“Truly? Your mother is a connoisseur. And your brother and sister-in-law help run an art school. And your other brother and sister-in-law are members of the art world in their own way, and?—”
“My father sponsored more artists than any man in England.”
She tilted her head. “Not even a little?”
“No. Paintings by long-dead masters leave me bored. Arias performed by the most talented of singers rouse nothing in me. And all those statues, half-naked muscles draped in marble fabric—why should I care?”
“Because they are beautiful? Because they are expressions of our humanity?”
He pressed his palms into the tabletop, his eyes wide. “Are you an… art lover?” How had he never known? This omission a worse one than her wealth.
“Naturally! Isn’t everyone?”
He leaned back into his chair, crossed his arms over his chest. “Not me.”
“You do not enjoyanyof it?” She stared into the steam rising from her cup as if it held all the answers.
“Not a single bit.” He shook his head, inspected his gloves. “How was I unaware thatyouare one ofthem.”
“Them? Bythemdo you mean normal human beings who appreciate the artistic endeavors of creative geniuses?”
He rolled his eyes. “Creative geniuses? Now you sound like my father. Is there any other conversation to be had? If all we’re to do in the next weeks is fawn over art, I might head back to Manchester after all.”
“No. Very well. No art. We’ll find something else to speak of. More tea?”
He nodded and tried to hide his grin but found it more difficult than anticipated. She wanted him to stay. Of course she did. She’d invited him to do so.
“Tell me.” He picked up the teacup once she’d filled it almost to the brim. “What is one supposed to do when not working?”
“Not create art,” she grumbled, “apparently.”
“Certainly not. What then?”
“What did you do before you began your agency?”
Worked. In the houses of others who sneered at him for his need. They’d been equals, friends, and then… not. He made them uncomfortable, made them remember that their fortunes were not assured forever. In every family fortune rested in the hands of a single man, and where his whims blew, so too did the pounds and pence. “I was always a studious fellow.”
She chuckled. “I’ve no difficulty imagining that.”
“I’ve always liked goals. When I was younger, I’d set them and meet them, and then set another.”
“Oh my.”
“Your tone suggests you disapprove.”
“It’s only… did you ever have fun?”
“I enjoy achieving my goals.”
She sighed, a heavy, dramatic affair, and reached across the table, stole a bit of paper from his pile and his quill pen as well. “We shall have to make a list.”
“A list? I like lists. Sounds like a goal, a plan.” He stretched his neck to see what she scratched on the page.
“Oh, not a plan at all. I shall call it a… a chaos.”
He snapped back to his seat. “A chaos. That sounds horrible. Nothing worse than chaos.”
“I disagree.”
