Chapter Five
The crashing wave threatened to overturn the ships in the water and to drench Calliope as she stood so close. The roar of the seagulls screening and calling in the air, the sound of the thunder, the flash of the lightning…
‘Rather good, isn’t it?’
Calliope blinked. The painting remained static, though it had in her imagination moved a great deal. ‘I—I beg your pardon?’
The gentleman who had suddenly arrived at her shoulder smirked, as though he had said something intensely amusing. ‘It’s rather good, isn’t it? A Glenarm.’
He said this as though she was supposed to both know what he was talking about and be impressed. Calliope tried to give him the briefest of smiles.
The stranger’s smirk only grew. ‘Do you want to know how I was able to discern, through my own expertise, precisely why it is a Glenarm?’
Calliope maintained her smile, even though she would much prefer to glare at the man and tell him to go away and let her enjoy her art in peace. ‘If you feel obliged to.’
Evidently her cleverly veiled disinterest was a little too well veiled, for the gentleman immediately launched into a long statement far too dull for Calliope to concentrate on.
‘I keep an eye on expensive artists. All art is, after all, a way to make money and I read in the newspaper only last week…’
Calliope nodded along, as she might have done had the gentleman actually been invited to talk with her. Could a lady not go to an art gallery in peace and quiet?
Her aunt had warned her about this. She had said only that morning if Calliope wished to be left alone, it was best to attend an art gallery with a chaperone.
And, as Aunt Louise pointed out sardonically, Calliope should be doing that in any case, as a young lady of good name and even greater connections.
It had been all Calliope could do not to roll her eyes. ‘You mean Ditty.’
‘I mean your sister, the Duchess of Glanyrafon,’ said her aunt impressively with a self-satisfied smile. ‘I always knew you girls would do well. At least, one of you has. It is now your turn to…’
That had been when Calliope had picked up her reticule and her parasol and left for the recommended Shirley Street Art Gallery.
It had been quiet when she had first arrived, but then it had been very early in the day.
Though she was not sure just how much time had passed, the place had certainly filled up and now she was stuck standing by this gentleman with tea stains on his cuffs and a smirk most unpleasant, listening to a lecture she had neither requested nor desired.
‘—and that,’ crowed the gentleman who had not yet been polite enough to offer his name, ‘is how I knew it was a Glenarm.’
Calliope could almost see the preening. If she were to paint him, it would be as a peacock, strutting about the place, annoying the poor peahens no end.
Yet she smiled. Well, grimaced. ‘I knew it was a Glenarm, too.’
The gentleman scoffed. ‘Of course you do, now I’ve explained—’
‘No,’ Calliope said gently. ‘I knew beforehand. It says so. There. Underneath the painting.’
She pointed at the small piece of paper that had been affixed to the wall underneath the gold gilt frame.
Storm at sunset. Glenarm.
When Calliope looked back at the gentleman with her most innocent of expressions, the man was no longer smiling.
In fact, he looked most put out.
‘Young ladies today have no manners,’ he sneered, all jollity and friendliness disappearing.
Calliope inclined her head. ‘Unlike you, Mr…?’
She allowed the question to hang in the air, inclining her head slightly as she waited for the man to share in at least a passably good manner.
The man snorted and stormed off—likely as not, Calliope could not help but think, to annoy and aggravate another young lady.
Her attention turned back to the painting.
It truly was a spectacular piece and had already sold for eleven hundred pounds, a ridiculously large sum.
Calliope could see why. The movement of the brush, the bold choice of colours, the way the artist had not seemed to care if the paints run if they aided in the beauty of the piece.
It was a joy to behold. It was an honour, really, to be able to stand here and enjoy it in peace.
‘Do you like it, Miss Oliver?’ came an equally unwelcome voice…though this time, Calliope could put a name to it.
Her whole body reacted before she could say a word. Her lungs tightened and a ripple of heat moved through her so swiftly, it was a miracle her cheeks were not pink. They weren’t, were they?
Calliope swallowed, her mouth somehow dry, as the Marquess of Laidley appeared by her side.
Well, he was a slight improvement to the horrendous gentleman who had been standing there before…but that was hardly a high bar. Honestly, what was it about being a woman and standing in an art gallery that seemed to invite such… interference?
‘My lord,’ Calliope murmured, inclining her head but staring resolutely at the painting.
If she just ignored him, he’d go away, wouldn’t he?
