Angelica took a bite of her Madeira cake. He watched her absently wiping away the butter the rich cake left on her fingers, almost as if she were caressing the napkin. He imagined her fingers caressing him instead.
“So what do you think of this Miss Edgerton?” she asked.
He had to reel his mind back from the sensual, and sometimes shockingly explicit, thoughts it had a tendency to engage in these days—thoughts that never failed to involve Angelica in some state of undress. “Miss Edgerton, ah, well, she is very pretty, amiable, smiling. Doesn’t have much to say, though, except to agree with whoever is speaking.”
“That should suit Penny. He likes it when people agree with him.”
What neither of them said, out of loyalty to Penny, was that a girl of middling intelligence and not many original thoughts was probably the most Penny could hope for.
“It’s been thirteen years since his accident,” said Angelica. “He has managed remarkably well. He will manage this too.”
Freddie smiled at her. “You are right. I should have more faith.”
They said nothing for a minute or so, she nibbling on another piece of Madeira cake, he turning an almond biscuit in his fingers.
“Well,” they said at nearly the same time.
“You first,” he offered.
“No, no, you first. You are my visitor; I insist.”
“I—I’d like to ask you for a favor,” he said.
“In all my years of knowing you I don’t remember a single instance of your ever asking me for favors. I will admit it might have had something to do with the fact that I was constantly thrusting my opinions and wishes on you.” Her eyes twinkled. “But please, go ahead; I am resolutely intrigued.”
He loved the shape of her mouth when she almost smiled. Why had he never noticed before the magnetic pull of her near-smile?
“I saw an interesting painting at Miss Edgerton’s house. No one knows the identity of the artist. I believe I’ve seen a work in a similar style and vein. But I can’t remember when or where,” he said. “Your memory is far superior for such things, as is your knowledge.”
“Hmm, compliments. I adore compliments—flattery will get you far, young man.”
“You know I don’t know how to flatter.” Ten years ago Angelica had already been a singular connoisseur of art. These days she was formidable in her erudition. “I’ve taken some photographs of the painting. May I show them to you once they have been developed?”
She tilted her head to one side and played with the coil of hair at her jaw again. “But I have not agreed to help you yet. First, I think, I’d like to hear your answer to my request for a favor. I have been waiting on an answer for weeks, if you will recall.”
And he’d been able to think of nothing else, for weeks.
He flushed despite his intention not to. “You speak of the portrait?”
The nude portrait she would like of herself. When he’d insisted to Penny that there was nothing prurient about a study of the female form, his head had been filled with the most carnal visions of Angelica.
“Yes, that’s it.”
She was direct and almost nonchalant, while he felt gauche, out of his element, and much too warm.
“You know I’m not an expert at the human form.”
“You’ve always been too modest, Freddie dearest. I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t have faith in your abilities. I’ve seen the studies you’ve done: You do very well at the human form.”
She was right, though it was his preference not to paint the human form very often. He had been a clumsy child prone to injuring himself, and as such was kept indoors when he most wished to be outside, running, spinning around and around, or simply lying in the grass and observing the changing color of the sky. Painting the human form meant his studio, when he’d much rather be en plein air, capturing the effusive pink cream of a cherry tree in blossom or the undercurrents of a tête-à-tête at a picnic party.
Yet as he looked at her, he already measured in his mind the proportion of Naples ochre and vermilion that he should add to silver-white to approximate the warm, healthy tone of her skin.
“You said it is for your private collection.”
“That is my intention.”
“So you won’t have it exhibited?”
“So much concern for my modesty.” She smiled teasingly. “Why can’t I display half as much decorum?”
“I need a promise.”
For the most part, he was an easygoing man. But he would not yield on this matter.
“I want it for a record of my youth, so that I may one day look back upon it and sigh over my own lost beauty. I promise you solemnly that not only will I not exhibit it anywhere, I will not even display it in my own house. Instead, it will go into a crate, and not be opened again until I see a hag in the mirror.” She smiled again. “Will that satisfy you?”
He swallowed. “All right then. I’ll do it.”
She set down her teacup and gazed directly at him. “In that case, I find myself quite willing to help you track down the provenance of your mysterious painting.”
Mrs. Watts had been dead a quarter of a century. Vere considered himself quite lucky to locate, in only a few hours, someone who had once known her.
His search took him from Bermondsey to Seven Dials. Barely a mile away from the spacious squares of Mayfair, Seven Dials had been notorious for its crime and poverty earlier in the century. In recent years, the character of the district had improved, although Vere was still disinclined to venture into its side streets alone at night.
But at the moment it was broad daylight. St. Martin’s Lane, which led into the district, was raucous with birds, for it was here that London’s bird fanciers gathered. He passed a shop full of songbirds in cages: bullfinches, larks, and starlings, all nervously twittering and chirping. Another shop brimmed with crates upon crates of plump, cooing pigeons. Hawks and owls and parrots amplified the cacophony. He was grateful to pass an occasional establishment specializing in aquatic creatures or rabbits, both blessedly silent.
Jacob Dooley lived on Little Earl Street, where crowds milled about a lively outdoor market, though Vere could not see much for sale that wasn’t second- or third-hand goods. What use could any woman make of a set of crinoline hoops in this day and age, he did not know, but he saw not one, not two, but three being hawked as “Height o’ fashion!”
Dooley’s flat was on the top floor of a four-story building. The front of the building, grandly lettered, advertised the grocer on the ground floor—Dairy Farmer, Family Butcher, Milk Contractor, Large Consumers Supplied. The narrow, dark staircase inside smelled intermittently of urine.
Vere’s knock summoned a man in his mid-sixties, broad and hirsute, with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair and a beard of equally mixed shades. He stood behind his partially open door, warily examining Vere. Vere had changed into costume. He was now a burly drayman with a beard that almost rivaled Dooley’s in luxuriance. His rough work clothes smelled as they ought: equal parts horse and brewery.
“Who are you? And why are you asking after Mrs. Watts?” Dooley’s Irish origin was evident in his speech.
Vere had his answer and his Scouse accent ready. “Mrs. Watts was me dad’s auntie, she was. That’s how me mum told me. Me dad ran away to London to live with Mrs. Watts.”
Dooley’s eyes widened. “But Ned was only a lad when he came to live with her, sure he was. Me, I never saw him at all. But Mag—Mrs. Watts—she said he was fourteen when he came and sixteen when he left.”
“Well, he had me in me mum before he left Liverpool. Least he had me mum fink so.”