Page 26

“Very well.” Holroyd glowered and started again. “Lloyd Syme. He is a liverish art critic, beloved of the hidebound elements of high society. He has a remit to purchase pictures for the South Kensington Museum.” She tapped a finger to her lips as though wracking her brain.

“Oh, and he slanders women artists! There’s that.” She snapped her fingers, face darkening.

“Women artists, yes, but also any artist that De’Ath cares to champion,” amended Coover. “De’Ath and Syme have a long-standing enmity.”

Miss Finch cut her eyes at him. It still took him off guard, the needlelike quality of their gaze.

He smiled. “All true. Syme was once Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University. That’s how we met. I, the lowly undergraduate. He, the high-flown luminary. For a time, I was chief among his acolytes. But in the end, I didn’t fancy myself a follower.”

Understatement, all around. Syme had been a god, bestowing favors, elevating select students, introducing them into the highest echelons of the literary and artistic worlds. He’d made Alan his particular protégé.

But Alan had blasphemed. He’d violated Syme’s commandments by thinking, and writing, for himself.

Now, at thirty-three, he could look back on his behavior and see how he might have tempered it. But then . . . angry, arrogant, untested, scarcely nineteen years old, and out of his mother’s sight for the very first time—he’d had too much to prove.

“What happened?” asked Miss Finch, pen poised but motionless.

“I objected to his theory of art. Published an essay that argued with his seminal work. An eviscerating essay, I’ll admit. I quoted him extensively. Critiqued his style as well as his ideas. For that betrayal, he tried to ruin my career—tried and failed. I turned the essay into a book.” He shrugged. “I still object to his theory. Instead of responding to my objections, he continues his attempts to discredit me. And so the feud goes on.”

“We will have a feud on our hands.” Coover stood, heaving her bag onto her shoulder. “A feud with our Sisters if we’re late for this meeting. Kate.”

Holroyd leapt to her feet, and Alan rose as well, the gallant host. He tested his legs. The hot coal in his hip socket always burned, holding its heat in some dark, compacted, inaccessible place. Nothing cooled it. Today, though: a low smolder. No flares of pain. Nonetheless, as soon as the Sisters had dashed from the room—Holroyd yawping and pummeling the air—he sat again before addressing Miss Finch. He always sat, when the option presented itself. No point in squandering even a moment of strength he might need later.

Miss Finch was looking at him, lips pursed, pen still slanted at an attentive angle. Waiting. He rubbed his forehead, fighting the urge to laugh, at himself. He had created this situation, inviting this young woman into his household.

He hoped to God she would stop pursing her lips at him. The schoolmarmish expression only emphasized her fresh face, the fullness of her mouth, that sweetly creased lower lip.

He cleared his throat. “Are you prepared for an excursion? If you need refreshment first . . .”

“I have refreshment,” she said promptly. “I put one of your oranges in my purse. Oh.” She bit her lip and turned crimson.

Now he did laugh. “Already partaking of my ill-gotten gifts? You’ll fit right in, then.”

“Do you want it back? The orange?” she asked, a line between her brows. “To return to . . . Signorina Bonaccorso?”

“Heaven forfend.” He shook his head. “House rules, Miss Finch. Rule one. No bribes. I don’t accept them. Sometimes packages arrive anonymously. Those are to be destroyed. The staff’s preferred method is ingestion, particularly when the packages contain wine, cheeses, cured meats, fruits, or bonbons. I look the other way. Rule two. No Signorina Bonaccorso. The woman is indefatigable and mustn’t be encouraged. Once she went so far as to hire housebreakers who smuggled her through the back door, so she could hold a midnight concert.” In his bedchamber. She’d continued with the aria even as he ejected her.

“I don’t write notices under duress,” he added, and frowned as he thought of Geoffrey. “And I don’t allow considerations beyond the artistry itself to influence my judgment.”

“I’ll make a note.” Miss Finch lowered her eyes to her notebook. “For myself.” Her pen wanted ink and scratched as she wrote, a sound like tearing fabric.

An evocative association.

He realized his eyes had slid down from her face.

At first glance, Miss Finch’s bluestocking getup was prudish as you please. But the impression didn’t stand up to closer inspection. The buttons strained at the bust. Her dress did her—and the world—a disservice, trying to pinch and mold her figure into wasp-waisted slimness.

She belonged in a canvas by Peter Paul Rubens, celebrant of female curves.

Another scratch, louder.

He cleared his throat. “On the way out, I’ll fetch you a fountain pen, or a pencil. Your writing implement—it’s antique. You need something less cumbersome than a dipping reed and an ink bottle.”

“I have a pencil.” She closed the notebook and considered the reed. Eighteen ten would be his guess.

“But this pen seemed more official,” she said. “It probably belonged to a barrister or a banker. I picked it for luck.”

She blushed again—at the admission—and turned her head toward the window. Thought she needed luck, did she? Well she might think so. Her last post had terminated in unmitigated disaster.