Chapter 4
Four
Grey
While waiting for his—assistant—to come downstairs, Greybourne complimented his ginger-haired host on his most excellent luncheon.
“It’s not often we entertain gentlemen of your caliber, sir. It’s a pleasure to have you. Miss Talbot tells us you plan to reside in Gravesyde awhile?” The innkeeper, who had introduced himself as Rafe Russell, whisked away the whiskey glass Grey emptied and lifted it in inquiry.
Grey shook his head at the refill. He needed his wits about him for his next task. “That depends on whether we can obtain congenial housing. I corresponded with a Mr. Comfrey at the bank in Stratford. He promised to meet us here and show us around. I believe he has a property picked out.”
“He stayed with us last night. He’s about somewhere.
Since we’ve petitioned to have a proper government and we’re threatening the bank about abandoned buildings, they have been restoring Bradford House, one of the larger properties off River Road.
I believe he mentioned showing it to you. I can give you directions.”
“Excellent. I believe we’ll stroll about first. If it’s in walking distance, we’ll head that way.
Tell Comfrey we’ll meet him there, if he returns.
” Grey winced as the twins made their way down the stairs and he recalled Andrew’s impediment.
He would not enjoy walking, and his sister went slowly to accommodate him.
Grey met them in the lobby. “Andrew, Mr. Russell has the directions to Bradford House. Would you mind driving the curricle around to meet us there, after the horses are rested? I want to visit the gallery my cousin is opening and introduce her to your sister. They will be working together, I hope.” Grey had every intention of misleading his enemies in any manner available.
Village rumor mills had to be fed some fodder.
“Delighted to do so, sir.” Amiable Andrew ambled out to the yard.
Leonard adjusted her plain bonnet over her cropped curls, tied the strings, and waited for orders.
Grey was damned if he knew how to deal with a female assistant, but he knew what was expected by a lady. He extended his elbow. “Come along, then, I’ll introduce you to my cousin.”
She sent him an uninterpretable look from beneath long lashes. Why had he not noticed those intriguing, undeniably feminine, eyes earlier? They were almost topaz, almond-shaped, and suited her high cheekbones nicely.
Because one did not study the eyes of gentlemen. Or assistants. Especially assistants. They were tools to be used.
Gritting his teeth, Grey led her out to the dusty yard. “The banker who was to meet us has wandered off. Let us take the opportunity to see what foolishness Cousin Dorothea has instigated now. She has ever been a menace to herself and others.”
“How so?” she asked as they strolled past a hole-in-the-wall with an artistically painted sign naming it Monk’s Tavern.
Grey noted that all the signs around town appeared new. “You will have to see for yourself. I will not prejudice you in advance.”
She snorted, obviously recognizing his bias.
He wrinkled his nose in distaste at several derelict cottages with abandoned gardens and prayed the banker had found better.
Past the meager cottages, they reached a slightly more substantial part of the village—meaning it had several stores and a few residences with solid roofs, although one yard was oddly adorned with spinning, bobbing pinwheels and bottles.
Grey had escaped the countryside after the death of the last remaining member of his immediate family. Once out of school, he’d not returned, finding the bucolic life too slow and unstimulating for his energy and inquiring mind.
He was older now and really ought to consider settling down. . .
Maybe, after Italy. He’d promised himself a reward for writing this book that would no doubt make him persona non grata in half his clubs. Perhaps he’d settle in Italy. His string of disastrous fates might not follow him abroad.
“It’s a pity you are not an architect or historian, my lord,” his assistant murmured, disrupting his thoughts. “I feel as if we have stepped back in time and I would like to know more.”
“I am a historian,” he argued. “I just find nothing artistic about thatch. It’s a fire hazard.”
Familiar shouts from a storefront interrupted any reply. What the devil was Gustav doing this far from London?
Grey put Miss Leonard behind him just as a man in an artist’s smock tumbled out the door and on to the raised boardwalk they’d been traversing. He should have known the city would follow him.
“Shakespearian?” Grey suggested, peering into the window of the shop, ignoring the cursing clod in the dust.
“Well, if this is the gallery, possibly Renaissance?” She didn’t object when he led her past the cursing artist, into the gallery.
“Caravaggio, you are suggesting? He did like his brawls.” Pleased she knew his mind so well, Grey studied the big brute inside the door, dusting off his perfectly tailored but ancient coat. Unsmiling, the brute slammed the door on the ruffian in the street.
“Ah, Greybourne, there you are. Of course you arrive just as tempers flare.” Looking entirely out of place in a space filled with hammering carpenters and quarreling artists, a blond vision of elegance floated toward them.
“Brawling is the pastime of peasants, my dear Dorothea. Do we have this fine gentleman here to thank for ridding us of opinionated vermin?” Grey bowed to the chestnut-haired giant, who did not acknowledge his pleasantry but eyed him with suspicion.
“Arnaud Lavigne, Cecil Greybourne. You may sort out your titles as you wish.” Dorothea turned her attention on Miss Leonard. “Welcome. I am Thea Talbot, unfortunate cousin of this inconsiderate gentleman who never visits without causing trouble.”
