She lifted her chin, realising she would have to look at Diego Saez because social convention demanded she did not cut him, as she longed to do.
Nevertheless, it took a distinct effort to keep her voice cool as she made her reply.
‘Hardly. Benjamin Teller, in whom I specialise, was a very minor artist in comparison with the likes of Lawrence and Romney.’
She took refuge in prosing on, trying hard to look at a point somewhere over Diego Saez’s tall shoulder.
‘Is he increasing in value?’
The deep, accented tone of his voice jarred through her. So did his question. Typical of a financier, she thought acidly.
‘For someone of your means, Mr Saez, Benjamin Teller is nothing more than small fry. Quite off your radar.’
She could see that her offhand reply had both taken Hugh aback and displeased him.
‘Teller would be an astute investment,’ he contributed smoothly. ‘He’s considerably under-appreciated, I believe.’
A caustic look lit Portia’s eye. ‘You sound like a dealer, Hugh,’ she said dryly. She turned back to Diego Saez, who had singled her out to torment her with his disturbing attention. ‘Dealers,’ she said, with malicious lightness. ‘They see art only in pound signs—or dollars or euros. As do investment buyers, of course.’ She smiled pointedly. ‘As worth nothing but money.’
She looked right into her tormentor’s face.
A strange, measuring look entered his eye. And something more.
Dangerous—
She put the thought aside. Ridiculous! Of course Diego Saez wasn’t dangerous. He was just an over-rich, sexually spoilt man who wanted to take her to bed simply because she’d made it perfectly obvious she did not want him to!
‘You consider money something of little value, then, Miss Lanchester?’
The deep voice was probing.
‘In comparison with art, yes,’ she answered tartly.
He smiled. Deep lines indented around his mouth. She felt something tug at her internally. Then, as he spoke, she noticed that the expression in his eyes did not match the one on his face.
‘But then you have never been without money, have you? Or, indeed—’ there was a sardonic tone to his voice ‘—without art. I notice that at least two of the paintings in this exhibition are on loan from your family.’
She ignored both the tug that had come again inside her, and the tone of his voice, merely glad that the subject was still the relatively safe one of British landscape paintings. If she had to have a conversation with Diego Saez at least let it be about something that innocuous.
‘Yes—my brother has loaned a Gainsborough and a Robert Wilson.’
‘Show me.’
There was a command in his voice that put her back up automatically. But before she could reply his hand had come around her elbow, and with a brief, dismissive smile at Hugh he started to lead her away.
Her stomach clenched, and she had to force herself not to jerk away from his hold on her. As if he knew it, and it amused him, he merely continued to lead her inexorably away from Hugh.
She wanted to make a fuss, detach herself instantly, but knew that she could not. Not here. Had it been any other man who had commandeered her like that she might have made the attempt, but something about Diego Saez told her that he would not be easily dislodged. Schooling her expression, she let him guide her away, wishing that the touch of his hand on her bare elbow was not making the tugging feeling in her insides ten times worse.
‘The Wilson is through here,’ she said, in a voice sounding as
uninterested in what was happening to her as she could make it. She’d checked the catalogue earlier on, to see where the two paintings had been hung.
‘I’d prefer to see the Gainsborough,’ Diego Saez replied, and altered direction, his frame leaning very slightly into her path to make her change course. Not wanting the slightest contact with him, she moved instantly.
On top of everything else that was wracking her nerves by this wretched encounter, she was conscious of a reluctance to show him the Gainsborough. It was of Salton, and suddenly—she could not tell why—she did not want him seeing it. It was too…intrusive.
But short of making an unacceptable scene she had no option. Stiffly she walked beside him to gain the room where this section of Gainsboroughs was hanging.