Page 21 of Companion to the Count (The Seductive Sleuths #1)

S affron rushed up the stairs and then down the hall until she found Leo in his office.

“Did you know your solicitor is here?” she asked.

Leo put the pen he was holding down. “Are you certain?”

She gestured to the window. “I just saw him talking to Mr. Morgan. They must be working together.”

Leo pushed his chair back. “You think Mr. Morgan is trying to steal the Ravenmore? Why would he need a solicitor’s help?”

She had to clench her hands to keep from shoving them in her hair. So much was happening. She had to stop Angelica. She had to keep the auction moving. She…had to…

Leo grasped her upper arms. She hadn’t even noticed him moving.

“Breathe,” he said. “We’ll figure this out.”

Tears dripped down her cheeks. “I-I can’t do this, Leo. It’s too much.”

He wiped her tears away with his thumbs. “How can I help?”

“Tell me who Ravenmore is. If I talk to him, I can fix this situation with Angelica and then I can focus on helping you.”

He dropped his hands and turned his back to her. “Why are you so determined to find Ravenmore?” he asked.

She sniffed. It was time to tell him everything and hope he would not react as Rosemary had. “The last time I saw my brother was when we closed his casket at his funeral three years ago. That is, until I saw the Ravenmore painting at Lady Jarvis’s party. He was in it. That’s when I realized we must’ve been mistaken. My brother lives, and once Ravenmore confirms it, Angelica will call off her engagement.”

Leo’s shoulders drooped. “You are speaking of the painting you saw the night we met.”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

As Saffron watched Leo’s face, clues she had previously disregarded pieced together in her mind. The humor in his eyes when she’d demanded to know who the painter was. His late-night painting. The location of the auction.

She felt the desperate need to punch something. It was so obvious, and yet she’d missed it. She put her hands on her knees. “You are Ravenmore.”

The fragile hope in her breast bloomed. After so many days, she finally had him. It wasn’t too late, after all. He could tell Angelica where he’d seen their brother and then Angelica would not feel duty bound to—

He gave her a rueful smile. “No. The painting you speak of was not painted by me.”

Her thoughts stuttered to a halt. “But if you aren’t the painter, then who—”

He placed his head in his hands. “My sister.”

His dead sister. She bit the inside of her cheek. That was not the news she had hoped for, but all was not yet lost. The lead was cool but not frozen cold. There was still a chance.

“Do you know when she painted it?”

“No. She did not date her paintings. I’m sorry. I should have told you last night. My sister died three years ago. I’ve been distributing her old paintings as new.”

She stared at the back of her hands through a haze of tears. After everything she’d done, all the effort spent getting to the auction, speaking to each of the guests, and it was a dead end. There was no proof Basil was still alive. Her heart felt like it was tearing in two. She didn’t have leverage to stop the Duke of Canterbury’s suit, after all.

A sudden surge of anger coursed through her, and she kicked the paneling under the desk with a strangled scream.

CLUNK.

“What was that?” Leo asked.

She kneeled to where a chunk of the paneling had come away, revealing a small door. She moved it away, and a puff of stale air filtered out, making them cough.

“Paintings,” she said. “They’re paintings.” She ran a hand along the bumpy gilt frames, all stacked together. They were coated with a thin layer of dust. She reached in and pulled out the first one. A plume of dust rose, and she sneezed.

Leo took the painting and set it against the wall. Although dusty, Saffron recognized the bold, distinctive style of Ravenmore.

“Why were they in here? Did you put them in here?” she asked.

“I’ve never seen these before. Sabrina must have hidden them. She sometimes used this room as her studio.” He ran his hands along the frame. “The wood is soft. She commissioned an artist to carve a batch from fir three years ago. Most painters prefer tougher wood, for durability.” He studied the painting. “If my sister painted your brother once, perhaps she painted others. There may be more clues yet, even if they are years old.”

It was the flimsiest scrap of a chance, and it would likely lead to nothing, but Saffron pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen from the writing desk, buzzing with renewed excitement. “How many are there?”

“Over a hundred, at least.” He peered into the space beneath the desk. “I thought I’d found all her paintings. I should have guessed she would not have made it easy for me.”

“Let’s begin, then.” If she could find more evidence of Basil in Sabrina’s paintings, maybe that would be enough to shake Angelica’s determination.

Working together, they uncovered and inspected each painting.

“This would have been much easier in my old studio,” he said as he lifted yet another piece from the hidden alcove.

“It is amazing how I can see the progression as her art evolved,” Saffron said. “She was quite talented, but it is more than that. She was determined.”

“Nothing would stop her from achieving what she desired. I loved that about her.”

Saffron examined the latest painting he’d grabbed. As disappointed as she was that none of them had included an image of Basil, she marveled at the beautiful scene of horses in a meadow. She felt like she could reach out and touch them.

“What are you going to do with them? Add them to the auction?”

Leo rubbed some dust from a frame. “No. They belong in museums.”

She touched his hand. “She would not have wanted you cooped up here with them, like ghosts.”

He crumpled under her touch. “If it hadn’t been for me, she might have survived.”

There was no point in telling him it wasn’t his fault. She didn’t know the circumstances of her death, and it felt uncomfortable to ask. If he wanted her to know, he would have offered the information. “Sometimes we have to let them go. We are only hurting ourselves by hanging on.”

“Enough of the past,” Leo said. “Come with me. There’s somewhere I’d like to take you. The estate will survive for a few hours without us.”