“I did nothing!” Grey protested, refraining from rolling his eyes at his cousin’s pronunciation of Tay-ya. At least she hadn’t shortened it to Dora.
He bowed in the direction of the aristocratic émigré the family fretted over. The Frenchman scowled and crossed his rather large arms. Grey decided antagonizing him was a fool’s journey.
“Not according to Gustav.” Thea waved at the clod brushing himself off outside. “He declares you are a fraud, a liar, and a thief. He was not pleased to hear you are in town.”
“Word does fly swiftly in your rural abode,” Grey said dryly. “And Gustav is the fraud, liar, and thief. Why is he here?”
“To insult and harass.” Apparently finding a subject on which they agreed, the silent Frenchman finally spoke. “Miss Leonard, may I show you around?”
“Arnaud dislikes confrontation,” Thea whispered, leading Grey to a corner where several paintings were already hung. “He rather dislikes people in general,” she added sympathetically. “He has good reason.”
Grey watched the dashing émigré lead his slender assistant to unhung stacks of canvas. Miss Leonard was not seductive, he reminded himself. And impoverished counts preferred heiresses like Thea. His assistant should be safe.
Grey returned his attention to the stormy canvases exhibiting so much rage, he was amazed the rain and wind did not leap off the wall to inundate them. Or the fires decimating entire villages didn’t set the room ablaze. The count had suffered in the Revolution.
“Lavigne’s work?” Grey surmised. “Has he reached his pastoral phase yet?” Because the fury that painted these bordered on madness.
“That’s why he has agreed to sell these. They are painful reminders of a past he’d rather forget.” She sighed. “If I could only convince him that his value is in his talent, not coin, he might dare to propose. I would love to see his vineyards in France before I die.”
“He hasn’t proposed? You have enough wealth for a lifetime!
The family is convinced he’s a fortune hunter who will have you locked in Bedlam while he runs off to France with your funds.
” Grey knew the family considered Thea mad.
They had tried to lock her up themselves, for the same reason—because they wanted the wealth she would inherit soon.
Thea laughed. “Like Gustav, they fling mud to disguise their own filth. It is human nature, I fear. And I do not come into my trust until my twenty-fifth birthday. Come, what do you think of his work? Will I ever see France?”
Grey didn’t have to think twice. That was more than raw talent in those paintings.
The count had been classically trained, although his style was more in that of the Vernets than the more marketable romantics.
“Your Frenchman has more talent than half the celebrated fools in London, but we both know talent is meaningless. People prefer nudes and portraits, not reminders of hell. I can recommend him to a few collectors, but my word is likely to be reviled when this new book comes out. You may prefer not to be associated with me.”
“Oh, come now, aren’t you being the slightest bit dramatic?” Thea took his arm to lead him deeper into the gallery. “I expect drama of artists, not staid old professors.”
Staid old professors? Damn, he was only a few years older than the filly.
And staid? Never. Surely. She was na?ve.
“Ask your comte about the underbelly of the art world, my dear. All those passions demand outlet. I fear you have been sheltered by the aunties too long. You may come to regret this gallery.”
Grey watched shirt-sleeved artists crowding around his assistant, who apparently regaled her audience with some taradiddle from her impoverished, nonexistent life. Men would listen to any inanity from a woman’s lips.
Leonard had never been inane. Even as he watched, he noted half the men suddenly speaking at once, eager to outdo each other, perhaps.
Thea redirected his attention. “Look around you—we are not relying entirely on art to pay the rent. This space is too large for any one business, especially a gallery, so we are dividing it. We have an expert bootmaker in the corner behind the drapery. A clockmaker is taking a table in the back. We are hoping to find a tailor for the space in between. And there are tables for local craftspeople to show their wares. We are not London, of course, but isn’t this more pleasant than shoving your way through a crowded market in the city? ”
Or alleys or muddy lanes anywhere, none of which Grey cared to traverse on foot—although he expected muddy lanes before they reached his new abode. But if rural anonymity would protect his book and his new employees from his enemies, he’d endure.
“Will the artists leave after you’ve hung their work?” Grey studied the motley collection of painters Thea had gathered. He didn’t know most of them, thankfully.
Thea gestured indifference. “The ones with homes, possibly. I believe several have occupied one of the vacant cottages and are. . . repairing. . . it to suit their needs.”
More likely slapping canvas and paint on barren walls. Grey was intimately familiar with the art world. “I gather they do not actually own said property.” Starving artists seldom owned anything.
“Ask Arnaud about the lawsuit between the manor and the bank over the ownership of village properties. I have no interest in legalities. Let me show you some of our talent.”
Before they could go farther, a familiar face deserted the group around Miss Leonard. “Greybourne, you old fraud, what are you doing outside your palace? Looking for new victims to destroy?”
Grey hid his grimace. Percival. What the devil was a London Grub-Street hack doing in the outer limits of nowhere?
A scandal-monger, Percival did not bode well for Thea’s enterprise.