Wicked Little Secrets (23 page)

“Unless you knew the person in these sketches,” he suggested quietly.

Her lips tightened with annoyance. “What part in this twisted strand of illogic do you see so perfectly that I don’t?”

“I may be a worse bedlamite than you, but…” He offered his hand to her. “Come with me.”

She didn’t budge, her brow creased.

“Just across the room.” He pointed to the space under the painting he had concealed with a plaid wool blanket. “Right there. No touching. I promise.”

She considered. “Give me a moment.”

She propped the panel back in place. He could hear the rustling of her dress, and when she opened the wall again, her skirt was flat, the bustle removed.

She crawled through the hole, ignoring his attempts to help, and marched to the appointed “right there” spot. She waited with a stiff neck, pursed lips, and her arms crossed over her bosom.

“Look at that sketch,” he said, handing her the illustration of the lady with the lovely curls lying atop the bed. He walked over to his commode and removed a silver-framed oval mirror. “Now, look in this mirror. Do you see any resemblance?”

“We both have hair and a nose and… um… a bodice.” Her brow arched as if to say
why
are
you
wasting
my
time?

“Wait. There’s more.” He exchanged the sketch in her hand for his mirror, letting the page fall on the floor. “Do you remember when I told you that I had bought a Lawrence James painting? Well, this is it.” In a smooth motion, he pulled the blanket down and the brazen Italian Vivienne gazed on with her pouting lips and sultry tiger eyes.

“Now study the painting for a moment and then look in the mirror. Look at your mouth and eyebrows and cheekbones.” He gave her a gentle mental nudge. “Has anyone ever said you look a bit like your—”

“Aunt Gertrude,” she whispered. The mirror slipped from her fingers and thudded on the Persian carpet, a nasty crack cut across its surface.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s not right.” She pointed to her Italian sister. “This woman is
not
my aunt. That’s the Rialto Bridge, for God’s sake. In Venice! No one in my family has ever left Great Britain.”

“He could have copied the bridge from another painting or illustration. Look at the model.” He moved his hand over the painted woman. “See the detail in her face and arms, yet the bridge is in the background, blurred in the lights.”

She turned away from him, refusing to consider his hypothesis.

“What if Adele Jenkinson knows about these sketches or that your aunt was a model for Lawrence James?” he continued, speaking to her back.

She spun around. “Do you know how ridiculous you sound?” She flung her arms up. “So what if this painting and these sketches look like me. It’s a coincidence. My aunt would never—” She stopped. Her eyes widened. “Oh God. Oh God,” she whispered and pressed her hand to her mouth.

He forgot his promise not to touch her and swept a stray tendril from her forehead. “What is it?”

“On the way home from church, Aunt Gertrude said that I didn’t understand the ways of an evil man. I assumed she was speaking of you.”

He smiled, letting his finger trail down her neck. “Of course.”

“She said that such a man makes everything seem like a game while all the time he has designs on your virtue. It struck me as a bit peculiar how she said it, not so much the words, but a familiarity in her voice. As if she had known such a man. Yet when I asked her about Uncle Jeremiah, she flew into a rage about what a wonderful man he was and how he had never sinned in his life.” Her eyes found his. “Do you think it is possible—”

“That there may have been a man
before
Jeremiah? Absolutely. I know from experience that genteel ladies are not the sinless creatures that our
favorite
book
The
Ethereal
Graces
of
the
Delicate
Sex
would have us believe.”

“If she had affections for someone else, it would explain why she couldn’t remember what Jeremiah was wearing at their wedding or why she fainted at the altar. What if she were forced to marry him?”

“I can’t think of a better reason why a woman would wed Jeremiah Bertis,” he said. “Yet, the material question is: was that earlier man Lawrence James?”

Vivienne took in an audible gulp of air. “You don’t think some of those paintings at the Royal Academy could be my aunt?”

He gave Vivienne an even look. “Or more interesting, maybe some of the stolen paintings were of your aunt.”

Vivienne shook her head. “I can’t ask her about James. I can’t admit I know these things.”

He gently brushed her curls from her shoulders and massaged her tense muscles. The warmth of her body flowed like a current through his. “Calm down, let’s not ask her anything until we have a little more information. First, let me talk to my cousin Katherine—she’s Nigel’s daughter.” He jerked his head toward the west. “She lives by Cavendish Square. She might know something.”

