CHAPTER 19
“Iam so enjoying this,” Rebecca said while she and Eva strolled down a small lane in the City. All kinds of printer shops lined it, along with a few bookstores. “It is pleasant to spend an afternoon, just the two of us, taking whatever path we want.”
“Very pleasant, although I have a confession to make about the path we have taken. We are not taking the path we want. We are lost.”
Rebecca giggled, and they broke into peals of laughter. “Thoroughly lost, or just middling lost?” Rebecca asked after she caught her breath.
“Since I am perplexed as to the answer to that question, I suppose the answer must be thoroughly. The plan was to visit Mr. Christie’s auction house. He is said to have frequent auctions, and often his gallery is full of works to be sold.”
Rebecca looked to the sky. “The afternoon is getting on. We should find it soon if we are going to visit.”
Eva felt her reticule. A satisfying weight on the bottom moved, making tiny clinking sounds. The wonderful thing about money was one could solve problems like this. “I saw cabs on the last block. We will take another one. The coachman should know the way even if we do not.”
A half hour later they walked into the auction house. A big, square room, its ceiling soared. In the center of the ceiling a large square section rose yet higher, with transom windows that permitted light to flow down on the pictures hung on the walls.
“Look at all the colors,” Rebecca exclaimed. She peered at the pictures near the door. “Not all are great masters, are they? This one here is no better than your views. Not nearly as good, in my opinion.”
Eva agreed, although neither she nor Rebecca were connoisseurs. She took heart that while her own efforts would never compete with the best on these walls, they also would not be laughable.
Other patrons toured the walls, strolling past the abundance of pictures. She and Rebecca stopped now and then at ones they especially liked. Eva scrutinized a few to see how some effect was achieved with the brush. She was doing that when Rebecca gripped her arm.
“Eva. Over there. Isn’t that—”
Eva straightened and looked where her sister pointed. On the wall facing the door, right in the center, a still life hung at eye level. No one would miss it. Her gaze swept over the glass goblet depicted, and the blue porcelain dish, and the ripe fruit.
Her heart pounded so hard that her head throbbed too. She knew that composition very, very well. She had painted it four months ago in her library.
“It can’t be,” she whispered.
They scurried over to look more closely. Much like a signature—an artist knows her own hand at work. This was indeed hers.
Eva felt sick. “I do not understand.”
“Don’t you?” Frowning, Rebecca looked around the chamber, then marched over to a man standing in a corner. She spoke to him, and pointed at the still life. He in turn opened a pamphlet and pointed to a page in it.
Rebecca returned with the pamphlet. “It will not surprise you to learn that your name is not listed. According to the auction house, this is a work by the Dutch artist Cuyp, who lived two hundred years ago.”
Eva examined the page in the pamphlet. “I must be a better copyist than I thought.”
“Is that all you can think about? Eva, Mr. Stevenson is cheating you. I thought he acted most suspicious when he gave you all that money. But he is giving you ten shillings, then sending them here to be sold for many times that amount. That man said they expected this to get knocked down—I guess that means sold—for at least three hundred.”
Three hundred pounds? Eva had trouble swallowing the idea. When she did, her stomach turned again.
“Rebecca, it will sell for that much because it is being sold as a picture by Cuyp. Not me.”
“But you painted it. You should see more than ten shillings out of it.”
Rebecca was missing the bigger quandary. The moral one. If they walked away without a word, someone would be cheated at the auction.
“Are there any others?” She turned to look at the wall they had not yet visited.
“None that I can see.”
“Perhaps this was a mistake.”
“Ha.”
That ha echoed her own thoughts. Dear Mary Moser, I write to thank you for your kind reception and advice. Unfortunately, I now find myself in Newgate while I await trial for theft through fraud after being implicated in a scheme to sell counterfeit pictures by the great masters . . .
She walked over to the man in the corner. He greeted her nicely, but his gaze shifted at once to Rebecca when she came up alongside.
“I need to explain that a mistake has been made.” Eva pointed to the picture, then to the pamphlet. “That is not by Cuyp.”
“We are quite sure it is. A fine example of his art too.”
“No, it is not. I am more sure it is not than you are sure it is, because I painted that picture.”