The thought flickered through her mind so quickly, she was almost surprised she heard it—especially when a most irritating part of her was glad to see him.
Glad! That the maddening, rude, insensitive and utterly scandalous Marquess of Laidley was once again interrupting her appreciation of art?
Calliope hated it. But she could not deny it.
Neither could she deny just how intrigued she was about his rather sudden and unorthodox proposal.
Marry me, Miss Oliver.
He had not been in earnest, surely. Marquesses did not go around proposing matrimony to ladies they hardly knew.
Or was it that they only ever proposed to ladies they hardly knew?
Calliope in turn hardly knew him. Oh, he was a pleasant enough sparring companion, and of course she did not take a single word he uttered to heart…
But still. He fascinated her. A creature she could not have attempted to paint if she tried. To paint a person meant to know them—and this was a man she could not understand.
‘A lovely piece,’ the Marquess of Laidley murmured.
Trying desperately not to roll her eyes at yet another man who wished to somehow impress her with details of just how much the painting was worth—as though one could put a price on such art!—Calliope muttered something along the lines of, ‘Yes’.
Well. Perhaps she was not being her most eloquent self, but the point was—
‘Yes, it’s the skimming of the paint that I like. And the palette choice,’ the Marquess of Laidley said, most unexpectedly. ‘And the elegant use of light. No one else does it quite like Glenarm.’
Calliope attempted not to let her surprise show, but it was most astonishing. To speak with such eloquence, such taste—such knowledge. This was not a person who liked art. This was a man who appreciated art.
And a man who appreciated art was a man she could, in turn, appreciate.
Passing her reticule from one hand to the other just for something to do, she risked a glance at the Marquess of Laidley beside her.
He was still remarkably handsome, drat him. Today he had dispensed with the complicated cravat knot, perhaps for the sake of the heat, and instead wore a very simple knot with a diamond pin. It suited him.
Far more than she should be noticing.
Dragging her gaze back to the painting and wondering just how to extricate herself from yet another conversation with the Marquess of Laidley that she had not wanted, Calliope found herself instead saying, ‘You weren’t lying, then.’
His chuckle was low, as though they were sharing a secret. Calliope swiftly took a step away, moving along to the next painting. Another Glenarm. A cliff scene this time, the ocean spreading out far below, the waves crashing. Oh, it was so vibrant she could almost hear it.
‘Lying?’
‘About being an artist. Of a sort,’ Calliope added, trying hard not to let her complete disdain drip through every syllable. She wasn’t sure if she had been successful. ‘Even if you are nobility, and… Well, presumably wealthy.’
Ditty had always impressed upon her how gauche it was to speak of money, but…well. The man had suggested he take all his clothes off for her the very first time they had ever met! Surely they were beyond petty concerns such as conversational appropriateness?
The Marquess of Laidley was looking at her with a wicked smile. ‘I am noble and I am wealthy. Does that restrict my ability to appreciate art?’
Calliope cleared her throat. She had not sought a debate—she had not even sought conversation with him.
Glancing about the art gallery, which was comprised of perhaps five or six interconnecting rooms with seating in the centre so patrons could sit or stand to enjoy the art, there were a good many people there.
Yet none of them appeared interested in herself nor the Marquess of Laidley.
She supposed it would not be entirely outrageous if she were to have a conversation with him. Irritating man that he was. It wasn’t as though she liked him, far from it, but still, to converse with someone about art who actually understood it…
Now, you were about to accept my hand in marriage.
Heat burned her cheeks as the memory of their last encounter forced itself to the top of her mind. She was not going to think about that. She was not going to think about how close the man, the Marquess of Laidley, was standing. She was not going to…
‘I said…’ said the Marquess of Laidley, standing so close Calliope could almost feel his breath on her neck, ‘…will you discount me from the category of art lovers merely because I can afford to purchase it?’
Calliope turned on him, irritation bubbling up now in a rising swell. ‘Did I say that?’
‘No, but—’
‘Then I will thank you not to put words into my mouth,’ she snapped, desperately hoping no one else had noticed she was arguing with a marquess. Honestly, this was ridiculous! ‘And…’
‘Are you always so angry about art?’ the Marquess of Laidley said quietly. ‘Or is just my presence that sparks such ire?’
Calliope opened her mouth, hesitated, hating that she had absolutely nothing to say in response, then closed it again.