A Perilous Perspective (Lady Darby Mystery #10)(58)
But why would Lord Alisdair do such a thing? To sell them? I supposed it was possible he needed the money. I had always derived the impression that Barbreck was generous with his family, but maybe Lord Alisdair had acquired gambling debts or wished to make a large purchase he knew his brother would not approve of.
Whatever the truth, apparently the matter would require a great deal more thought. It was also high time we availed ourselves of the steward’s help to search Barbreck’s records, as he’d given us permission for. However, I didn’t want to just review the art purchases but all of Lord Alisdair’s expenditures. Perhaps something would stand out.
“Is there anything else I can tell you?” Aunt Cait said when I was quiet too long. “Any other way I can help?”
“Not at the moment,” I told her. I needed to confer with Gage. “But I may come to you again.”
“Of course. Whatever you need.”
“And . . . thank you,” I murmured, feeling somewhat awkward. “For explaining about my mother.”
The corners of her lips curled in a sad smile. “I’m just sorry I didn’t realize you were unaware of her first marriage sooner. I could have at least saved you the pain and shock of learning of it the way you did.” She pulled me toward her, enveloping me in her enormous puffed sleeves and the scent of rose and sandalwood. It was the same scent my mother had worn, and a lump formed in my throat as it tickled at places in my brain that had long lay dormant. “I’m here for you any time, Kiera. Please know that.”
I sniffed, blinking back tears as she pulled away. “Thank you,” I choked out, seeing the same brightness in her eyes.
I somehow managed to extract myself from her chamber without dissolving into a sobbing mess, hastening toward the grand staircase, but I paused at the top.
When the day came, I wondered how I would tell Emma, tell all my eventual children, about Sir Anthony Darby. How would I explain the pain and fear and disenchantment? How would I ever be able to put it into words? For someday I would have to do so, before they learned of it in some casually cruel way from a fellow debutante, or a schoolmate, or a member of society. I couldn’t hope to keep it from them, no matter how I strove to protect them from it.
Contemplating that gave me a better appreciation for what my father, sister, and brother had faced in telling me about Edmund. And I realized that my initial conviction that my experiences with Sir Anthony should have made it easier for them to do so was false. That the opposite was true. Because being able to intimately relate to some of the hurt my mother had faced only made it all that more terrible to accept. My empathy for her pain, merged with my own remembered suffering, made it doubly more difficult, for where did one end and the other begin?
It was why even now my stomach cramped and my chest felt tight. And the very thought of Emma ever having to endure something similar nearly drove me to my knees.
I vowed then and there I would do everything in my earthly power to prevent it. I would move heaven and earth to keep her safe. To keep a dishonorable person from having such control over her life.
Dragging a trembling hand across my lips, I glanced about me, seeking distraction from my spiraling thoughts. That’s when my gaze fell on the entrance to the long gallery. I hadn’t returned to the room since the evening before when Mairi’s body had been found, but perhaps the light of day would illuminate something we’d missed.
Redirecting my unsteady steps, I entered the gallery, the hairs prickling along my arms as I stopped to stare down its length. I’m not sure what I expected to find. Any mess from Mairi’s sad demise had long been cleared away by the staff. But even so, a melancholy atmosphere seemed to linger over the space. Though perhaps that was courtesy of my mood and the stormy light filtering through the high windows.
Slowly, I paced my way down the marble floor, allowing the click of my boot heels to echo through the chamber. It somehow made it feel less forlorn to fill the space up with sound. I hesitated before the forged paintings that were allegedly created by Titian and Van Dyck, but once again, besides the fact that the paintings were frauds, I saw nothing out of place.
Logic insisted that Mairi must have been there for a reason. But had it been straightforward curiosity or something more? Could she have been sent here? But by whom? One of the Campbell sisters? Perhaps they’d wanted to know more about the forged Van Dyck but hadn’t dared attempt to see it for themselves. But why? What had they hoped to learn?
Feeling a headache stirring behind my eyes, I rubbed my fingers over my temples, temporarily abandoning the puzzle of Mairi’s presence to continue going around the room. I’d yet to examine the rest of the art hanging here or propped on pedestals, and while I didn’t have the time to make an intense study of it, I wanted to take a precursory inventory. There were a number of paintings which were undoubtedly the work of a master, paintings I wanted the chance to study at leisure. Including the painting of the god of war the other ladies had been tittering about, which, indeed, appeared to be by Caravaggio. But there were also a few more pieces that just seemed wrong somehow. They simply didn’t fit with what I knew of the attributed artist.
One of the Gainsborough portraits, for instance. It was too stiff and contrived, and it lacked the glazed effect he was so expert at, where the underpaint—usually an orange or pink-beige—was allowed to partially shine through. Or the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape whose frame proclaimed it to be the work of Saloman van Ruisdael, an artist who had been in vogue among the English. However, the composition was careless and the execution uneven.