‘Is there a particular angle or feeling you would wish me to capture?’
‘I think we both know that you did not come here to draw my portrait, Mrs Weatherby.’
Caroline’s heart sank. She had been at Millington for less than two minutes and already the tone of this meeting was disintegrating.
Squaring her shoulders, she put down her painting satchel and took in breath. ‘I hope you do not believe that I have come to…’ Bed you, sleep with you, do what we did in London.
She could not quite say it and so changed tack. ‘I am more than certain that you would not insist on intimacy if a woman was saying no. Which I most definitely am, Your Grace. Saying no. To anything.’
‘I see.’ The light in his amber eyes was not as menacing as she might have imagined after such a confession. Indeed, he looked almost amused.
‘Why am I here, then?’ Suddenly she had had enough, this exhausting charade sweeping away politeness.
He took a moment before he answered, but the gist of his message was anything but hesitant. ‘I want to know who you are. I want to know something, anything, about the mother of my only child. And I want to see him. I want to see Alexander.’
‘I do not think that would be such a good idea.’
‘Do you not?’ Absolute stillness followed the question.
‘No. I think it would be better if you simply believed my story and left.’
‘Which story? None of the versions you have regaled me with so far quite add up.’
‘I needed money in London. You offered it.’
‘From all accounts there were many others in society who were offering a lot more.’
‘I did not want marriage.’
‘Ahh.’ He walked right up to her, his face not six inches from her own. ‘And therein lies my dilemma, Miss Anstretton. A beautiful woman who, for all intents and purposes, has no past?’
Fear kept Caroline silent. What could he find out after all? It had been a few years since they left Paris by way of many other cities and countries. Still, there was something about the Duke of Penborne that made her believe he could uncover any secret, and with Alexander between them she knew she would need to be wary. And conciliatory.
‘You afford me a more mysterious and enigmatic background than I in truth do have, Your Grace. I am simply a woman who has encountered some hardships in life and is trying to keep her head above the murky water of debt. The silly vacuous girl you encountered all those months ago has long since gone and, should I have been faced with the same problems now as I was then, I would have certainly taken a different course in solving them.’
‘I see. And you are what…twenty-two now?’
‘Next birthday I shall be twenty-three.’ She was cautious in her reply.
Anger shifted across his face. Bitter and distant, the whiteness of his scarred cheek opaque against the light in this room. Her heartbeat raced as the quicksilver pangs of desire rolled in her stomach. Upwards.
Always.
If she could just reach out and touch him. To see. To see if what had happened before could happen again.
But she couldn’t. Because if he stepped back, what was left of her heart would surely break.
‘I departed from London because I knew that if Thomas had met you he would have challenged you to a duel and he has not half the skill at weaponry that you are rumoured to have.’
‘You think I would have killed him?’
She shrugged her shoulders and tried to lower her voice. ‘I think that you might have hurt him in the dead of some night when you had both had one too many brandies. And I could not take the chance.’
‘So you ran?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why here?’
‘We closed our eyes and placed a finger on the map.’
He smiled, dangerously, the gold in his eyes brittle sharp.
‘How much would you charge for a portrait of yourself, completed here, at Millington, for as many afternoons as it took?’
‘A picture of me? I do not know why you should want—’
He didn’t let her finish. ‘I would also like a portrait of my son. That you may fashion at your own leisure.’
‘I am not certain—’
‘The portrait, or meeting him in person, Caroline. Your choice.’ His voice was hard, the softness of compromise completely gone, and all the fight left her body.
‘As you wish.’
‘I have had a table brought in, and a mirror.’ His glance flicked to the satchel she held that contained all her equipment. The alcove he led her to was filled with light, two chairs standing at right angles to each other and an empty easel between them.
He would stay and watch? The thought unnerved her but she could not afford to lose the commission.
With care she sorted out her paints and charcoal, laying a cloth down so as to keep her canvas clean.
Blank. White. The gesso on the frame waiting for colour and shape. Her shape. She had not painted her likeness before and hesitated as her eyes met his in the mirror.
‘How would you like me to stand?’
‘Straight on.’ His hand rested beneath her elbow and when he did not let her go she took in a breath and held it.
Kiss me, she longed to ask. Take me again. Here in the light of your house and without payment. The latent ache in her belly strengthened as she felt her nipples pucker, hard against his nearness.
But she could not say it, could not take again in lust what she had done so earlier in greed. Twenty-two and a mother. The responsibilities in life had her pulling away as she took up the charcoal and drew the first lines of her face, hoping that he did not notice the way her hand shook.
Thornton watched her, the smallness of her fingers bruised with smudges of old paint and her nails as short as he had seen on a woman.
Like her hair.
It was tucked into a bun but stray tendrils were escaping. And she still wore her gold bracelet, the fake glass emeralds dulled by age.
‘If I looked up the Anstretton family lineage, where should I find your names?’
‘Nowhere.’
Her glance met his head on.
‘Because Anstretton is as false as Weatherby?’
