was not ranting or hurling wild threats, he was planning a composition only he could see.
“He will ruin you,” Vera said dully. “I am apparently already ruined, did I but know it, but you… You take him on at great risk to your ambition, Oak.”
Oak planted a cheery little smacker on her cheek. “Longacre takes us on at great peril to his ambitions, Verity Channing. Did you know that your nipples shade closer to pinkish taupe than the pink of a blooming carnation? And here,”—he patted the juncture of her thighs gently—“the hair is the same color as the hair on your head, not three shades lighter, as Longacre’s forger would have us believe. You take after a brunette rather than a redhead in that regard.”
He’d seen both the forgery and Vera’s naked form, studied both, which Vera should not have found amusing, but she did.
“What has that to do with anything?”
“Somebody forged the painting Longacre showed us. I suspect I know who, and he is doubtless neither the first nor the last to be so manipulated. Longacre believes himself the prince of some artistic fiefdom here in London, but he’s been oppressing the peasants for too long.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“I will do what countrymen have done in the face of tyranny from time immemorial, Vera. I will lead a peasant revolt and march on the capital, but I need your permission to do it. My plan now will impact you and potentially your children, and I cannot undertake it without your support.”
“Peasant revolts seldom succeed, Oak. What are you asking of me?”
“First, don’t let Longacre hound you back to Hampshire. Stay in London a little longer. Second, plan on attending Lady Montclair’s exhibition with me.”
Vera subsided against him, her feelings in a welter of confusion. “Dirk asked me to marry him, and that was the last time he asked me for anything of substance. The rest was… he assumed, he politely demanded, he simply took. He did not ask.” And Vera had learned to give, to do without, to argue on occasion, and to manage in a lonely marriage.
“I am asking for your trust,” Oak said, “and your help, but you must do as you see fit. You have children to consider, and cleaning London’s artistic house can profit you nothing.”
Not quite true. If holding Richard Longacre accountable for his schemes benefited Oak, Vera would consider that a substantial profit.
“What weapons will you wield, Oak?” she asked. “London is not your home turf, and Longacre has been at his games for ages.”
“I will use the same weapons artists have used since the first caveman dabbed ashes on the walls of his abode: I will use talent, truth, and courage.”
Courage. Oh, that. “I am not very brave,” Vera said.
“Verity Channing, you are the bravest woman I know.”
She liked the sound of that, liked the utter conviction in Oak’s words. What had cowering out in Hampshire earned her anyway, but more loneliness and a pair of spies in her nursery?
“Tell me what you have in mind. I will do what I can.”
Oak timed his first sortie for midday at a club frequented by those whose greatest artistic successes were in the past. The staff was discreet, the furnishings comfortable, and the capacity for gossip endless.
Stebbins Holmes greeted him with a friendly wave from a table by the windows. “Dorning, a pleasure. You are here in London at last and ready to take the art world by storm. Do have a seat.”
Oak didn’t bother perusing a menu. The meal would be steak, bread, and potatoes, washed down with port or ale. Yeoman’s fare, of all the ironies.
“Longacre is attempting to blackmail me,” Oak said, just as the waiter approached the table. The fellow’s steps faltered, and he sent Holmes a bewildered look.
Holmes gestured him closer. “Steak for me and my guest, Timothy, and you will ignore Mr. Dorning’s penchant for hyperbole.”
“Longacre is also trying to blackmail Verity Channing,” Oak said, before the waiter was more than three feet from the table. “We are not the first victims of his scheming. Why haven’t you done anything to stop him?”
A mug of ale arrived for Oak. Holmes apparently preferred port. “We all have our little secrets, Dorning. One doesn’t fly into the bows over petty dramas.”
“Ruining Dirk Channing’s widow, spreading falsehoods about her over a period of years—falsehoods that saw her repeatedly assaulted and nearly raped—is not a petty drama. It’s contemptible, dangerous, and exactly how artists end up in unflattering caricatures.”
Holmes