Marjorie wrinkled her nose at Lawrence. “She said you were handsome.”
Chloe closed her eyes. “Marjorie, this is not the moment.”
“Er…” The back of Lawrence’s neck heated up. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Marjorie considered him. “You’reveryhandsome. If I painted portraits, I would paint yours.”
He wasn’t certain what to do with this information. “Why don’t you paint people?”
“I prefer landscapes. What doyoupaint?”
“Marjorie,” Graham interrupted gently. “Not everyone lives and breathes art.”
“Lawrence does,” Chloe said.
Jacob wiggled his brows. “Lawrencedoes, does he?”
“Er, Faircliffe,” Chloe corrected quickly. “His Grace. Who has our painting. I hope.”
That got their attention. All their eyes turned to him at once.
Elizabeth tapped her fingers on her sword stick. “Doyou have it?”
“I do,” he admitted. “Why are there two copies?”
“Who knows? We only care aboutours.” Chloe’s eyes were fierce. “It’s a piece of Bean and an intrinsic part of who we are.Puck & Familyisus.”
All six siblings touched their fingertips to their hearts, then raised them to the sky.
How Lawrence yearned to be part of such a tight-knit, caring group. To know what it was like to care for someone so much and be an integral piece of something bigger than oneself. To love unconditionally and be loved unconditionally in return.
“Well?” Great-Aunt—or, rather, Tommy prodded. “Will you return our painting?”
He certainly couldn’t hold on to something that meant that much to them. Particularly when it was an object that no longer belonged to him.
Lawrence nodded tightly. “I shall.”
They erupted in cheers and began talking over each other at once.
He watched them make plans amongst themselves in silence, as if he were a distant observer in a lonely theatre box gazing wistfully down at a fantasy world below.
When he handed over the painting, that would be it. The Wynchesters wouldn’t need him anymore.
They had never been interested in him from the start.
27
As soon as Lawrence returned home, he hurried to the library. This was where he’d brought all of the artwork his wastrel father hadn’t managed to lose over a whist table. Or, apparently, sold off to his friends.
The majority of the paintings on the walls had come from the country seat. The rest had hung throughout the town house. They had even found a handful of forgotten paintings tucked away behind a sideboard in his father’s study. Lawrence had wondered why.
He now supposed that his father had removed them from the walls because he intended to sell them. The selections made sense: the rejected paintings had unusual subjects for an aristocratic household. Besides, if Father happened to have a near duplicate of the same painting, why bother to keep both?
Which begged the question: Wherewasthe duplicate? Neither Lawrence nor the staff had come across any additional artwork, or it would be displayed here on the library walls.
He thought back to the night of his father’s accident. Father was impulsive and reckless in all things. Apparently, the duke had been fleeing the scene of a crime, having just stolen a painting from the Wynchesters. He’d driven himself in a curricle that did not survive the crash.
A broken axle had thrown Father to the street, where one of the horses kicked his stomach and his leg. Lawrence was eating supper alone in the dining room when the front door banged open and the corridor filled with heavy footsteps and panicked voices.
