Page 69 of These Violet Delights
If it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge.
The Merchant of Venice—Act 3, Scene 1
“Upon my honor, sir, if I had known, if I had any idea—”
“I don’t blame you, Finny, please, you really must stop apologizing.” Alasdair interrupted the solicitor in his fourth self-flagellation of the day. He did appreciate Mr. Finny’s contrition, but it wasn’t necessary; the damage was done, and all they could do now was pick up the pieces. Even if Alasdair wanted to dismiss him, he couldn’t; no one knew the family warehouse ledgers as well as Mr. Finny.
He would never forget the look of dawning horror on the other man’s face as Alasdair explained the situation. Mr. Finny had gone so limp and pale, Alasdair worried he had accidentally killed the man. His journey from Sampson to London had been arduous and slow, the roads in dangerous condition, his mind in an even worse state. Just as he feared, Mr. Danforth had already come and gone, presenting Lady Edith’s letter ofpermission to Mr. Finny, who unwittingly turned over the warehouse keys to a reprobate villain.
Alasdair had dragged himself to East London, preparing to find the warehouses utterly empty. Instead, he discovered they had been looted, certainly, but not liquidated. The theft was enough to concern him, of course; stranger still was determining what exactly Danforth had taken, why, and where it might have gone.
Presently, he was reviewing correspondence from the other members of the Tenebris Circle, who had been alerted to the theft. If any of the artworks wound up at strange auctions or at shady markets, his fellow Circle members would stumble across them first. Robert had not been asked, given the recent nastiness between them.
“Just tell me you’ve managed to cross-check the items from warehouse three,” said Alasdair, straightening the pile of letters on his desk.
“Here is the list, sir,” said Mr. Finny, pushing the ledger page toward Alasdair.
He tore himself away from Jasper’s mind-numbingly boring letter (no, he had not noticed any of Alasdair’s stolen artworks up for sale, but would he instead enjoy a blow-by-blow account of his most recent evening at White’s? Who was wearing what and who spoke to whom?). Squinting at the list of thefts, Alasdair felt—for the third time in as many hours—his chest tighten with alarm.
“The Vernet, two studies by Bruegel, the Huys, the Bronzino…” He trailed off, frustrated. “Something is strange,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead. “Well. All of it is strange, but I can’t seem to grasp his method. Why not take it all? Why these pieces specifically?”
“Maybe there isn’t any method,” Mr. Finny suggested. Hepoured them each a measure of brandy and went to stand at the window. “He’s just a criminal, you mustn’t try too hard to understand it.”
Alasdair’s townhouse in London was yet another storehouse, in a sense, the walls packed with any paintings he couldn’t fit in the Wapping warehouses or Sampson. Most of the pieces were of little monetary value, most of them from his early days of collecting, when he could be moved by any amateur’s sentimental scribble. A handful of the paintings had real charm. One sketch framed and hung above his office desk reminded him of the drawing Violet had shown him at Pressmore. That unease in his chest redoubled; God, he wanted to be with her again. He thought of the unfinished portrait languishing in the halls of Pressmore, a man incomplete, a man who would stay incomplete until artist and subject reunited.
I will never forget the pressure of your hand against mine, the kiss of our palms as the players gave voice to my feelings. “O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright.” My world is in shadow without you, and I eagerly await the moment when you are with me again to quench the darkness. I will come to you soon and make final in matrimony what my lips against yours silently promised.He had written it to Violet just the day before, as well as a more complete explanation of his absence. Without giving too much detail, he assured her that this matter had nothing to do with her and was of a delicate familial nature. Miss Bilbury had done an extraordinary job refining Violet’s painting skill, and the two of them had solved the mystery of his gift; perhaps their wits would help him now. But it would take time to track down Bilbury in the city, and Alasdair was afraid Danforth already had a worrying head start on whatever he planned to do next. There was an ironic poetry to needing Bilbury’s expertise to catch the man who had run her out of Cray Arches…
“Wait.” Alasdair snapped forward in his chair. “The other ledgers, from one and two, give them to me.”
“Of course, but what have you discovered?”
“Irony. Poetry. Something Miss Arden said, the symbols…”
I didn’t want to include any birds or symbols. Just you as you are. There’s no need for anything else when the subject is dear.
Alasdair revisited the lists of stolen art from the other warehouses. He leapt to his feet, shuffling from ledger to ledger, reading the names of the artists as if they were a song, a litany. Closing his eyes, he conjured an empty wall and, bit by bit, filled it with the works by the listed painters. The other Tenebris Circle members hadn’t noticed an influx of art on the market. Danforth wasn’t selling the stuff, so what did he plan to do with it?
He paced in a circle, holding out his hands as if he could hang the pictures on his imagined wall. “Vernet has theVue du Port de Rochefort,and Bruegel…that one with all the eyes.Mad Meg!Yes,Mad Meg.Then…then…The Temptation of Saint Anthony—no,yes!—andInferno.” Alasdair’s eyes opened as he came to a stop. “Inferno. That’s the method. All of them painted fires.”
Yes, the other ledgers only added merit to his theory. Arcimboldo, Rubens, de Champaigne—all artists that featured fires prominently in their work. Bronzino in particular. There was a man with a tortured soul.
A man with a tortured soul.
Danforth.
“Mr. Finny, I’m afraid I must leave the rest of this in your capable hands,” said Alasdair, that strangling sensation in his chest moving to encompass his throat. “I know now what Mr. Danforth intends to do with that art. I return to the country tonight, even this moment.”
And now there must be hope, hope that I reach Clafton before it is too late.
25
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself.
Henry VIII—Act 1, Scene 1
