Page 23 of Dallying with the Diamond
He'd sneaked into the back of Mrs. Seaforth’s box at the theatre and had both of the ladies choking back laughter at his commentary on everyone in attendance between the acts of the play which was quite good.
If CB would cooperate and lend Leo his unmarked carriage once more then tomorrow afternoon she would enjoy another of the adventures she’d chosen from the pages of his journal. She’d left him sleeping after her portrait sitting. For a moment after he’d awakened to find her gone, he’d feared she had given him hiscongé.Once he saw the pages he’d tossed them into the fire without even looking at them and sat on the floor before the fire to read her note. The excitement and relief that had washed over him made him glad he was sitting down. CB would brand him a simpering, calf-eyed boy. He might be right, but Leo was not ready to end his liaison with Honoria. Not yet. He opened his desk drawer and dropped the note in on top of her other notes and her gloves.
The door clattered open and CB entered, complaining as usual. “Remind me again why I am constantly lending you one of my carriages to commit scandalous acts of lechery when you have numerous carriages at your disposal. If you’d only set aside your overweening pride and childish hurt feelings you could take the lady into Hyde Park at the fashionable hour, pull the curtains of your own carriage and shag her silly in your own damned conveyance with half thetonclose enough to hear you.”
“Will youpleasenot announce my personal business to every occupant of Albany.” He dragged his friend in and shoved him across the room into the desk chair. Once the door was firmly closed, he turned back to find CB studying him with a querulous gaze. “What now for God’s sake?”
“You’re dressed.”
“And?”
“It is only an hour or two past noon and you are dressed.” CB peered into the open drawer of the desk. He slid his hand inside in time to retrieve one of the gloves before Leo slammed the drawer closed and only missed CB’s fingers by a hair. “Bloody hell, Ath, have a care. I have a use for that hand.”
“If you don’t find a way to meet the cook who has your pages your hand is going to be your only bedpartner. So, keep it out of my business.” He snatched the glove back and tucked it into his waistcoat pocket. The mantel clock chimed three o’ clock.
“I need to talk to you about that actually,” CB said.
Cheddars stuck his head in the door. “Sir, you have a visitor. Shall I take him up to your studio?”
“No, I’ll take him myself.” Leo did not like for Cheddars to have to climb all of those stairs. He turned to CB. “You, stay here. This gentleman is here to pay my commission and tell me where to send the portrait. It won’t take long. Do not leave. Bring Mr. Carrington-Bowles some tea and victuals, please, Cheddars. He is more likely to stay if we feed him.”
“Indeed, sir.” Cheddars set out to fetch CB’s culinary bribe and Leo met his client on the Albany first floor landing. The man had the definite bearing and attitude of a peer, a high-ranking one at that. He didn’t say a word as he followed Leo up to his studio. Once inside, the gentleman—one Mr. A. Smythe, if Leo recalled—went at once to the painting Leo had set up on display in the middle of the room. The light there tended to show his work to great advantage.
“I will give you this, Atherton,” the man said. “Being a bastard did little to enhance your social standing, but the talent you inherited from your natural father cannot be denied. You have managed to make my Lucille a beauty.” He walked back and forth to admire the painting at various angles.
Leo gritted his teeth and inclined his head, as much deference as he was prepared to offer this pompous arrogant fop. “You have excellent tastes in woman and in art, sir.”
“Yes, well.” The supposed Smythe sniffed and pulled a purse from his coat pocket. He counted out the notes with great care and placed them on the table next to the chaise longue.
“Where shall I have the painting delivered?” Leo asked. He had a small pad of paper and a pencil in his hands and wrote down the address as the man recited it twice.
“You do a great many of these portraits, don’t you?” Smythe strolled around the room whilst Leo placed the pad of paper back onto the mantel. A muttered oath brought Leo’s attention to the fact that his client had raised the drape over Honoria’s portrait and stood staring at it. “She’s quite a beauty. She looks familiar to me.”
Leo crossed the room in a few strides and flipped the drape back over the painting. “I’m certain you don’t know her, sir. Naturally she does not travel in the same circles you do.”
“Naturally.” He sounded bored, but there was an odd edge to his voice. Leo wanted him out of his studio so he could return to his argument with CB. “Whose mistress is she? Perhaps I have seen her in some less savory circumstances.” He continued to stare at the drape-covered canvas.
“She is my mistress and we do not go out into society, unsavory or not.” Leo swept his arm out to indicate the door. “I am pleased you like the painting. It will be delivered first thing tomorrow.”
Mr. A. Smythe did not say another word. He descended the stairs as deliberately as he had come up them. Leo followed him to the first-floor landing, but no further. CB met this Smythe halfway up the stairs from the foyer.
What the devil was he doing down there?
He and Smythe acknowledged each other briefly. Once the man disappeared out the front doors, CB took the stairs two at the time, grabbed Leo’s elbow and dragged him around the landing to the front windows that overlooked Albany’s courtyard onto Piccadilly. The carriage into which Smythe climbed left the courtyard like a shot.
“Do you have any idea who that is?” CB demanded.
“No. He gave me the name A. Smythe when he commissioned me to paint his mistress’s portrait. You know these men never give me their real—”
“He is the Duke of Avonlea, Honoria’s father.”
“What?” Leo’s shout echoed against the high ceiling. His meeting with the gentleman flashed before his eyes like the last visions of a drowning man.
“Please tell me he didn’t see—”
“Shite,” Leo moaned as he slid down to the floor and landed on hisarse. “Shite. Shite. Shite.”
“What did you tell him? What did he say?”