Page 15
“I’ll tell you,” he agreed wryly. “The public shifted its attention to living artists. Contemporary painting blossomed. New styles, new movements, began to usher British art into the modern era. But we must remain on our guard. Forgers and crooked dealers don’t merely respond to the market; they shape it. There’s no such thing as one fake Rembrandt.”
His gaze swept the pretty grove and his chiseled lips softened into their habitual half smile. “Forgeries crop up in rings, like toadstools. Find a fake Rembrandt in the drawing room of this imbecilic aristocrat, check the drawing room of that imbecilic aristocrat. You’ll discover that the whole social circle has gone and paneled their homes with them. Soon, the next tier of society will be foaming at the mouth for their old masters. Which will prompt the forgers to double their efforts. Which, Miss Finch, sets us back forty years and imperils the interests of artists painting now. Imperils art itself.”
He brushed a row of tulips with his cane, and she had the sense that if a toadstool had presented itself, he would have whacked cap from stalk.
“So. Not minor.” He flicked his eyes to her. “But I’ll grant you, more easily resolvable than some of the other issues.”
A chill dove deep into her bones. He was standing in front of her, not a yard away, tall and strongly built, a man who could overpower an adversary with sheer brawn. But he used a steel nib instead, black ink.
With his smiting pen, he could condemn her, Jack, Sleaford, Laddie, even Ruby, to a British dungeon. If he was determined to resolve the issue of the forgeries, how long would it take him to trace Sleaford to the rest of them?
“Well.” She dragged her valise up to her hip. Her dry throat—it was like a rusted bell without a clapper. “There’s the gate.”
He pivoted. “No countesses yet. Let’s both make our escape, shall we?”
On the street, she turned from him immediately and could have kicked herself.
Don’t bolt, you ninny, like a bloody cutpurse.
She schooled her leaping nerves, forced herself to rotate.
“This is goodbye, then,” she said.
“I rather wish it weren’t.” He studied her with an odd expression. “Now I have to go to an agency.”
He smiled. She smiled.
“Miss Finch,” he said, “it was a privilege to know you. I’d doff my hat, but at the moment, my doffing isn’t up to snuff. If you were my amanuensis, I’d ask you to doff it for me.”
Her lips parted involuntarily at the idea. How close to him would she have to stand to doff his hat?
“If I see you again,” he continued, “I hope it’s a serendipitous encounter in a village pastry shop. Your village pastry shop.”
“Me too.” The phrase emerged as a croak. Ginger beer, now, gallons of it. But for a moment, she didn’t turn. She watched him walk away. His movements were leisured. His gait rolled slightly, the suggestion of a hitch smoothing out as he stepped. He didn’t look back.
With luck, they’d never see each other again.
If they did, she might not be in a bakery. She might be with a bailiff. Clapped in irons. Her ankles felt heavy as she ducked her head and hurried blindly down the sidewalk, racing to put as much distance as she could between herself and Lord Alan De’Ath.
Chapter Four
The relief Nina felt arriving home lasted all of a minute. Home was a relative term. Even though she and Jack had lived above Laddie’s barbershop for nearly seven years, the commotion in the downstairs parlors still jangled her nerves. Laddie didn’t limit himself to barbering. He’d inherited his trade—and the house—from his father, slowly transforming the establishment into a wonder of the world—the underworld, at any rate. It wasn’t known as Ladbrooke’s anymore, or even Laddie’s, but rather as the Knackatory. The Knack for short. Knickknacks galore.
Most days—and nights—assorted swells, swindlers, and the occasional uppish collector circulated through the rooms, poking the mummified crocodiles, trying on the morbidly dented morion helmets, nudging one another with ribald significance and chortling at the sight of the narwhale tusks. This afternoon was no exception.
Nina sidled through the front parlor. Customers were clinking through Laddie’s bottles of shaving lotions and hair oil. One man was standing on the leather barber chair, batting at a gilded sunfish that dangled from the rafter. His friends crowded around the basins, trying to teach Polly the parrot a dirty limerick as she splashed in the water.
“There was a young lady of Trent.”
Nina ducked around the folding screen, heading for the back stairs. Flash gentlemen filled the gaps between the furniture, paste jewels glittering on their watch chains. She shoved, making unsteady progress, tripping over male feet. The cologne in the air was thick enough to pickle the tapestry pillows.
“I’ll be blowed!”
Nina staggered as an elbow clipped her shoulder. The elbow owner was young and bullnecked, dressed in a howling mauvine cutaway jacket and checked trousers. He was making a beeline for the shelves that laddered the far wall.
“By gad.” Another man started after him. “Is that a rat?”
Nina jerked around, barking her shin on a trunk. She scanned the highest shelves, cluttered with a dusty hodgepodge of trinkets, antiques, and curios.
