Free Portrait of Seduction by Carrie Lofty

that he would never dry up and float away out of pure loneliness. Oliver had known him before Ingrid, back when he was miserable company.
    Oliver’s habit of late had been to scrutinize successful marriages, picking apart their matched components to understand the whole. It was either that or sink into his own little well of loneliness, one that had deepened on the evening he met Greta Zweig. It was probably nothing more than contemplating what he did not have, coupled with the fact that it had been months since last taking a lover. Three hours in the arms of a widow from Burgundy had been a delightful diversion, but Oliver was beginning to crave more.
    He could not decide whether to credit or blame Greta for that, if at all.
    As Ingrid greeted her husband in the townhouse’s foyer, Oliver had to look away. A surge of envy shook him from hair to heel.
    He took Christoph’s coat.
    “You two look as if you watched puppies drown all afternoon.” Ingrid’s hand cupped the back of Christoph’s neck.
    “Nothing so diverting, meine Liebe. ”
    “Oh, you’re terrible. Come in. Eat.”
    Christoph let himself be led down the corridor. “My office in one hour, Oliver. We’ll look at all the possibilities.”
    Ingrid cleared her throat. She clasped his hand in hers, her expression soft and inviting.
    “Make that two hours,” Christoph said.
    Oliver tightened his grip on his half brother’s discarded coat. “Yes, my lord.”
    He looked down to find that he’d crumpled the wool lapels. Another chore to attend—and how fantastic to be one of his own making.
    But no number of chores, especially not attending to Christoph’s garments, seemed likely to banish his unusual melancholy. He begrudged his brother no happiness, but that did little to produce an equal measure of happiness for himself. To simply disappear with Greta for two hours and indulge…what would that be like? To be able to do so without fear or censure?
    He laughed softly to himself, wondering if he would find her nearly so attractive if she weren’t forbidden fruit. At least he was sensible enough to speculate. Maybe there was hope for him yet. And maybe he needed to head down to the Stadttrinkstube, the city drinking rooms, to indulge in a dose of female company.
    But he knew he would not, at least not that evening. The books he had requested from the university—ostensibly on Christoph’s behalf—had arrived early in the morning. Greta had thought him an uneducated servant. On the subject of art, at least, she had been frustratingly accurate. Her forgeries could be the worst in the history of larceny and Oliver would never know. Through the years he had taken to remedying such deficiencies once he recognized them. This task took on the added imperative of being about Greta.
    He would not be so ignorant if they ever met again.
    Oliver was just about to find his way to the kitchen, his stomach still a knot of hunger, when the butler ushered two workmen into the foyer.
    “What’s this?” Oliver asked.
    Hans, the sixty-year-old butler, was a grave character. His demeanor was dour enough to trump even Christoph’s. “A delivery for Lady Venner.”
    The workmen placed the thin, flat crate on the floor. Oliver asked for the delivery papers. A quick glance over the docket proved his suspicions, that the crate contained a painting.
    A painting delivered from Leinz Manor.
    “Well, well,” he said under his breath. Ingrid must have done a little shopping, perhaps while Oliver was so intriguingly engaged on the garden terrace.
    But thoughts of Greta roused his suspicions.
    “Where shall we direct it to be delivered?” Hans asked. He always spoke in the third person, which never failed to strike Oliver as comical.
    Only, his laughter was nowhere to be found just then. “To Lord Venner’s office. Don’t tell Lady Venner of its arrival just yet. He’ll want to surprise her.”
    “Yes, Herr Doerger.”
    If it proved to be a forgery, Oliver would need to