Mad for Love (9 page)

“Mine, naturally. I would never part with an original Pontormo, had I one. But the original is gone—up in flames or scavenged for the gilding on the frame with the rest of my grandfather’s collection when the mob took the chateau.”

“So you sold a forgery to the most important collector in Britain?”

“Bah, I hate that word, forgery. The portrait was a magnificent work of art—it still is. Once the
duc
saw it, he had to have it. He couldn’t praise it highly enough. I took the lease on this house with the proceeds of that sale. Did he not mention our dealings?”

“Not a word.” The sinking feeling had her entirely submerged, holding her breath under the murky waters of her father’s subterfuge. But she could see enough in those murky waters to realize that the Duke of Bridgewater was likely only after her to gain better access to her father’s reputed collection of art. Or— “Oh, no, Papa. What if he suspects something? What if he found some irregularity in the Pontormo?”

“Calm yourself.” Papa took her cold hand, and chafed it between his own. “You worry too much. There can be no irregularity. I know my Pontormo. I mixed the paints myself, by hand, from very old, very pure Italian pigments in the antique style. No, no, there is no irregularity. Depend upon it.”
 

Her father could simply not conceive of his own vulnerability—of their vulnerability—or admit that he might have made a mistake.

“Oh, Papa.” The very thought of Bridgewater’s notice now made her feel so uneasy.

Papa was entirely unaffected by such qualms. “Will he be at the ball tonight?”

“The note on the flowers indicated so.” Mignon sighed. All her enjoyment in the evening faded away. How she had much rather stay home now, and avoid it all.

Papa, however, was far more practical. “Then we had best go and meet him, and find out what is really on his mind.”

She did not have long to find out—no sooner had their hired sedan chairs deposited them in front of a mansion on St. James’s Square, than they were met by Sir Joshua Reynolds and the Duke of Bridgewater.

Papa was all bright eyes and shameless encouragement as Mignon made her curtseys. “Gentlemen, let me introduce you to my daughter, my angel Mignon, for she is my greatest treasure.”

Sir Joshua demurred. “I had the honor of introducing your very beautiful daughter to His Grace only yesterday, Count Blois.”

“Ahh. Very good. Now you must tell me”—Papa took Sir Joshua’s elbow and began to steer him away—“how goes the exhibition, and what you plan for the summer show.”

Which left Mignon with the large, slightly unkempt duke, who looked as creased as an unmade bed. “Mamselle.” He nodded at her in lieu of a bow over his bulk. “Will you walk with me?”

“Yes, yes, go ahead, my child.” Papa called his permission over his shoulder.

There was no possibility of refusal. Mignon drew in a tight breath. “Thank you, Your Grace. I will.”

“Very good, very good.” The
duc
placed his hands behind his rather broad back, and began a slow, stately perambulation along the edges of the ballroom. “Norfolk has a very spacious room here,” he observed, by and by. “What do you think it holds, ten, twelve couples? Of course my rooms at Bridgewater House, in Westminster, can hold twenty.”

“How very spacious for dancing, Your Grace.” Mignon said what she felt was required. “Of course your paintings—your wonderful collection—also needs room to breathe.”

“Ah, just so!” He beamed at her. “How good you are to understand that. But your refined sensibilities are, no doubt, due to your being French. English gels are all twelve to a dozen, but you’re like…a breath of fresh air.”

“Yes, that is very nice of you to say,
Monsieur le Duc
. But my mother, you know, was as English as you are.”

“Ah, was she? Better and better. No doubt she was a great beauty, too.”

“You are very kind to say so. I remember her as such, but perhaps that is only a daughter’s longing for her mother.”

“Just so, just so.”

They lapsed into silence—uncomfortable for her, though the
duc
showed some signs of unease as well. He was all pursed lips and puckered brow as they turned at the end of the room.

Though she dreaded to ask, she knew she must. “Pray forgive my impertinence, Your Grace, but I have a very great feeling that there is some topic that you are avoiding for politeness’ sake.”

The duke’s grey, bushy eyebrows shot upward. “Oh, well, yes. Yes, you are quite remarkable. Of course you would be very acute. Very sensitive.”

“Thank you.” Mignon searched for the right words—encouraging but consolatory. “I should like to be sensitive enough that you should feel you could confide in me, Your Grace. For your own sake, if not for mine.”

“Yes.” He stopped, and nodded his head, as if he were gathering resolution. “Well, the truth is, it has to do with your father, and—” He stopped and looked around, as if he feared eavesdroppers.

Though her heart was clattering in her chest like a rickety tumbrel, she let him lead her toward the tall windows, where fewer people were to be had. “Yes? About my father?”

“And the Blois Collection.”

“Oh, dear.” The room began to narrow down to the spot on which she stood, as if she were in a tunnel. Every other sound faded until her ears were practically ringing with her own fear.

“Yes, well you see— Devil take me, but this is difficult to speak of.”

She would not give in to the urge to run. She would not allow herself to succumb to the weakness in her legs, or the tight dread in her chest. She dragged in a shallow breath. “Yes, I understand. And I appreciate your discretion.”

“I beg your pardon, Your Grace.” A liveried footman stood behind the duke, bearing a silver tray with a card.
 

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” the duke groused. But he still immediately took up the card, and read its contents. “Well, damn—oh, your pardon, mamselle. If you would be so good as to excuse me a moment?”

“Yes, of course.” What else did one say to a
duc
who held one’s future in his hands? Though her shivering heart could use the rest, the wait boded her quivering stomach no good.

