Page 4 of Avenging the Earl's Lady
“The painting?”
“Yes.The one we carried back last night from Sir Richard’s.Did you look at it?”
A glimpse of it had left an impression of a dark, dismal, rather ugly work.
“Oh, it’s dreadfully distressed, but it’s supposedly a masterpiece by a Spanish artist who worked in the new world.”Perry flung out a hand.“You don’t know the story, of course you wouldn’t.Father got hold of it who-knows-how many years ago and gave it to my mother.The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicity.Mother loved it, it beinga-thing-of-value, and her being aFelicity.Thus, she settled me with my ridiculous name…but, however Father obtained it, someone else coveted it.When Father was captured in Spain, Mother sent the painting as part of the ransom demand.”
The hair on Jane’s neck quivered.Shaldon had been captured in Spain?The painting had been sent as a ransom to someone who coveted it?
A fog lifted.Of course.Shaldon had spent the years since the end of the war on a quest for revenge against one old enemy or another.He must be tracking down his captors.
“Who held your father, Perry?”
“The Duque de San Sebastian.”
The Duque de San Sebastian?Weeks earlier at a diplomatic ball, an unpleasant scene had played out between the Duque and Shaldon.
Perry stood and began to pace.“Yes.And with the Duque in London, it’s a wonder Father doesn’t kill him outright.In any case, before my mother sent the painting, she had Fox copy it.And then, at the last minute, she decided to send the copy and keep the original.”
Jane’s breath caught.Perry’s mother had died years ago, and she hadn’t known her well.The few times they’d met, the lady had been kind enough to her, a much younger girl.
But gambling her husband’s life for a painting?
“Does your father know?”
“Yes, or, at least I think so.Fox had a few moments alone with him last night when you went for fresh linens.”
She crumpled the letters, images from the night before whirling—Shaldon bloodied and beaten, but not broken, never that.Last night, before they’d left Sir Richard’s, Shaldon had backed her alone into a corner.He’d unleashed more marvelous passion than she’d felt in years.
Why had his wife risked losing him?
She shook off a spark of anger.“And it fell into Sir Richard’s hands.”
“Yes, after he killed Mother, he took it.”
Perry’s matter-of-factness sent a shiver through her.
“It’s shocking, I know,” Perry said, plopping down again.“I’m relieved to know the truth of what happened.No one would tell me anything, other than that she died in a terrible carriage accident.”
Jane’s nerves clacked again, a great yawning hole in her heart opening.She also had once been spared the full details of a family tragedy.It had not been a kindness.
She eased in a breath.“Did the copy pass for the original?Your father was released, was he not?”
“No.The Duque had never planned to free him.When Fox delivered the painting—”
“Fox?”
“Yes.Fox was the courier, andhewas imprisoned as well, and then the Duque turned them both over to the French.Father escaped and went back to rescue Fox.”
No wonder Shaldon was letting the American artist marry his only daughter.
“For years, I wondered if Fox was a thief.He left Cransdall a few days before my mother and the painting vanished.And then she left and never came home.”Perry took a deep breath.“Mother always told me she meant me to inherit the painting, but Father hasn’t mentioned that, and I don’t care a bit about it, even if itispriceless, as Fox says.I don’t wish for the Duque to have it, though.”
She squeezed Perry’s hand.
“Fox told me the Duque treated Father quite badly.Father is after revenge.”
Jane sighed.“Of course he is.”For Shaldon, the fighting had never ended.He’d continued on, he and his man, Kincaid, chasing after old enemies and pulling his children into the troubles.Behind that handsome facade, he was all twisted up in his need to settle old scores.And what an utter waste of time it was.