He made a polite smile. Amusement sparkled in his eyes. “I’m sure you did, Miss.”
That was it. Nothing more. He did not believe her, but he would not insult her by disagreeing, so he just smiled and smiled. Which left her standing there like the addled fool he thought she must be.
She took Rebecca’s arm and strode into the middle of the chamber. What to do?
“He thinks you could not paint it because you are a woman,” Rebecca said.
“No, he thinks I could not because he believes Cuyp did.” She faced the painting. “It does look very good there, in that light. Far better than it ever did in our library.” An inappropriate glow of pride flushed her.
“Perhaps if you told Mr. Fitzallen, he could convince them.”
“What would I say to him? That the most amazing course of events has occurred? That I took a painting out of his property without permission, copied it, sold the copy in Birmingham, and now, lo and behold, it was for sale at a London auction as the original? Why should he believe I was not complicit and made the copies for this purpose in the first place?”
“Because you are his friend? And because you are telling him the truth?”
“The magistrate who is called will not be my friend. Don’t you see how this looks? I made those copies in secret. No one knows about them except you. Even that will be suspicious now.”
“Do you suppose the others that came to London are likewise being sold as originals, elsewhere?” Rebecca asked.
The thought of that caused Eva’s stomach to turn dangerously nauseated.
Rebecca gave her a little embrace and patted her shoulder.
“It is just one painting that we know about for certain. Whoever buys it probably has a huge collection that includes other forgeries, and will never know. Especially if the original stays in that attic. You probably should never tell Mr. Fitzallen about the pictures up there, however.”
They went to the door. Eva looked back at the painting. It glowed in the light, casting its own radiance. That goblet appeared so real one feared it might break.
Despite her concern over the painting’s misuse, pride lifted her heart. Maybe Jasmine Neville was correct, and women were not taught to have sufficient ambition. Perhaps she, Eva Russell, possessed more talent than she gave herself credit for, and should aim not only to improve, but also to excel.
In the least, one thing could now be said. If Christie’s listed her picture as a Cuyp, she was not only a middling copyist. She was a damned good one.
* * *
Gareth made his way out of London, then kicked his horse to a gallop. The speed gave some release to the frustration building in him. He had endured yet another restless night, tempted beyond reason to wind his way through the house to where Eva’s chamber lay.
He had not expected to mind so much how things now stood between them. She was of an age to be curious, aggressively so, and he had chosen to show her and teach her. If she had turned her back on pleasure sooner than he expected—or wanted, he admitted—it should not bother him the way it now did.
The truth was, he regretted arranging Eva’s invitation to the DeVere ball.
When he did so, he anticipated her delight at his gift, and a pleasant night watching her bedazzlement.
It had never occurred to him that other men might compete for her attention.
Not because she did not deserve such attention, but because, he had to admit now, in his head she still belonged with him. To him.
Whitmere’s bald admiration of her made it clear just how bedazzled she might become. That ball would be full of lords and heirs. Gentlemen all, with strong lineage and extensive properties and titles. Oh, yes, it would not do to forget the titles. A title trumped everything, didn’t it?
He pictured the sons of the nobility lining up, asking Eva for dances, seeking favor with her. In that ballroom, among those people, being a bastard would matter as it rarely did in his life. Nor could he warn them all off the way he had done with Whitmere.
He had never envied his brothers before.
At least not much. Not with the surly edge he did now as he came close to cursing his birth.
The guilt that provoked in turn only fed his bad mood.
All his life he had hoped he might one day claim his half brothers as true family in spirit if not in law.
Today Lance had, without thinking twice, taken a big step toward that.
I sometimes forget you are a bastard. Just remembering those words now moved him to where he reined in his mount and sat still with his thoughts.
Damnation, he could be an idiot at times.
Only a fool wasted his life angry over what might have been.
Nor had his circumstances left him impoverished or obscure.
He might be a bastard, but he was a recognized one.
With Percy gone, already his brothers had drawn closer.
He turned his horse and rode back to town at a slower pace.
He handed off his horse and entered Langley House.
When he asked if Miss Russell had returned, the butler said she had, and was currently in the garden.