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Her resentment towards him dated from her teens, when she’d had braces on her teeth and a weight problem, and he’d been the tall, skinny boy her father had invited round one school holiday. Adam Dysart had made it humiliatingly obvious that the moment he set eyes on her he couldn’t wait to escape. Seventeen years later Gabriel was no longer overweight, her teeth would have graced a toothpaste advertisement, and she felt secure in her own attractions. But it was galling to find that, along with all the other advantages showered on him, the adult Adam Dysart possessed just the kind of looks which appealed to her most in a man. Gabriel’s mouth tightened at the reminder that Adam Dysart was one of fortune’s favourites, with a stable family background, a career tailor-made for him from the day he was born, and, as if that wasn’t enough, according to her father the heir to Dysart’s possessed a God-given talent for spotting ‘sleepers’, the valuable art finds which occasionally slipped through auction houses unnoticed or miscatalogued.
Gabriel’s jealousy of Harry Brett’s affection for Adam Dysart had been at its height during the school holidays she’d spent with her father after her parents’ divorce, when he had talked too much, as far as she was concerned, about the boy he’d seen far more often than his daughter.
Removed to London by her mother at the age of thirteen, Gabriel had missed her father badly. Her main consolation had been the discovery that she’d inherited his particular gifts and the same, tunnel-visioned love of his craft, and now, with a Fine Arts degree under her belt, and several years spent in earning a name for herself as a skilled restorer, she was almost as good as Harry Brett. But one look at Adam Dysart had rocketed her back to her teens, reviving the resentment she’d thought dead and buried long ago. And, to cap it all, she was now beholden to him for putting up the money for the roof. Even if her father had repaid the loan.
When Gabriel got back to the house the phone was ringing.
‘Only me,’ said her mother. ‘You sound disappointed, darling.’
‘Relieved, not disappointed. I was expecting one of Dad’s customers.’
‘How is Harry?’
‘Improving. If he behaves he’ll be home next week.’
‘That’s good news. Are you intending to stay on to look after him?’
‘Yes. He’ll have to take it easy for a while, so I mean to be on hand to see that he does.’
‘But I thought Miss Prince still came in to clean and leave the odd meal.’
‘She does, thank goodness. But he needs me to help with the business. At least for a while.’
‘Can’t his assistants do that?’
‘They’re good lads, and they work hard, but they’re still learning. Dad needs someone like me. And I can make sure he behaves himself at the same time.’
Another pause. ‘Look, Gabriel,’ said her mother carefully, ‘if Harry needs professional care for a while, I could quite easily pay for it.’
‘You know Dad wouldn’t stand for that. Don’t worry, Mother. I can cope.’
‘But what about your job?’
‘I had some time owing to me. But in any case I’ve decided to resign, maybe go into business for myself. I’ve got plenty of contacts.’ She sighed. ‘To be honest, since Jake took Trent Restorations over from his father things have been—well, tricky.’
‘You mean he chases you round your workbench?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Men!’ said Laura Brett succinctly. ‘But how will you manage financially? I suppose you’ll be working for love for your father.’
‘Not a bit of it. Dad’s paying me the going rate.’
‘Is he now? Good for Harry. Tell him—tell him I’m glad he’s on the mend.’
Gabriel chatted with her mother for a while longer, and afterwards decided to wait for Adam Dysart’s call before thinking about food. Supper would taste better after she’d eaten the required humble pie. She sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, feeling oppressed by the silence, and wished, not for the first time, that the house her father had inherited from his aunt was less isolated. Part of a working farm in the past, the building was old, and full of beams that creaked ominously as day temperatures gave way to night. Gabriel felt very much alone in a rambling, half-empty house never intended for one single occupant.
A knock on the kitchen door brought her to her feet, startled. Used to her London flat, with an intercom to vet callers, Gabriel wasn’t at all keen to open the door. This was silly, she told herself. It wasn’t even dark yet. The knock came again.
‘Miss Brett—Gabriel,’ called a familiar voice. ‘It’s Adam Dysart.’
Knowing it was useless to pretend she was out when every light in the house was blazing Gabriel went to the door, unlocked it, and faced Adam Dysart for the second time that day. Tall, brimming with self-confidence, and looking a lot more respectable in a dazzling white T-shirt and khakis, he stared at her in stunned silence.
‘Hi,’ he said eventually. ‘I was passing this way, so I thought I’d ask after your father in person instead of ringing.’
Just passing. Even though Haywards Farm was miles from anywhere down a lane full of potholes. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, secretly glad of any company, even Adam Dysart’s. She waved him towards the round oak table. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
Adam shook his head. ‘I won’t keep you. I was just anxious to know how things are with your father.’
‘He’s a lot better. If all goes well he should be home next week.’
‘Thank God for that!’ said Adam, with such obvious sincerity Gabriel thawed slightly and, mindful of humble pie, remembered to smile.
‘Can I offer you a drink?’
His answering smile lit up his face. ‘In the circumstances a celebratory glass of beer would be good.’
Gabriel waved Adam to a chair, took a can from the fridge, and poured him a glass of beer.
He thanked her, and raised his glass in toast. ‘To Harry’s swift recovery.’
