Read Online Murder at Rough Point by Alyssa Maxwell - Free Book Online

Cliff Walk together, Patch’s overtures of friendship had been readily accepted.
    I smiled. If anyone could lift a person out of his doldrums, as Sir Randall had put it, my boisterous pup certainly could.
    A whisper behind me doused my smile. Miss Marcus was leaning to speak into the young Italian’s ear. I was reminded of naughty schoolchildren telling secrets in class and felt little compunction about interrupting.
    â€œWhy are you unkind to him?”
    She looked baffled for a moment, while Niccolo assumed an expression fast becoming familiar, one of innocence mingled with slightly perplexed incomprehension, as if he didn’t quite understand English in all its nuances—which I was fairly certain he did.
    Miss Marcus’s frown cleared. She made a two-fingered gesture, prompting Niccolo to reach into his inner coat pocket. He slid out a silver case and flicked it open. Miss Marcus plucked a pre-rolled cigarette from a nearly full row. Was she trying to shock me? Respectable women didn’t smoke, at least not openly, but I had seen it before.
    Niccolo took one for himself and scraped a wooden match against the striker on the side of the case to light both. I was never fond of tobacco smoke, and the clouds swirling about their heads quickly set my nose itching. My gaze went instinctively and pointedly to the piazza outside the library’s French windows, but the other two failed to take the hint.
    Miss Marcus puffed several times, most of the smoke thankfully drifting out the open windows behind her. “You misunderstand, Miss Cross. I don’t mean to be unkind to Randall, but to encourage him.” She puffed again, sending out fluffy white clouds while Niccolo exhaled long streams of gray through his nose. A pair of dragons, literally and figuratively.
    â€œIf you’ll pardon me for saying so,” I persisted, perhaps unwisely, “he was feeling encouraged until you said those things to him.”
    She simpered and smoothed her skirts with little flicks of her hand. “I’m afraid you don’t understand our Randall. He isn’t like the rest of us. For one, he isn’t a professional, not in the sense I am, or Niccolo or your father. Our livelihood depends on our art, whereas Randall has a fortune and an estate back in England.”
    As Niccolo nodded his agreement, I shook my head. “I don’t understand what difference that makes to a person’s self-confidence.”
    â€œMy dear, the rest of us understand the ups and downs of an artistic career.” To my vast irritation, she leaned forward and flicked the ash at the end of her cigarette into a lovely Capodimonte vase, carved with lifelike ribbons and flowers. Though not terribly invaluable—for Aunt Louise had emptied the house of its true treasures—it was a darling piece and certainly not intended for the use Miss Marcus currently assigned to it. “We grasp the ebb and flow of an artist’s popularity,” she said with a haughty sniff. “Randall doesn’t. His sculpture and his ego are intricately tied together.”
    â€œAnd a professional artist’s isn’t?” If anyone possessed an unduly large ego, I thought, it was the woman before me. Still, I couldn’t deny a growing interest in hearing more about the inner workings of an artist’s psyche. Such details would add substance to my article. First I pushed the porcelain vase out of reach and replaced it with a more suitable silent butler of etched silver with an ivory handle. Then I took a seat facing the pair.
    â€œPerhaps at first, when we are young and starting out,” she said after another contemplative waft of smoke. “But experience makes us wiser, Miss Cross. Randall began dabbling in the arts much later in life, and being a man used to having his way with a snap of his fingers—the European nobility is like that, you see—he simply isn’t equipped to accept those