“And who was that?” A rhetorical question. Theo already knew the answer. Their father had been a brainless, thoughtless child, more interested in his own amusement than in anything else.
Hazy memories of a dreamlike youth poked at him, as if they had something to say. They teased him with images of rides on his father’s back across a warm parlor and a soft rug, with bedtime stories that lasted for hours, composed of all little boy Theo’s favorite things—knights and dragons and lemon tarts. They held up, on a tarnished silver platter, kisses to forehead and hugs when the skin of a knee proved too soft for a fall.
Theo used his bear claws to rip them to shreds, and they retreated to that locked, shadowed corner of his mind he never visited.
“Father was a flawed man,” Zander said, “who loved us. A second son who had never been prepared to care for the estate. He acted wrong. In many, many ways. But perhaps he did not deserve your eternal hate.”
“The man’s dead, Zander. He no longer cares whether I hate him or not.”
“Just read the letter. Since I went to all the trouble of stealing it for you. I know we’re not supposed to get the damn things until we earn our paintings, I thought… perhaps… you need to read itbeforeyou can paint, need it to motivate you to try in the first place.”
Theo opened a drawer in his writing desk and pulled forth a letter opener. He twirled it in his fingers then stabbed the letter, the knife point piercing the table beneath so that it stood upright when he released it.
“I see.” Zander nodded slowly. “Can you be happy with such hate in your heart?”
“Why should I be happy when so many in London are not?”
“Then do what you do best and draw your pictures revealing the vile underbelly of the London elite, etcetera, etcetera, but do not diminish your own joy.”
Theo grunted. “Why must men become wise philosophers once they’re leg shackled?”
Zander scratched his jaw and studied the ceiling, as if truly considering the answer to Theo’s question. “It’s not the leg shackling that does it. It’s all that comes before that makes us realize the leg shackling won’t kill us.”
“Ah. Thank you for that warning. I’ll stoutly avoid all that comes before.”
“You can try, brother. You can try. And with your winning personality, I’ve no doubt you’ll succeed. But I hope you do not.”
“I have work to do.” Theo slapped his palms onto the table and pushed to stand, grabbing his sketchbook and heading for the door.
Zander waved him out of the room. “Don’t sketch anyone who can land you in trouble!”
As he published every one of his drawings anonymously, he didn’t have to worry about trouble. Anonymity allowed him to do as he pleased, to publish drawings of pure truth without worry.
Theo waved to Zander without looking as he stepped into the hallway. “Enjoymyroom.”
Whatever Zander replied, Theo didn’t hear. He was already stepping into the foggy London sunshine. He should finish the sketch he’d started this morning, sign it with his pseudonym, and send it to one of the printshops on the Strand. Would they compete for a sketch of an octogenarian passing gas as he auctioned off his daughter? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But he needed them to. He needed to make a name for himself, to do good with each stroke of his pen set to paper. But all the prints he’d put into the world so far had been welcomed with only lukewarm popularity. The silly little sketches he gave away for others to sell had proven more successful. And what good did they do? They made people laugh, no doubt, but what good was that?
No, he needed the printshops to want him so he could reveal the rotten bits of society. He’d not been able to stop his father from rotting out their family. He’d been too young, too helpless. He’d wanted to be a great artist, dedicated himself to it, only realizing too late how utterly useless such an occupation was. His family needed money. And it was his turn to help. But the only skill he’d ever cultivated was the very one that had brought his family low to begin with.
He’d had only one option, then as now—to use his art as a sword, to become a mercenary who made pounds and pence from battle and blood. And if he could stop the rot in other places, for other families if not his own, then so much the better.
That, however, required new material. Gossip. Scandal. Those things made up the very heart of his satirical sketches. He’d not had a good sketch, a really scandalous print, in ages. Worried over his father’s will, he’d fallen behind on the gossip. London needed a shock, and he wanted to be the one to give it.
He couldn’t do that with his attention split between gathering gossip and finding Lady Cordelia a new situation. A problem that, by day’s end, would be remedied.
Two
The worst was always yet to come. But so was the best, so Lady Cordelia Trent ignored weeks upon weeks of random visits from an infuriating lord and stayed steady on her course. It was difficult to organize and plan the creation of an art school when a man with a scowl as deep as the Thames could waltz through the door whenever he liked, stomp up to her Gallery of Shame, and study it, brooding at its holdings—her pitiful works of art—as long as he liked before stomping away again.
But he had proved more than merely an irritant in the last couple of months. His first visit had made her own precarious predicament blindingly clear. She must fend for herself somehow or find herself once more tossed to the streets, and this time without the angel who was—had been—the Marquess of Waneborough.
Admittedly, Lord Theodore had given hermorethan a crystal-clear realization. He’d also provided untold amusement on several occasions, and that helped matters significantly. His first arrival, for instance, when she’d discovered him as panicked as a woodland creature beneath the curious fingertips of the widowed Lady Fordham. She chuckled even now. During that first meeting, when she’d offered in a pique of panic and indignation to be his mistress, she’d discovered that Lord Theodore flustered was one of her favorite sights. Oddly, his panic had calmed her own. Now, she flirted whenever she could simply to watch him transform from mean old devil to flustered schoolboy. In those moments, he actually appeared his age—likely not much more than her own three and twenty years. He got all pink across those high cheekbones, and his gray eyes clouded, his large shoulders hunched forward, as if he could hide himself. With that bull of a body and that thick mane of dirty-blond hair that devoured his long fingers whenever he brushed his locks backward in moments of high panic? Ha.
The man would be beautiful if he were not always scowling, always thin-lipped and narrow-eyed. If his jaw ever softened to allow a smile, he might startle anyone nearby with his allure. No chance of that ever happening. But it made the teasing all the more fun. Could she make him crack, catch a glimpse of the handsome man beneath the stone? High entertainment, that.
More than amusement, he’d provided—though he did not know it—connections. Connections she sorely needed for her scheme. The men and women currently sitting in a circle in her parlor looked to her for guidance. They needed those connections, too.
“Miss Williams,” she said to the violin player sitting opposite her across the circle, “have you found an instructor happy to teach children violin?”
