“Lovely,” a voice said.
It was Peter, smiling. He looked magnificent, and Cam wanted to throw her arms around him, but found she was unexpectedly shy and contented herself with catching a corner of his sleeve.
“It’s Ada.”
“I see that,” he said, tilting his head toward the painting’s title card. “Is that her as wel ?”
“Yes, both. The artist, her husband, Alex Katz, painted her over and over.”
“One woman, two ages, and he stil sees the same thing when he looks at her. The effect upon the viewer is unchanged. That’s remarkable.”
“We have one of yours, you know.”
“Do you?”
She pul ed him into the British paintings room, one gal ery over. She knew he would ask her about the Van Dyck shortly, but for one cherished moment she wanted to forget everything.
“You may recognize the woman,” she said.
“As one recognizes an oncoming storm at sea.” Peter’s face lit in a grin. “It’s my old friend, the Duchess of Portsmouth. Yet I see no tel tale marks of newsprint on her nose.”
“Snout, I think you mean. It is not one of your best.”
“How you flatter. I don’t suppose your opinion is in any way colored by your opinion of the subject?”
“Hel o. I’m an art expert. Where my opinions come from is nobody’s damn business.”
“I see nothing’s changed in three hundred years. I want to talk with you about the Van Dyck.”
She let go of his sleeve.
“Cam.” He pul ed her around so she was looking at him.
“I’m responsible for the letter your master received.”
As a child, she’d once had the wind knocked completely out of her when she fel from a tree. She’d been lucky nothing
worse
had
happened.
Nonetheless,
she
remembered being shocked by the violence of it. Peter’s confession gave her the same sense of having been throttled to her core. “I wondered if that’s what happened,”
she said, finding her breath. “And you mailed it to Packard?”
“No. No, no, no. Though I can certainly understand why you would think me capable of it. I had Van Dyck write it and brought it with me to stop you, then realized even I couldn’t stoop to such vil ainy. Oh, Cam, but I was fool enough to carry it in my sketchbook, and it was stolen.”
“By whom?”
“I-I don’t know.”
But he did know. And she knew with whom he’d met and who would be capable of such an act. “My sister.”
“Cam …”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m glad it wasn’t you.”
“It does matter, Cam, it does,” he said. “And I think I can help.”
“Peter, there’s no help for it.” She hated to add to his burden by tel ing him about her resignation, but she refused to be untruthful. “I’m going to take some time off. I think I’m going to concentrate on my writing. The people here are great, but I need to work on the book—wel , whatever the book turns out to be.”
Peter raised his brow.
“I’m dropping the Lely book.”
“Campbel —”
“Hey, you know how shy I am. I mean, look at Wednesday Afternoons, right? There’s no way I’m writing any book about a man that would eventual y have to get to that scene of me on that chaise.”
His mouth rose at her jest, but his eyes remained clouded. “You know as wel as I do you can alter any fact you please. Why are you doing this? Please don’t say it’s for me. I should like to think you could tel the story in such a way that Ursula—”
“Oh, Peter, stop. I am not going to profit from your dead lover. It makes me sick to think I was ever planning to. I’m sorry. The people we lose leave something sacred behind. I see that now. A person shouldn’t be al owed to rummage through the past like it’s a chest of toys put there for her pleasure.”
“Or the future,” he said sadly. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth. “Thank you. I think … I think I could bear it for me, but not for her.”
She squeezed his hand.
“Campbel , I should like to ask you a favor. I told you I did a terrible thing by not marrying her. Would you be wil ing to go
