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“But I might be losing my mind,” he said quietly. “Or my soul. There you go. My dark secret.”
His arm felt hard as iron through his coat. Had he told her this part in public so she couldn’t embrace him?
“Alan,” she whispered, but he was looking straight ahead at the landscape, not at her.
“Ah,” he exclaimed, in a changed tone. “This is what I wanted to see.”
She turned her eyes from his profile to the picture. They lit first on the scrawl in the corner, the lie she’d signed to it. James Berney.
“That tree there.” His forward movement pulled her with him, the picture inches away. “You plucked it from his most famous painting. The Priory Oak. And mellowed it with midsummer sun. The lichen on the trunk maps where the light falls.” He shook his head. “Astonishing.”
Her skin shattered into gooseflesh. He didn’t want tender words or caresses. In front of this picture, they weren’t a man and a woman who’d shared secrets and desires, breathed the same breath. They were art critic and art forger. Entities separate and opposed.
He turned his gaze on her, face shuttered. “You shouldn’t have added those cows drinking from the pond.”
She slipped her arm from his.
“No,” she agreed. “Jack said the same.”
She didn’t realize she’d been widening the space between them until he closed it with a stride. His mouth lowered to her ear.
“The last thing I want is to cause you pain.”
She felt the warm stroke of his breath, and a shiver ran over her. Did he refer to Jack’s downfall? Or to this yearning she felt, for him, for more?
I can’t give you what you need, he’d told her.
But what did she need? Stability. Companionship. What her aunts had. They’d never risked their hearts, gambled on love, the intoxicating sort. The sort that wore off, left you sick and alone.
She pulled away from Alan, began to walk, breathless. But she didn’t get far. A picture caught her eye, not one of her own, or of Jack’s. It showed a woman, dark-haired, elegant, her brow arched, the bow of her lips tilted at one corner.
Nina stopped and stared at that familiar half smile. Her blood ran cold, as though Alan’s mother sat before her and not her painted semblance. Had the duchess been the knowing architect of her son’s harm? Or had she persuaded herself she had his best interests at heart? Had she been too lost—too hurt herself—to tell the difference? Alan came up behind her and stood for a moment in silence. “An airy portrait,” he said at last. “Idealized and superficial. But it does capture my mother’s expression, in a certain mood.”
She kept studying it. The amusement on the duchess’s face seemed thin and brittle, a touch cruel.
“Uncle Alan!”
The shouted greeting locked her knees. Lucky thing, or she might have toppled as the boy barreled into them.
“Claud.” Alan laughed in surprise, hugging him to his side. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“It’s morning on Mars.” Claud wiggled out from beneath his arm, wheezing as he smiled. His hair went in all directions, and his nightshirt swallowed his thin frame.
“We’re exploring,” he said, and held up a toy soldier. He looked at Nina and blinked. “Miss Fritz! Is Fritz here too?”
“Miss Fritz.” Alan gave a soft snort and raised a brow at her. “No,” he said to Claud. “The lady had to settle for my company this evening.”
Nina smiled and curtseyed. “Your lordship. You came all the way from Mars?”
Claud nodded. “We’re famished by the journey.”
“Hoping to sneak into the refreshment room?” Alan ruffled Claud’s hair, then crouched to look into his eyes. “You’ll be caught red-handed. There are herds upon herds of humans. But Miss Fritz and I might be able to secure you and Felton a few bonbons.”
Claud exploded upward in his eagerness, lost a slipper, hopped in a circle, and coughed. A short cough that grabbed something in his chest. He coughed again, louder. Alan passed him his handkerchief wordlessly, and the boy covered his face.
“There you are.”
Nina looked over Claud’s bowed head. Miss Milford was approaching, weaving around statues and couples gone stock-still with curiosity.
