improper in dining with one’s own cousin. You would not send me to the gatehouse with no supper and no company—apart from my misshapen dog, that is.”
“What’s the matter with your dog?” she asked, puzzled.
“What’s the matter with him?” he said, drawing her along with him towards the next room. “My dear girl, you must have noticed the manufactory forgot to give him legs and a tail.”
“He’s a corgi, Mr. Wayborn,” Abigail chided him. “He’s absolutely perfect just as he is.”
In complete agreement with her, Angel got up on his hind legs and licked her hand.
“You mean you’ve seen his kind before?” Cary asked curiously.
She nodded. “Yes, in Wales. The farmers use them to drive their cows down the road.”
Cary chuckled. He now realized that she was teasing him, probably getting him back for leading her to believe he had a mute wife tucked away somewhere. There was no possible way a little dog like Angel could be used to herd anybody’s cows. “I generally use mine to chew on the furniture,” he said cheerfully. “If you like old family portraits, come have a look at these.”
“Oh, yes,” said Abigail, almost tripping over the excited corgi. Angel had not expected her to move so quickly and immediately tried to herd her back to her chair. Failing that, he decided to nip at her heels to make her go faster. Cary pushed him aside with his foot and closed the door in his face, after letting Abigail through. The dog could be heard barking hysterically.
The fire had not been lit in the next room and it was noticeably colder, though the rows of mullioned windows admitted enough light for Abigail to see the paintings hung on the wall. At a glance she recognized the work of Bettes, Gower, Van Dyck, and Lely. Clearly Mr. Wayborn’s ancestors had spared no expense in immortalizing themselves. She was surprised by how many of the people were fair-haired; the Wayborns were usually dark.
“These are my mother’s people,” Cary explained. “The Carys must have had some Viking blood, I think. But here’s a fine young Wayborn you know.” He stopped before a portrait of a fair woman with three children, painted by George Romney. The children were as dark as the woman was fair. “My mother,” said Cary. “This handsome fellow is me, of course.”
Abigail smiled at the little boy in short coats teasing a tabby cat with a ball of yarn.
“And that loathsome creature polluting my angelic mother’s lap is my sister Juliet.”
“She was a lovely baby,” said Abigail severely.
“A blot,” he insisted. “Take my word for it. Sucked her thumb until she was nine.”
“Who is that?” Abigail asked, pointing out the older child standing behind Cary’s mother.
“My elder brother, Benedict. My half-brother, I should say. His mother was my father’s first wife, but Father insisted on all his children being in the portrait. Poor old Ben! He doesn’t seem to want to be there, does he?” He moved away quickly and stopped at another painting. “Here’s a lady that looks a bit like you, cousin. The infamous Lettice Cary.”
The painting, most definitely by Anthony Van Dyck, showed a green-eyed young woman with hair the color of a fox’s pelt peeping from beneath a jeweled cap. Her delicate face was nearly white, but the artist had modeled it carefully in his palest colors, giving it life. Lettice’s golden brows and lashes had been painted hair by hair with the artist’s finest brush, and the cheeks and small mouth were stained the faintest imaginable pink. She was dressed in Jacobean finery, her white dress studded with pearls and emeralds, her upstanding white lace collar like an intricate spider’s web against the dark wood paneling behind her. Seated on what looked like a throne hung with heavy scarlet and white curtains, she seemed to be leaning backwards slightly. Abigail saw no resemblance to herself whatsoever.
“Do you really think I look like her?” she asked curiously.
“Only a little,” he replied. He looked at her, then at the painting. “You both have saucy eyes. Aren’t you going to ask me why she’s infamous?”
“Why?” asked Abigail, turning beet-red. No one had ever described her light-brown eyes as “saucy” before. She decided he was merely teasing her again.
“When she was quite forty, she ran away with her lover, an Italian musician twenty years her junior. How is that for a spot of scandal? This portrait was painted when she was a young bride, of course, but she already looks pretty restless, wouldn’t you agree?” He placed his hand on Abigail’s shoulder as he spoke.
Abigail could neither agree nor disagree; her tongue was tied, and all she could feel was his hand burning through her clothes like a hot iron.
“The ring on her finger is still in the family,” he added, as Abigail moved away without replying. “The Cary emerald. I’d show it to you, but it’s kept in our vault in London.”
“I daresay these portraits are worth more than your emerald, sir,” Abigail murmured.
“Perhaps. But no one wants to buy the men, and I can’t bear to part with the ladies.”
Abigail caught sight of a set of miniatures arranged inside a curio table beneath a window. “These are very fine, sir. You have Henry the Eighth, four of his wives, and his daughter Elizabeth, all set in gold. You even have Anne Boleyn,” she added, tapping the glass. “Most people would have thrown out her portrait when she was beheaded.”
Cary pretended to be interested for the pleasure of moving closer to her. She was so engrossed in the miniature portraits that she forgot to shy away from him. “I daresay she was restored to the case when her daughter Elizabeth became Queen,” he theorized.
“You’re missing two Catherines,” Abigail pointed out. “Catherine of Aragon, and Catherine Howard. One divorced, the other beheaded. If your collection were complete, it would be worth a small fortune.”
Cary’s interest became genuine. “How small, do you think?”
“Easily a thousand pounds,” Abigail said promptly. “Quite possibly more.”
He stared at her. “You’re mad. A thousand pounds?”
She nodded earnestly. “If you could find the two Catherines, in good condition.”
“There are some other miniatures in my study,” he said, leading her quickly through a door down a long, dark hallway into a small, untidy chamber with low casement windows. Unlike the formal rooms she had already seen, this one had not been paneled, and the original plaster and beams were exposed. Cary went to a large cabinet and, after rummaging in a few drawers, brought her a large box in which a half dozen miniature portraits had been casually jumbled together. He began taking them out and arranging them on his desk, after clearing a stack of unopened correspondence out of the way.
Abigail picked up one. “Why, this is Henry’s daughter, Mary,” she exclaimed. “How extraordinary. I’ve never seen a miniature of Bloody Mary, sir. She was so hated in her lifetime, there wasn’t much demand for her portrait, large or small.”
He shrugged. “Worth much?”
Abigail shook her head in regret. “As I said, she wasn’t very popular.”
Cary held up another, this one depicting a slim girl with carroty hair and demurely folded hands. “Could this be a young Elizabeth?”
Abigail smiled at him. “That, Mr. Wayborn, is Catherine Howard. And this boy here is Edward VI, son of Henry and his third wife, Jane Seymour.”
There were several more miniatures in the box that Abigail could not identify, but no Catherine of Aragon. “If you could find her, Mr. Wayborn, you would have an enviable collection; King Henry, all six of his wives, and all three of his children. I might value that as high as three thousand pounds.”
“I’d sell it in an instant.”