Sherry Thomas - His At Night

She’d already pushed herself at him plenty—too much—since her return.

“I’ve been well. Cipriani replied to my letter, by the way. He said we are welcome to call on him Wednesdays and Fridays in the afternoon.”

“Then we can call on him tomorrow—tomorrow is Wednesday, isn’t it?”

“No, Freddie, that would be today.”

“Ah, excuse me. I’ve been working day and night,” he said. “I thought today was Tuesday.”

Freddie did not usually paint day and night. “I never knew you could work so fast.”

He stopped two steps above her and turned around. “Perhaps I’ve just never been so inspired.”

He said it very softly, but very properly, as if they were discussing something quite removed from her nakedness.

She rubbed her thumb against the banister. “Well, now I really can’t wait to see it.”

The bed was still in the studio, artfully rumpled, the canvas that was her nude portrait draped behind a large white cloth.

Freddie took a deep breath, then gripped the cloth and yanked it off.

She gasped. A goddess lay before her. She had dark hair that glimmered gold and bronze, warm-hued, flawless skin, and the figure of a courtesan—a very, very successful courtesan.

But as beautiful as her body was, what riveted Angelica was her unsmiling expression: She gazed directly at the viewer, her dark eyes burning with a desire that would not be suppressed, her parted lips full of agitated need.

Was this how she had appeared to Freddie?

She stole a glance at him. He was studying the floor rather attentively. She tried to look at the painting again and could not meet herself in the eyes.

“Well, what do you think?” Freddie asked at last.

“It’s…it’s rough around the edges.” The edges being all she could manage to look at. The brushstrokes were not as fine as she was accustomed to seeing in a painting from Freddie. But there was such an intensity to the image, such a sexual charge, that if he questioned further, she would have to concede that the less polished style suited the raw, frustrated hunger the woman in the painting emanated.

He covered the painting again. “You don’t like it?”

She smoothed her hair, hoping she was the very picture of decorum and propriety. “Did I really look like that?”

“You did to me.”

“Perhaps you could repaint it and turn my face away.”

“Why?”

“Because I look as if…as if…”

“As if you’d like me to make love to you?”

A surge of fearful anticipation nearly strangled her. They stared at each other. His throat worked. In the next heartbeat he had her in his arms, his kiss sweet yet forceful.

It was everything she had ever imagined—and more. They fell into the conveniently located bed. He pulled off her hat. She yanked loose his necktie.

“Just one moment,” he whispered against her lips. “Let me lock the door.”

He hurried to the door, but before he could turn the key in the lock, it was opened from the other side and in stepped Penny.

“Oh, hullo, Freddie. Hullo, Angelica. Two of my favorite people in the same place—excellent. Say, Freddie, your necktie is undone. What happened, a frenzy of artistic ecstasy?”

Freddie stood speechless as Penny reknotted his tie for him.

“And what’s the matter, Angelica? You had to lie down? Do you need me to find some smelling salts for you?”

She scrambled off the bed, where she’d sat frozen. “Ah, no, Penny, I’m much better already.”

“Oh, look, Angelica, your hat is on the floor.” He picked up her hat and handed it to her.

“My,” she said. “I wonder how that happened.”

Penny winked at her. “You are lucky it wasn’t some nasty old gossip who walked in when you had to lie down for a spell, Angelica. Lady Avery would be marching the two of you to the altar already, like she did me!”

Freddie, flushed scarlet, cleared his throat. “What—what brought you to London, Penny?”

“Oh, the usual. Then I remembered I still had the key to your house and thought I’d come by and see you.”

“It’s always good to see you, Penny,” said Freddie, belatedly embracing his brother. “I’ve hardly left the studio for days. But this morning my housekeeper told me some ghastly rumors. She said Lady Vere’s uncle is awaiting trial for some terrible crimes. I already wrote you a letter. Is it true?”

Penny’s face fell. “I’m afraid so.”

“How are Lady Vere and her aunt taking the news?”

“As well as could be expected, I suppose. Although I suspect I’ve been a true bulwark to them in this awful time. But there’s nothing any of us can do, so we might as well talk about happier things.”

He looked about the studio, his gaze landing, to Angelica’s dismay, on the covered canvas. “Did you just say you’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio, Freddie? Is it for the commission you accepted right around the time of my wedding?”

“Yes, but I’m not quite finished yet.”

“Is that it?” Penny walked toward the draped painting.

“Penny!” she cried, remembering that Penny was one of the few people Freddie allowed to see his works in progress.

He turned around. “Yes, Angelica?”

“Freddie and I were just about to leave to call on the art dealer Signor Cipriani,” she said. “You want to come along?”

“That’s right, Penny. Come along with us,” Freddie echoed fervently.

“Why are you calling on him?”

“You remember the painting at Highgate Court, the one of which I took photographs?” Freddie rushed, his words stumbling over themselves. “Angelica has been helping me track down the painting’s provenance. We think a painting by the same artist passed through Cipriani’s hands—and Cipriani never forgets anything.”

Penny looked briefly astonished. “There was a painting at Highgate Court? But sure, I will come. I love meeting interesting people.”

They ushered Penny out. Angelica placed her hand over her heart in relief: She would have never been able to look at herself in the mirror again if Penny had seen her the way Freddie had.

