Flirting With Forever by Gwyn Cready (new books to read TXT) 📕

“Mr. Lely? Are you there?”

A thin, quavering voice rose on the stairs. A woman. Not Miss Kate.

Lely’s eyes narrowed. Rubbing his hands on a clean rag, he stepped to the top. “Aye?” Immediately he clapped a hand to his forehead. “Dear heavens. My poor Miss Quinn.

Has someone not attended to you?” He hurried down the stairs to the smal landing.

Miss Quinn of Sir David and the canceled portrait. Oh dear, Cam thought, this is going to be awkward. Had Miss Quinn not been sent to Sir David’s place of business for the brush-off from his secretary?

Cam had been the recipient of more than one undeservedly harsh brush-off in her time—what woman of thirty-four hadn’t?—and while none had been quite so lung-chil ingly crushing as finding Jacket and the ring designer settling their creative differences in her bed, both the breakup phone message left with her admin and the guy who’d arrived at their six-month anniversary dinner with a box of Kleenex for her and a minister to referee the breakup ranked high on a list of experiences she wished never to repeat. Her heart went out to Miss Quinn, but she had to admit it amused her to imagine the squirming Lely would have to do.

“Miss Quinn,” she heard him say, “I am most sorry. Did Stephen—my clerk—not explain to you about the portrait?”

Stephen, Cam thought, had only been instructed to provide her with the address.

“No,” Miss Quinn said. “I have been waiting since you moved me.”

“Come. Step up to the landing, where we shal be a little more private.”

“Why?” Her voice quavered. “What have you to tel me?”

He cleared his throat and said in a tone Cam had to strain to hear, “I understand you and Sir David have ended your acquaintance?”

“Aye.”

Cam heard the hitch in the woman’s voice. Lely would soon have tears on his hands.

“And the painting was to be a final gift to you of some sort?”

“Aye. I am not a bitter woman, Mr. Lely, but I would like to leave this friendship with something.”

“I see. Wel , I’m afraid I must inform you of a change in plans.”

Oh, Peter, don’t …

“Sir David made it clear to me today—”

Cam wanted to yel “Fire!” or “Man overboard!” or “Justin Timberlake!” or something—anything—so that Peter would not finish the sentence.

“—that he cannot part with such a value, that he wants you to pose, and that he begs that you wil consider sending it to him when it is complete.”

“He did?” The woman’s voice fil ed with joy.

Cam col apsed against the wardrobe, amazed. Jake Ryan lives.

“He did,” Peter said, “though he did not want to impose by asking you himself.”

“Oh. No, I understand. His wife—” The woman caught herself. “His circumstances make it difficult.”

“Ah.”

“But how can he … ? Mr. Lely, where would he put it?”

“You ask an important question. Have you heard of a private gal ery?”

“No.”

“Sometimes it is no more than a secret panel upon which a painting sits behind a false front. Sometimes it is an entirely hidden room. The king himself has one.”

“He does?”

“Aye, to mark the friendships whose remembrance would bring the queen pain.”

“And Sir David has such a thing?”

“If he is the recipient of such great joy, he said, he would build one. Now, make arrangements with Stephen downstairs. I apologize for abandoning you. The events of this afternoon seem to have gotten away from us. You wil return tomorrow, though, aye? It wil take five or six sittings.”

“Five sittings?”

Miss Quinn’s words were fil ed with concern, and Cam heard the sound of a purse snapping open.

“I suppose I can secure a room for the week at my laundress’s house,” she said uncertainly.

“Oh, Miss Quinn! How can you forgive me? I have forgotten the most important part of the message. Sir David left an envelope for you, a token of his affection. I cannot be certain, and you wil pardon my coarseness, but he gave me to believe it contained money.”

“Money?” Miss Quinn was crying now.

“Aye, and no little amount. Desire Stephen to fetch it for you. Tel him that if he does not remember where we put it, he is to come to me and I wil remind him. Do you have that? If he does not remember, he is to come to me.”

“I have it. Thank you, Mr. Lely.”

“It is nothing, nothing at al . I am glad of it.