‘Yes.’ She did not elaborate.
‘Does the reason for such secrecy lie in the inscription on your bracelet, by any chance?’
Her face paled so alarmingly he thought she might faint. An answer.
Paris 1807—TStC.
He would work on the clues later and see in which direction they would take him.
‘I should be pleased if within the time you take to complete this portrait you could entrust me with the truth of at least your name.’
When she nodded, the bleakness of her expression told him that she acquiesced only because he had demanded it and told him also that she had absolutely no intention at all of letting him close.
‘You may be interested to know that Adele Halstead claimed a string of pearls, a fob watch and a purse of gold were the only things taken from her house the night you stole the locket.’
‘You saw her?’ Fear gave her query a breathless huskiness.
‘In London, a few days after I found you in her rooms. I thought it prudent not to mention the fact of your visit, though I did wonder as to why she might have lied about the items taken.’ He watched her blue eyes darken. ‘If you would trust me, I may be able to help you—’
She stopped him by breaking over his offer with a breathless laugh.
‘There is nothing you could help me with, Your Grace.’
Thornton recognised in her the same stubbornness he often saw in himself and he smiled.
‘Were your parents also skilled as thespians?’
‘You have been too long the spy, Your Grace,’ she said sweetly with a touch of humour.
‘And you have been too long on the run, Mrs…Weatherby.’ Admiration drove a wedge of respect into his answer as he deliberately left a pause before her name. ‘’Tis in my mind that Adele Halstead kept the trinket for a reason, hidden in a drawer of her room.’
The bottom of her chin began to shake and she held her hand up against it. In the folds of her fingers Thorn could see the too-quick beat of the pulse at her neck. But he could also see the woman he had known in London, breathtakingly beautiful and frightened, and it was this vulnerability more than anything that made him stop.
‘I will expect you tomorrow, at exactly the same time and we will continue our discussion.’
When he bowed and left, Caroline stood very still. In this sun-bleached room above the stairs with the light streaming in, tears drenched her eyes.
Worthiness. Intelligence. Acumen.
Replacing one canvas with another, she began to draw. From memory. The lines of his face bold against the pureness of light. Exposing everything in the way that she saw it.
Beautiful.
Honourable.
Tarnished by the glory of war rather than by the agony of it. Scars that lay in bravery and valour and in the unflinching courage of conviction.
She had heard the rumours.
And seen the man.
Complex. Layered. Tortured.
If you trust me, I may be able to help you.
If their crime had not been so heinous, she almost believed that he could have. But no one could change what had happened. Even him.
An hour later the first lines of the portrait were complete and, tucking Thornton Lindsay’s likeness beneath her own, she tidied her working space and left the house without once looking back.
She lay in bed that night and hated the hot tears that scalded down her cheeks, running with all the pent-up fury of her life so far.
One chance.
This chance.
If he left, she would not see him again. Ever.
The memory of the afternoon was close in the careful rendition of her face, fire in her eyes watching. Him.
Even in her rough charcoal sketch she had drawn the lines of a woman who wanted.
Would he see it too? She was certain that he must.
But why would he want this picture of her?
Why would he pay for a portrait that could mean nothing to him? That he could never hang?
A small flurry of hope fluttered before she pressed it back.
Today had been surprising.
Instead of argument there had been a kind of exultant truce, a reckless familiarity, a détente that was as heady as the slow burning want in her stomach. He had barely touched her; indeed, he had stood back as she had fashioned the first lines of the portrait, silent in his consideration of her drawing. And yet every pore of her body had been cognisant of the fact that their breath mingled and the warmth of his skin touched the coldness of her own.
She remembered her mother’s tales about the court of Josephine de Beauharnais in the heady time before General Bonaparte had dispensed with her services. The days when her mother had laughed and danced, sheltered by Josephine’s friendship at the Château du Malmaison.
‘The good Lord in his wisdom provides one soulmate for each man and woman, Caroline,’ her mother had told her just before she had died, the light and airy flightiness that had been so much a part of her personality dimmed by the nearness of an impending eternity. ‘Josephine found hers in Napoleon, a man whom the whole world feared. Be wary in your search, my daughter, and do not squander such a chance as carelessly as I did.’
The shadows in the room grew, pulling Caroline backwards to a corridor overlooking the gardens, the shadow of plane trees long against the true green sweep of lawn and the first crocuses pushing their way up through the frozen earth.
Cold hands across her breast as she was arched downwards to the floor, Aubusson carpet and parquet.
And Thomas, furious, the bust of marble in his hand heavy and the look on Guy de Lerin’s face puzzled.
Just another tryst with a young girl who would one day be more willing. An easy conquest. A meaningless dalliance to lighten the load of dark winter days and inclement weather.
Too late he had understood the extent of Caroline’s resistance and the special bonding of twins.
They had slid him into the cupboard above the small landing on the second floor, his hat covering the rising bruises, his coat soaking up the blood from his nose, his face a deathly white. Broken. Badly. It would not matter. Hell had no need for beauty and his outer appearance mirrored his inner soul.
