If His Kiss Is Wicked Read online

  “Yet you said you observed things that were untoward.” She led him around the landing, and they began climbing again. “What did you mean by that?”

  “In spite of her following, she is able to escape the crush to find time alone with Mr. Charters.”

  “But he is her fiancé. It is my experience that society makes allowances in this regard. There is a certain amount of indulgence for engaged couples.”

  “There is, but she is not engaged to Mr. Glover. Nor Mr. Collier. Nor Mr. Truss.”

  Emma’s shoulders sagged. “She was alone with those gentlemen?”

  “To the extent that she did not know I was watching her, yes, she was alone with each one of them. They merely talked. I believe Mr. Collier was hopeful that he might take her hand, but she did not permit it.”

  “I don’t understand. Was she encouraging them or not?”

  “I cannot say. Mr. Charters happened upon your cousin and Mr. Truss and did not appear to take exception to what he observed.”

  “That does not surprise. He is ever charitable in his regard of Marisol.”

  “It begs the question of whether he knew about Miss Vega’s assignation with Mr. Kincaid.”

  Emma’s nod was reluctantly offered. “It occurred to me also, but I cannot make sense of what it might mean.”

  “It might simply mean that he is so intoxicated with her that he will forgive her everything.”

  “Intoxicated?” she asked. “That is a peculiar characterization. Do you not suppose that he is in love with her?”

  “I imagine he thinks he is.”

  She stopped on the next landing and regarded him with interest. His features did not reveal the bent of his mind, making it difficult to know how serious he was about his remark. He had mastered an air of casual indifference that challenged her powers of observation. “You are not a romantic, then.”

  “Oh, but I am.” He smiled down at her. “Very much so. It is why I can speak of intoxication with some authority. Do you know the feeling, Miss Hathaway?”

  She was uncomfortable with the intrusive nature of the question, but she recognized that she was in some way responsible for it. “Only in passing,” she said. She pivoted, giving him her back, and proceeded quickly to the end of the hall. “Through here,” she said, opening a narrow door and stepping into an equally narrow stairwell. She started up after cautioning him to be mindful of his step.

  “It seems an inconvenient location,” Restell said. “You must encounter a certain amount of difficulty getting the paintings down.”

  “The larger ones, yes, but Sir Arthur designed the means to lower them to the street from the balcony. You will see. The complication is nothing compared to the advantages of the light.”

  Restell had been aware that the stairwell, while not lighted by any lamps, was nevertheless awash in light. Glancing up, he saw three skylights had been set into the roof. On a cloudless day such as London was enjoying, they funneled clear, golden sunbeams into Sir Arthur’s studio. Canvases in a variety of dimensions were either covered or had their painted surfaces turned toward the walls to protect them from the direct and damaging effects of the sun. A window large enough to serve as a door opened onto a small balcony that overlooked the street side of the house.

  Emma was not terribly surprised when Mr. Gardner did not wait for an invitation to explore the garret room that served as her uncle’s retreat and began to go about on his own. She noticed that he touched nothing save with his eyes, lingering over the scarred pine table, which Sir Arthur used to mix his own oils, as if he could imagine the industry of the artist involved in grinding the ingredients, measuring the oil, and finally mixing the whole of it to create the exact color that had been in his mind’s eye all along.

  Restell stepped around half a dozen canvases stacked against the north wall without giving in to his urge to examine them. The studio had few amenities, most of them placed there, it seemed, for the relative comfort of those who came to sit for Sir Arthur. A loveseat was situated on a small platform under one of the skylights. The upholstered back of the piece gave up the original color, its golden damask covering having long since faded to a pale, nearly translucent, flaxen yellow. There was a winged chair turned toward the black iron stove and a footstool placed at comfortable distance from it, set there, perhaps, to raise the artist’s legs and relieve the pain of his throbbing knees. A much higher stool—the artist’s perch—rested in front of one of the covered easels; another of middling height rested in front of the balcony window. Used palettes were scattered on the tabletop; one lay on the floor by the easel.

