Chapter 10 #4
Genevieve resisted the impulse to reach out and brush a dark brown curl off Jack’s temple.
He seemed so young and vulnerable to her in that moment, the desire to wrap her arms around him and hold him was great.
But he was not a little boy, she reminded herself, and he would surely resent her attempt to treat him as one.
He was a fourteen-year-old youth who had lived a life of constant hunger, instability and need, who had managed to survive on the streets with nothing but his wits and pure determination.
In some ways, Jack was far older and more worldly than she was.
She only hoped he would ultimately decide to stay with her—at least until he didn’t need her protection or her guidance any longer.
“Genevieve.” Jamie was giggling as he called through the door. “We have something for you.”
She smiled, wondering what game the children were playing. “I suppose we have locked ourselves up in here long enough, Jack, and the children are anxious for their tea.”
Jack closed the precious book on ships. “That’s all right.” He was feeling strangely privileged at having been able to spend some time with Genevieve alone. “Can we look at this book again tomorrow?”
“I would like that very much.”
“Genevieve, let us in!” pleaded a chorus of voices in the hall, as they banged upon the door.
“Come in,” she said.
The door burst open and the children practically shoved Haydon inside.
“Tell her!” they shrieked, dancing around him. “Tell her right away!”
Haydon reached into his coat pocket and withdrew an envelope, which he placed in Genevieve’s hand.
“What’s this?” she asked, puzzled.
“Two tickets for the coach to Glasgow. We leave on Friday of next week.”
Her brows drew together in bewilderment. “We’re going to Glasgow?”
“We are indeed. The eminent artist Georges Boulonnais is about to have his inaugural Scottish exhibition next Saturday evening. We must select fifteen more of your best paintings and take them over to Mr. Alfred Lytton’s gallery tomorrow.
He is going to have them shipped to his affiliate gallery in Glasgow, and they will see to it that the works are suitably framed. ”
“But we can’t afford to go to Glasgow,” Genevieve protested. She was having trouble coming to grips with what Haydon was telling her, so her mind focused on the more mundane aspects of his pronouncement. “We don’t have the money.”
“Actually, we do. Mr. Lytton was astute enough to realize that it would be a major coup if the reclusive Monsieur Boulonnais were to make an appearance at this opening. While I could not guarantee such a thing, I did mention that my eccentric friend might be more apt to attend were I there. Since I am newly married and most reticent to travel without my charming wife, Mr. Lytton was kind enough to offer to pay for all our expenses.”
Genevieve stared at him in disbelief. The idea of actually seeing her work for sale in an art gallery was simply inconceivable. “But I cannot leave the children—”
“Of course ye can, lass,” interrupted Oliver. “I’ll take good care of them.”
“Dinna let that thought frighten ye,” said Eunice, chortling. “Doreen and I will make sure the children are warm and fed and in their beds by eight o’clock. Ye just go to Glasgow and have a grand time. Dinna worry about a thing.”
“Just think,” said Simon, grabbing her hand with excitement, “your paintings are going to be on display for the whole world to see!”
“Yet no one will know that you are the true artist,” reflected Annabelle dreamily. “One day I shall write a play about it and then perform in it, without ever revealing your true identity.”
“And I’ll make all the beautiful costumes for you,” offered Grace, “and people will be so taken by my designs that they will become all the rage in Paris soon afterward, and I shall become rich and famous.” She pursed her lips together suddenly, staring at Genevieve in disapproval.
“You aren’t going to wear that to Glasgow, are you?
You look like you’re dressed for your own burial. ”
Genevieve’s hands flew self-consciously to her plain black skirts. “I do?”
“I can’t wear black,” Annabelle informed her with grave earnestness. “It makes my skin look horribly sallow.”
“Genevieve has other gowns to wear,” Charlotte assured them.
“But they’re all dark and ugly,” protested Annabelle with childlike candor. “And worn.”
“I’m sure she has one that doesn’t look too bad.” Charlotte regarded Genevieve hopefully. “You do have something nice, don’t you, Genevieve?”
“Does this mean that we have the money to pay the bank?” wondered Jamie, who could not see anything wrong with Genevieve’s dress.
“Not yet,” Haydon replied, “but I strongly suspect that once Genevieve’s paintings are handsomely framed and hung, the public will instantly be drawn to them and the works will sell. It may take a while, but—”
“And then we’ll have lots of money to pay the bank and we can all live here forever!” squeaked Simon, ecstatic.
“At the very least we should make enough to satisfy the bank for a while,” Haydon agreed, careful to temper their expectations. “But if this exhibition goes well, there is no reason why we couldn’t arrange others, in Edinburgh, and maybe London. We shall just have to see how this one goes.”
“It seems to me ye’re going to be in need of some flouncier finery if ye’re going to be paradin’ about Glasgow as the newly wedded Mrs. Blake.” Eunice studied Genevieve up and down with a critical eye. “Seein’ as how yer husband is supposed to be an important friend of the artist and all.”
“Well, I don’t have anything better, and there’s no money to be wasted on such nonsense.
” Genevieve’s tone was brisk and pragmatic.
Secretly, however, she was wishing she had something elegant to wear to the opening.
It had been years since she had enjoyed the profound luxury of a new dress, and she had not had a new evening gown since before her father’s death.
