stairs, and not even stealthily. He did not pursue in that direction. Rather he ran down the main stairs, outside, and around the house.
More sounds back here, in the basement kitchen. The low windows proved too dirty to peer through. He walked down the stairs to the submerged door, and positioned himself to its side. With luck the thief had not availed himself of a kitchen knife.
The thud of the door’s bar shoved aside. His thief pushed against a door whose hinges needed oil. On the third attempt the door flew open.
Gareth grabbed at the figure flying out, swung it around, and slammed it against the stone wall. Even as he did, he knew he had made a mistake.