  The studio held the faint odors of linseed oil and turpentine, of musty fabrics and canvas. Open shelves were crowded with jars, bottles, and brushes. Muslin aprons, flecked and streaked with hundreds of stray brushstrokes in every conceivable hue from vermillion to violet, hung on a series of wooden pegs set into the shelves. A trunk and a narrow chest of drawers had been set side by side under the shelving.

  Restell stepped toward the window and looked out past the balcony, past the rooftops of the houses across the street, and allowed his eyes to grasp the grand vista presented by even this small corner of London. “It is a view such as I have rarely seen,” he said.

  “Few people have unless they frequent the quarters usually given to the servants.”

  Restell glanced over his shoulder and regarded her quizzically.

  Emma flushed. She spoke quickly to disabuse him of the construction he seemed to have put upon her words. “I didn’t mean that you…that is, I never intended…I think you have mistaken my—” She cut off her inadequate explanation when she was finally able to divine that he was much amused by it. Irritation made her mouth flatten, which only seemed to amuse him more. Determined to ignore him by not making further comment, she took deliberate strides to the window where he stood and pushed it open, propping it in place with an iron rod made specifically for that purpose. Raising her hem a few modest inches, she stepped over the sill, ducked under the open glass, and came to stand on the balcony. “Would you care to view from here?” she asked.

  Restell followed her example, though with less ease than she had shown. He also refrained from going to the edge of the wooden balustrade. “Does your uncle paint out here?”

  “He has,” she said, “but not in recent years. In fact, I do not believe I’ve ever seen him stand on the balcony.”

  “And you’ve lived with your uncle and cousin for three years, I think you told me.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Restell noted the stippling of paint on the balcony’s floor, most of it concentrated in one particular area. He could make out the L-shaped corners where the easel legs had been resting. Paint dappled the balustrade, the colors still as rich and deep as they were on the floor. “Your cousin paints, Miss Hathaway?”

  “Marisol?” she asked in incredulous accents.

  “You have another cousin, mayhap?”

  “Pardon? Oh, no. No, I don’t.” She tried to recover, realizing her reaction was hardly complimentary to Marisol. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I have never heard Marisol express the least interest in painting. It is difficult for me to imagine that she would find any pleasure in it. I’ve heard her remark that she finds it a messy, malodorous business. Her talents are the pianoforte and dramatic readings.”

  “Then you are the family’s other artist.”

  “Me? Hardly. Why do you suggest it?”

  He pointed to the balcony’s floor and balustrade. “Someone has been painting out here recently. You say it hasn’t been your uncle, and you’ve acquitted Miss Vega of the same. I think I can safely eliminate any of the servants, so I submit that it is you.”

  “You are not wrong with your facts, Mr. Gardner, but your conclusion is still incorrect.”

  A lock of pale, sun-gilt hair fell across his forehead as he leaned forward to regard her more intently. “Is it?”

  Emma’s own gaze did not falter. “It is. My uncle a
ccepts students from time to time.”

  “So it is a student who paints out here.”

  “Yes. Is it important?”

  “I doubt it, but you are gracious to indulge my curiosity.”

  “What is it precisely that you are curious about?”

  “Why, you, of course.” He retreated into the studio before she managed a reply, but not before he glimpsed her openmouthed astonishment.

  Emma followed Restell; this time exercising more caution as she crossed the sill. It was all in aid of giving her a moment to recover.

  Restell considered offering his hand to assist her but thought better of it. She would not likely spurn his help; neither was she likely to be made comfortable by it. He waited beside the easel until she had crossed the sill and composed herself before he inquired about the painting he’d asked to see.

  “I believe it’s over here,” Emma said. She moved to the loveseat where three canvases were leaning against the left side. She examined them quickly and found what she was looking for at the bottom. “This is it. I fear you will be disappointed. Uncle Arthur did point out to you that this is a first, and wholly unsatisfactory, early work.”

