The drawing room was still empty and with the help of the servants, she could set things to right before James got home. She would apologize for her berating of him the previous night. They would get their marriage back on an even keel.
With windows and doors left open during the day, she would find a way to deal with the smell of paint and oil. Hopefully, in time, she would get used to it.
She picked up his sketchbooks and tucked them under her arm. Then she bundled the linseed oil rags together and put them out of the way in a wooden box. This made a clear path which would enable the larger paintings to be moved back into the house. Her husband’s paintings would be returned to where they belonged, and James would know his wife loved him.
Leah returned to the house and spent the next three hours wandering from room to room. She searched for places in which James could paint in comfort, but which would lessen the impact of the paint fumes.
No other room, however, gave the same light and space as the drawing room. So, she decided to tackle the problem from another angle, eventually settling on the idea of relocating the dining and sitting rooms to another floor of the house. Moving their bedroom to one farther away from the drawing room would also help. With that problem hopefully addressed, she rang for the butler.
“I have decided to bring Mister Radley’s paintings back into the house. The garden shed is not big enough. Could you please assemble a working party to help move the two large canvases back upstairs and into the drawing room?” she said.
“Very good, madam,” he replied.
Leah pretended not to notice his scowl. His opinion of the goings on between husband and wife didn’t matter to her. Leah only cared that James could see that she had accepted the error of her ways and was doing everything to make amends.
Intending to personally oversee the delicate operation of bringing theDerbyshire Twinsback into the house, Leah headed downstairs.
The smell of smoke greeted her as she reached the bottom of the staircase. She screwed up her nose. Someone must have been burning off rubbish in a nearby yard. London was a haze of smoke at the best of times, but this was close by the house. And with the drawing room windows open, the acrid smell would now add to the odor given off by the paint and oil. She made a mental note to close the upstairs windows once she returned.
Opening the door which led out to the garden, she was met with a sight that set her blood to ice. The garden shed was fully ablaze. Flames licked the walls and a golden glow could be seen through the window.
“The Twins!” she cried.
She raced to the door of the shed and grabbed a hold of the metal door handle. Searing-hot iron touched the palm of her hand, and she screamed. Fighting back blinding pain, she pressed on. She had just set foot inside the burning shed when strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her back.
“Mrs. Radley, you cannot go in there. You will die!”
She tried in vain to fight off the butler, determined to save anything of her husband’s work, but he was stronger. He dragged her away from the shed and to safety.
Servants came racing out of the house, attacking the flames with brooms and rakes as best they could. The sickening roar of the fire filled the air as the shed was engulfed in thick grey smoke. Flames shot into the sky.
Finally, the butler called the staff away from the shed, saying, “It’s gone. There is nothing to be done.”
Leah stood, tears streaming down her face, as the shed, along with James’s precious paintings, was reduced to ashes. When the pain of loss and her badly injured hand finally caught up with her, Leah fainted dead away in the arms of the brave butler.
Chapter Forty-Eight
James had spent the best part of the day breathing the foul air inside the hold of a recently arrived ship. Leah may well have her issues with the smell of his paint and linseed oil, but the fumes from them were nothing compared to the stench of a ship which had carried livestock across the Atlantic from America. For the second day in a row, he and Francis had been dealing with bad-tempered captains and poor paperwork. He could only pray that Leah was in a better mood than she had been last night.
He didn’t come in the front door of the house, deciding to go around and enter in through the rear laneway. It had been a long day, and before he went inside the house and tried to make amends with his wife, he needed five minutes alone with his paintings.
He and Leah had both said unkind things to each other the previous night, but they were in love. Forgiveness and compromise were something all newlyweds had to learn.
He smelt smoke as he neared the back garden gate. For a moment, he thought that perhaps the household staff had been burning refuse, but the air was rank with the smell of linseed oil and burnt wood.
His hurried steps faltered as he laid his hand on the gate. The smell grew stronger. He came to a halt inside the garden.
Where once the garden shed had stood, a wasteland of blackened ash now greeted him. His jaw dropped open. Shock reverberated throughout his body. The shed was gone. He struggled to breath. Any moment, he would be sick.
“The . . . Twins,” he stammered.
All his work was lost.
Leah had threatened to burn his paintings, but never in his wildest imaginings had he thought that she would actually do it. Before his eyes stood the irrefutable evidence. His wife had followed through on her vow of vengeance and destroyed all his work.
He gripped the top of the gate. If he wasn’t going to cast up his accounts, he was certain he would faint.
“Why?”