They had barely looked backwards after they fled, making their way south across the countryside where they had come across Adele Halstead on the outskirts of Orthez. Lord, she probably had their mother’s locket in her luggage even then, stolen in the last moments of Eloise’s life after pretending such an interest in her dying days.
But why? Why should she do such a thing?
Caroline’s heart began to race as she thought about what happened next and, skipping across the danger, she remembered running into the Pyrenees mountains of Spain, two young lads of fortune. The first of their disguises.
How many had there been since? Shaking her head, she refused to even contemplate such a question.
Hiding.
For ever.
A single tear fell against the back of her hand and she watched it slide down between the gully of her fingers, a trail of coldness against the warmth of skin. And the wedding ring that sat there seemed to mock her, call her a liar, remind her that she would never have the luxury of intimacy with anyone.
Imitation and falsity were the calling cards of those who had broken the cardinal rules of humanity. And murder sat at the very top of the list of the Ten Commandments.
Thou shalt not kill.
The face of Guy de Lerin seemed to gloat from a netherworld, a battered spectre demanding redress. Caroline wondered if the image would ever fade, the bright red blood on his forehead mingling with shocked and disbelieving leaf-green eyes.
The knock came much later.
Her eyes slid across to the cot of her sleeping son and she clenched the material of her skirts into her fingers, caught in an immobile frozen uncertainty.
‘Mrs Weatherby. Are you in?’
Johnathon Wells. Tosh’s friend.
Hurrying to the door, she unbolted the locks, apologising for her tardiness, and instantly alarmed by the worried look on his face.
Thomas? Where was he? She could feel the beat of her heart in her throat as an ache.
‘Your brother did not meet me at the arranged place today, ma’am, and neither did he accompany me home. The last I saw him was in the evening of yesterday enjoying a tipple in the Dog and Cart Tavern on Dilworth Street.’
‘My God.’ The very worst had happened. The fear that she had been burdened with since running from the Château du Malmaison, realised. Clutching at the lintel on the side of the door, she tried to steady herself, tried to listen to just what it was that Johnathon Wells was saying to her, tried not to let the vision of Tosh with his neck sliced open consume her.
‘He did not return home to the lodgings last night and his bag is still there with the landlady. I left it with a message to say I had returned to Campton and that you would be worried.’
‘Thank you.’ The words stuck in her throat, making her swallow as she tried in the midst of fear to find a way out.
‘Could I call someone for you, Mrs Weatherby? You look ill.’
‘No.’ She made herself smile. ‘I am certain there will be a reason.’
The furrow on his brow told her he didn’t believe her, but manners had him bidding her a good day and turning down the path.
Inside again, Caroline re-bolted the door and took three deep breaths. Panic made her hands shake and she closed her mouth tight to stop the scream of hysteria that threatened.
Alexander was in the next room and Tosh needed someone who would not go to pieces. Someone who would think and plan and do. The de Lerin family had taken him. She was certain of it. They had discovered where they were and come for retribution.
The Dog and Cart Tavern on Dilworth Street. A starting point at least.
She could not go as herself, that much was clear, and she would need to take the handgun that Tosh kept in the bottom drawer of his desk. It was a duelling pistol finished in walnut and engraved with gold inlays, the richness of the scrolled barrel recalling the heady days of Paris.
She smiled to herself as she wrapped the firearm in soft chamois. Her brother had taught her to shoot with it and she still remembered clearly the basic details of the loading mechanism. If anyone had hurt Tosh, she would have no compunction whatsoever about shooting them.
Thornton tethered his horse against the fence in front of the Weatherbys’ small cottage. Caroline had not come in the carriage that afternoon to work on her portrait and he was concerned.
He could tell nobody was at home even before he knocked on the door, and was about to leave when a young woman came up the path behind him.
‘Caroline Weatherby has gone, Your Grace,’ she said shyly and blushed a bright red.
‘Gone where?’
‘To Exeter. Alexander, her son, is up at the big house with Lady Hilverton, Your Grace.’
‘And her brother?’
‘That’s the strange part, sir. He didn’t come home with Johnathon Wells and I think Mrs Weatherby was very worried about him.’
‘How long is she expecting to be away?’
‘A good few days, I’d be thinking. The bag she took was hardly small and she asked Lady Hilverton the directions for Dilworth Street before she left. Down by the river it is and not a place I’d have thought she would have favoured. But cheap, maybe. She did ask me to water her garden if it was dry, though, and that’s why I’m here.’
Thornton looked around. A window at the back of the house remained unfastened.
A quick exit, he surmised, Alexander sequestered at Hilverton Hall and the maid despatched to watch over the house.
Bidding the girl good day, he untied his horse’s reins from the palings at the front gate and swung upon the back of the animal.
Dilworth Street. My God. He had been to Exeter a number of times in his youth and knew the area even if Caroline did not. He tried to determine just how fast he could get there.