A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(55)
So the last few errands were stops at a wine merchant, Fortnum and Mason, and Harrod’s, and the loading of the coach with several highly satisfactory hampers and bales and boxes. Pub meals and things put together by Alf had sufficed in the past, but eating and drinking well were some of the finer pleasures of life, and he and Alf deserved to enjoy them.
So at dinner, Alf got his first taste of several things he’d only heard of, and some he hadn’t . . . and professed himself pleased and amazed. “That ’am, guv,” he said afterward in wonder. “Oi niver knew ’am could taste loike thet.”
Alexandre didn’t bother to correct his calling Prosciutto di Parma by the vulgar name of “ham.” “I’m very glad to discover you can appreciate such things, Alf,” he replied, leaning back in his chair and savoring his after-dinner brandy. “As you pointed out, if we’re going to be working hard for our guest, we deserve some luxuries. Now, I’d like you to apply your clever mind to what I observed at the gallery, and see if you come up with the same conclusions I did.”
Alf listened carefully, brows furrowed, and when Alexandre was done, he nodded approvingly. “Yer learnin’ t’find marks, guv. Oi’d’a picked them same ones. Oi’d’a gone fer th’ ones what was alone, fust, an’ if they didn’ work, I’d’a gone fer the one trailin’ the gaggle.”
“Really?” Alexandre was surprised. “Why?”
“Cuz odds are, gel loike thet reads romantical books i’ secret, loike. She’s dreamin’ ’bout some ’andsome bloke hack-chully seein’ ’er, seein’ ’ow she’s nicer’n ’er sisters an’ their friends. You oughter pick up a couple’a them kinda books; ye’ll know jest what t’say t’ a gel loike thet, then.”
Alexandre felt fairly rocked back in his chair. “Alf . . . I knew you were clever, but I will be damned, man, if I had any idea you were that sharp!”
Alf snorted. “Learnt all thet off me old guv’ner. ’E was a one t’gull the gels, on’y ’e was arter somethin’ other than them. Niver knew wut ’twas, but thet’s wut got ’im in law trouble, I ’spect.” He shook his head. “Rum old goat, was the guv’nor. ’E weren’t ’arf as clever as ’e thought ’e were. Or ack-chully, mebbe ’e were as clever, but ’e weren’t near careful enough. Clever is as clever does, but careful, thet’ll go yew a lot futher than clever.”
“Well, I think that I will wait one more day before trying the Gallery in earnest,” he said after some thought. “I don’t want the crowds to thin too much, but I don’t want them as thick as they were today. That will give me a chance to pick up some of those silly novels and do my due diligence.” He toyed with his brandy a moment. “And, I shall have to keep being careful in mind at all times. I don’t know if that thing in the basement has any understanding of how many ways we can fail in this endeavor—and I don’t know what it would do if we did.”
Alf nodded. “A foine plan,” he agreed. He cast a covetous eye on the wicker hamper with F&M emblazoned on the label. “A very foine plan. Naow, weren’t there some sorta fancy puddin’ in thet ’amper?”
Alexandre ambled up to stand beside another bespectacled bluestocking. This young woman had her hair scraped severely back and balled into a tight, hard knot at the nape of her neck. She did not acknowledge his presence. Together they gazed at a painting of the Downs. It was, he supposed, very fine. Everyone else who had gazed upon it had said so. For his part, he could not imagine why anyone would want a painting of grass and hills. “Have you ever been there?” he said aloud to the young woman beside him. It was an innocent enough remark.
“The Downs? No,” she said, her tone cold.
“I suppose it is very fine, for its type, but this doesn’t do the scene justice,” he persisted. “The light—”
“I daresay,” she replied, her words one step above freezing, and moved off briskly. She clearly wanted nothing to do with him, and there was no sign that the entity had made her more susceptible to him.
So much for the entity helping, he thought, with irritation. It had better do a more competent job of helping me if it expects to get the sort of “witnesses” it wants.
But he remained in front of the painting of grass, as if he had not just been rebuffed. It was in a good, central spot, about halfway through the Gallery. This was where people who were trailing behind their groups tended to get out of sight of them. And where people who wished others to think them “artistic” or “romantic” usually paused to gaze critically, or heave great sighs of admiration. Someone else would be along shortly. He had only to be patient.
And sure enough, after a few single males and two couples, along came a gaggle of girls—beautifully dressed, and obviously here not to view, but to be viewed. And they were trailed at a few steps distance by a wallflower, who was exactly the sort of thing he was looking for. Someone’s cousin, perhaps; painfully plain to the point of being ugly, with a sallow, muddy complexion, untidy hair, with a hat pinned on anyhow. Her dress must have been borrowed; it hung on her skeletal frame, so poorly fitted she was managing to make a very expensive gown look dowdy. She was acutely embarrassed; perhaps by some of the nudes, perhaps by what the other girls were saying, perhaps by the fact that she was here at all, alternately blushing and going pale.