LITMIR.BIZ

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Pencil renderings only. Do they not beg for the application of watercolor?”

      Restell picked up the sketches the moment Marisol let them slip out of her fingers and drift to the tabletop. “I could not say whether watercolor would improve the look of them. I have no expertise in matters of art, so I purchase such pieces that interest me. These interest me, Miss Vega.”

      She sighed so deeply that a wayward strand of curling, ebony hair fluttered at her forehead. “As you wish, but I think it would benefit you to speak to my betrothed before you are seized by another impulse. Mr. Charters is completely agreeable to sharing his views on the essence of art. He is accounted to be an expert, you know.”

      “While your father merely creates it.” He offered this with no trace of the irony it suggested.

      “Well, of course there is that,” Marisol said blithely. Her gaze swiveled sideways to Emma. “What is your opinion of the sketches?”

      “I don’t believe I’ve formed one.”

      “No, you would not, would you? You must needs sell everything my father has done, even when such a sale might cast a shadow on the whole of his work. Neven advises the exercise of prudence when putting new pieces before the public.”

      “Marisol,” Emma said, her tone gently chiding. “Your father directed me to show Mr. Gardner these sketches as well as an early, and only partially complete, painting of the fishing village. It is possible that he is willing to part with them.”

      “He is the artist,” Marisol said. “Not the expert. Did you not hear Mr. Gardner agree with me on that very point? Naturally Father wants his work to be seen, but you cannot always indulge him. It does not serve, Emmalyn.”

      Diverted, and in anticipation of blood sport, Restell’s eyes darted between the combatants. Knowing he was of two minds, he wondered if he could trust his own judgment. While throttling Marisol Vega had a certain appeal, he believed it would ultimately be less satisfying than kissing her cousin.

      Chapter 4

      Sir Arthur did not rise to his feet when Marisol, Emmalyn, and Mr. Gardner returned to the library. He was comfortably ensconced in an oversized armchair—dwarfed by it, really—and had no desire to remove his aching legs from the hassock on which they rested.

      “So you are come at last,” he said by way of greeting them. “I hope, Mr. Gardner, that my niece did not insist you look at every piece in the studio. She is perhaps too ardent in her approval of my work.”

      Marisol went directly to her father and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Emmalyn does indeed admire your talent, Father, but offers no more praise for it than is your due. Look, she has encouraged Mr. Gardner to consider the purchase of your fishing village pencil drawings.”

      Restell was much impressed by Marisol’s tactics. She and Emmalyn had been unable to resolve their differences of opinion in the studio. The verbal sparring had simply ended when Emmalyn refused to engage her cousin by defending her own position. Once Marisol realized she’d had the last word, she turned on her heel and started down the stairs, supremely confident that she would be followed.

      She was…eventually. Restell did not make to exit until he observed that Emmalyn had composed herself. That she was embarrassed by her cousin’s behavior was evident in the color in her cheeks and the hitch in her breathing as she tried to calm it. He had considered telling Emmalyn that she was not responsible for Marisol’s impolitic attempts to discourage the sale of the sketches, and hadn’t she, in fact, tried earlier to dissuade him of the same? He elected to keep his own counsel. His experience with the women in his own family suggested this was the wiser course. Females did not seem to appreciate the interjection of logic and reason into their emotional arguments. On the one occasion he pointed this out to his mother and sisters, they turned on him.

      A hint of a smile crossed his features as that memory came back to him. He almost missed Sir Arthur’s inquiry. “I am quite taken with these sketches,” Restell said, holding them out to the artist. “Miss Hathaway was uncertain if you would have need of them.”

      Sir Arthur accepted the drawings and studied each one for several long moments before passing them back to Restell. His fine, aristocratic features were set with a certain wistfulness as he explained, “I had entertained the notion of painting the village on a much larger canvas. It would have been a self-indulgent exercise as there is no interest among my patrons for a painting of the dimensions I envisioned.”

      “Then it was not a series of paintings you meant to do,” Restell said, glancing at the drawings. “But one.”

      Sir Arthur nodded. “It speaks to my dissatisfaction with the finished work. Mayhap Emmalyn told you.”

      “She did.”

      Marisol moved to stand behind her father’s chair and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Neven’s advice was sound, Father. The painting would not have sold, and you would have been heartsick that it was not well-received. How you would have disliked seeing it sitting in the studio day after day. I shouldn’t wonder that you would eventually be moved to pitch it from the balcony where it would fall on the head of some hapless gentleman and strike him down. The trial would be scandal, and although you would plead that a fit of artistic temperament prompted your action, you would nevertheless be transported to Van Diemen’s Land. I would be inconsolable, and Emmalyn very nearly so. Neven might very well decide he cannot marry me. A gentleman does not, you know, often choose to marry the daughter of a murderer.”

      Sir Arthur’s bright blue eyes, so like his daughter’s, revealed his tempered amusement. “You quite make me believe it would happen thus.” He reached up to his shoulder and patted one of Marisol’s hands. “Certain tragedy has been averted. Would you not agree, Mr. Gardner?”

      “I can find no fault with Miss Vega’s exposition.”

      “I am accounted to be the artist in the family, but I daresay that it is Marisol who paints the more colorful and dramatic pictures.”

      Marisol gave her father’s shoulders a squeeze. “You know I do not paint at all, so have off with your pretty compliments.”

      Restell observed Sir Arthur shared an indulgent, almost helpless, smile with Emma when Marisol failed to understand the import of his words. Clearly Marisol was the victim of her father’s lowered expectations. The surge of pity Restell felt for her caught him unaware. He ruthlessly suppressed it but understood he would have to consider what it meant later. It was the sort of emotion, he’d found, that made him vulnerable.

      “Am I to be permitted, then, to purchase these sketches?” Restell asked.

      “Of course,” Sir Arthur said. “I would make you a gift of them, but my niece will not allow it. Is that not correct, Emmalyn?”

      “Someone must protect you against these moments of impulsive generosity,” Emma said. “But before I arrange the sale, Uncle, I would be remiss if I did not tell you that Mr. Gardner’s interest in your work is not all that brought him here today. You must listen to him first and then decide if you want him to have your drawings.”

      Sir Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Is that so, Mr. Gardner?” He brushed his daughter’s hands aside as he sat up straighter. His feet remained supported by the hassock, but his bearing had become more formal. “What is it that Emmalyn knows that I do not?”

      Restell placed the drawings on a walnut end table. “You recall, do you not, that Miss Hathaway explained that she and I are previously acquainted?”

      “Yes, yes, what about it?”

      Sir Arthur’s query was made almost inaudible by Marisol’s exclamatory response. “Oh, there is to be a proposal! That is it, isn’t it? There has been an affair conducted entirely in secret, and now there must be a proposal. Emmalyn, you are a sly boots.”

      “Marisol!” It was Sir Arthur, not Emmalyn, who intoned her name as a chastisement. After a moment, in more agreeable tones, he said, “Will

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