“Nudes. Of me.”
Nothing about his embrace shifted. Not one thing. “Nudes are acceptable artistic subjects.”
“Nudes of some statue might be. Nudes of mythical gods and goddesses are allowable. Nudes of one’s neighbor aren’t. Nudes of one’s housekeeper aren’t. With those paintings in his possession, Tremaine can ask pretty much anything of me, Beckman, and I’ll comply.”
“Polly feels responsible?”
“She was young and angry and didn’t see the harm. The poses are such that my face isn’t quite visible in any of them.” Nor was it quite obscured.
“How many?”
He had to know one painting was enough to destroy a woman’s life.
“Three.” Sara turned in his arms and laid her cheek against his chest. “They’re good, almost charming.”
“Is this why Polly stopped painting for others?”
“Part of it. Most of it.”
Beck pressed a kiss to her temple. “So we’ll buy the damned paintings.”
“Why should he sell them to you?” Sara asked miserably. “He can have the cow, so to speak, by holding on to those three pictures.”
Beck was quiet for a minute, his hands stroking idly over Sara’s back. “How does he have title to them?”
She went still when he posed the question—a simple question. Or was it? “What do you mean?”
“Provenance is the first thing any reputable collector will want to prove.” Beck took half a step back and led Sara over to the table.
“The dishes…”
Beck was out the back door in three strides, bellowing for Maudie, who came from the carriage house at a trot.
Beck pointed toward the kitchen. “The dishes, my girl. And mind you don’t be getting the lads in trouble.” She bobbed a blushing curtsy and scurried to her task.
When Sara had been escorted to Beck’s sitting room, the door firmly closed behind them, she had the sense the real inquisition was about to begin.
Beck settled beside her on the sofa. “Let us discuss provenance. The painter owns the painting unless paid a commission. In this case, I doubt Reynard commissioned the works.”
And why, in years and years of being mentally dogged and harassed by those infernal paintings, hadn’t Sara once considered this?
“He did not, though he could argue he was owed the paintings for putting a roof over our heads, that sort of thing.”
“He didn’t put a roof over anybody’s head,” Beck shot back. “You did.”
“But what belongs to me belonged to him, as my husband, so he was owed, not me.”
“In the absence of a contract of some sort, that’s at least debatable. Polly is family, but if Reynard sold her paintings in addition to your performances, then she earned her keep.”
“He did, or he sold most of them.”
“We have a situation where you and Polly are both bringing in income, but you think Reynard somehow had title to the paintings Polly created? What sort of man would rely on that reasoning to keep paintings from the women who should have them? And what sort of uncle would use those paintings to control women he ought to have been assisting for the past several years?”
“Reynard’s brother,” Sara said shortly. “Possibly—I don’t know, Beck, but it’s my rosy fundament that will hang in some drawing room if Tremaine decides to be difficult.”
“Is this what has been bothering you?” He phrased the question delicately, though Sara suspected he was asking if this was why she hadn’t accepted his proposal. Proposals, plural.
“It bothers me, yes.” Haunted her, more like. Sara forced herself to ease her grip on Beck’s hand. “It bothers me terribly.”
“Did you pose for these paintings?”
“Of course not, though I could see why you’d ask. Polly was on hand, backstage, before I’d perform sometimes. She and Allie both saw me in all manner of dishabille, and at the coaching inns, quarters were often cramped and privacy limited. No one thought anything of it.”
“But your trust was somehow betrayed. Do you think Reynard put her up to it?”
“I don’t know. It isn’t something we talk about.” One of many things they didn’t talk about, at least until recently.
“I am beginning to think nobody talks about anything on this property,” Beck muttered. “Will Polly confide in North?”
“I don’t know that either. Somebody should explain this to him. He’s family.”
“If she doesn’t, I will.”
“What about the others?”
“They don’t need to know. How much does Allie comprehend of these difficulties?”
“Not much.” Sara chewed a thumbnail. “I hope.”
“Somebody is going to have to explain to her that discussing her art with Uncle Tremaine is not well advised. Her little studio is going to have to be dismantled for the nonce.”
Well, of course, though Sara had been too upset to see even this far ahead. “We can do that. How long do you think he’ll stay?”
“It’s England in the summertime. Who knows? I can summon reinforcements if we need them. Lady Warne might enjoy taking a hand in things.”
Sara stopped mistreating her thumbnail as one more confidence went flying past her common sense. “I’m scared, Beckman.” She pitched against him. “I’m scared for me, Allie, and Polly, and even a little bit for you.”
His arms came around her; his scent tickled her nose.
“Don’t be scared for me, Sara. Get those paints put away and stored somewhere St. Michael won’t find them.”
Sara let Beck go find North. As relieved as she was to have this secret aired, she’d also noted that now— when the respectable suit of an earl’s son might have faced Tremaine down—Beck hadn’t renewed his proposal.
Which was of no moment, really. She still could not have accepted him.
“Did Polly tell you about the paintings?”
North glanced up from where he was cleaning his bridle in the saddle room, but his expression was harder than usual to read.
“She did.”
“I can offer to buy them.” Beck lowered himself to sit beside North on the plank bench. “Our womenfolk will do anything to keep those paintings from becoming public, though, and establishing that Tremaine
Which, of course, he hadn’t pointed out to Sara.
“Polly says Sara’s face isn’t clear in any of them.” North eyed his reins, which looked perfectly clean to Beck. “Sara’s hair will give her away to anybody who knows the artist.”
“Polly’s upset?”
“Oh, one might say that.” North went silent for a moment. “I’ve never seen her cry before.”
“Christ.” Beck leaned back against the wall. “I will be more relieved when this is over than I was to get home from Virginia.”
“Too many snakes?”
“Slavery, in all its brutal splendor, with no softening fiction I was among Bedouins or South Seas’ cannibals. My father’s chums from school, no less, slaveholding and quoting Scripture to support it at table.”
“Polly and Sara felt like slaves. They don’t want Allie to suffer that fate.”
“I won’t allow it,” Beck retorted. “You won’t allow it.”
“Allow?” North blew out a breath and settled back beside Beck. “Just who are we, Beckman, that we’re allowing and not allowing matters in the lives of the Hunt womenfolk?”