“No, no. I shall not allow you to go around asking people about my family. Who knows what you’ll say? I’m already nervous about everything you told Mr. Teakesbury. I insist that you give me your cousin’s address, and I’ll visit her myself.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “Katherine’s a little odd. Besides, you can’t leave the square. I’m not sure who is on a tighter leash, you or Garth.”

She stepped away from his reach. “When are you going?”

“After you leave.”

She paced the room, her brows low and eyes focused on the hem of her gown. She stopped at the commode, picked up a crude stone figure of a jackal depicting Anubis. Rolling it in her palm, she studied the artifact for a moment, and then set it down. “Meet me in the alley in half an hour,” she said. “Take me to her address. You can wait outside.”

“No.”

“But she’s
my
aunt!”

He shrugged. “Well, she’s
my
cousin.”

She glared at him. Then a flicker of an idea lit in her eyes. Her chin began to tremble. She blinked, and little tears spilled onto her cheeks.

“Oh no, no. You just stop that right now.”

But she kept the tears coming, letting them pour down like a tiny rain storm. “I’m so worried about Aunt Gertrude.”

He ran his hands up his face and through his hair. Women cried to him all the time, trying to get him into their bed, keep him in their bed, or out of someone else’s bed. He thought that he had built a strong defense to the weeping woman. Yet Vivienne was destroying him because she knew she could.

“Fine, you can go,” he conceded defeat. He glanced at the Huygens and added thirty minutes to the time. “But if you’re not there at exactly 2:19, I’m leaving you. I don’t care how much you cry.”

She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Thank you,” she said, flashing him a weak, wavering smile.

He held out his arm, and she wrapped her fingers around the crook of his elbow, letting him lead her to the passage. As she was crawling on her hands and knees back to her house, he gave her rump a playful swat. She shot him a hot look over her shoulder, those green eyes glittering with outrage.

“Lecher!” she hissed.

“You have twenty-nine minutes,” he said and pushed his panel back in place.

He studied the wavy grain of the wood. The smile he wore dwindled. Everything had become too dangerous. He would let Vivienne follow him to Katherine’s, but after that, this was his mystery to solve. He may indeed be a lecher, incapable of doing the right thing by any woman, but he wouldn’t let Vivienne get hurt. If he couldn’t be an upstanding, faithful husband like those dour men lining the pews at church, at least he could be a vigilant guard at the door to Hades, keeping her safe from demons like Jenkinson, Fontaine, and John. Especially John.

***

Vivienne hiked her skirt and stepped into her bustle. She made a hasty knot over her corset and shoved her dress back in place. Then she locked Uncle Jeremiah’s study and slipped the key down her collar, fingering it down her bodice until she could feel the metal inside her corset. She tiptoed down the corridor to her aunt’s room. Turning the knob, careful to not make a click, she cracked open the door. The curtains were drawn, but the bright sunlight filtered through the thin white cotton, casting a pale glow in the room. Her aunt rested under several blankets, her body rising and falling with her soft high-pitched snores.

A half-drunk glass of water and a bottle of
Dr. Oliver’s Elixir for Tranquil Slumber and Serene Mind
sat on her aunt’s bedside table.

Where was Garth?

Aunt Gertrude snored, a gruntlike sound, and rolled over. Vivienne waited. Her aunt’s eyes remained shut, and after a moment, she resumed the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep.

Vivienne carefully shut the door and headed downstairs to the kitchen. A tin bathtub filled with water was stationed by the stove, and the floor around it was wet and glistening with bubbles. Paw prints led from the tiny flood across the floor to a cabinet stacked with spice canisters. There, Miss Banks was down on her hands and knees, her expansive drenched backside in the air, her head shoved under the cabinet. “Come here, you blessed ornery dog, and take your Sunday bath.”

Vivienne couldn’t see Garth, but his gargled yelps rang in the air as if he were being tortured.

Vivienne glanced up at the porcelain clock atop the cupboard. The hands pointed to 1:57.

“Allow me,” she said, giving the housekeeper a small poke on her hip.