Penny descended the stairs first. Freddie pulled her into a blind corner and quickly kissed her once more.

“Come back to my house later?” she murmured. Her servants had the afternoon off.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

* * *

Douglas had not talked while awaiting trial—set for five days hence—but progress had nevertheless been made on the case.

Based on information they had uncovered from the coded dossier, Lady Kingsley had tracked down a safety-deposit box in London that contained a thick stack of letters addressed to a Mr. Frampton. The letters were from the diamond dealers, each agreeing to look at Frampton’s artificial diamonds.

“You see,” Lady Kingsley had said excitedly at their meeting in the morning, “that’s how he got the diamond dealers to cough up the money. I think in the beginning he might not have been thinking about extortion, but merely wanted to see if the synthesized diamonds were truly indistinguishable from the real thing. And then, once the synthesis process proved a failure, he looked at the few replies he’d received, and some of them were sloppily written and could be interpreted to mean the diamond dealer was willing to deal in artificial diamonds. Our man, ever the criminal mind, decided to contact even more diamond dealers. The letters were separated into two groups, and the ones who were not careful about how they responded became his targets.”

For Vere, however, the most crucial piece of the puzzle still remained missing: the true identity of the man now known as Edmund Douglas. Until Freddie and Angelica mentioned their own investigation, he’d never thought to pursue that particular line of inquiry. Now he could have slapped himself for overlooking such obvious and important clues.

Sometimes it was better to be lucky than to be good.

Cipriani was about seventy-five years of age and lived in a large flat in Kensington. Vere had expected a place overflowing with art, but Cipriani was a ruthless curator of his own collection. The parlor where he received them had a Greuze and a Brueghel and nothing else.

Angelica described the painting she and Freddie had seen in the vicarage at Lyndhurst Hall—Vere had not paid any attention to it, apparently. Cipriani listened with his hands tented together.

“I do remember. I bought it from a young man in the spring of ’seventy.”

Twenty-seven years ago.

“Was he the artist?” asked Angelica.

“He claimed that it had been a gift. But judging by his nervousness while I assessed his painting, I would say he was the artist. Of course, there was also the coincidence that the artist’s initials were the same as his.”

Vere hoped his best vapid expression was enough to hide his excitement. He further hoped either Freddie or Angelica would inquire after the young man’s name.

“What was his name?” Freddie asked.

“George Carruthers.”

George Carruthers. It might be a pseudonym, but at least it was a place to start.

“Have you ever come across him or his works again?” asked Angelica.

Cipriani shook his head. “I do not believe so. A shame, rather, as he had more than a modicum of talent. With proper instruction and dedication, he could have made some interesting art.”

The subject of George Carruthers exhausted, Angelica and Freddie talked with the old man on the latest developments in art. Vere did not fail to notice the way they glanced at each other—he could only hope that he hadn’t interrupted their very first instance of lovemaking.

He smiled inwardly. He had always wished fervently for Freddie’s happiness: not only for Freddie’s sake, but for his own, so that he could one day live vicariously through Freddie’s domestic bliss.

Presupposing that he himself must always be on the outside looking in. That his own life would remain barren of the kind of contentment he so easily imagined for Freddie.

He remembered the way his wife had looked at him the day before, above the banks of the River Dourt: as if he were full of possibilities. As if they were full of possibilities.

But his mind was already made up. It was time she understood.

When they rose to bid Cipriani good-bye, Vere suddenly remembered that there was something more he wished to know, a question that no one else had asked.

So he did the asking himself. “Mr. Carruthers, did he say why he was selling his painting?”

“Yes, he did,” replied Cipriani. “He mentioned he was raising funds for a venture to South Africa.”

Her bed was crimson Italian silk. Against this sumptuous backdrop, Angelica stretched, immodestly, deliciously. Part of Freddie still felt he should avert his eyes. The rest of him not only could not look away, but reached out a hand to caress the underside of her breast.

“Hmm, that was splendid,” she said.

His cheeks grew warm. He leaned in to kiss her again. “The pleasure was all mine.”

And how.

“Can I make a confession?” he asked.

“Hmm, you never have confessions to make. This I must hear.”

He cleared his throat, embarrassed now that he was about to volunteer the information. “I was not that interested in the provenance of the angel painting.”

Her jaw went slack. “You weren’t?”

“Your oldest friend asks you to paint her in the altogether. You are terribly tempted but not sure how to say yes. Wouldn’t you find a seemingly legitimate inquiry so that you may exchange favors?”

She sat up straight, a rich cascade of crimson silk held to her breasts. “Freddie! I never guessed you to be so sneaky.”

He flushed. “I’m not—not usually, in any case. I just wanted to be a little less transparent.”

She hit him lightly on the arm. “Oh, you were opaque enough for me. I had quite despaired of how I would ever make myself understood.”

“You could have just told me.”

“If I could, I would have done it ten years ago.” She kissed him where she’d hit him. “It was probably best I didn’t: You viewed me as completely lacking in feminine attributes.”

“That is not true. It was more the case that I never thought about your feminine attributes. I mean, you were—and are—my oldest friend. You didn’t need breasts and buttocks to matter to me.”

“That is a sweet thing to say, although my breasts and buttocks might dissent.”

He smiled.