“Here, Eunice.” Haydon pressed several bank notes into Eunice’s hand. “You and Doreen take Genevieve shopping, and make sure she buys something nice for herself.”
Genevieve’s eyes grew round. “Where did you get that money?”
“Mr. Lytton gave me an advance against the sales. He said it was to help cover any expenses Monsieur Boulonnais might have, should he decide to travel to Glasgow. And right now,” he added, grinning broadly, “it seems that Monsieur Boulonnais is in need of a new gown.”
APPLE-GOLD LIGHT RIMMED THE DRAWN DRAPERIES of the main floor, sending a warm glimmer into the freezing darkness of the street. The heavy curtains effectively blocked the silhouettes of those who moved behind them, leaving Vincent staring in frustration at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell Blake.
It was only by a monumental force of will that he had managed to remain in the shadows when he had seen Haydon emerge from the front door earlier that day.
His recognition of him had been immediate.
Haydon had been a regular guest in his home for many years before Vincent learned that the perpetually drunken fool had helped himself to more than just the fine food and drink that Vincent so generously offered.
Until then, Vincent had thought of him as little more than a trivial amusement, an insignificant but inevitable addition to any dinner or weeklong party in the country.
Haydon played the role of the charming, insouciant younger brother of the Marquess of Redmond, the idle second son who had inherited all of the physical beauty of face and structure, but none of the discipline or wit required of men who actually want to make something of themselves in the world.
His total lack of sobriety coupled with his undeniably handsome features and his inheritance made him utterly irresistible to women, who were drawn to him like wasps to a dollop of jam.
Vincent had been amused by the way the weaker sex contrived to throw themselves into Haydon’s path at every opportunity, seeking him out for a clandestine rendezvous on the terrace, or in the rose garden, or in some dark corner where they thought their urgent gropings and halfhearted protests would go unnoticed.
Haydon’s conquests had been as much a form of entertainment as drinking or cards.
To make it more of an event, Vincent had taken bets from the other gentlemen guests in the morning as to whose bed their drunken friend had heated the night before.
Vincent had been far from amused, however, the night Cassandra coldly informed him during a moment of pure hatred that his beloved five-year-old daughter had been sired by Haydon.
He had never thought of himself as a passionate man, capable of the capricious emotions of love and hate.
He had always been cool, dignified, self-possessed, to the point where Cassandra had accused him of being frozen inside.
But she was wrong. He had been cool to her, yes, because his spectacularly indulged wife had never been able to arouse any feelings within him beyond lust, for a time, and then disdain.
But his love for Emmaline had surpassed any feelings he had ever held for anything else in his life.
And when he learned that his precious daughter was in fact not his, but the result of some sweating, rutting tryst between his wife and a man whom Vincent had tolerated but despised, it was as if the heart that had so recently learned the exquisite pleasure of loving someone had been torn from his chest and crushed to a pulp.
What he had not understood was that love could not be eradicated merely by deciding it was over.
And that there was a far worse pain still to come.
The wash of gold rimming the windows began to be extinguished, room by room, until finally the entire house stood silent and black.
Vincent thought of Haydon lying upon a warm bed inside, perhaps with his body pressing against the delicately lush form of the charitable Miss MacPhail, who had so selflessly taken it upon herself to rescue and protect him.
He was alive and warm and safe, while Emmaline lay cold and rotting in the ground.
The injustice of it was unbearable. Vincent wanted to storm in there and plunge a knife into Haydon’s chest where he lay, to see his eyes widen with horror and surprise and watch as the blood poured hot and red across the sheets and onto the floor.
Patience, he told himself silently. You must be patient.
Now that he had found Haydon comfortably ensconced in his false identity as Maxwell Blake, husband and father, the mode of his demise had taken a new shape.
Vincent had been somewhat alarmed when he had watched him climb into a carriage earlier that day.
He had thought that perhaps Haydon was abandoning his masquerade in Inveraray and seeking refuge elsewhere.
But after following him to an art gallery where he stayed for well over an hour, he observed Haydon’s return to this house.
What had intrigued Vincent most was the warm welcome he had received upon his return.
The door had swung open and an old man clapped him on the shoulder as if he were a lad, while a jumble of children of assorted heights and ages had crowded around, grabbing him by the hands as if they couldn’t wait to drag him off somewhere.
The memory of Emmaline grabbing at his own hands with her chubby little fingers suddenly filled his mind.
She was not quite three years old, and she was pulling upon him as she toddled down the corridor.
Where’s the puppy, Daddy? she crooned, leading him to the room in which she had hidden one of her stuffed toys for him to find.
It was a favorite game of theirs, and no matter how obvious the toy’s placement, Vincent would always make a great show of investigating beneath every chair and sofa, picking up cushions and examining beneath small ornaments, huffing and frowning and looking perplexed, much to Emmaline’s delight.
He could not remember precisely when he had first pulled his hand away from her.
The memory was blurred because she continued to reach for him, day after day, week after week, pleading with him to follow her.
Until the excruciating moment when she finally realized that her daddy didn’t want to hold her hand anymore—or hug her, or kiss her, or press his cheek to hers and call her his little princess and hold her tight. Or search for her little puppy.
After that she never reached for him again.
He blinked hard, forcing himself back to the present.
Death is too easy for you, you bastard.