  Restell accepted the painting and studied it without comment for several minutes. It was an incomplete work. The canvas measured some eighteen by twenty-four inches, a little over half the size of the painting his mother had purchased. The right side of the painting was largely finished, though without the small details and richness of color and character that were so remarkable in the final work. The brushstrokes faded toward the middle of the painting and the left side was devoid of color. The rest of the scene was still visible because of the pencil drawing that remained.

  “There are sketches also,” Emma told him. “Would you like to see those?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would.”

  Emma went to the chest and began rifling the contents of the bottom two drawers. She removed several sheets and carefully laid them on the table. “You will observe that none of them is like the finished work, yet elements from all of them are in the painting. When seen like this, end to end, one has the sense of the breadth of his vision.”

  To Restell’s eye it seemed that Sir Arthur’s initial vision had been far more ambitious than what he had finally put to his canvas. The sketches suggested a view of the village that allowed one’s eye to travel a full three hundred sixty degrees, as if one were standing at the epicenter of all the activity. Nevertheless, these pencil drawings of the village were astonishing in their attention to detail and portrayed the villagers in such an intimate way that they seemed familiar. “The painting that hangs in my mother’s salon,” Restell said, “am I correct to assume it is but the first piece in a series?”

  Emma stacked the sketches and made to return them to the chest. Restell reached across the table and lightly touched her forearm, halting her.

  “You have not answered my question,” Restell said. He straightened and allowed his hand to fall away.

  “I have the intention to do so,” she said. “You are not patient after all.”

  “And you are not the first to remark upon it.”

  It was not an admission, she realized, but did point to an awareness that others saw him in the same light. “Allow me to put these away.”

  “That is precisely what I meant to prevent. I am interested in purchasing the sketches.”

  “These? But they are—”

  “Ambitious,” he interjected. “And intriguing. It is why I wondered if there indeed would be a series of paintings. If these are of so little value to Sir Arthur that they are relegated to a drawer, then I should very much like to own them.”

  “I don’t know what my uncle’s intentions are regarding a second and third painting. You are correct that he considered a different project at the outset, but he was never quite satisfied with what could be accomplished and frankly could not wait to be rid of it. He was taken aback, I believe, when it aroused interest. Mr. Charters was helpful in that regard. He spoke most effusively about it to his acquaintances who value his opinion in matters of art and literature. He encouraged inquiries.”

  “I was not aware that my mother knew Mr. Charters.”

  “She may not. It may be only that she is familiar with his reputation. He has one of some consequence.”

  “The Brummel of artistic enlightenment,” Restell said wryly. “I was right to avoid an introduction, then.”

  Emma’s blue-green eyes flashed her disapproval. “He does not have the plague, you know.”

  “He was holding court at Lady Claremont’s ball while his fiancé was slipping out to the gazebo with Mr. Glover. Miss Vega aside, his audience appeared to be enthralled with his discourse.”

  “Perhaps Marisol was desirous of his attention.”

  “That also occurred to me.” He watched relief sweep through Emmalyn’s expression. He could not fault her for wanting to see her cousin in the best light. She seemed to have a sound sense of Miss Vega’s shortcomings of character and behavior, but she was perhaps too willing to view those foibles as a consequence of her cousin’s age. Restell was reserving judgment in that regard. He accepted immaturity as a contributing factor, but was uncertain that it explained the whole of Miss Vega’s precipitous disposition.

  “Marisol is not quite all of a piece when she is not at the center of things,” Emma said. “I have known her to embrace an uncharitable mood. She cannot seem to help herself.”

  “I’m sure she can’t,” Restell said neutrally. “I am given to understand Mr. Charters proposed some three months ago.”

  “Yes, in March. How did you learn that?”

  He shrugged. “That sort of information is freely offered in the course of a general inquiry about Mr. Charters. Did Miss Vega immediately accept?”

  “She gave him her answer after Mr. Charters spoke to Sir Arthur. I believe that was the following day.”

  “She did not seek your counsel?”

