“Mr. Michael Delancey,” he said, bowing slightly. “I am not in the market for a print, though I admire Henderson’s flower girls.”
Ricardo gestured to the framed set on the wall behind the counter. “Half of London admires them, while Henderson seems to think only grand portraits and dull landscapes deserve artistic respect. If you can inspire our friend to finish the series, I would be most obliged. I’m three short of the full set.”
“I will do my best.” Provided Psyche and I are on the same continent.
Michael had left her on her doorstep the previous evening, then returned to Circle Lane. There, he’d had a long talk with Mrs. Harris and Finny and tucked Bea in according to the usual routine, as if tragedy was not looming two and a half days away. His travels had next taken him to Meg’s, where he’d been served surprisingly good ale, along with a short homily on the stupidity of playing by the rules when opposing a cheat.
Meg’s sermon had stuck with him as he’d crossed the Thames, and when he’d sent a note to Lambeth a few hours ago pleading illness. He was ill—sick with worry and anger.
“If you aren’t here to buy a print, and you don’t have the look of the starving artist, and I doubt you are a journeyman engraver, then what brings you to my doorstep, Mr. Delancey?”
Confiding in this stranger sat uncomfortably, but this fellow had guarded Psyche’s secrets, responsibly handled her coin, and encouraged her dreams. He was the closest thing she had to an ally, and she had sent Michael here.
“What brings me here?” Michael mused, studying an image of a girl holding a daffodil at a sad, downward angle. “The most honest answer is desperation. Desperation and love.”
The fire in the stove crackled softly. Did any of Psyche’s subjects have a warm place to spend this nippy, overcast day?
“You’re the reason Psyche can’t finish her series,” Ricardo said. “She hides almost too well, and a discerning eye will notice that. She craves notice and yet shuns it. Artists and their peculiarities will drive me daft.”
“She has two more complete,” Michael said. “They are in her studio, but she says she can’t be sure of them until she’s sketched the last one.”
“You’ve seen her studio?”
Michael nodded, and that gained him a long, slow scrutiny.
“An overturned bucket of amaranths and…?” Ricardo muttered, gesturing vaguely with an ink-stained hand. “Something poisonous?”
“Muguet, a beautiful scent, but toxic as fodder. Will you help me?”
“I shouldn’t.” Ricardo turned the sign in the shop window so the word Closed was displayed on the street side. “I should not abet the man who has stymied the talent of my best artist. Whatever gambling markers you need to have copied or love letters you’ve lost, I should just let you bear the consequences of your folly. I’m an engraver, not a criminal.”
“I’m a criminal, not a priest,” Michael said. “Or so my superiors would have it.”
Ricardo pulled the shade over the window in the door. “I know of only one priest who is described in criminal terms. Like a thief in the night, a footpad’s ghost, a trickster cheating the cruelest fate. You are not…”
Michael studied the next print, a girl offering a bouquet of lilacs, though the blooms were already starting to wilt, and the customer had turned away.
“You’re Preacher,” Ricardo said softly. “Well, well, well. What has my darling Psyche been getting up to?”
“She suggested you could help.”
Ricardo went to a set of large, shallow drawers and withdrew a single half folio sheet of paper. “Look at this.” He laid the drawing flat on the counter. “Drawn by a toff who about shit himself to discuss money with me. I could have had it for a song, but I don’t cheat fools or drunks, and he was well on his way to being both.”
The image was the typical cartoonish satire and, like most of those works, carefully composed. A cloaked figure lifted a tattered bundle from the snowy steps of a church while fine coaches drawn by high-stepping teams rattled past. Exquisitely dressed gents strolled along in their many-caped greatcoats, and a dandy’s fussy little dog—sporting a quilted jacket—lifted its leg on a cheerily lit lamppost. At the edges of the scene, obscured in night shadows, gaunt women watched the church steps, ghostly children holding their hands.
“Love Thy Neighbor.” Michael murmured the title, which had been added in an elegant hand beneath the sketch. The signature was a pair of initials—a prudent decision given the crown’s willingness to toss satirists in jail on the least provocation. “That fellow in the cloak is Preacher?”
“The artist wanted to name the sketch Sermon on Mount Street, but I thought that a little heavy-handed for the illiterate among us. I haven’t worked with this fellow before. He has talent, but lacks confidence.”
“And yet,” Michael said, studying the initials more closely, “he comes across as the worst sort of a snob.”
“Tries to. I’m about to turn this print over to the engravers, and we should have it ready for distribution in a week or so.”
Michael took a last look at the sketch and made a slight modification to his plans. “I need a document that looks official,” he said. “Mrs. Fremont suggested you could assist me.”
Ricardo left the sketch on the counter and marched toward a door at the back of the shop. “Come along. One wants a certain discretion when discussing such projects.”
Michael followed, and when he and Ricardo had come to an understanding, he emerged from the cozy back parlor to find snow falling in big, gentle flakes. Downy white coated the streets, walkways, and houses.
“Wet snow,” Ricardo said. “Spring will soon be here, but first it will be mud, flies, and stink. I can have what you need by this time tomorrow. Please tell Psyche to pass along those next two prints. If the series has eleven rather than twelve images, that could be a way to sell the set. A symbolic nod to the short rations and scrimping those girls wake up to every day.”
“Mrs. Fremont will finish the series,” Michael said. “She’s been preoccupied lately with portraiture.”
Ricardo flipped his sign to Open. “Of course she has. Portraiture. Nude studies would be my guess. Jacob would be overjoyed for her, while I am… impressed. You break her heart at your peril, Delancey. Best of luck with your criminal ventures.” Ricardo’s tone was genial. The warning in his eyes would have given Old Scratch pause.
“The boot is rather on the other foot.” Michael tapped his hat onto his head. “I’ll be by again tomorrow before noon.”
Ricardo opened the stove and shoveled more coal onto the blaze. “Be gone,” he said, closing the door. “I have work to do.” He rubbed his hands and winked.
Michael left, the tinkling of the doorbell muffled by the falling snow. The quiet was soothing, and the cold of the mere nuisance variety. The negotiation with Ricardo had gone well, and in the back parlor, the walls were adorned with the man’s own work.
Exquisite miniatures of toddlers, mothers, and pets, all drawn with an affectionate and playful hand. The domesticity of those images sat at variance with the brisk shop owner and the hard, sharp tools he employed in his trade.