Mather went scarlet. “Blackguard stole her out from under my nose, telling her some pack of lies. The man is a snake.”
Likely the lady had found out about Mather’s longing for his old school days of corporal punishment. Fellows had learned that Mather kept a house of ladies where he indulged in that sort of thing. Inspector Fellows liked to be thorough.
Mather looked away. “I shouldn’t like that to get about. The newspapers . . .”
“I understand, sir.” Fellows tapped his nose in imitation of Mather. “It will be between us.”
Mather nodded, his face still red. Fellows left the house in great spirits, then returned to Scotland Yard and requested leave.
After five long years, he at last saw a chink in the armor that was the Mackenzie family. He would put his finger in the chink and rip their armor to shreds.
“How very vexing.” Beth carried the newspaper to better light at the window, but the tiny print said the same thing.
“What is, ma’am?” Her newly hired companion, Katie Sullivan, a young Irish girl who’d grown up in Beth’s husband’s parish, looked up from sorting the gloves and ribbons Beth had bought from a Parisian boutique. Beth threw down the newspaper and lifted her satchel of art things. “Nothing important. Shall we go?” Katie fetched wraps and parasols, muttering darkly, “ Tis a long way up that hill to watch you stare at a blank piece of paper.”
“Perhaps today I will be inspired.”
Beth and Katie left the narrow house Beth had hired and climbed into the small buggy her French footman had run to fetch. She could have afforded a large carriage with a coachman to drive her, but Beth was frugal by habit. She saw no reason to keep an extravagant conveyance she didn’t need. Today she drove distractedly, her gloved hands fidgety, much to the horse’s and Katie’s annoyance. The newspaper she’d been reading was the Telegraph from London. She took several Paris newspapers as well, her father having taught her to speak and read French fluently, but she liked to keep up with what was going on at home. What vexed Beth today was a story about how lords Ian and Cameron Mackenzie had nearly come to blows in a restaurant, fighting about a woman. The woman in question was a famous soprano, the very one who’d enchanted Beth at Covent Garden the week before. Many people had witnessed the event and related it to the newspapers with glee.
Beth shook the reins impatiently, and the horse tossed his head. While Beth didn’t regret turning down Lord Ian’s proposal, it was a bit galling to find that he’d been quarreling with his brother over the heavy-bosomed soprano shortly after Beth had refused him. She’d have liked him to feel a little bit sorry.
She tried to forget the story and concentrated on maneuvering through the wide Parisian boulevards that became the jumbled streets of Montmartre. At the top of the hill she found a boy to watch the horse and buggy, and she trekked to the little green she liked, Katie grumbling behind her. Montmartre still had the feeling of a village, with narrow, crooked streets, window boxes bursting with summer flowers, and trees dotting slopes down to the city. It was a far cry from the wide avenues and huge public parks of Paris, which, Beth understood, was why artists and their models had flocked to Montmartre. That and the rents were cheap. Beth set up her easel in her usual place and sat down, pencil poised over a clean piece of paper. Katie plopped onto the bench next to her, listlessly watching the artists, would-be artists, and hangers-on who roamed the streets. This was the third day Beth had sat here studying the vista of Paris, the third day her paper had remained blank. She’d realized after her initial excitement of purchasing pencils, paper, and easel that she had no idea how to draw. Still, she’d come up the hill each afternoon and set out her things. If nothing else, she and Katie were getting plenty of exercise.
“Do you think she’s an artist’s model?” Katie asked. She jerked her chin at a lovely red-haired woman who strolled with several other ladies on the other side of the street. The woman wore a pale gown with a gossamer overskirt pulled back to reveal a beribboned underskirt. Her small hat was tastefully trimmed with flowers and lace and tipped provocatively over her eyes. Her parasol matched her dress, and she carried it at a becoming angle.
She had an air of allure about her that made heads turn when she passed. It wasn’t anything she did on purpose, Beth decided with a touch of envy. Everything about her enticed. She was simply a joy to look at.
“I couldn’t say,” Beth replied after an all-over surveillance.
“But she certainly is very pretty.”
“I wish I were beautiful enough to be a model.” Katie sighed. “Not that I would. Me dear old mother would whip the skin off me. Dreadful wicked ladies they must be, taking off their clothes to be painted.”
“Perhaps.” The woman disappeared around the corner with her cluster of friends, lost to sight.
“And what about him? He looks like an artist.”
Beth glanced to where Katie indicated, and froze. The man didn’t have an easel—he lounged on a bench with one foot on it and moodily watched a twitchy young man glob paint on a canvas. He was a big man, barely fitting on the delicate stone bench. He had dark hair touched with red, a square, hard face, and enticingly broad shoulders. Beth’s breath poured back into her lungs as she realized the man was not, in fact, Lord Ian Mackenzie. He looked very much like Ian, though, the same forbidding face, the same air of power, the same set of jaw. But this man’s hair shone redder in the sunlight, he having set his hat on the bench next to him.