What Angels Fear

Chapter 23

The following morning, Sebastian sent the boy off with a full stomach and a suit of warm clothes that included a topcoat and new boots. He half expected the urchin to disappear back into the seething slums from which he’d come. But less than three hours later, Tom was back at the Rose and Crown with information that an Italian painter by the name of Giorgio Donatelli could be found at Number Thirty-two, Almonry Terrace, Westminster.

“What’s this, then?” said Tom, eyeing Sebastian as he wound a roll of padding around and around his torso.

Sebastian, who had made another visit that morning to Rosemary Lane and a variety of small shops, pinned the end of the padding and reached for his new, considerably larger shirt. “Today, I am Mr. Silas Beaumont, a plump, prosperous, but not particularly well-bred merchant from Hans Town who is interested in having his daughter’s portrait painted. While I am discussing the possibility of engaging Mr. Donatelli for this all-important task, you will poke around the area and discover what his neighbors have to say about our friend Giorgio.” He balanced a set of spectacles on the end of his nose, and affected an earnest, if somewhat vapid, look. “All in the most discreet fashion possible, of course.”

Tom sniffed. “Take me for a flat, do you?”

“Hardly.” By winding two cravats around his neck, Sebastian managed to make his neck look twice its normal size. His hair was as gray as an old man’s, and the judicious application of theatrical cosmetics had deepened the lines of age on his face. “While you’re at it, you might see what you can find out about a woman who used to visit Mr. Donatelli fairly regularly. A young, attractive woman with golden hair. Her name was Rachel York.”

Tom regarded him through narrowed, thoughtful eyes. “You mean, the mort what was cut up in St. Matthew’s Church a few nights back?”

Sebastian glanced over at the boy in surprise. “That’s right.”

“She the one the bolly dogs think you pushed off?”

“If by that impenetrable sentence you’re asking if she’s the woman the authorities have accused me of killing, then the answer is yes.” Sebastian shrugged into his new, very large coat.

“You think this Italian cove is the one what did for ’er?”

“I don’t know. He might be. Or he might be able to give me some idea as to where else to look.”

“That’s yer lay, is it? You figure if you cotton on to the one what did do for this Rachel, then the beaks’ll quit ’oundin’ you?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“So who else you thinkin’ mighta done for her?”

Sebastian, who was rapidly developing a healthy respect for Tom’s abilities and powers of perception, gave him a quick rundown of his conversations with Leo Pierrepont and Hugh Gordon.

“Huh,” said Tom, when Sebastian had finished. “Me, I’d put me money on one of them foreigners.”

“You might be right,” said Sebastian, reaching for his new walking stick. “But I think it best to keep an open mind.”

The neat, two-story brick building at Number Thirty-two, Almonry Terrace, didn’t fit Sebastian’s image of a struggling artist’s garret. The living quarters occupied the ground floor, while a small hand-lettered sign beside an external stair pointed upward to the studio. Donatelli was doing well indeed for a man who had been painting theatrical scenes just the year before.

Sebastian took the stairs with the ponderous effort one might expect of a fat, self-indulgent merchant. At the top of the steps, a door set with uncurtained small panes of glass showed him a large room lit with an unexpected flood of light by an abundance of large windows all, likewise, uncurtained. In the center of the room stood a young man, palette and brush in hand, his posture one of studied thought as he stared at a large canvas on an easel before him.

Sebastian knocked, then knocked again when the young man continued to stare at his canvas. After a third knock, Sebastian simply opened the door and walked into a blast of warm, turpentine- and oil-scented air.

“Hallooo there,” he said with hearty vulgarity, clapping his hands together in the manner of men coming in from the cold. “I did knock, but nobody answered.”

The young man swung around, a lock of dark hair falling across his brow as he looked up, distracted. “Yes?”

Romantic, Kat had called him. Sebastian had thought it an odd description at the time, but he understood it now. Tall and broad shouldered, the Italian was like a handsome shepherd, or a troubadour from a Venetian painting of two centuries before. Curly chestnut-colored hair framed a face with large, velvet brown eyes, a classical nose, and the full, bowed lips of a Botticelli angel.

