How To Distract a Duchess by Mia Marlowe Page B

latest voyage—I believe you’ll find everything as you hoped, Your Grace.” James Shipwash slid the thick file across the desk to Artemisia.
    She was meeting him in the small suite of offices she kept near the wharves instead of in her study. Mr. Beddington had to keep up appearances and a business address was one of them.
    It was a tidy collection of spaces, an anteroom where Mr. Shipwash did his work, Mr. Beddington’s inner sanctum where they held their weekly conference, and a storeroom to house the records the business generated. During day-to-day operations, James Shipwash ran interference when occasionally someone tried to call on Artemisia’s nom de guerre. It was simple enough for Shipwash to tell a visitor Beddington was unavailable or had just stepped out.
    Mr. Shipwash pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose. “Even with the week’s delay on account of squalls off Bermuda, the Valiant has produced more profit than we projected. If I may be so bold as to say, taking on that coffee shipment was a stroke of genius, madam.”
    Artemisia leafed through the ledgers of neatly totaled columns and sighed. Once the world of business had excited her almost as much as her art. Perhaps it was the clandestine foray into a man’s world under the guise of Mr. Beddington that gave the enterprise its spice. She certainly had a knack for it, a definite gift for predicting which cargo would bring the most coin once it was brought successfully to market. But lately, the facts and figures of trade failed to stir much enthusiasm in her.
    Perhaps because Mr. Doverspike had shown her that there were some masculine realms into which she could not enter, no matter how well-moneyed or well-intentioned she was. A woman could not keep a man as a man might keep a mistress.
    At least, not that man.
    But why should it matter who paid the rent on a love-nest if both the birds were content to flock there together?
    Evidently, it did matter. It mattered a great deal. Thomas Doverspike had not returned the following morning for his sitting, or any morning since. The canvas of Mars remained in shrouded seclusion.
    And the painting would have been good, she thought with bitterness. Strong and controversial in theme, her Mars was just the sort of work that would catapult her to the pinnacle of the art world’s attention.
    But now it would never see the light of day.
    Why did Thomas Doverspike insist on being so difficult?
    She shifted her attention back to the ledgers. At least, numbers were easier to understand than men.
    “This looks fine, Mr. Shipwash.” She turned her gaze to the window where a spiky forest of naked masts bobbed in the Thames. “Be good enough to draw up a list of exportable items for the return trip to the Caribbean and the Americas by Thursday next and I’ll make my decisions then.”
    “Very well.” He gathered up the report and filed it in one of the polished mahogany cabinets. “Now as to the other matter you asked me to investigate . . .”
    “The other matter?”
    “The gentlemen, madam,” he said. “Here is a dossier on each. As you can see, Lord Shrewsbury’s son has debts in excess of ten thousand pounds to proprietors of various gaming hells.”
    Artemisia waved that away. It was the bargaining chip her mother was counting on to arrange the match between the viscount’s son and her sister Delia. Ready coin was the surest way for a moneyed commoner to marry into a title.
    “Shrewsbury the younger is fond of drink, mad for foxhunts and absents himself from Parliament as often as he can.”
    “In short, he’s a model British peer,” Artemisia said cynically.
    “There is nothing to urge against his suit of your sister,” Mr. Shipwash admitted.
    “On the contrary, my sister is the one pursuing him. And if I know my mother, she’ll see the match made if for no other reason than to repay Viscountess Shrewsbury for snubbing her at the theatre,” Artemisia said. “And what of Trevelyn