‘Amen to that,’ she said, then looked him in the eye. ‘Mr Dysart—’
‘Adam!’
She steeled herself. ‘I must apologise for my—my attitude this afternoon. If you’ll bring your painting back tomorrow I’ll see what I can do. If, of course, you trust me to do a satisfactory job on it.’
Adam looked at her in silence for a moment, a wry twist to his mouth. ‘This is unexpected. Earlier on you just about ran me off the property.’
‘That was this afternoon,’ she snapped, then reined herself in. Humble pie, humble pie, she chanted silently, and gave him a conciliatory smile. ‘Of course if you prefer to take your work elsewhere I quite understand.’
He shook his head emphatically. ‘No way. Harry says you’re even better than he is, which is good enough for me.’ His lips twitched. ‘This change of heart is his idea, I take it?’
‘Yes. He got very agitated because I’d refused you. So please bring your picture back, Mr Dysart—’
‘Adam.’
‘Right. Is your painting likely to be valuable?’
He shrugged. ‘My gut feeling says it is. Though I bought it for a song at auction in London this morning.’ He leaned forward, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. ‘I’m positive that under the layers of dirt and overpaint there’s something interesting. So far the only thing visible is a head and shoulders of a girl. But something about it says 1820s to me.’
‘Any ideas about the artist?’ said Gabriel, her interest caught.
‘Dirty though my lady is, what I can see of the skin tone suggests William Etty possibly—’
‘The man known for nudes,’ she said quickly, winning a look of respect from Adam.
He drained his glass and sat back in his chair, looking very much at home. As he was, Gabriel reminded herself. Drinking beer with her father at this table was probably a more regular occurrence for Adam Dysart than it was for Harry Brett’s daughter.
‘It’s hard to explain,’ he told her, ‘but I get a certain tingle at the back of my neck when I spot a possible sleeper.’
‘The unidentified goodies that slip past the auctioneers.’
‘Exactly.’
Gabriel looked at him curiously. ‘But you’re an auctioneer and valuer yourself. Have you let anything like that get away?’
‘Not yet,’ he said, without the slightest trace of conceit. ‘But before I joined the firm officially we didn’t do so much in the fine art line. My father’s specialties are furniture and silver. But lately Dysart’s are beginning to make quite a name for themselves with paintings, too.’
‘All down to you?’
‘Absolutely.’ Adam looked across at her in amusement. ‘You think I’m a right prat, don’t you? Sitting here singing my own praises.’
Gabriel shook her head. ‘I’m good at my craft, too. No point in selling oneself short.’
He looked at her in silence for a lengthy interval. ‘I’m curious,’ he said at last. ‘Why did you turn me down this afternoon?’
She flushed. ‘Due to Dad’s illness there’s a backlog of work outstanding, and the three of us are working flat out to meet commitments. But, if you want the real reason, I was annoyed because you took it for granted we’d drop everything just to suit you.’
Slight colour crept up Adam’s face to match hers. ‘Which I did, of course,’ he admitted stiffly. ‘My turn to apologise.’
‘I suppose my father gives you top priority every time you turn up with one of your finds,’ said Gabriel, resigned.
‘It’s not that big a problem for him because they don’t turn up very often,’ he assured her, ‘otherwise I’d be a millionaire by now. But when they do Harry usually lets me sneak to the head of the queue.’
‘Something he made very clear tonight,’ she assured him. ‘He said you had an auction coming up soon.’
‘We do.’ He shrugged. ‘But if you can’t manage it by then I’ll leave it with our security people and wait until you’re free to work on it.’
She eyed him in surprise. ‘You’re convinced it’s that valuable?’
He nodded. ‘I may be wrong. But I don’t think so. Half the canvas is obscured by overpainting, which must be hiding something, maybe another figure, or a landscape. No sign of a signature, but hopefully that will appear when it’s cleaned.’ He smiled. ‘We’re not talking big bucks like a Van Gogh, Gabriel Brett, but one thing’s certain—even with your fee for the restoration I can’t fail to make some profit on the price I paid for it.’
‘How much?’
‘One-fifty, with some faded watercolours and a foxed old map thrown in. No one else was interested in Lot 13.’
‘Your lucky number?’
Adam shrugged, a wry twist to his smile. ‘If it isn’t I won’t have lost much—at least not in money.’ He sobered. ‘But indirectly it cost me one of my oldest friends.’
The bleak look in his eyes roused curiosity in Gabriel. ‘Sounds as though you could do with another beer.’
‘Would you share one with me?’
Gabriel fetched another can from the fridge, and half filled a glass before pouring the rest into Adam’s. ‘How did you pay so little for a picture in London?’
‘It was a pretty downmarket sale, mostly flotsam and jetsam from a house clearance. The cream had gone up west, to the main auction house, but the branch was selling off stuff from the kitchens and attics.’
‘Do you go to places like that often?’ she asked curiously.
‘As often as I can. It’s surprising what you can pick up. But oddly enough I came across this sale quite by accident.’ He gave her a wry look. ‘Would you care to hear my tale of woe, Miss Brett? Or am I keeping you from your bed?’
