“Because of her,” West clarified. “She’s widely believed to be the most beautiful woman in London—”
“She might well be,” Alec said. He’d never seen one so beautiful.
“She’s not,” King and West spoke in unison.
Alec rolled his eyes. “Your wives excepted, of course.”
His friends smiled broadly and West continued. “Miss Hargrove is also a curiosity. A beautiful woman attached to a dukedom, not officially out in Society, but regularly seen on the arm of one of Society’s most venerated peacocks.”
Alec resisted the distaste that came at the idea. “The source of the scandal, I assume?”
“You don’t wish to ask her for the particulars?” West said.
A memory of Lily’s obvious shame flashed. “I don’t think she is interested in telling me.”
“Mmm.”
Alec frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Only that they are never interested in telling us.” The newspaperman was married to a woman who had been something of a scandal herself—sister to a duke, unwed mother to a daughter who was now as much a source of paternal pride to West as his own children.
“Luckily, this one isn’t to be my problem,” Alec said.
“They’re always our problem,” King interjected.
“Not Lillian Hargrove. Unlike the rest of London, I did not know of her two weeks ago, and I have no intention of knowing of her two weeks hence. She’s to be the problem of the man who disgraced her.” He looked to West. “I simply need to know who that is.”
West’s gaze flickered to a faro table nearby, and he watched the game for a long moment. Alec followed suit. A man dressed all in white joined a threesome there, flashing a broad smile at the dealer and setting a massive amount of money on the table.
Alec looked back to his friends. “Who is that?”
King raised a brow at West, who sat back in his chair. “Shall I tell you what I know of your ward’s circumstance?”
Alec nodded, the faro table gone from his mind.
“There is a painting.”
Alec’s brow furrowed. “What kind of painting?”
A pause. Then King said, “Allegedly? A nude.”
Alec froze, the words summoning a great roar in his ears. Not words. Word. Nude. Long limbs. Full lips. High breasts. Round hips. Skin as soft as silk. And eyes like a silver storm.
No.
“A nude of whom?”
West’s hands went wide, as if to say, Isn’t it obvious?
Of course, it was.
Alec shot forward in his chair. “Allegedly. King said allegedly.”
West replied. “It’s not alleged.”
He turned on the newspaperman. “You have seen it?”
“I have not, but my wife has.” He paused. “Georgiana is on the Selection Committee of the Royal Academy.”
Alec’s heart pounded. “And it is Lillian.” West remained still and Alec grasped for another solution. “How do we know she honestly sat for it? You and I both know that scandal is rarely truth.”
“It’s true in this case,” West said.
“How do you know that?”
West cut him a look. “Because I’m exceedingly good at my job, and I know the difference between gossip and fact.”
Alec considered the woman he’d met hours earlier. Yes, she was beautiful, but she was not an idiot. He shook his head. “Not in this case,” he said. “I’ve met the girl. There’s no way she posed for a nude.”
“Love makes us do strange things.” King’s words were simple and direct, and Alec hated the ring of truth in them.
He did not want to acknowledge the truth. He did not want to imagine her nude for a man. He had enough trouble not imagining her nude, full stop.
Nevertheless. “So the girl is in love.”
It was the question he’d asked earlier—the one she’d answered without words. She hadn’t needed words. He’d seen the sadness in her eyes. The wistfulness. As though she wished the man in question to appear there, in her sitting room.
He knew about wishing. And he knew, better than most, how false emotion could lead to some mediocre artist manipulating and mistreating her. He met West’s eyes. “Where is the painting?”
“No one knows. It is set to be the final piece exhibited as part of the Royal Exhibition in ten days’ time,” West said. “They select the best, Warnick. And this one—Georgiana says it is unmatched.”
“The most beautiful portrait ever painted,” King interjected.
“We don’t know it is her.”
“She admitted it, Warnick.”
Alec stilled again. “She did what?”
“She stormed the stage. Caused a scene. Professed her love. Was rebuffed. In front of all London,” West said. “That alone was enough to destroy her in their eyes, but there are those who believe she is a part of it. That she and her artist worked together to ensure that the painting’s reputation will precede it when it travels the country. The world.”
Alec cursed and shook his head. “Why would she do that? Why ruin herself? The girl is locked away in my house, waiting for the funds to run.”
Not that she would get them from him.
He’d seen women run. He’d run himself. And he knew what happened when the running stopped.
Lillian Hargrove would not run.
“She wants the funds from you?” It was King who spoke this time.
Alec shook his head. “In ten days’ time, she inherits pin money.”
West swirled the scotch in his glass. “Fine timing, as the painting is revealed in ten days’ time.”
Alec met his gaze. “What are you saying?”
One lean shoulder lifted and fell. “Only, imagine the Mona Lisa.”
Alec huffed his irritation at the exercise. “Who cares a fig about the damn Mona Lisa?”
“A great many people, I imagine.”
Alec cut him a look. “I grow weary of your obvious self-made brilliance, West.”
The newspaperman smirked. “You’re self-made, are you not? You only lack the brilliance.”
“A pity, considering the size of you,” King needled. “I suppose it is true what they say. We can’t have everything.”
Alec cursed them both. “Fine. The Mona Lisa. What of it?”