Page 31

Several moments passed with only the rustle of paper and the ticking of the clock.

I finished my read through, setting the remainder of the list on the sofa between me and Henry, and waited for him to finish.

However, I was already certain neither my name nor Gage’s was there.

I’d read through its entirety painstakingly the first time, intent on not missing anything.

My second and third look were merely forlorn hopes.

I turned as Henry lowered the last page, shaking his head. “It’s not here.” He was clearly perplexed and trying to decipher from my expression what troubled me. “Is it supposed to be?”

“It’s a list from the auctioneer of everyone who received invitations and a catalog of the auction,” I explained, still puzzling through the ramifications of this discovery.

“And you received one,” he deduced.

I nodded, staring down at the papers still clasped in his hands. “But I’m not on the list. I can’t decide if that means something.”

Henry paused to consider the matter. “Well, this is a copy, isn’t it? So maybe they left you off the list to save themselves time and effort because you already knew you’d received one.”

“Yes, I suppose that makes sense,” I conceded, though I wasn’t convinced. I wondered what Mr. Fletcher had wished to speak to me about when he delivered the list. Could it have had something to do with my name not being on it?

“Or maybe someone else received the invitation initially and passed it on to you, believing you would find the art being auctioned to be of interest.”

I frowned. “But then why didn’t they include a note telling me so? Why send it to me anonymously?”

“Hmm, yes.” His brow puckered. “That is odd.

“And potentially suspicious.”

I’d not considered the possibility before, but now that I’d voiced it, I had to wonder. Had I been the target?

Anyone who knew me in the slightest would know I would find such an invitation almost irresistible, especially after seeing the catalog of pictures up for auction.

Had someone tried to lure me there deliberately?

But why? To what end? Sabotaging the joist and causing the floor to collapse under nearly one hundred people in order to kill just one was as reckless and faulty in logic with me as the intended victim as it was for all the other lone individuals we’d considered.

If that had been the goal in truth, then the culprit’s motivation would have to be so strong, their anger or desire for revenge so great, that they could ignore the potential for other victims. Yet I couldn’t think of anyone who would be that determined to kill me.

Unless I was merely the means to hurt someone else.

After all, Gage had enemies. My father-in-law, too. And if last year had proved anything, I was a vulnerability for Bonnie Brock as well. Could a rival gang have done this to lash out at him? It seemed far-fetched, but then we’d encountered our share of bizarre schemes.

Whatever the case, the entire notion was unsettling in the extreme. And not something I could share with Henry, no matter how much affection I held for him as my brother-in-law. He had a different mind-set anyway.

“Perhaps, but it seems more likely they purposely left you off the list,” he tried to reassure me.

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, wishing I could believe that.

“We could pay a visit to the auctioneer and ask.”

“Yes, that would be the most sensible step.”

“Kiera?”

When he didn’t continue speaking, I turned to look at him, finding him watching me. His gaze dipped briefly to where I’d begun to pleat my skirt in agitation before returning to my face. “You don’t have to agree with me. If you think something’s wrong, I’ll listen.”

I considered ignoring him, but this was Henry.

He wanted to solve everyone’s problems, not just because he was supposed to, but because he cared.

I couldn’t just rebuff his attempt to help.

“The trouble is…” I pressed a hand to my forehead.

“I don’t know what I think. Or rather…I think too much.

” I shook my head. “Does that even make sense?”

“I think so.”

He was trying to understand. He genuinely was. But I knew what I needed most, and Henry couldn’t give it to me.

“I appreciate you listening to me, and I’m…I’m not trying to be rude,” I said, knowing that whatever I said, it was undoubtedly going to come out wrong. “But I…will you excuse me?”

His face registered surprise. “Of course.”

I nodded and pushed to my feet, worrying I actually had offended him. “I’ll…have Jeffers inform Sebastian you’re here,” I whirled back to tell him.

“Thank you?”

I thought I detected a hint of a question mark at the end, but I didn’t pause to consider it, instead hurrying from the room.

Jeffers was approaching with the tea tray.

“Please have Mr. Gage informed that Lord Henry is waiting for him in the library,” I told him, knowing he would send Anderley to do it.

Then I fled up the stairs to my studio.

