A Lady's Dream Come True - Grace Burrowes Page 0,46
and the inner woman resonated in a way few artists could have captured on canvas. Dirk had taken all that loveliness to wife little more than a year after Anna Beaumont’s death.
“The boy inherited the property,” Richard said. “Mrs. Channing isn’t homeless, and I doubt Dirk left her in dire difficulties. As long as she avoids Town extravagances, she’s doubtless managing adequately.”
Holmes remained silent until a waiter had finished collecting dirty glasses from around the room. The fellow then malingered by adjusting the wicks on the lamps on the wall sconces, until he ran out of excuses and had to take his tray and leave.
“Why is Verity Channing bothering with a lot of second-rate portraits?” Stebby mused. “And why now? Are you soon to leave for Hampshire?”
“Of course not. I have too many committee obligations to leave Town, and restoring castoffs is work for somebody who needs the money.”
Richard needed money, and he liked money. His duties for the Academy brought in no coin, directly. Even more than money, though, he liked having information in his grasp that let him control others and predict their behaviors better than they could themselves. Collecting that information was best done in Town.
“So what is this thing you’ve done?” Holmes asked. “I am too old to stand as anybody’s second on the field of honor, but I’m quite good with a eulogy or a funerary toast.”
“Have you crossed paths with a fellow named Oak Dorning?”
“Of course. He’s an earl’s son, has taken classes at the Academy, gets along with most everybody, and—lest we neglect the details—wields a paintbrush with no little skill. He has family in Town—a pair of brothers running The Coventry Club—while the earl prefers to rusticate. Lord Casriel married a widow, I believe, though I can’t recall who, which suggests she was neither merry nor wealthy. Has a biblical name. Oak Dorning is exactly the sort we ought to admit to the Academy, once he’s exhibited a few noteworthy works or taken some prominent commissions.”
Richard was not the only club member who liked to collect information. “Mr. Dorning would probably agree with you, but for now he’s consigned to Verity Channing’s attics, where he will grow bored to flinders dusting off old works in preparation for sale. When his assignment is finished, he will remove to Town.”
Holmes was quiet for a time. He presented himself as a spry, dapper old gent, still young at heart, but he was venerable enough to nod off late in the evening.
“Richard,” he said quietly, “what are you about?”
“I am trying to do two people a favor. Mrs. Channing needed skilled labor, Dorning needed paying work. The association will be mutually beneficial.”
“I know you,” Holmes said. “I’m not always sure I like you, but I know you, and you are ever motivated by self-interest and the interests of the Academy, which you would like to turn into your private fiefdom, of course. Perhaps insanity runs in your family. In any case, you are up to something where Mrs. Channing is concerned.”
And Holmes would eventually figure out exactly what, hence this little tête-à-tête before the dying fire. Holmes liked to air his speculations before a younger audience, and such was his influence that the younger audience often listened to him.
Ergo, the need to avoid the near occasion of Holmes’s speculations.
“If Dorning should come across anything odd in the Channing collection,” Richard said, “if he sees a previously unknown work of Channing’s hanging in the servants’ hall, he’ll bring that news to me before he tells anybody else.”
“So you’re spying. I thought you were attracted to Verity Channing. If I were twenty years younger—even ten—I’d be attracted to her in more than an artistic sense. You might consider asking her if Dirk’s drunken mutterings were based on reality or on his endless supply of grandiose dreams.”
“Verity Channing is quite attractive, I’ll grant you, but she is utterly safe from my romantic advances.” And that was the absolute truth.
Holmes rose and stretched. “She’s safe from your advances, but is she safe from you?”
He sauntered on his way, an old fellow who could view the intrigues and follies of life at a benign distance. The sculptor snored by the fire, his mouth slightly open. Richard remained in his comfortable chair, mentally composing a chatty, slightly gossipy note to Dorning.
A well-bred young man who sought to curry favor with Academy members would answer in the same vein, reiterating his thanks for the post, of course. Another such exchange while Dorning bided