He wondered why she hadn’t charged to him and demanded to know why he’d been evasive about Evie. Discretion? Not a word one associated with Gavina.
“I was glad to meet her,” Evie was saying. “I found her quite agreeable.”
Oh, Gavina could be agreeable. Or the most dangerous woman in London, depending on her mood.
“I will give her your regards,” Jamie said. When I see her and shake her.
“Do. I’d be happy to meet her again.”
Evie looked so pleased that Jamie didn’t have the heart to explain what Gavina had truly been up to.
The others had halted to wait for them. “Where is this famous motorcar?” Atherton asked in eagerness.
“No need,” Evie said quickly. “Here is a hansom.” She waved at the driver. “Besides, your mother and father already admonished me for riding in the motorcar, Hayden, and I do not wish to displease them.”
Atherton’s regret was plain, but his eyes flickered when Evie mentioned his parents. He clearly did not want to sit through another lecture either.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Jamie said as the cab halted. “I will report to you, McKnight, since you seem to be the general.”
Atherton shot him an annoyed glance—he likely wanted to be the general, poor sod.
“Thank you, Mr. Mackenzie.” Iris’s words were sincere. “You are too kind.”
“Yes, thank you.” Evie echoed her friend. “I am staying with Mr. Atherton’s family, so send word to both of us there.”
Jamie wasn’t certain he trusted a message handed to Atherton’s servants, but he’d do what he could.
“You will hear from me soon,” Jamie promised.
He handed Iris into the cab and made himself walk away before he leapt to assist Evie, using that as an excuse to stay near her warmth. Her faint smile of farewell as Atherton helped her in wrapped around his heart and tangled there.
Mac Mackenzie lived with his wife Isabella and family in a tall townhouse in North Audley Street. He’d once upon a time had a splendid home in Mount Street, but after problems in their marriage, followed by a fire, Mac had moved in with Isabella in North Audley Street. Theirs had been a complicated relationship, but all was sunshine now.
Jamie arrived at their home late in the afternoon and was admitted by a footman who told him Mac was in his studio.
That meant a climb to the very top of the house, which Jamie began, tramping heavily up the stairs.
On the second landing, Jamie met a young woman with red-blonde hair on her way down. She was in a white tennis dress with puffed sleeves, the skirt short enough to reveal her soft, low-heeled shoes.
“Where did you spring from, Jamie?” she asked breezily.
Aimee Mackenzie was three years older than Jamie, and had hazel eyes that were almost golden. Though Aimee was not blood-related—she’d been adopted as a child away from cruel circumstances—she resembled the Mackenzies closely enough to make people whisper about her origins.
“The gray stones of London’s streets,” Jamie said. “Does Uncle Mac know you’re going out showing your ankles?”
“Pish.” Aimee laughed at him. “I’m meeting friends for a game, and I’m far too old for any man to be excited by my ankles.”
Aimee wasn’t old at all, and quite beautiful. Her unknown background, however, made the snobs of London warn their sons against proposing to her, which perturbed Jamie more than he could say.
Jamie shrugged as if unconcerned. “Well, smash a good lob, or whatever it is you do in tennis.”
“You’re hopeless. I will greet my friends for you. Half of them are in love with you, heaven knows why.” Aimee sashayed past him in a swirl of white, bouncing on light feet.
It was his day for women to laugh at him, Jamie reflected, as he continued up the stairs to Mac’s studio.
Jamie didn’t bother knocking at the door that led off the small landing at the top of the staircase. Uncle Mac would never hear him. He stepped into a large room, well lit by skylights admitting whatever sunshine penetrated London’s gloom.
Mac wore his usual painting gear, a plaid kerchief over his hair, a kilt slung casually about his hips, his feet bare and splattered with paint. Today he’d also donned a painting smock, loose at his neck. He must not yet have grown frenzied enough to tear the thing off and hurl it across the room.
He scowled at his canvas a moment before swiping bright red paint onto it. Jamie couldn’t see the picture from this angle, but the palette, not to mention Mac’s smock and kilt, held plenty of red, yellow, and orange.
Jamie knew better than to announce himself, or ask Uncle Mac what he was painting, or speak to him in any way. He sauntered to the old sofa with sagging cushions and plopped himself onto it.
Mac went on slashing paint, all the while glaring at his creation. Jamie lifted a newspaper, likely one of Aunt Isabella’s, and leafed through it while he waited.
He’d been in this room so often throughout his life, it was like a second home. As a child he’d played up here with his three cousins—Aimee, Eileen, and Robert—while Aunt Isabella lounged on this very sofa, reading, keeping an eye on the children, and humming under her breath.
When Jamie had become old enough to understand such things, he’d learned that sometimes Mac and Isabella shut themselves in here and locked the door, while Mac painted pictures of Isabella, nude ones. Eileen had informed him this in tones of hushed embarrassment, but Jamie, as they weren’t his parents, found it amusing.
The newspaper he read was a recent one. Jamie found himself staring at a large photograph of the heiress Imogen Carmichael, taken as she’d stood on the docks after disembarking the Baltic.
The headlines were the usual rubbish: American heiress crosses the seas in search of matrimonial bliss. Shall she have a duke? An earl? Perhaps even a prince?
“Lovely girl.” Uncle Mac now stood at the end of the sofa, minus palette and brush. “Poor thing. Excellent photograph of you, though.”
Mac reached a beefy hand to turn the page, revealing an equally massive photograph of Jamie, turned toward the gangplank of the giant ship. Miss Carmichael couldn’t be seen in this picture, but the manner in which the photos had been taken made it appear as though Jamie and Miss Carmichael gazed across the crowds at each other.
Mr. Jamie Mackenzie, most eligible nephew of the Duke of Kilmorgan watches the arrival of the Baltic and its very special passenger with great interest.
Jamie recalled the photographer who’d set up his apparatus right next to him. He groaned and tossed the paper aside. “Damnation. If I see that photographer again, I’ll turn him inside out.”
Mac chuckled. “It’s the curse of the Mackenzies. Any delicious tidbit about us that might turn to scandal is smacked into the newspapers.”
“I am pleased I can amuse you, Uncle Mac.”
“Don’t let them cow you.” Mac lost his smile, though his golden eyes danced. “Your aunt is more worried about the other party. She’s afraid the young lady will have her heart crushed by you.”
“I don’t even know the bloody woman.” Jamie tossed away the paper in exasperation. It crashed to the floor and lay still.
Mac dropped to the other end of the sofa, stretching out his long legs. “She’s staying at the Langham, and you went there the other day.”