Because there was worse to be had—no sooner had the
duc
departed, than the absolutely fearless Mr. Andrews sauntered over to her. “My dear Miss Blois,” he said as if he had happened upon her purely by chance. “Good evening.”
 

“Oh, no. You.” She would have made her escape, but the duke had left her in a corner, in more ways than one.
 

“Me. Now that’s not a very cordial greeting for an old friend.” Mr. Andrews had no shame—he smiled easily, as if he attended such exclusive events every night. “I went to some considerable trouble to remove your inconvenient suitor for a few moments.”

“Inconvenient? For whom?” The cheek of the man was absolutely astonishing. “Who let you in?”

“Lovely to see ye as well, Miss Blois.” He took the hand she had not offered, and raised her glove to his lips. “Suffice it to say, I make friends wherever I go.”

Oh, he was the most charming of gentleman rogues, there was no doubt about that. “There is, I suppose, no accounting for taste.”

He was such a rogue that he laughed in agreement. “Quite. But there is something I must tell ye. Why don’t we dance?”
 

“No.” She instantly refused. God forbid she be in a thief’s confidence—any more than she already was. “There is nothing I should like to hear from you, sir.”

“It’s important.” He steered her a little deeper into the corner, and looked around in his furtive, thief’s manner, as if he, like the
duc
, wanted to impart some great confidence. “Oh, damn his eyes, he’s coming back. There’s no time.” Andrews backed toward the long glass doors at the end of the room. “Ye must meet me. Come to Brooks’s,” he suggested.

“A gentleman’s club?” Mignon was even more astonished at his cheek than ever. “You are mad.”

“Probably.” He flashed that sparkling grin at her, and she felt all the irresistibility of his charm. “Brooks’s!” he whispered once more before he slipped away into the crowd.

“Ah, my dear mamselle.” Duke of Bridgewater had returned in all his pomp and glory. “Now, where were we?”

Mignon gathered what was left of her tattered her composure and threadbare courage to withstand the coming blow. “You were telling me about my father and his collection.”

“Ah, yes.” The duke himself took a deep fortifying breath. “I hate to have to tell you this, Miss Blois, but I arranged our meeting.”

It was just as she feared. Dread seeped like cold sea water into her lungs, slowly drowning her. But still she had to ask, “Why, sir?”

“Because I must have it. I must. I am utterly possessed by it. It has permeated my spirit—it haunts me.”

Mignon was all confusion—this was not at all what she had expected to hear.
 
Perhaps the
duc
was being a gentleman, and trying to break the news to her gently? “What haunts you, Your Grace?”

“The Verrocchio Diana, of course.”

“Oh.” It took a long, nerveless moment for her brain to send the news to her lungs before she felt she could breathe again. Mignon took a gratefully deep breath—she did not know when she had been so relieved not to feel special.

“I am sorry for such an ungentlemanly behavior, but I am not myself,” the duke admitted in apology. “I am a man obsessed. You must make him sell it to me. You must. I’ve offered him ten thousand guineas.”

“You poor man.” She shook her head, both in relief, and willing him to understand. “The Verrocchio is not for sale. It never shall be.”

He frowned at her in complete consternation—like a fish out of water, wide-mouthed and gasping. Uncomprehending that anything he wanted might not immediately become his.
 

“I wish it were in my power to simply give her to you.” Mignon was so relieved, she patted his hand in consolation. “You poor, darling man.” And then she leaned up and placed an impulsive kiss upon his cool, ruddy cheek.

“Why, Miss Blois!” His Grace,
Monsieur le duc
was all astonishment—he put a hand to his cheek in disbelief. “You…kissed me.”

She did not care if she had confounded him—so long as he did not want to put her papa in gaol, she would kiss him again and again. “I apologize, Your Grace. It was kindly meant. I did not mean it to be familiar, but as a consolation.”

He looked as if she might well have smacked him as kissed him, so amazed was he. “I don’t know when I’ve been—good God, but you’re lovely.”
 

“You are too kind, Your Grace.” Mignon felt as if the weight of the world—her father’s world full of forged painting—had just lifted off her narrow shoulders. “A kiss is small compensation for an artwork, but it is the best I have to offer.”

“Is it now?” The poor man actually blushed pink with pleasure. “Aren’t you just the most remarkable thing.”

She was not remarkable. She was only herself. But she was happy. “Shall we dance?”

“Really?” His astonishment and his eyebrows climbed another notch. “Yes, yes, indeed.”

But as she turned toward the dance floor with his stammering grace of Bridgewater, someone else caught her eye—a man who should not have even been admitted.
 

A man with entirely too much cheek. A man who was mad.

But the way he looked at her—in invitation to something other than a dance—almost made her feel remarkable. As if he were mad, not for her father’s artwork, but for her, and her alone.

Chapter Nine

Mignon was still in that remarkable and hopeful mood the next morning, when she came down to find Papa at breakfast, taking his usual pains to mix his
café au lait
exactly to his liking.

 
“My darling, you are up early after a late night.”

“It was you who had a late night, not I.” After her dance with Bridgewater, Mignon had decided discretion was definitely the better part of valor, and taken a sedan chair home. Papa had stayed. She could only pray he had not gotten up to too much mischief. “Good morning, Papa.” She kissed him on both cheeks.
 

“Good morning, my darling. But I thrive upon all this city hubbub, whilst you, my angel, prefer all that is quiet and calm.”