Far from it, thought Gabriel. ‘What happened?’ she asked, her curiosity whetted by the mention of woe.
Adam smiled without mirth. ‘I went to a party in London the night before last. I was on my way to the train yesterday, nursing a hangover, when I spotted a sign across the road, advertising a sale the following day.’
Adam had promptly dropped the arm he’d raised to flag down a taxi, fished an old cricket hat from his overnight bag and crammed it on, then dodged swiftly through the London traffic. After loitering a while, pretending to read the headlines outside the newsagent’s next door to the saleroom, he’d pulled the hat down to meet the dark glasses protecting his hangover, and gone inside to wander through the chaotic saleroom, feeling the familiar anticipation as he’d cast an eye over the jumble of uninspiring goods on display. This was the rough end of the market, with some of the lesser lots consisting of prosaic lampshades and kitchen chairs and boxes of miscellaneous china and kitchen utensils. Exactly the kind of hunting ground that Adam Dysart, with the blood of three generations of auctioneers and valuers in his veins, had relished all his life.
But for once he’d been about to admit defeat when he’d spotted a small stack of pictures leaning against the wall at ground level, almost hidden from sight in a corner. He’d cast a quick glance through some small faded watercolours, an antique map with a rash of the brown spots known as foxing, and behind them had found a framed portrait in oil, so blackened with dirt and overpaint it was only just possible to make out the head and shoulders of a girl to one side of the canvas.
The familiar adrenaline rush had raised the hairs on Adam’s neck. He’d turned away at once, forcing himself to go back over every undistinguished lot on offer once again before he returned to Lot 13, when a second glance at the portrait had reinforced the feeling that under the layers of grime and overpaint lay buried treasure.
Adam had gone outside into the noisy street, hangover forgotten, the familiar excitement fizzing through his bloodstream like champagne bubbles. Something about the hair and pose, obscured though they were, hinted at early nineteenth century. And had struck such a chord he wanted the portrait. Badly. In which case there would be no point in going home to Friars Wood. An afternoon in the Courtauld Institute would be a better idea, browsing through the endless green box files in the Witt Library to throw light on his find. If the painting had been photographed it would be there amongst the archives. But even if it hadn’t he could spend a happy hour or two researching other painters of the time to throw light on his mystery lady. Because his she was destined to be, Adam had known beyond all doubt.
Without the artist’s name to go on the afternoon’s search had been difficult. But in the end Adam had felt that his lady might possibly have been painted by William Etty, an Academician known for allegorical subjects, landscapes and portraits, but most celebrated for nudes which looked surprisingly modern to the present-day eye. Elated, Adam had taken a taxi back to Marylebone, bought flowers and wine and returned to Della Tiley’s flat.
After two prolonged blasts on the buzzer, followed by a lengthy wait, the door had opened and an eye had peered at him through it in horrified dismay. ‘Adam?’ gasped Della. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came back to beg a bed for the night.’
‘Who is it?’ called a male voice.
Adam’s eyes narrowed. He stepped back, his teeth showing in a tigerish smile. ‘Ah! Bad move on my part, obviously. So sorry to intrude.’ With a mocking bow he held out the flowers. ‘A little token of appreciation for the party. See you around, Della.’
‘Adam—wait!’ She hugged a dressing gown around her and opened the door wider, looking at him in desperate appeal. ‘It’s not what you think.’
But when a large male figure hove into view, draped insecurely in a towel, Adam, feeling as though he’d been punched in the stomach, shook his head in disgust. ‘Oh, come on, Della. It’s exactly what I think. Hi, Charlie. Still here, I see.’
Charles Hawkins, a friend of Adam’s since student days, swore in voluble anguish, a startling shade of brick-red rising from the low-slung towel to the roots of his hair. ‘We thought you’d gone home—’
‘I have now.’ Adam thrust the flowers at Della, stowed the wine in his hold-all, and took himself back down the stairs into the hot summer evening to find a taxi.
‘And so,’ he said now, smiling wryly at Gabriel. ‘I went off to stay the night with my sister in Hampstead, bid for the picture this morning, caught the first train available, then drove straight round here this afternoon, only to meet rejection once again. But, far worse than any of that, you told me that Harry was ill. Other than snapping up the portrait for a song, not a happy interlude in the life of A. Dysart, Miss Brett.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘WERE you in love with the lady?’ said Gabriel, quite liking the idea of Adam Dysart, betrayed lover.
‘Lust, not love,’ he said bluntly, and shrugged. ‘I’m a sight more cut up about Charlie than Della.’
‘Maybe there was a perfectly logical explanation,’ said Gabriel after a pause. ‘Perhaps he was just taking a shower.’
Adam shook his head. ‘Della had a certain look about her. At the risk of embarrassing you, Miss Brett, it was blatantly obvious that Della had just emerged from a hectic session in bed with Charlie Hawkins.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Which she was perfectly entitled to, of course. But I’m not into sharing in that context.’ His eyes met hers. ‘You think I’m unreasonable?’
‘Not in the least.’
Adam drained his glass and stood up. ‘Thanks for the drink, and the sympathetic ear—hope I haven’t bored you rigid.’
