Mary kissed his forehead. She walked to her room, closed the door, and undressed in the dark. Hattie had left a nightgown on the bed. Mary pulled it on, sat on the edge of the mattress, and pressed her hands against her face.
The tears came. These were the tears of a woman who had held herself together through a scandal, a jilting, a marriage to a stranger, and six weeks of learning to love a child and a man who might both be taken from her, and who had finally, in the dark of her own room with no one watching, run out of the strength to pretend she was fine.
She cried until her ribs ached. Then she lay down, pulled the coverlet to her chin, and stared at the ceiling, and the sapphire gown hung on the wardrobe door like the ghost of an evening that had promised everything and delivered the one thing she had not been prepared for.
The knowledge that she could lose it all.
CHAPTER 21
“An Italian woman. In London. How difficult can that be?” Quentin set his coffee down and leaned back in his chair.
They sat in the window alcove of Quentin’s favorite coffeehouse on St. James’s Street, two days after the Atherton ball, and Evander had just finished laying out everything Madame Fontaine had told them.
“More difficult than you might think,” Evander said. “London is not short of Italian women.”
“No, but it is short of Italian women who frequented a pleasure house in Hampstead with the regularity your brother apparently maintained.” Quentin drummed his fingers on the table. “She was well-dressed. Not one of Fontaine’s employees. That narrows the field. We are looking for an Italian woman of some means, or at least some standing, who moves in circles where a young lord could meet her.”
“That still leaves half of Clerkenwell and a good portion of Soho.”
“Ah, but there is a shortcut.” Quentin’s eyes sharpened. The simple charm receded, and beneath it emerged the mind that had earned him a first at Cambridge before he decided academics were too dull for a man of his talents. “Artists. If there is an Italian woman of any distinction in London, an artist will know her. Painters, musicians, sculptors. The Italian community here revolves around the arts. And I happen to know a painter who has made it his life’s work to know every beautiful woman in the city, regardless of nationality.”
Evander physically stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Of course you do.”
“His name is Alderton. He keeps a studio in Fitzrovia.” Quentin finished his coffee and stood. “But first, let me think. An Italian woman, well-dressed, not a courtesan. Connected enough to have met your brother through society, or adjacent to it.” He paused. “The opera.”
“What about it?”
“Two seasons ago. I attended a production at the King’s Theatre. Dreadful seats, excellent company. There was an Italian soprano. Magnificent voice. She performed only a handful of times before she left the stage. I remember because Alderton was in the box beside mine, and he spent the entire third act sketching her instead of watching the performance.”
Quentin reached for his coat. “If she is still in London, Alderton will know where to find her.”
Less than half an hour later, Evander and Quentin had arrived at Alderton’s studio. Alderton stood at his easel in a studio that smelled of turpentine and linseed oil, a paintbrush tucked behind one ear, his smock spattered with colors that had no business occupying the same garment. He was a thin, distracted man in his forties who spoke about women the way other men spoke about racehorses: with reverence, specificity, and an encyclopedic memory for their finer points.
After some inane small talk, Quentin went on to present him with the reason for their visit, and Alderton’s eyes lit up with recognition.
“Lucrezia Fierro. Yes, I know her. She sang at the King’s Theatre. Two seasons ago, as you said.” He wiped his hands on a rag and crossed to a stack of canvases leaning against the wall. He flipped through them until he found what he was looking for and turned it around. “I painted her from memory after the performance. The light in that theater was criminal, but the face stayed with me.”
The portrait showed a woman with dark hair and dark eyes and the kind of face that commanded attention without asking for it. Evander studied the painting and committed the features to memory.
“Where does she live?” Evander asked.
“She keeps rooms on Percy Street. Number fourteen. Above the bookseller.” Alderton replaced the canvas. “She left the opera to pursue private tuition. I believe she offers voice lessons for the daughters of the gentry. A waste of her talent, in my opinion, but it pays the rent.”
“Thank you, Alderton.”
“Give her my regards.” The painter picked up his brush. “And tell her I would still very much like to paint her properly. The offer stands.”
They left the studio and climbed into Evander’s carriage.
Thankfully, Percy Street was a ten-minute ride. Evander sat with his hands on his knees and his jaw set, and the familiar tension coiled inside him, the same tension he carried into every lead, every alley, every dead end. But this felt different. Closer.
“Whatever we find,” Quentin said, reading him as he always did, “we find it together.”
Evander nodded.
“Number fourteen,” Quentin murmured as they stood on the pavement.
The building was narrow and well-kept, wedged between a bookseller and a linen draper. A window box on the second floor held geraniums. The door was painted black and recently polished. Simple, but not poor. The home of a woman who valued order.