· · ·

How long I’d been standing in front of the canvas, I didn’t know, but it had obviously been for some time, as exhaustion had begun to penetrate the veil of my absorption.

When it came to my art, I had always been that way.

Unable to stop myself from becoming fully immersed and all but deaf, blind, and dumb to the rest of the world.

Those who loved me had long accepted this about me, and our staff had been trained how to handle my artistic distraction.

They knew not to disturb me unless necessary, and to leave only food that wouldn’t grow cold or turn rotten as it sat unnoticed and untasted on the table beside the door for perhaps hours.

Of course, now that I had a daughter, I couldn’t ignore her. I wouldn’t. Though I did wonder what would happen as she grew older. If she would understand.

I reached up to rub my forehead tiredly, vaguely recalling that I’d paused to nurse and play with her for a short time around midday.

However, I could tell the sun was now close to setting, for the light filtering through the eastern-facing window was leaching away.

Soon there wouldn’t be enough natural light to work by.

Slowly, reality began to penetrate my consciousness. The floor collapse. The inquiry. The list. Henry. Gage. Then, as if summoned by my thought, the door opened a crack and my husband peered in. He knew better than to knock. If I was absorbed in my painting, I would never hear it.

“You’re back with us,” he said in response to my meeting his gaze. Opening the door wider, he stepped through it before closing it after him. “I suspected the fading daylight would rouse you if nothing else.”

“And you’ve risen for the day,” I retorted, though there was no heat to it. I was as yet too tired and unfocused, but I recalled my earlier irritation.

“Hours ago,” he replied unruffled. “I did come to see you earlier. Even tried to speak to you. But you were preoccupied with that portrait…” his eyes flicked toward it “…so I let you be.”

“I’m sorry…,” I began to apologize, lifting my hand to rub my forehead again, but Gage halted me.

“There’s no need for that, Kiera,” he protested gently, extracting the paintbrush from my fingers and dropping it into the jar of linseed oil at my elbow.

“I fully understand how your mind works and that you can’t help it.

I accepted it long ago.” He turned to look at the portrait again.

“Especially when the result is this.” He didn’t speak for a long moment, and I felt anxiety stir within me.

“You like it?” I asked hesitantly.

“Like it? Kiera, it’s magnificent!”

I didn’t know about that, but I had done my best to capture the flower seller we had seen outside St. Giles’ Cathedral some weeks past. The woman had lost many of her teeth, and her skin was rough like parchment, but the joy in her face as she bounced a small child on her hip who must have been her granddaughter or great-granddaughter had been infectious.

I’d drawn the toddler as well, including her dimples and dirt-streaked cheeks, her mouth thrown open in laughter to reveal she had as few teeth as her grandmother.

“How did you remember all this from memory?” Gage wanted to know. “I was there, too, remember, and I wouldn’t have recalled half of these details if you’d asked me to, though I do now that I see them again.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. I just did.”

The look in Gage’s eyes was tender, telling me I’d said something artless, though I didn’t know what.

He picked up a cloth from the table scattered with my supplies and gripped my chin.

“Let me have a look at you. You’ve as many paint smudges on your face as that child has dirt smudges. ” He began dabbing at my forehead.

“It might be easier just to let me do it.”

“We’ll see,” he replied vaguely, preoccupied with his ministrations.

Meanwhile, I was becoming conscious of how close he was to me and how near his face was to mine. “I’ll get paint on your clothes,” I protested weakly.

“I’ll be careful.”

I fell silent, allowing him to concentrate, but other thoughts began to intrude. “Is Henry still here?” I asked softly. “I’m afraid I was rather rude to him earlier.”

“You weren’t,” he assured me. “Though he did express concern. Said you were unsettled by the absence of your name from Winstanley’s list.”

“Among other things.” It wasn’t only the conspicuous absence of my name that had bothered me.

“We’ll talk to the auctioneer. Find out why you’re missing.”

“Then you’re not concerned?” I couldn’t help but be surprised by his sangfroid.

His gaze shifted from the spot on my cheekbone where he was dabbing to meet mine. “Of course I am. But there’s no use in speculating what it means until we have more information. Besides…” He pulled the cloth away from my face. “We have a much better suspect.”

“Who?”

A small pleat formed in his brow as he scrutinized my features. “I’m afraid I couldn’t get it all.”