The Adventurous Bride. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ of ours had brought back from his Grand Tour. That’s how I know the difference between tempera paints and oil.”

      “That’s all?” he asked, surprised again. If that truly was the sum of her scholarship, then she’d guessed very well indeed. “Only what you’ve learned from books and your neighbor’s souvenirs?”

      She nodded, and smiled wistfully, a small smile that didn’t show her teeth. “Likely you’ll laugh at me for admitting this, but I know what the painting itself tells me, too. The colors, and the angel’s expression, even the patterning along the hem of his raiment and across his wings—it all seemed so magical that I feel certain it’s real. How could anyone make a forgery of that?”

      John didn’t laugh. How could he, when she looked up at him with such honesty and conviction from beneath those thick, sooty black lashes?

      “So much for pleading beginner’s ignorance, my lady,” he said softly. “A painting only speaks to a connoisseur’s ear, and despite your inexperience, you already had the wisdom to listen.”

      “There now, my lord, you see why I cannot sell this picture!” Dumont made another futile grab at the painting, still well beyond his reach. “Even this young lady recognizes its value, its significance!”

      “What this lady recognizes, sir, is that the picture is mine,” she said with fresh determination. “Or it will be, as soon as we settle on a price.”

      “Name it, Dumont,” John said. “I’ll pay whatever you ask and make a gift of the picture to the lady.”

      She gasped, her eyes indignantly round. “I’ve no intention of accepting such a gift from you, Lord John! I mean to buy the picture myself, honorably and respectably!”

      “We can quarrel over that once Dumont’s set the price.” Purposefully John frowned down at the Frenchman, hoping to intimidate him into compliance. He was sure that Dumont had mentally ticked the asking price higher and higher with each attribute that Lady Mary had described, and it was up to John to tick it back down again. “Be as honest as you claim, Dumont. You know you’d have the devil of a time selling this painting. Most of your customers will think it’s ugly as sin.”

      “It’s not ugly!” protested the girl. “It’s—”

      “It’s unfashionable, Dumont, and you know it,” John said firmly, ignoring the girl for now. “Her ladyship is simply being an enthusiastic amateur, and you know that, too. I’ll give you ten livres for it.”

      Dumont scowled back. “Why won’t you believe me, my lord? The picture’s not for sale.”

      John sighed wearily. He was already offering more than the picture was worth, yet for some incomprehensible reason it had become very important to him to buy it for the girl. “Very well, then, Dumont. Eleven livres, and that’s being deuced generous.”

      Still Dumont scowled. “I am very sorry, my lord, but I fear I cannot accept.”

      “You’re a stubborn old wretch, Dumont.” John glanced back down at the painting. The girl was right; the angel was magical. “I’ll give you twelve livres and not a sou more.”

      Dumont groaned and bowed his head. “My lord, my lord, I regret it to the bottom of my heart, but I cannot—”

      “I’ll give you twenty louis d’or for the picture, monsieur.” The girl had already pulled a fat little purse from the pocket in her skirts and was beginning to count out the heavy gold coins in a row upon the counter. “That should be more than sufficient. Winters, take the picture from his lordship. We’ll take it with us back to the inn to make sure it’s safe.”

      The footman reached for the painting as he’d been ordered, but John pulled it away. “Here now, Dumont! What’s become of all your reasons not to sell to me?”

      “The lady’s overcome my scruples, my lord,” he said sadly, as if there’d ever been a doubt that his greed would triumph. He took the coins as fast as Lady Mary offered them, sliding them into the inside of his black serge waistcoat. “I’m honored and delighted to concede that the picture is now hers.”

      “If you please, m’lord.” Lady Mary’s footman reached out for the picture, and this time John had no choice but to relinquish it. The girl had already hidden the purse back in her pocket, while Dumont had produced a grubby old coverlet, which he and the footman began tying around the painting.

      Soon she’d step outside that door and into the French bustle of Calais, and be gone to John forever, the way the women he met on his travels always were, leaving a pleasant memory and little else.

      But this time, with this girl, John didn’t want that to happen. He’d never liked mysteries; he’d always preferred answers, and the facts to give those answers meat and bones. He wanted to know why the daughter of an English duke was wandering about Calais without a train of attendants. He wanted to discover exactly how so young a lady had come to possess such expertise about painting from the little training she’d claimed to have. He wanted to know why this particular unfashionable little painting meant so much to her that she’d overpay for it by such an unconscionable sum.

      And, most of all, he wanted to learn what he’d have to do to make her smile at him again.

      Dover could wait. Now Calais seemed worthy of a longer visit—as long as was necessary.

      He cocked his elbow and offered her his arm. “Let me accompany you back to your lodgings, Lady Mary,” he said. “Calais can be a wickedly unwelcoming place for British travelers.”

      She looked at his arm as if it were a large and venomous snake to be avoided at all costs. Needless to say, she did not take it.

      “But you are British yourself, Lord John, aren’t you?” she asked. “You are not French?”

      He sighed, wishing he didn’t have to answer so complicated a question this soon in their acquaintance. “I was born not far from Kerry, in Ireland. So yes, I suppose I am more British than French, or Spanish, or Italian. But I left that place so long ago that I scarce can consider it my home.”

      She tipped her head to one side. “Everyone has a home, some place that calls them back.”

      “Then call me a citizen of the world,” he said, sweeping his arm grandly through the air, as if to encompass the whole scope of his life. “I’m a wanderer, Lady Mary. Wherever I find myself, then that is my home.”

      Most women found this a wildly romantic notion. Alas, Lady Mary was not one of them.

      She frowned. “How can you claim to be at home nowhere, yet everywhere? That makes very little sense, Lord John, very little indeed.”

      “But it’s true,” he said confidently, willing to persist. “I can tell you the most hospitable taverns in the American states, or the least agreeable ones to avoid in the East Indies, and everywhere else in between. Calais here is like a nearby village to me, I’ve visited so many times.”

      “Then you surely you must know a score of different amusements for yourself in Calais that do not require my presence.” She nodded to the footman, who tucked the swaddled painting beneath his arm to open the door for his mistress. “Good day, Lord John.”

      She unfurled her parasol and raised it over her head in a single СКАЧАТЬ