CHAPTER 23 #2
And why not stick them here? It had been a derelict, unused manor. Who would know?
Gareth followed Eva up the stairs to the top level that housed servants’ chambers. He had only come up here a few times before to inspect the damage done by the roof’s disrepair. The newer wings had newer roofs, so no one had sought to find their attics.
She took him to the passage’s end. To one side, in a nook tucked beside the final chamber’s wall, she showed him a narrow door. She turned the latch. Behind that door lay a flight of stairs leading into an attic that stretched over one of the additions flanking the main part of the house.
Stacks of pictures lined the walls, the front ones shrouded in veils of canvas or burlap. Eva went over to one stack and raised the cloth. The Gainsborough boys cavorted around a fountain.
“These are the ones I copied.” She pointed at the small works lined behind the first, then at a similar group of small pictures beside it.
He bent and flipped through them. The copies down below had their originals here. A few others had been made, however, not bought by Zwilliger.
“I only did small ones.”
“I do not think a judge will care how big they were.”
Her head bowed. “I was only going to explain I had chosen them because the larger ones were too clumsy to move.”
He threw the canvas off a stack of larger works. He eased each one forward so he could see the subjects. Le Nain, Claude, Poussin, Vasari—the defined subject of each one allowed him to mentally check them off the list of missing art he had memorized.
He did not look at the rest. He counted, assuming all would be on the list. Thirty-one. Not enough.
Eva still stood silently, her arms huddling her body, her head hanging.
“Why did you not tell me these were here, Eva?”
“I took them, didn’t I? I removed them without permission. I was carrying that one home the day we first met.” She pointed at the Gainsborough.
“Yet you returned them.”
“If I admitted to this, why should you not assume me capable of theft? Why should you think I returned all of them? Much went missing from this house.”
He realized it was not what he thought, but what she thought, that weighed on her. Her own mind associated her use of the pictures with theft.
“Did you take something else? Did you keep one, for example, or—”
“Chairs. I took chairs. I sold them, the same way I sold our own furniture.” She sounded miserable. “They were good ones too. Heavy. It took me an hour to get each one home, I had to stop so often to rest. Wooden and well crafted. Some had carving—”
“I forgive you for the chairs, Eva. Should there be questions about these paintings, we will not mention them to anyone.”
She did not look at him. “Thank you. But you will forever know now that I am a thief, won’t you?”
He pulled the canvas back over the paintings. “Not the one I am looking for, at least. These are not mine, Eva. They were taken years ago, and my brother and I have been investigating that theft these last weeks. I need to write to Ives and tell him that a third of them have turned up.”
She finally raised her head. She gazed at the shrouded pictures. “Will no one think it odd that the paintings from this theft were found in your own home, Gareth?”
Odd hardly did justice to the possible reactions, he realized. All kinds of speculations could be made about this peculiar turn of events, and none of them would reflect well on him.
He remembered how everyone had been relieved he could prove he was out of the country when Percy died. He could not prove the same for when these pictures had gone missing.
The potential ramifications of this discovery crowded his thoughts.
Well, hell and damnation. He was about to discover just how much of a brother Ives really thought him to be.
* * *
“Do you believe me? That I copied with no intention of selling forgeries?”
Eva asked the question after they returned to the library.
“Of course.”
“There is no ‘of course’ in this, Gareth. I cannot prove it.”
She still appeared embarrassed, and very unhappy. He set his own concerns aside, and addressed hers. “Not all your copies went to Zwilliger. What happened to the others?”
“Mr. Stevenson sold some to people in Birmingham.”
“If necessary, we will talk to those people and learn what they think they bought. However, it is obvious to me that you and Stevenson handled it honestly. It was Zwilliger who stumbled upon an opportunity when he opened Stevenson’s shop door.”
“Obvious?”
“Your distress is sincere, as was his. Zwilliger played a role on a stage.”
A few sparks of humor glinted in her eyes. “Perhaps I play a role too.”
What a charming, ignorant thing to say. “Eva, after what we have shared, there is not anything you can hide from me.”
She smiled wryly. Almost sadly. “There are many things I hide from you very well, Gareth.” She gave her copies a long look, then turned away from them. “I will leave now. Rebecca is probably wondering what became of me.”
“The carriage waits. I told the man to keep it ready.”
She did not talk on the short ride to her house. Her poise and her silence discouraged him from embracing her and offering comfort.
She did not allow him to help her down, but made do on her own, clumsily.
“I thank you for hearing me out, Gareth, and not just thinking the worst of me.”
“I could never think the worst of you, Eva.”
“You may not have, but you were not sure. Nor can you ever be again, can you?”
She turned and walked to her house.
He did not tell the coachman to move on right away.
He debated whether he should follow her, and to hell with her composure.
He had left London with things to say to her.
Important things. After the day’s revelations, it might be a long time now before he could speak them.
He could still offer reassurance, though. Better than he had so far today.
He turned the latch and opened the door. He had no experience in really caring for a woman. It made him clumsy. She deserved better of him today than he had given her.
Suddenly, her voice broke the air, screaming his name. She appeared at her door, not at all composed. She called his name again, desperately, then disappeared.
He bolted out of the carriage and ran to her.