  “No. She told me about the proposal, of course, but she did not ask me to offer an opinion as to the suitability of the match.”

  “What is your opinion? He is considerably older than she.”

  “My opinion is of no consequence. They are affianced. And he is eleven years her senior, not yet thirty himself, so it is hardly a chasm that separates them.”

  “Tell me about Johnston.”

  The abrupt shift in the tenor of his questions gave Emma a start. Her head came up a fraction and she frowned at him. “Johnston?”

  “You mentioned him earlier in your uncle’s presence. Do you recall?”

  “I do, now that you have reminded me, but I fail to comprehend why he is a point of inquiry.” She set down the sketches and held up one hand, forestalling his explanation. He would likely ask her to simply indulge him without offering any hint as to what provoked his curiosity. “Mr. Johnston was my uncle’s secretary for almost a score of years. Do not depend on my recollection regarding the length of his service. You would have to inquire of Sir Arthur.”

  “It seemed to me that your uncle desired not to speak of the man. He was quick to put a period to that conversation.”

  “You do not permit me to move you from your purpose so easily.”

  Her faintly accusing tone raised his smile. “That is because you approached me, Miss Hathaway, and asked for my help. It would not be in your best interest if I allowed you to dictate what questions are important enough to answer and what should be dismissed as mere fancy.”

  Emma could not find the flaw in his reasoning. Sighing almost inaudibly, she offered the information he sought. “Mr. Johnston was still in the employ of my uncle when I came to live here. It seemed to me that he worked tirelessly in the best interests of Sir Arthur, arranging viewings of my uncle’s work, placating patrons, attending to all the pecuniary details, and occasionally accepting the brunt of my uncle’s temper, regardless of what or who provoked it.”

  “A paragon, then.”

  “I would he
sitate to name him as such, but he certainly impressed me as a capable and honorable gentleman. When I expressed interest in what he did for Sir Arthur, he made time for me and patiently answered my questions. I could not have assumed the responsibilities of his position if not for his tutelage.”

  “Did he realize he was preparing his successor?”

  “It was not like that,” Emma said. “There was no design that I would be appropriating his position.”

  “Yet he is no longer in the service of Sir Arthur and you are.”

  “My uncle believes that Mr. Johnston was stealing from him.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “I am not as certain as Sir Arthur. There is compelling evidence to suggest that he is guilty of such a deed, and no other suspects, so one can comprehend my uncle’s decision to release him, yet Mr. Johnston’s protestations of innocence rang true to me. That he should betray my uncle’s trust after years of exemplary service did not make sense.”

  “Perhaps he was embezzling from the beginning and only became careless late in his tenure.”

  Emma shook her head. “No, that is not it. I went through the accounts with every attention to detail. Mr. Johnston kept meticulous records and had ledgers going back to the beginning of his employment. There is simply nothing to suggest that he was appropriating moneys for his own use.”

  “You cited compelling evidence.”

  “Oh, yes. There were discrepancies between commissions that were entered in the account book and the actual amounts that were paid for paintings. Mr. Charters is the one who stumbled upon the inconsistency.”

  Restell’s clear blue eyes became vaguely distant in their focus as he considered this. He rubbed the underside of his chin with his knuckles. “How did that come about?”

  “Mr. Charters overheard a friend remark that one must be prepared to pay a king’s ransom for a portrait by an artist of some renown. I believe Mr. Charters pursued a line of inquiry until he learned the exact figure his friend was lamenting. In the course of conversation with my uncle, Mr. Charters realized that the commission Sir Arthur was expecting was much less than what the friend had agreed to pay. As Mr. Johnston acted as the agent for the sale, and as he had recorded the smaller figure in his ledger, it pointed to a clear incongruity. Mr. Charters’s friend confirmed that he had indeed paid Mr. Johnston a larger commission than my uncle received. Mr. Johnston swore he was being wronged, but his protestations came to nothing. More evidence was uncovered in a similar vein, going back six months, I think. It was too much for my uncle to overlook. He dismissed Mr. Johnston without a character.”