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Frowning, stiff-backed, she came around the easels. One might suppose the pictures were a firing squad. He felt a stirring of self-reproach. But he hadn’t expected this extreme reluctance.
Perhaps it was cruel, to force her to speak. He’d imagined she would rise to the occasion. If not . . . well, he’d no wish to humiliate.
Broughton was watching Miss Finch’s toe-dragging progress. Alan turned to him.
“I shouldn’t have asked her,” he confessed. “She trusts your house to auction unimpeachable pictures. Genuine articles.”
Broughton gave her a nod in acknowledgment.
Alan let the pause lengthen. “And she knows that I have reason to doubt.”
“What’s this?” Broughton’s head whipped around. “Doubt? Mr. De’Ath, I am not in the business of selling doubtful pictures.”
“It’s this lot in particular that gives me pause.” Alan kept his expression bland. “Chips Sleaford was the consignor?”
“Yes.” Broughton sounded baffled. “But he represents the owner, Mrs. Beechey. Berney’s granddaughter.”
“Hmm.” Alan considered. “Have you met this granddaughter?”
“No, I haven’t met the woman.” Now Broughton sounded annoyed. “She lives in Norwich. I deal with Sleaford. But provenance aside, De’Ath—look at them.” He gestured at the pictures. “The quality is unmistakable.”
Miss Finch reached Alan’s side. She raised her chin and stared, unblinking, at the picture in front of her. A change came over her. She looked almost frightened, spellbound.
“Well?” he asked her.
Her face relaxed into a smile, and she turned bright eyes in his direction. “These pictures are very fine indeed.”
—
After she spoke, Nina felt light-headed. She focused on holding her body completely still.
“Do tell,” said De’Ath. He looked bemused. He wasn’t displeased that she’d sided with Broughton. He’d meant what he’d said in the drawing room, that she was entitled to her own taste.
She did judge the pictures fine. Her best work, in fact. She excelled at Berneys. If Jack had let her paint them exclusively, she might not have grown to loathe painting altogether.
James Berney had rendered the countryside she loved. He would set out from Norwich and paint the surrounding fields and heaths, ponds and trees. He had painted Hensthorpe. Her favorite place. Her favorite subject.
It felt less like faking when she painted Hensthorpe, even though she deliberately adopted Berney’s methods. Berney was long dead, of course, but . . . they understood each other. The way of seeing De’Ath had mentioned. She and Berney shared it. Painting in his style allowed her sense of wonder free rein.
De’Ath prodded her. “What makes them fine?”
“I can’t describe it.” She clutched the notebook to her breast. A special circle of hell, this—a forger evaluating her own canvases in front of a gimlet-eyed critic.
De’Ath raised his brows.
She coughed. “There’s just . . . something about them.”
To her dismay, his brows crept higher.
What else could she say? Her mind raced.
Suddenly, he surprised her by giving a satisfied shrug. “There is something about them, isn’t there?” He pivoted back to the pictures. “No mere copyist could achieve such effects.”
She caught her breath, afraid to hope. “You also agree? That they’re fine pictures?”
“I do.” He stepped toward the closest easel. She’d titled it Forge and Oak. Berney himself had painted a different view of the same smithy, which stood across the green from Aunt Sylvia and Miss Lolly’s cottage.
“You frightened me for a moment.” Mr. Broughton laughed, pulling out his handkerchief, pressing it to the back of his neck. “You don’t doubt any longer? Good, good.” He wagged his head.
