He gave another shrug as he spread his hands wide.
“But Mrs Manning had it valued,” Phoebe protested.
Monsieur Lemoine’s lip curled. “I know not who proclaimed it a masterpiece, but I assure you, I know un faux. Whoever it was, ’e was the idiote!”
Phoebe huffed with frustration and stalked to the window. She was tired, and her bones ached from hours in a jolting carriage. Her clothes were rumpled, and she had a nasty suspicion she did not smell as fresh as a daisy. They had travelled miles through France in pursuit of the odious baron. And all of it because of a fake? Her only satisfaction came from knowing Alvanly would suffer far worse for his idiocy. He had forfeited his honour, could never show his face in England again, and for what? To discover his pot of gold was made of brass.
“Wait, Phoebe,” Nina said in an undertone, moving closer. “Did… did you say Mrs Manning was the owner of the painting?”
“Yes, she is. What of it?”
“Oh, dear.” Nina bit her lip and, although she too would lose money she was sorely relying upon, her eyes twinkled with mirth.
“What is it?” the viscount asked, watching her curiously.
“I’m afraid none of you will be pleased to hear it,” she said, looking a little anxious, yet still her lips twitched irrepressibly, whatever humour she found in the situation too much for her to contain. “B-But, I think Mrs Manning has taken her revenge on Richard.”
“Her revenge?” Max asked, frowning at her. “You mean she knows Alvanly?”
“Oh, she knows Alvanly,” Nina said, grinning now, and with such a tone to her voice none of them were in any doubt that she spoke of knowing him in the biblical sense. “I’m afraid to tell you but… Richard threw her over for….”
“For you,” Kline finished for her. Rather than looking disgusted or furious, there was amusement in his eyes.
Nina nodded and turned to face Phoebe, reaching out to take her hands.
“I’m so sorry that Richard has caused you such trouble, Phoebe. And you, my lord,” she added to Max. “But I fear you have been embroiled in a scheme to teach Richard a lesson. Mrs Manning must know, as I too discovered, that Richard is fine company, but vain and shallow and selfish, and his honour is only a veneer. In truth, I believe he would sell his mother to make a profit, and he would most certainly steal from a lover, as he has done from me, and from Mrs Manning, a fact I believed she counted on.” She smiled then, shaking her head with obvious admiration. “What a clever woman. I think I should like her.”
Kline laughed a little. “So she need only drop a word in the ear of someone she knew would pass it on to him that she had a priceless painting, and that it would be on display, and count on the fact he would crawl out of the woodwork like the vermin he is.”
“I believe so,” Nina agreed.
There was a long silence as everyone digested that fact.
“Very well,” Phoebe said, folding her arms. “So, the painting is a fake, and we need not have troubled ourselves to retrieve it, but the fact remains that I have a bone to pick with the baron and pick it I shall. The question is, what will he do now?”
She glanced at Max and braced herself, waiting for him to tell her that their adventure was at an end, that they must return home at once and be married, to save her reputation. She thought perhaps she saw the desire to speak such thoughts aloud glimmer in his eyes, but then he took a breath and his words were not what she’d expected.
“Alvanly was fooled by the painting, and even Monsieur Lemoine here said it was a clever fake.”
“Indeed it is,” Lemoine added, nodding at Max. “To one with less experience than myself, it would look like what it purported to be.”
Max nodded. “So why would he not try to pass it off as the real thing?”
“But how?” Phoebe asked, still a little startled and wondering if Max was merely humouring her.
“What kind of man is Alvanly, and what kind of entertainments does he favour?” Max asked, raising one eyebrow.
“He’ll wager it,” Nina said, a tinge of excitement creeping into her voice. “That’s what got him into this mess in the first place, gambling money that was not his to lose.”