Page 28 of The Forger and the Duke
Witness his carelessness with his own siblings.
“Don’t forget to have a bite,” she scolded in exasperation. “You haven’t eaten a thing since breakfast.”
And now Miss Illingworth was looking after him as well. Mal felt an unaccountable glow as he clucked at the horses to walk on, ignoring the porter from the Blue Posts who was once again waving his fist over nobs and their fancy rigs blocking the conduct of honest business.
He hoped she would not turn up a criminal after all. He wouldn’t be able to like her half so well as he did.
Her house was quiet.Amaranthe paused on her threshold to savor the calm. Her small front parlor caught the light, as designed, and she looked with longing at the fabric-draped easel and the covered bowls of paint. Her gold leaf paint would grow crusty and cracked if not applied soon. She would have to settle matters at Hunsdon House as quickly as she could, no matter what Edye and Mrs. Blackthorn had to say. The commission was not large, not for the few touch-ups the owner had requested from this Book of Hours, but she could not afford to lose it.
Amaranthe rested her fingers on the aged vellum of the original book, enjoying the texture of it. She hadn’t aged the vellum she was using for her copy, and wouldn’t attempt to. It would sell better if it were new and readable. But she had several pages left to copy, and some final color to add to the marginalia after the gilding was done. It couldn’t be done in time, nor arranged to be sold soon enough to suit her purpose today.
No, she would have to sell something else. One of the books she had been keeping for her own collection, to display in herbookshop as a sample of her work when the time came. It tore at her heart to part with any of the volumes she had so painstakingly copied and hoarded over the past years. It was like handing over a child.
But she had sold off her treasures before, when she needed the money for the lease on a home for her and Joseph and their household, and she could sell one again if it meant the ducal children would be cared for properly and Joseph could not be accused of gross negligence.
“Óla, senhorita.I did not expect anyone this morning.”
Inez appeared in the doorway. Quite a departure from the bedraggled waif who had shown up at her kitchen door the day before, the young woman was washed and tidy in one of Eyde’s old gowns, with a neat white apron tied about her waist and a white mob cap covering her wild black curls. A good meal and rest under a safe, solid roof had done her good; her eyes were bright and her smile quick and wide.
“Óla, Inez. Is everything well? Did Joseph leave for Hunsdon House this morning?”
“All’s well as can be, though Mr. Illingworth didn’t like thebroaI baked for him.” Inez wrinkled her nose. “A finicky eater, is he?”
“I thought I smelled cornmeal. I’ll take a piece or two with me, if there’s extra. I think your bread is delicious, and I appreciate you cooking for him on top of everything else.”
“If only he appreciated it.” Inez sniffed. “I mean to earn my keep,senhorita.You’ve given me charity enough.”
“I’ll ask you to stay a few more days, then. It looks like we need some time to set things in order at Hunsdon House.”
Inez’s dark brown eyes widened. “Is it very grand? Mr. Illingworth wouldn’t tell me a word about it.”
“It’s—” Amaranthe hesitated.
Nothing about Hunsdon House appealed to her as a place people could feel at home in. The front state rooms, meant for public entertainment, were built and furnished on a grand scale, compounded of so many rich beauties that the eyes could hardly take them all in. The rest of the place, like her bedchamber, struck her as stiff and empty. Only the small parlor where the family had dined together had felt anything close to comfortable.
Being in Hunsdon House was like being on a stage. One was aware every moment of what the station and the grandeur demanded. She was glad she did not have to live there.
“It is grand,” Amaranthe allowed. “Are there any apples left in the barrel? I might take one or two with me as well. I have more errands to run, and then I must return to Hunsdon House and speak with Joseph.”
“I can have dinner here for him, if he wants it,” Inez said. “He needn’t go by the cookshop, as he threatened to do.”
“I think you needn’t take the trouble tonight, as I shall ask him to dinner at Hunsdon House. Take the evening to rest and enjoy yourself.”
“I will, at that, and perhaps he’ll settle his feathers as well.”
Amaranthe watched as Inez flounced from the room, her curiosity stirred. Joseph was customarily the most sweet-tempered of men, so why was he being contrary with Inez?
She had larger concerns at the moment. Her manuscripts were locked in a small cedar cabinet beneath the window seat, beside the cabinet where she locked her tools and paints. Amaranthe drew her fingers over the tight folds of vellum and paper, pressed with heavy boards to keep the pages flat and the edges crisp. It took a moment to decide which volume would be the most ready source of funds, and of most immediate interest to Mr. Karim. She withdrew a stack of folio-sized pages and tucked them carefully into a leather valise.
She was relocking the cabinet, concealing its precious contents, when Inez reappeared with a small bundle of bread wrapped in a napkin.
“Will you return here tonight to sleep,senhorita?”
Amaranthe’s mind flitted to the candlelight glowing on the faces of the children last night as they enjoyed a warm, filling dinner, their first in days. She lingered overlong on the memory of Grey’s face sculpted by candlelight, the casual queue in his unpowdered hair. The look of amused dismay on his face when she noticed the old duke’s collection of bosomy mermaids and other half-clad female figures on the shelves of the study.
The quiet, dark library and its many secrets, including, somewhere, the book she sought.
“I think to be gone at least one more night, but not longer,” Amaranthe said.