“I’m looking for a Mr. Giorgio Donatelli,” said Sebastian. There were not one, but three braziers burning in the room, he realized. Donatelli obviously missed the warmth of Italy. Already Sebastian was beginning to regret the second neckcloth and the padding around his middle.

Reaching out, the painter rested his brush and palette on a nearby table. “I’m Donatelli.”

“Name is Beaumont.” Sebastian puffed out his exaggerated chest and struck a self-important pose. “Silas Beaumont. Of the Beaumont Transatlantic Shipping Company.” He fixed the artist with an expectant stare. “You’ve heard of us, of course.”

“I believe so,” said Donatelli slowly, obviously not willing to risk offending a potential patron with an affront to the man’s image of self-importance. “How may I help you?”

The artist’s English was good, Sebastian noticed; very good, with just enough of an accent to increase that air of romance. He’d obviously been in England a very long time. “Well, it’s this way, you see. I was talking to the Lord Mayor the other day, about how I was wanting to find someone to paint my daughter Sukie’s portrait—she’s sixteen now, my Sukie—and, anyway, he suggested you.”

“You needn’t have put yourself to the trouble of coming here,” said Donatelli, casting an anxious glance around the studio, like a housewife flustered to have been caught behind on her cleaning.

Sebastian waved away the suggestion with one gloved hand. “I wanted to see some of your work—more than just the one or two pictures you might choose to trot out for my inspection. Never buy a horse without getting a good look at the stable, I always say.” He cast an inquiring eye about the room. “You do have more than this, I hope?”

Donatelli reached for a rag to wipe his hands. “Of course. Follow me.”

Still wiping his hands, he led the way through an open door to a large back room that was virtually empty except for the dozens and dozens of canvases, large and small, propped against the walls.

“Aha,” said Sebastian, rubbing his hands together. “This is more like what I was expecting.”

The painter was good, very good, Sebastian decided, making a slow tour of the room. Rather than the sentimental, flattering formality of a Lawrence or a Reynolds, here was vigor and iridescence of color. Sebastian’s steps slowed, his respect for the Italian’s talent increasing as he studied portraits and sketches, vast dramatic tableaus and small studies. Then he came to a stack of paintings, turned against the wall. Curious, he reached for the top canvas.

“I don’t think that’s exactly the sort of thing you’re looking for,” said Donatelli, starting forward.

Sebastian held him off with one outflung hand. He was looking at a painting of Rachel York. Not a portrait of Rachel, the actress, but a depiction of Rachel as Venus, rising naked and utterly desirable from the sea, her flesh flowing and contoured and so realistically depicted that one saw the sensuality of a woman rather than the idealized goddess of the myth.

“No, but I do like this. It’s so very . . .” Sebastian paused. Erotic, was the word that came to mind. He changed it to, “Evocative.”

Donatelli, who’d been watching him with anxious eyes, relaxed.

“Hold on,” said Sebastian with a sudden, pronounced start. He leaned forward, as if to study the painting more closely. “Goodness gracious, isn’t she that actress—the one who was recently killed?”

“Yes.” The word came hissing out on a pained exhalation of air.

“Sad business, that.” Sebastian shook his head and tut-tutted in the manner of old Mr. Blackadder, the apothecary his father used to call in whenever one of the servants took ill. “Very sad. One has to wonder what the world is coming to these days.” He shifted the canvas to one side and found himself staring, again, at Rachel York, this time as a Turkish odalisque with one toe dipped in a bath, her only covering a wisp of scarlet satin twining in and out of her bare arms.

“I say, here’s another painting of her. And another,” said Sebastian, shifting more canvases. “And another. She modeled for you frequently, did she?”

“Yes.”

“A remarkably beautiful woman,” said Sebastian.

Donatelli reached out one hand, his fingers hovering just above that vibrant, painted face, as if he might caress the cheek of the living, breathing woman herself. His hand shook. And Sebastian, watching him, thought, Ah, so he cared for her.

