A Lady's Dream Come True - Grace Burrowes Page 0,103

boys, and brave—spotless—commanding officers shouting orders from the saddle, while smoke and sunlight created an otherworldly sky.

This was not a battle scene.

“What do you think?” Longacre asked. “A bit shocking, but brilliant nonetheless. He did a matching version using Anna Beaumont as his model. They are different, but equally magnificent.”

The painting purported to be a portrait of Vera in a moment either anticipating or following sexual repletion. Her splendid form lay exposed to the spectator’s eye in intimate detail and her fingers trailed over a taut rosy-pink nipple.

Either Dirk Channing had got the color of his own wife’s nipples wrong, or…

Oak stepped closer and was immediately assailed by the scent of linseed oil. He peered at the painting, noting a certain flatness to the white of the sheets and even to the undersides of Vera’s breasts.

“Dirk gave this to you?” Oak asked, examining the signature.

“He did, perhaps as an apology for ruining my Anna. She and I were to marry, you know. The agreements had been signed.”

“I did not know that.” Did Vera know that? “It’s an impressive work.” For a forgery. “But why show it to me?”

“Because you will paint a few others just like it for me. She has already agreed to model for you.”

Oak pretended confusion. “I do not aspire to paint nudes of decent widows, Longacre, no matter how lovely or willing the model.” Before an artist took up that challenge, he had to establish himself with more mundane subjects.

Longacre clapped him on the shoulder, and Oak nearly reacted with a fist to Longacre’s gut. “She’s very pretty,” Longacre said, “and while she might have played the proper widow in Hampshire, we in London know her to be quite willing to… Well, she’s quite willing. Dirk was absorbed with his art, and Vera amused herself as best she could.”

Oak studied the painting again, lest his disgust show on his face. The forgery was good, but especially in the shadows, the brushwork was a shade too flamboyant to be that of a man who’d come of age artistically in the shadow of Gainsborough and Reynolds.

“Did Mrs. Channing amuse herself with you?” Oak asked.

Longacre examined a showy gold ring on his smallest finger. “One doesn’t frolic and tell, Dorning. You mustn’t be jealous. Vera and I are friends of long standing. If you do a good job with the series I have in mind, she might permit you an occasional interlude. I’m not possessive, and she’s no longer quite as dewy as I prefer my women.”

I will kill you, and you will die a eunuch. Oak shifted his gaze to the hunt scene on the library ceiling.

“Have you any other of Channing’s nudes? I was under the impression he preferred landscapes and battles scenes.”

“He sent me one other, of Anna Beaumont. As I said, it matches this portrait of Vera. Some artists do that, paint the same study over and over, changing only a detail or two. In this case, Dirk changed models. He liked to paint in series, and I have wondered how many odalisques he might have secreted away at Merlin Hall.”

“May I see the other one?”

This occasioned pursed lips and a slight frown. “If you’re to paint Vera for me, then I suppose studying another Channing can only stand you in good stead.” He opened a drawer beneath the reading table near the window and lifted out an unframed canvas similar in size to the painting that purported to be of Vera. “Have a look.”

Oak had a thorough, close look. “And what will you do with the series you’re commissioning from me? The paintings of Mrs. Channing?”

Longacre put the painting away. “You are refreshingly naïve, Dorning. I am not commissioning anything from you. You will paint a half-dozen nudes of Vera Channing, mimicking as closely as possible the style of Dirk Channing. I will do with them as I see fit. She is an exquisite subject without her clothes, and the continental market isn’t nearly as puritanical as the English market.”

Nor as familiar with Dirk’s works. “Am I to understand that I’m painting forgeries for you?”

Longacre came around the table and patted Oak’s arm. “You country fellows are always so direct. You are painting études for me, exercises in the style of Dirk Channing. If your conscience troubles you, don’t append a signature to them.”

Because even Longacre had sufficient skill to replicate a signature. “Why would I do this?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll make sure everybody Dirk knew recalls just what a strumpet Vera Channing