Page 37 of These Violet Delights
“There’s no harm in knowing the quality of an individual mingling with my parishioners, is there?”
Something about this line of questioning unnerved him. Since when was Danforth at all interested in artists? Other than to wag his finger at them, of course. Alasdair took a step down toward him. “We are little acquainted. I’m familiar with works she submitted to the Royal Watercolour Society, where she was a member until recently, when she withdrew. I haven’t the faintest idea why she chose to leave London.”
That was mostly true. There were rumors of angry debtors, commissions promised but not completed, and general questionable behavior, but Alasdair tried to avoid such ugly gossip if he could. Mr. Danforth seemed satisfied, at least, and thanked him, returning to the sitting room and his flock. Whatever was going on with this Ladies’ Society for Decency and Restoration, Alasdair decided it wasn’t his concern. He consoled himself with the thought that it was at least something to keep Lady Edith engaged with society. It was good for her to have friends.
This was the first time in a long time Sampson felt like something other than a mausoleum.
He passed Freddie’s room and peered in through the open door, finding his brother slumped across his desk, asleep. Startling awake, Freddie muttered something, noticed Alasdair’s presence, and snorted. “This? It’s Danforth.” There was ink smudged on Freddie’s chin. He lifted a pen as if in explanation. “The man must correspond with every bored fool in Anselm.”
“Still. It’s a relief to see you working at something,” Alasdair told him.
“Mm-hm,” said Freddie. “Post came for you earlier; it was taken to your chambers.”
“Are you—”
“Bit busy,” he added, returning to the letters.
It felt like more ought to be said. The night they found Freddie and Emilia in flagrante delicto loomed around every conversation. When they returned to Sampson, Lady Edith had been waiting for them. Freddie had stood silently beside him while Alasdair concocted a story, covering for his brother by placing him as a helpful bystander at the fire. They had both been convinced to stay and help with the bucket brigade, Alasdair claimed. The heroism distracted their mother for only an instant, for she just as quickly turned to admonishing them for helping that “den of iniquity” with anything. Her flash of anger, however brief, had inspired Freddie toward silence; if she was that upset just about them helping at the Florizel, how would she react if she knew what Freddie was really doing?
And that silence had been encouraging until it stretched on between the brothers.
“You can’t help but get in the way of everything, can you?” were the last words Freddie spoke to him that night. Maybe he ought to be more outraged by Freddie’s stubbornness, but he could hardly justify lecturing his brother about propriety and respect when Alasdair’s thoughts kept turning, willfully, almost obsessively, toward Violet Arden.
We are imprisoned in the same hell,he wanted to say.
“Why are you staring at the back of my head?” Freddie grunted.
Alasdair left him, went to his bedchamber, and put the painted table safely in his own sphere of influence; as he did so, he realized it would look perfect beneath Violet’s self-portrait, for it even had small clusters of violets chasing up the sides. A letter from Robert Daly was waiting, as Freddie had indicated, and Alasdair’s heart thumped wildly as he read it. A Caravaggiohad surfaced in London, and Robert had it from a connection that a member of the Tenebris Circle would soon put it up for auction. Robert preferred Saraceni (a quirk Alasdair would never understand or fully believe) and promised not to contest him for the Caravaggio. He’d happily bid for it on Alasdair’s behalf but assumed he would want to experience the thrill of the purchase in person, so could he be in London by Tuesday?
He arrived in London on Monday afternoon. There was a card from Robert in the front hall relaying that he had called, and that Alasdair had been invited to an exclusive dinner that evening. Tenebris Circle only. That left him a few hours to consult with his solicitor, Mr. Finny, to make inquiries about the family’s storehouses (in good condition) and to approve and arrange the sale of a few higher-quality pieces, justifying (in his own mind) the likely cost of the Caravaggio. Mr. Finny was sharp-tongued, wry, and mean, exactly how every solicitor ought to be. Afterward, Alasdair dressed in accordance with the strict code of dress for the Tenebris Circle—black coat, Titian-blue cravat with a lapis-encrusted circular silver pin, engraved silver watch carried in the fob pocket.
The Tenebris Circle never met as a collective at White’s, and never acknowledged they knew one another beyond the expected social bonds among wealthy men of the ton. Alasdair’s friendship with Robert had preceded his membership, and so it was considered natural and less suspicious that it should continue. Robert’s house had become somehow more garish in just two months.
“It’s Lillian,” Robert told him by way of excuse, preempting the expected admonishment for allowing so many more gilded eyesores to appear in the hall. “She grew up impoverished, you see, and I cannot stop her from spending my money on anything that takes her eye.”
Alasdair laughed softly as they walked together toward the drawing room where the other members were milling and sizing one another up. “Impoverished, Robert? Her family owns Pargan Poole in Somerset.”
“Certainly, but that is a rather small castle, it’s given her emotional problems. Let the dear thing have her golden frames, it makes my life easier. Ah! There is Jasper, the dog. Do you know he swiped a Constable right out from under my nose last week? Unbelievable. I ought to call for his head! Ha! Look at him, the smirk! Yes, yes, very fine, Jasper, you win this time, chap, but I’ll die before I let you lay hands on this Caravaggio.”
It was dawning on him that it had been a mistake to come, not only because Robert was unendurable, but because being surrounded by so much art and so many art admirers forced him to think of Violet. He had been trying hard to lock her in a dark, lonely room in his mind, but that was proving impossible. On the wall behind Robert, someone (presumably Lillian Daly) had overpowered a watercolor botanical with a cumbersome filigree frame.
“Who is this?” Alasdair asked, drifting toward the painting.
“It’s Bilbury, I don’t know if you’re aware of her. Wonderful command of shadows.”
“I’ve heard of her. God, Robert, that frame is diabolical.”
Robert sighed. “I’m well aware. It’s a good thing Lillian is so beautiful, her taste really is shocking. I’ll wait until she’s forgotten about the whole thing and change the frame. A shame Bilbury is such a wild figure. I wouldn’t mind having more from her. Look, look, Jasper is hungry to gloat, I can see it in his beady eyes. We shouldn’t keep him waiting—”
“Wild figure?” Alasdair planted himself firmly before the painting, trying to see around the frame.
“Chased out of Paris for setting some lover’s abode aflame.It was hot scandal for a week or so, but that was before anyone wanted her paintings. London wouldn’t have her either, though I’m sure she’ll try to beg her way back into the Society. Well. I’ve always believed we should allow painters their crumb of madness. One must suffer from a serious defect to produce a work of genius, n’est-ce pas?”
Alasdair grinned, wondering what Violet Arden’s crumb of madness might be.You already know, for you have it, too.“Before we go in,” he began, “I had a favor to ask.”
“No, you can’t have the Bilbury. I like it too much.”
“It isn’t that,” Alasdair said with a laugh. “I wanted to send a gift of paints and brushes to an artist in need of them. I thought given how much time you spent getting painted, you might have the right connections. Could you arrange it?”