But how much? Enough to kill her in a rage of passion?

“She was more than beautiful,” whispered Donatelli, his fingers curling into a fist as he let his hand fall to his side.

Sebastian brought his gaze back to the woman on the canvas. This particular painting was different from the others, the colors a swirling golden riot of greens and blues, with something of Tiepolo’s use of sharp shadow accents painted with vigorous gaiety against a wide, sunlit sky. Here, she sat upon a hillside bathed in the bright, vibrant light of spring. She had her legs drawn up beneath a flounce of petticoats, her posture almost childlike, her head thrown back, smiling, as if caught in the instant before an outburst of carefree laughter.

Sebastian looked down at the image of that vibrant, vital young woman, and he knew an unexpected stirring that was part sadness, and part outrage. “She was so young,” he said. “So young and full of life.” His gaze lifted again to the man beside him. “It seems difficult to imagine how anyone could want her dead.”

A quiver of emotion, dark and painful to see, passed over the man’s handsome, tormented face. “It’s an ugly world. An ugly world, with ugly people in it.”

“At least the police seem to know who did it. Some earl’s son, is it not? A Lord Devlin?”

Donatelli’s lips twisted in a savage grimace of hate and bitter, useless rage. “May he rot in hell for all eternity.”

“She knew him, did she?”

The painter shook his head. “Not that I was aware of. When I first heard what had happened to her, I thought it was that other one.”

“That other one?”

Donatelli sucked in a shuddering breath that lifted his chest and flared his nostrils wide. “He’s been following her for weeks—months maybe. Hanging around outside the theater door. Waiting across the street, whenever she came here. Watching her. Everywhere she went, he was there.”

“She didn’t report him?”

Donatelli shook his head. “I wanted her to go to the authorities, but she said it wouldn’t do any good. You know what they’re like, these aristos. To them, we are little better than animals. Things to be used and thrown away.”

The vehemence of his words took Sebastian by surprise. He was remembering what Hugh Gordon had said, about heads on pikes and blood running in the gutters. And he wondered if perhaps Gordon was wrong, that Rachel hadn’t abandoned her more radical ideas after all. Ideas Donatelli obviously shared.

“What’s his name, this nobleman?” Sebastian asked.

He thought for a moment that the artist wasn’t going to answer him. Then Donatelli shrugged, his jaw thrust forward in a determined effort to control his emotions.

And told him.

“You’re lookin’ mortal queer,” said Tom when they met up at the local tavern for a pint of ale and steak and kidney pies. “What’d this Italian cove have to tell you, then?”

“It seems Rachel York used to model for him.” Sebastian pushed through the crowd around the bar and led the way to an empty table in a quiet corner. “So, how did you go on?”

Slipping into the opposite bench, Tom wrapped his hands around one of the pies and twitched his shoulder in a careless shrug. “ ’E’s a foreigner. People around ’ere don’t seem to ’ave much to do with ’im. Although they noticed the girl, all right. She musta been some looker, that Rachel.”

“She was.” Sebastian ate silently for a moment, then said, “Any other women visit his studio frequently?”

“Not so’s anyone noticed.” Tom took a large bite of pie, and spoke around it. “Think ’e was tupping her?”

“Possibly, but I’m not sure. Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Tom swallowed, hard, his eyes widening with the effort. “So we didn’t learn nothin’ from all this?”

“Oh, we learned something.” Sebastian took a deep drought of ale and leaned his shoulders back against the wall. “According to our painter friend, a man was following Rachel about for months. A gentleman, to be precise.”

Tom polished off the last of his pie and set about licking his fingers clean. “Did he tell you this cove’s name?”

“Yes. His name is Bayard Wilcox.”

Something in Sebastian’s tone caused the boy to stop with his last finger halfway to his mouth. “Know the bloke, do you?”

Sebastian drained his tankard and stood up abruptly. “Quite well, as a matter of fact. Bayard is my nephew.”