Page 97 of Dark Tides
“Shall I send the antiquities to you, or will your people collect them?” she asked.
“I’ll send my own people,” he said. “I’m taking them to my country house. It’s a pleasure to do business with you, Lady Peachey.”
She inclined her head and stepped a little closer. “And I have more,” she whispered. “I have a reclining female figure in the most beautiful marble, a creamy color marble just like skin. Completely naked, a Venus resting, with a dolphin under her feet, his head lying…” She turned aside and raised her fan to hide her blush. “Along her thighs. The contrast of the skin of the dolphin and her… her… it’s very beautiful. The great classical artists put beauty before everything…” she recovered. “We moderns, we are bound to be limited by modesty. But not, I hope, blinded by it. This is a private piece, for a gentleman’s study or his private gallery.”
“I should like to see it,” he said eagerly. “Quite naked, is she?”
“I would have to order it to be shipped from my late husband’s store in Venice,” she said. “I could show you a drawing and you could order it. I could not undertake to bring it into the country without a guaranteed purchaser. I would have to deliver it directly to you; I could not show it in Sir James’s house, it is a piece so…”
He bent his head to hear her whisper.
“Infiammando,”she breathed.
“Inflaming?” he confirmed.
Livia, sloe eyes turned down for modesty, only nodded.
“For sure, to a lady; but for a man of the world like me?”
“It’sindecenteto anyone,” she assured him, turning her head away, embarrassed beyond words. “It would beindecenteto the king himself, and we all know that he has an eye for art.”
“How much?” he asked, breathing a little heavily.
“Ah, my Venus, my indecent Venus, would be five hundred.”
“Guineas?”
She turned back and smiled. “Exactly.”
James waited for Livia in his study, as the last guest left the house. She came in smiling and offered him Sir Morris’s note of hand. “Will youtake this for me?” she said. “I dare not take it to the warehouse. I am so afraid of thieves or fire!”
“I’ll redeem it tomorrow,” he said. “Shall I keep the gold at my goldsmith’s for you?”
“Yes,” she said. “That would be best, thank you.”
He glanced at the amount. “You must be pleased,” was all he said.
“I am,” she agreed. “For the poor ladies.”
He waited while she put on her bonnet and threw a little cape around her shoulders against the cold evening air, and then she took his arm and let him lead her through the garden towards the river. Glib went ahead of them to hail a skiff to come to the Avery pier.
“What a beautiful evening,” she sighed. “What a wonderful day we have had.”
She waited for him to reply, and when he was silent, she paused at the head of the steps to the pier. “Oh! I had quite forgotten! How foolish of me. Alys will be wanting to be paid for the shipping and the wagon.”
“Immediately?” he asked, surprised.
“My dear, they are so hand to mouth, she has been dunning me for weeks. You have no idea! I have been quite uncomfortable…”
“I shall send your money from the goldsmith’s tomorrow…” he suggested.
“No, no, I need it at once. She will be waiting up to empty my pocket. She’ll be expecting it tonight.”
“Surely she realizes that you would be paid in a promissory note?”
“My dear, they only deal in coins,” she said. “She keeps everything she makes in a chest in the counting house. I doubt they’ve ever seen a note!”
“Of course…” He hesitated and reached into the deep pockets of his jacket. “Shall I give you some funds now?”