The housekeeper jumped, banging her head, rattling the canisters. “God and Mary, you scared me!” She popped her face out from under the cabinet. “Garth never wants his bath. Content to live in filth and fleas, he is. Well, not in the mistress’s house. See if you can get the furry jackanapes out of there.”

Less than half the size of the housekeeper, Vivienne was able to slide further under the cabinet. Garth dripped and growled in the corner, his eyes bulging with fury.

“Just you stop that,” Vivienne admonished him, taking his front paws and gently dragging him out as he continued his barking protest. “We have work to do.”

Miss Banks tossed a towel on top of him as Vivienne continued to restrain the dog.

“I need to ask you some questions about Aunt Gertrude.” Vivienne lowered her voice. “In confidence. Were you employed here when she was married?”

“But a few days, I was. Master Collins, your grandfather, was very ill.” Miss Banks vigorously rubbed the squirming, snorting dog. “I was hired to wash all his linens and clothes.”

“Could you please tell me what you remember?”

“The physician said he hadn’t but a few weeks. The house was to be kept quiet, so we wouldn’t excite him none. Your Grandfather Collins sent for his daughters, saying there was going to be a wedding between your aunt and your uncle. Oh, I hate to burden you with this stubborn dog,” she said, handing Vivienne the towel. “But do you mind fluffin’ him while I get his lavender oil?”

“Of course.”

The woman groaned as she pushed off her knee to stand. “Aye, your mother had just lain in with a tiny thing,” she said, opening a drawer in the cupboard, pulling out a black ribbon and bottle that read
Aunt
Beatrice’s Fragrance for Concealing the Odor of the Gently Bred Hound
. “And your aunt, bless her good heart, was a’staying with her sister to help. Oh, your dear mama was so upset, not only for her father, but because she had to leave that wee precious babe behind.”

“I think that was me,” Vivienne said. “Did Aunt Gertrude seem happy to marry Uncle Bertis? It’s quite important that I know.”

Miss Banks leaned down, letting a few drops of oil from the bottle splash onto Garth’s back. The scent was so strong that Vivienne sneezed and then held her nose. Garth whimpered, rubbing at his face with his paws, trying to scrape off the acres of lavender fields just doused on his fur.

“Oh, I don’t believe in a’gossipin’. No, I don’t.” The housekeeper’s eyes sharpened. “But on the day your aunt was to be married to Mr. Bertis, I was a’coming down the corridor with a basket of sheets when I saw your aunt and your Grandmother Collins. So I stepped into a chamber, but I could still hear them a’talkin’.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t a’listened. No, I shouldn’t have.”

“What did you hear?” Vivienne glanced at the clock. 2:05.

“Aye, your aunt was a’crying, saying she couldn’t marry Mr. Bertis—that she hardly knew the man. I remember hearing a pop, like someone being slapped. Then I heard your grandmother say, ‘Upon my word, you’ve driven your father to his early grave.’”

“What?”

Miss Banks recorked the bottle. “But I probably don’t remember correctly. My poor mind is a’slippin’.”

“I wonder what my grandmother meant.”

“No, no, you shouldn’t worry yourself about these things,” the housekeeper said, sliding a thick black ribbon around Garth’s neck. “Or be a’frettin’ that your aunt told her mother that she loved another the very day she was set to marry your Uncle Bertis. And then your grandmother, bless her dear departed soul, said that your aunt loved a faithless, low scoundrel.”

“Do you happen to know the name of this faithless, low scoundrel?”

Miss Banks shook her head. “You know me, I don’t like to gossip. It’s not my place to know the personal business of others. And no one I asked would tell me the man’s name.” She straightened the large bow she had tied around Garth’s neck. “Oh, what a handsome dog! Did you ever see such a handsome dog?”

Garth whimpered and hid his face in Vivienne’s skirt.

“I have one more question,” Vivienne said, scratching the upset hound. “Do I look like Aunt Gertrude when she was my age?”

“Very much in your face and the shape of your eyes and lips,” Miss Banks said, brushing her ruddy cheeks with the backs of her fingers. “I remember a’thinking the first time I saw your aunt how beautiful she was. Like a little angel.”

Vivienne glanced at the clock. 2:07

“I must ask an important favor. Aunt Gertrude mustn’t know.”