Portrait of a Scotsman (A League of Extraordinary Women #3)(6)
“Is she betrothed? I know the eldest is married.”
Matthews shook his head. “To my knowledge, she is not formally promised to anyone. Presumably, she’s the one Greenfield allowed to go up to Oxford—one of his daughters studies under Ruskin.”
A new woman, then. A woman with opinions. A bluestocking. Her traipsing around unchaperoned and her loony tale about wanting to attend a gallery tour—rather than spy on him—might well be true, then. Her strange old cloak remained incomprehensible. He realized he was running his index finger over his bottom lip, back and forth, as though he were chasing any traces her soft mouth might have left behind. A very soft mouth. She had tasted sweet, a hint of sugared tea mixed into the flavor of the rain on her skin. Her scent still clung to him; he thought he could smell roses whenever he moved. He should’ve known the moment he’d seen her that Renwick had been wrong about her—her round brown eyes had held no knowledge or guile. Or he had known, and she had tempted him anyway—after all these years, precious things still exerted a magnetic pull.
“Greenfield is a fool to leave her reins so loose,” he said, more to himself than to Matthews, but his assistant nodded, as always officious.
He supposed Julien Greenfield, patriarch of Britain’s largest family-owned bank, currently had other worries than keeping an eye on his brood. The man was struggling with his private investment portfolio in Spain, thanks to Madrid’s recently re-empowered monarch launching a new banking reform policy. And he had almost been strong-armed out of the Spanish railway sector by the Pereire brothers’ bank a few years ago. It was why the banker had sent two private lunch invitations in as many months, Lucian suspected, when they had never met to date. Lucian, for his part, had long reduced his operations in the Spanish market—except for a few investments in railway companies. He still owned a thirty percent stake in railway conglomerate Plasencia-Astorga, and Greenfield must have ferreted this out. Now, that would be a measure to advance my mission, he thought—trading his last substantial investment in Spain.
“This do-gooder list of yours,” he said to Matthews, “remind me, what else is on it?”
His assistant tensed, like a lad who had been called to the blackboard unprepared. Sometimes, Lucian forgot that at age thirty, Matthews was one year his senior. He felt decades older than the man on a good day.
“I recommended you reveal your name behind your charitable activities,” Matthews said. “The hospital in York, for example, would cease to exist without your financial support—we should make it known you are the benefactor before the season is over.”
Lucian grunted. “Charity fares better without my name blackening it.”
“Precisely why I carefully selected appropriate causes—since the hospital is frequented by only the destitute, how could anyone of consequence object?”
They wouldn’t, because no one of consequence cared about a hospital treating the dregs of society.
“All right,” he said. “Reveal my name.”
Matthews looked pleased; his list must have been much reduced in length after taking off gallery visits and such. He’d probably withdraw to his quarters as soon as they arrived in Belgravia and play the same song on his traverse flute over and over as he always did to soothe his nerves.
It wasn’t that Matthews’s approach was foolish—not entirely—but Lucian suspected it was ineffective and, as such, not worth the trouble. He had already changed his ways during the past months: he had sold a few debts into hands less villainous than his and forgiven one debt entirely—unprecedented behavior on his part. Thus far, it had failed to yield results—such as, say, an invitation to the back rooms of the exchequer.
“Sir, there is one thing you could do that would have an immediate and advantageous effect on your reputation,” Matthews said.
“I’m all ears.”
His assistant was looking at a spot next to his shoulder rather than into his eyes. “You could stop tormenting the Earl of Rutland.”
Ice coated his chest at the sound of the infernal name. “Never,” he said, his voice soft.
Matthews’s lips paled, and Lucian looked back out the dirty window. Milksoppery grated on his nerves. But he wagered Matthews disliked him, too. The man was the fourth son of a baron—low in the hierarchy of the peerage and afflicted by genteel poverty—but he’d still consider himself a better breed of man. He doggedly upheld his upper-class ways and wore his waistcoat, jacket, and trousers all in different colors, with his coat of arms prominently on display on his scarves. He made comments in softly murmured Latin, and his fingers were long and white and had never exerted themselves much beyond playing the bloody flute or holding a deck of losing cards. Yes, he’d loathe taking orders from a man like Lucian. Even if that man had lifted him from a stinking cell in the debtors’ prison.
With much delay, they arrived at his Belgravia residence. His house welcomed him with cool quiet, a side effect of having every window bricked shut. The gas lamps along the walls guttered to life and bathed the cavernous room in sooty yellow light. It leached the colors from the Persian rugs on the floor and the various stacks of science and trade journals that were gradually growing toward the ceiling. Gaslight was bad light, dim and sooty. He had to stand close to the large business map covering the east wall in this light just to discern the different colors of the threads that visualized financial flows in Europe and to the American East Coast. And he was ruining his eyesight studying his tightly written notes and clippings on British fiscal policies, which he had pinned to the wall behind his desk. As soon as Edison’s new bulbs and electric wiring had proven themselves safe for indoor use, he’d retire the gas pipes in his houses.