“If I’d been sleeping, I no longer would be.”
She opened the door wider. “Look who has arrived with the light of day.”
Zander stood behind her, his wife Fiona on his arm. “Don’t stand to greet us,” Zander said.
“I didn’t intend to,” Theo said, sipping the cold coffee. But he stood and bowed toward Fiona. “Good morning.”
“Theo,” she said, “a pleasure.” And she sounded like she meant it.
Zander gasped. “It’s not, darling. Don’t lie to him. No one can find pleasure in that man’s scowl.”
“I prefer it that way,” Theo said. “Isn’t my room a tad too small for such a gathering?”
The three settled around the room. Zander slouched near the window, and his wife sat in a chair near the fireplace while Maggie bounced down on his bed. Theo disappeared inside a copy ofAckermann’snear to hand, ignoring them all.
“Did Merry keep you up last night, Theo?” Maggie asked.
“No.” Yes, but Merry could keep whomever she liked from sleeping, including him. An infant’s prerogative. With her tiny fists and pink cheeks, she could do as she pleased, and Theo would gut whoever tried to stop her.
A hand slammed into Theo’s paper from the top. Zander peered at him from above, eyebrow raised. “Aren’t you glad to see me? Or at least curious as to why we’re here?” Zander possessed a much nicer disposition than Theo. The man grinned as if doing so produced diamonds. And he winked as if he shared a joke with every damn soul on earth.
“You’re here to visit her parents, no doubt.” He tossed a nod at Zander’s wife.
Zander folded his arms across his chest. “But also to bring you news. And to help you.”
Theo snorted. “Help me with what?”
“Everything but manners, elegance, and wit.” Zander smirked. “There, you’re doomed.”
“Help me with what?” Theo repeated.
“My point exactly.”
“Zander, I’ll tell him if you don’t,” Fiona warned, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Very well.” Zander returned to his place by the window. “There’s a further snag in the Lady Cordelia dilemma. Raph has received an offer on the townhouse where she resides.”
Lady Cordelia. A name he pushed out of his brain a thousand times a day, more for each day he could not push her out of the townhouse. He knew beauty to be nothing but lies, but he saw her beauty everywhere—her hair in the sunset, her eyes in the bottom of a cup of a coffee with a splash of cream—and he itched to draw it, paint it, multiply it to make the dirty world brighter.
Destructive impulse, that, one he squashed as many times a day as he pushed away thoughts of her. He didn’t paint anymore. Not like that. He preferred the black of ink against a pale page—truth and lies—a clear distinction. No doubt such as existed in the blur of colors across a canvas. Or those ingrained in a woman’s body.
Guilt hammered him down. He shouldn’t be so eager to see her gone. She’d helped him twice in the short time they’d known each other. Tormented him a hundred times more than that, of course, but he didn’t quite hate her. Felt inconvenienced by her every damn day. But impossible to hate a woman who’d been as troubled as he had been by his brother’s disappearance over two months ago. She’d helped him stay calm, helped him gather information to find Zander.
He had to get rid of her, so he’d turned to other avenues of occupation when it became clear she would find no artistic patron. But no one wanted a governess or companion who’d lived under another man’s hospitality for four years. And while she could likely perform the duties of a companion, he’d seen no evidence she had the educational foundation to support herself as a governess. For months he’d been trying to find her a new situation. And failing. Perhaps he should find her a husband instead, a man who didn’t care about her past, her pennilessness. Or… she might have to turn to that profession she’d mentioned in such a hard jest the first day they’d met.
He’d never let her go to the demimonde. That would be another failure. Whatever solution he found, he’d have to find it quick. Her time was running out.
“How much is the buyer offering?” Theo asked.
“Triple what it’s worth. Because the location suits his needs. If we can meet his time frame.” Zander quirked a brow, and Theo whistled before his brother continued. “We cannot refuse the offer, you understand that.”
“Of course not. She has to go.”
Zander produced a strand of frayed and twisted wires from a pocket and twirled them between his fingers, watched them spin as he spoke. “But we cannot kick her out without having a place for her to go.”
“Naturally,” Theo grumbled. “Could you get to the help bit?”
“The Baroness Balantine,” Fiona said. “The woman who bought your father’s paintings from Zander.”
