Oak about the shoulders, and ambled for the door. “Bless you for offering, but no. I’ve made a mistake. I must consider how to atone for the wrong I’ve committed. Do you know if Mrs. Channing intends to bide in Town permanently?”
The subject was being changed. A friend did not try to unchange it. “She has lodgings here as long as she’s inclined to stay, and the children are with her. They will see the sights, and I hope to spend some time in Mrs. Channing’s company as well.”
A pained expression crossed de Beauharnais’s features. “She always struck me as a sweet woman.”
“She is, though she’s nobody’s fool.”
“Verity Channing was Dirk’s fool. I think he regretted marrying her, but realized that even he could not take a woman to wife, then set her aside simply because she was too good for him. He missed his Anna, he saw an available distraction from his grief, and so he charmed an unsuspecting young woman into a life she never anticipated.”
Oak rose, uncomfortable to be discussing Vera in her absence. “Perhaps Channing’s great battle scenes were so effective because they reflected his internal reality in addition to the horrors of actual war.”
“If you insist on being that insightful, Dorning, I truly must seek a ruralizing respite. I never made that connection, and I was a guest under Dirk’s roof twice, for weeks at a time on both occasions. Let’s mount a raid on the larder, shall we?” De Beauharnais threw a companionable arm around Oak’s shoulders. “And tell me of your first commission. We will open a good vintage and celebrate that milestone.”
This was what Oak had come to London for. The company of his fellows, talk of art, and yet more talk of art.
“I am to paint the twin daughters of a Mrs. Finchley. She’s some wealthy cit’s wife, and her daughters will make their come outs next year.”
Because Oak was ambling down the passage side by side with de Beauharnais, he felt rather than saw a change in de Beauharnais’s posture.
“Mrs. Finchley? The cloth heiress who married some baronet’s eldest?”
“Sounds about right.”
“Longacre tried to engage me for that job. Take Tolliver as your assistant, and don’t spend the commission until it’s nestled comfortably in your bank account.”
“Tolliver chatters.” Tolly was like a sparrow, never still, never silent, and he never seemed to finish his projects. He also had a penchant for patting Oak’s bum that had ceased to be friendly or funny years ago.
They reached the steps to the kitchen, and de Beauharnais descended first. “Take Tolliver. He’ll guard your interests, and he honestly makes a good assistant.” De Beauharnais stopped in the middle of the kitchen, hands on hips. “I will miss him.”
“I will miss you,” Oak said, “but you will be back, and then we need not have any more of these gloomy conversations. I see an undefended wheel of cheese in the window box. Where do you suppose Cook has got off to?”
“Market, by way of the nearest pub, bless her. She and Polly do like their afternoon pints. Bread is in the box, and that ham has a contribution to make to the contentment of English manhood.”
They were soon seated at the worktable, tankards of summer ale and a platter of sandwiches before them.
“I am hungry,” Oak said, biting into a sandwich. “I don’t always realize when my belly’s empty, but my disposition sours and my head starts to ache if I go for too long without eating. If you were a small boy, what part of London would you most enjoy seeing?”
De Beauharnais tucked a table napkin into his collar. “I thought Dirk’s son was still in leading strings.”
“Alexander is six, and a very serious little fellow. Catherine is fourteen, artistically talented, and as delightfully awkward as a female can be at that age. She is ferociously honest and damnably perceptive. Mrs. Channing is devoted to them both, though with Catherine the situation is a bit delicate.”
De Beauharnais picked up a sandwich. “You like the children?”
“Children are easy to like.”
De Beauharnais frowned at his food. “Mrs. Channing is easy to like, and I never believed the rumors about her.”
The bite of sandwich Oak had just swallowed got stuck in his throat. “I beg your pardon?”
“I came upon her once on the maids’ stairs. I was trying to get back to my rooms without anybody noticing my escape. Harry Carlson had Mrs. Channing against the wall on the landing. She struggled against his advances, by no means