lines flowing with effortless grace.
Mac let his blunt, paint-stained fingers hover above the woman for a few seconds. Then he resolutely turned his back on the picture and left the room.
Isabella settled the gloves on her fingers the next morning with quick jerks and checked the angle of her hat in the hall mirror. Her heart was thumping, but she was determined. If Mac wouldn’t do anything about the forged paintings, Isabella would.
She nodded to her butler as he opened the front door for her. “Thank you, Morton. Please make certain his lordship’s coat is cleaned and returned to him by this afternoon.”
Isabella took her footman’s hand and settled herself in her landau. Not until the vehicle had rolled into morning traffic did she droop against the cushions and let out her breath.
She’d slept very little after she’d returned from Lord Abercrombie’s ball the night before. When Mac had walked away from her down the terrace, the pain of his leaving had struck her to the heart. She’d wanted to rush after him, to make him turn back to her, to beg him with everything she had to stay.
As it was, she’d had to make do with his coat. She’d laid it next to her when she’d gone to bed, where she could touch it and smell his scent on it. She’d remained awake and restless, craving him, until she finally drifted into dreams of his smile and that sinfully hot kiss.
In the morning, she’d tossed the coat carelessly at Evans, instructing her to tell Morton to look after it.
She directed her coachman to take her to the Strand, where Messrs. Crane and Longman, purveyors of fine art, kept a shop. There was no longer a Mr. Longman, he having died and left Mr. Crane the entire business, but Mr. Crane had never removed Longman’s name from the sign.
Mr. Crane, a smallish man with soft palms and well-manicured nails, shook Isabella’s hand when she entered, then began spewing forth praise of Mac Mackenzie.
“Mr. Crane, Mac is precisely who I’ve come to see you about,” Isabella said when he’d wound down. “Please tell me about the painting you sold to Mrs. Leigh-Waters.”
Crane pressed his hands together and tilted his head, which made him look like a small, plump bird. “Ah, yes, Rome from the Capitoline Hill. An excellent work. One of his best.”
“You do know that Mac doesn’t sell his paintings? He gives them away to whoever wants them. Did it not strike you as odd when this one came up for sale?”
“Indeed, I was quite surprised when his lordship instructed us to sell it,” Mr. Crane said.
“Mac instructed it? Who told you that?”
Mr. Crane blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Who brought in the painting and told you his lordship wanted it sold?”
“Why, his lordship himself.”
Now Isabella blinked. “Are you certain? Mac carried the painting in here and handed it to you himself?”
“Well, not to me, as a point of fact. I was out. My assistant received it and cataloged it. Said his lordship told him he didn’t care what price he got.”
Isabella’s thoughts whirled. She had assumed her errand would be simple—point out to Mr. Crane that he’d sold a forgery and demand to know what he would do about it. Now she wondered. Had Mac actually painted it himself and sold it? And why?
“Does your assistant know Mac by sight?” she asked. “He didn’t assume that the gentleman was Mac without asking?”
“My lady, I was as surprised as you are, but my assistant described his lordship precisely. Even that careless way he has of talking, as though nothing about his art very much matters. So charming, when he has such talent. Mind you, his lordship hasn’t done much lately, so I was happy I could obtain something at all from him.”
Isabella had no idea what to say next. She’d pictured herself interrogating Mr. Crane on who had brought in the painting, to scold him for letting forgeries pass through his hands. Now she did not know how to continue. She’d been so certain that Mac hadn’t painted the scene, although come to think of it, Mac had neither confirmed nor denied it when she’d asked him.
“Ah, your lordship,” Crane said brightly. “How propitious of you. We were just speaking of you and that lovely picture you did of Rome. Welcome to my humble shop.”
Isabella whirled. Mac himself stood in the doorway, blotting out the weak sunlight outside.
He stepped across the threshold, swept off his hat, sent a smile to Isabella that weakened her knees, and said, “Now then, Crane. What have you been up to, selling forgeries of my blasted paintings?”
Chapter 4
The smitten Groom of Mount Street has purchased his Lady a country Cottage in Buckinghamshire where she hosts charity Garden Fetes now that the weather has grown warm and Town swelters. The great and the good attend these parties and speak of nothing else. —July 1875
Crane spluttered, but Mac couldn’t summon up much anger for the little man. Mac’s entire awareness centered on Isabella standing near him as resplendently beautiful in a brown-and-cream day dress as she had been in her elegant satin ball gown and diamonds.
If Mac were to paint her in this costume he’d use the palest of yellows for the trim, cream and umber for the bodice, darker brown for the shadows. For her skin, tints of cream and pink. Darkened red for her lips, which would be the only color on her face, rippling red orange for the curls under her hat. Eyes a suggestion of black and green, in shadow.
“Mac, I was just explaining . . .”
Mac didn’t hear her. Or rather, he couldn’t hear Isabella’s words—he heard only her voice, low, musical, designed to make his heart dance.
“Your lordship.” Crane rubbed his hands together in that irritating manner he had. “You brought me the paintings yourself.”
“Paintings?” Mac’s brows rose. “You mean, there’s been more than one?”
“Of course. I have another here.” Crane minced his way into a back room and came out with a framed canvas almost as tall as himself. Mac laid his walking stick and hat on a table helped Crane lift the painting to a hook on the wall.
It was a Venice picture. Two men worked a gondola in the foreground, with the buildings of the Grand Canal fading into the mist, the merest suggestion of reflections of them in the murky water.
“One of your best, your lordship,” Crane said. “From your Venetian Period.”
The painting was damned good, Mac had to say that. The composition was finely balanced, the colors just right, light and shadow precise without being dull. Mac had painted quite few a pictures of canals while he’d been wallowing in self-pity after Isabella’s departure. But he hadn’t painted this one.
Isabella rolled her lower lip under her teeth, rendering it red and kissable. She shot Mac a worried look. “It is a forgery, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t paint that, Crane. Someone’s having you on.”
Mr. Crane pointed at the corner of the painting. “But you signed it.”
Mac leaned close to see the words Mac Mackenzie scrawled in the corner in his usual lazy style. “That does look like my signature.” He stepped back and regarded the picture fully. “Mind you, it isn’t bad.”
“Isn’t bad?” Isabella burst forth like a fury. “Mac, it’s a forgery.”
“Yes, and a damned good one. The fellow paints better than I do.”
Crane looked horrified. He glanced over his shoulder as though the police might come flooding in any moment to drag him away to a dank, dark dungeon. “But, your lordship, my assistant swore you brought it in yourself.”
“Mr. Crane,” Isabella began.
Mac cut her off. “Don’t blame him, love. If I didn’t know better, I couldn’t tell the difference myself.”
“Well, I could.”
“Because you have an eye for it. How many of these did you take, Crane?”
“Just the two,” Crane said in a small voice. “But I’m afraid I asked for more.”
