If her identity were to be exposed and thus a scene created, she’d prefer it wasn’t in front of a hundred milling art lovers and their guests.
She’d wear a hat. A big one.
* * *
Casper stifleda groan as the town carriage swung a corner, jolting his bruised body, but a grunt was nigh-on impossible to stifle as Evelyn twisted and a sludge-green hat the size of a cart’s wheel walloped his swollen cheek…for the thrice occasion.
The pretendmaidsniggered; he was surprised Copperhouse hadn’t taken such insolence in hand.
“Have you ever previously attended an Academy Exhibition?” he enquired of Evelyn. Surely that could not be conceived as a probing question, as if she enjoyed art, it was likely, but he sensed a hesitation.
“Yes,” she said softly, without turning.
“Which year was that?”
“1804.”
“You would have been a child.” It surprised him and the clue set his thoughts to a gallop. Perchance he should have let her reveal the truth earlier, but it had been so long since he’d planned a morning purely for enjoyment and he would not spoil it now.
Besides which, Evelyn Swift was not leaving his sight any time soon, so the truth could wait a while yet.
“Yes. I had but eleven years.”
“And did you enjoy it?”
“Very much so.” She turned and he managed a dodge ’n weave that Hawkins would have been proud of. “I remember a wonderful seascape of Mr Turner’s. There were grumbles about placements of the pictures that year and his being beneath Mr Copley’s with all its white drapery, but it made no difference to me.”
Casper attempted to concentrate on her words, but her eager expression and bright eyes stole his wits. When those words did finally penetrate his befogged brain, he realised she must have been fairly immersed in the art fraternity to possess such knowledge.
He cleared his throat. “As patron, I receive endless petitions from my own artists asking if I hold sway over the location of their works.”
They sent anguished letters – which room would theirs be placed in? On which wall? Would it be overshadowed by neighbouring art or would it be shoved up high where one required a telescope to even view it?
“I tend to focus on the painting,” Evelyn said, “and am oblivious to that which surrounds it, so they needn’t worry.” She peeped out from the cruciferous hat. “Forgive me…if I go quiet during the showing. But I enjoy just…looking at them.”
Casper shared the trait, the absorption, and a deep craving for this woman raged through him.
Years back, he’d attended this exhibition with a group of acquaintances but they’d wittered throughout the entirety – striding past masterpieces to flirt with chits.
A place to be seen, not to see…
Smiling, he fingered his bruised cheek. “Turner is showing again. Two works, I believe. But of the nine hundred or so pictures this year, a large number are related to Napoleon’s defeat.”
“Your female artist?”
“She did not wish it shown and even if she had, it might have been difficult.”
“If she’d painted a daisy in watercolours, I suppose that would’ve been a different matter.”
“Most probably,” he accepted ruefully. “’Tis difficult to believe that two ladies were involved in the Academy’s founding as nowadays–”
“Nowadays they believe women should sit on one side of the canvas only – voiceless and decorative, not showing what they are capable of,” she grouched. “But at least you recognise that lady’s talent.”
A huffy compliment but he relished it.
All too soon, Horatio flung open the carriage door.
“Dorset ’ouse,” he proclaimed with a sweep of arm more suited to a lace-clad French courtier. The job had clearly gone to his head.
