The Adventurous Bride. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ brass bell over the door jingled. Instantly Dumont turned toward it, grateful for the interruption. John looked, too.

      And smiled.

      How could he not? The girl was young and lovely, her beauty radiant enough to glow with its own light in the dismal shop. She was undeniably English, and likely wealthy, too. There were good-sized pearls hanging from her ears, and gold beads around her throat and over the wrists of her kidskin gloves. Her petticoat and jacket were costly but outdated, printed with oversized tulips that would make a fashionable Parisian shudder, tulips that contrasted garishly with the girl’s creamy English complexion and dark chestnut hair. No more than twenty: a small, neat waist, high, rounded breasts, trim ankles and a pretty foot.

      He appraised her quickly, efficiently, as he had the bronze Mercury. But what made him smile was how briskly she snapped her beribboned parasol shut, how she sailed into the little shop with her back straight and her head high and a guardian footman trailing after in her wake, as ready to conquer this foreign place as any admiral.

      Dumont coughed delicately, and patted the sides of his grizzled wig. “If you pray excuse me, my lord, I must greet the lady.”

      “Of course you must, you old rogue.” John slipped the bronze Mercury more comfortably into the crook of his arm, content to watch this little scene unfold from the curving recess of the bow window. “Go on, go on. How could you resist such a pretty pigeon waiting to be plucked?”

      But Dumont was already with the girl, bowing and scraping as if she were the queen.

      “Good day, mademoiselle,” he said in English, as quick as John had been to recognize her nationality. “Allow me to welcome you to my humble little shop. I place myself and my establishment at your complete disposal.”

      She nodded with her stern small chin, already looking away from Dumont to the crowded shelves and walls behind him. “I should like to see whatever quality paintings you have in your stock.”

      “Be assured that every painting I have is of quality, mademoiselle.” Dumont puffed out his narrow chest with unfounded pride. “I would not have it otherwise.”

      “Show your respect,” the footman ordered sternly. “Her ladyship’s not one o’ your common mam’selles. She’s Lady Mary Farren, daughter of His Grace the Duke o’ Aston.”

      The girl wrinkled her nose. “Oh, please, Winters, that’s not necessary. The man doesn’t care who I am.”

      But Dumont cared very much, and John could practically see the newly raised prices bobbing over the Frenchman’s head. The daughter of an English duke was indeed a rare little pigeon to find in a grimy old port like Calais.

      And though the daughter of a duke, the wife of no husband. Interesting, thought John idly. Why wasn’t she in London, pursuing a suitable mate the way every other girl of her age and bloodlines would be? She was certainly fair enough, and there was undoubtedly money for a dower. Was there some sort of fascinating scandal that had washed her up on these shores?

      Very interesting. Perhaps she could be persuaded to help amuse him until he sailed….

      “Oh, my lady, forgive my ignorance of your great station!” the shopkeeper cried. “To be honored by your presence, your custom! How dare you believe I wouldn’t care!”

      “Well, yes, thank you,” Lady Mary said, obviously unimpressed. “Now, if I might see your paintings.”

      John smiled again. He liked a direct woman, one who didn’t need a lot of long-winded flattery.

      “Mais oui, my lady.” With another bow, Dumont ushered her along the wall, passing several grim-faced portraits to stop before a pastoral landscape with a pair of pipe-playing satyrs, prancing through the flowers on their goatish legs. “Now this is a picture of the first order, my lady. The school of Claude, if not by the master himself.”

      The girl didn’t answer, bending down to study the painting’s surface more closely, her brows drawn into a skeptical frown.

      Undaunted, Dumont plunged ahead. “The brushwork is superb, is it not, my lady? I sold a picture much like this—though not half so fine—to an English gentleman last week, and delighted he was to procure it for his estate.”

      “I should not,” she said, stepping back. “Be delighted to possess such a picture, that is. Who would wish to look at those dreadful satyrs every day over tea?”

      “Ahh, so her ladyship has a certain taste,” Dumont murmured, wincing. “A refined taste, that is.”

      “What I have a taste for is quality, sir,” the girl said with thumping conviction. “It’s not the satyrs themselves that I dislike, but how clumsily they’re painted. You slander Claude, sir, by claiming this daub’s by him.”

      “The school of Claude, my lady, the school,” Dumont said hastily, moving to a morose still life painting of wilted flowers and rotting fruit. “Perhaps you would prefer a more edifying picture, my lady, a reminder of our own mortality and a caution against the consequences of a worldly life.”

      “A lady should have no need of such reminders, sir,” she said. “But this picture here—this one I quite like.”

      Gracefully the girl stepped around Dumont and crouched down before a small painting propped against the wall. She tipped the heavy gold frame back with her gloved fingers and smiled with triumph.

      Dumont frowned. “That one, my lady? Oh, I fear not, I fear not!”

      John’s curiosity rose. From his place by the window, he couldn’t see the little painting behind the sweep of the girl’s pale linen skirts. What kind of eye did the girl have? Was she taken by a simpering shepherdess or droop-eared puppy the way most young English ladies would be, or had she discovered something with true merit?

      Still crouching with her hand on the frame, Lady Mary looked up at Dumont, her face full of disbelief. “However could you fear a painting such as this one? It’s fine, most wonderfully fine, and not at all fearsome. Why didn’t you show it to me first?”

      To John’s surprise, Dumont scowled, his wizened hands now folded defensively over his chest. “It’s new to the shop, my lady, and since I believe in honesty with my customers, I must confess that I know nothing of its painter nor its history. Without that knowledge, I cannot in good faith sell such a picture to you.”

      “You cannot sell it to me, sir?” She narrowed her eyes, shrewdly calculating the challenge by tipping her head to one side so the pearl earring bobbed against her cheek. “Cannot, or will not?”

      “Whichever pleases you to believe, my lady.” Dumont grabbed the painting from Lady Mary, and shoved it behind the counter, out of her reach. “But I regret that I must remain firm. The picture is not for sale.”

      And that, at last, was enough for John.

      “Dumont, Dumont, what’s come over you?” he said, stepping forward from the window’s curve. “You know better than to deny a lady’s request like that. I assure you, my lady, his manners are generally more agreeable than that.”

      She straightened at once, clasping her hands tightly together around the handle of her parasol. “Forgive me, sir, but I do not believe I know you.”

      Dumont sighed, СКАЧАТЬ