Dark Masterpiece (Serendipity Series 3) (4 page)

A knock sounded on Evie’s door as she
attempted to sketch something and she called for Seth to come in.
She knew it was him. Who else would it be? He opened the door, then
shut it with a note of irritation. Evie looked up to see him
standing there with a withered expression on his face.

“This sucks,” he announced.

She arched an eyebrow.

“Seriously, I have watched
so many dumb reality shows on MTV and so many re-runs of
Full House
that I think
my head is going to explode. I go to sleep at night and have dreams
of Uncle Jesse.”

Evie smiled as her brother
came to sit on the end of her bed. Considering they had not had any
other human contact for the past week, they were getting along
rather well. Most of the time they watched television in Seth’s
room. When they couldn’t take any more of that, they usually
resorted to playing card games and
I
Spy
. It had gotten that bad. “Hey, at
least you have a TV,” she reminded him. “When I can’t stand your
company anymore I have to come in here and stare at the
walls.”

He rolled his eyes.

Evie giggled.

“Why are we even still here?” he asked.
“It’s obvious that guy doesn’t give a crap whether we’re here or
not. Come on, Evie, we’re going to die of starvation soon. I am
sick of eating pizza. We’ve been eating it every night for seven
straight days because it’s all we can afford. Sooner or later, our
money is going to run out and then we won’t even be able to get
home! I mean, has he even come to talk about painting?”

She sighed. “No. The most I’ve received is a
Neanderthal-like grunt.”

Seth sighed as well and ran his fingers
through his short hair. “Please, Evie, let’s just go home. This
sucks so major.”

She thought for a moment. Seth had a point.
It was apparent that Traevyn had no intention of ever even
acknowledging their presence. It irritated her. She’d had to quit
her job to come on this trip. Meg was taking care of her cat, and
her parents were paying her rent. Paybacks for springing Seth on
her at the last minute. She should at least be getting money for
being there if she wasn’t getting anything else. What Seth said
about running out of funds was true. If they kept going at the rate
they were, they wouldn’t only be broke, but fat and pimply and
probably sweating pizza sauce.

She smiled. “I have an idea.”

He frowned.

“This will either give us some money, or
change his attitude.” She stood with a smirk and headed for the
door. “Either way, it’ll improve our current situation. I’m going
to go find our dungeon master.”

Seth snorted. “Good luck. If you die, I get
your car.”

Evie strode down the dark
hall with its wrought iron candle sconces and made her way to where
the staircase met the top floor. Branching off the other direction
from it was another hallway,
his
hallway. She squared her shoulders, raised her
chin in a determined fashion and plunged ahead, wondering where in
the heck she was even going to find him. His house was only about
the size of a small country.

She opened the first door
that she came across, which was an office filled with so many books
that she had to stop and stare. She stepped forward with caution,
forgetting her purpose. She was drawn to the many works before her.
Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, John Steinbeck and so many others.
She ran her finger gently along a row of them. Well, he was a
well-read ogre. Too bad he didn’t have a book on manners somewhere.
Her fingers grazed the spine of a book that was worn and frayed.
She frowned and peered at the title.
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
. She smiled
and pulled the book out, flipping through some of the pages. Many
were dog-eared. This book had apparently been read many
times.

“Taking up snooping, are we?”

Evie jumped and whirled, dropping the
book.

Traevyn stood in the doorway, regarding her
with his piercing green eyes. He strode forward and picked up the
book. He snapped it shut with a scowl and placed it back in the
shelf, trailing his fingers across the spine in almost a
caress.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm the
pounding of her heart that his unexpected entrance had caused. “Mr.
Whitelaw,” she began, sounding much braver than she currently felt.
“I have a proposition for you.”

He turned with a frown and folded his arms.
“Do you?”

She nodded. “I want to clean your house.”

He blinked, his frown growing deeper. “You
want to clean my house?”

She nodded again. “I had to quit my job to
come here and my funds are limited, being as I am a ‘starry-eyed
college student’. My brother and I have been living off of pizza,
oatmeal pies, and cream cakes for the past seven days. If we are to
continue in this fine fashion, I will need compensation.”

His expression never changed. He just stared
at her. “And how much do you charge for your services?” he asked,
his voice laced with edgy mockery.

She ignored his tone and folded her arms,
mirroring his posture. “Twenty an hour, once a week.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Twenty an hour, you
say?”

She frowned. “Perhaps that’s too steep for a
famous artist living in a Gothic mansion. What do you think?”

His eyes narrowed. “I think you have a lot
of nerve coming in here, looking through my things, and running
your mouth.” His voice resembled the warning growl of a large
animal.

She met his unrelenting gaze. Her
apprehension of him was quickly dissipating and turning into great
irritation. “That’s funny. I think you have a lot of nerve treating
me and my brother the way you have. Did you think if you ignored us
we would just go away?”

His shrug was flippant. “I was hoping.”

She shook her head, not believing what she
was hearing. “Then why did you even say yes to Professor Roth when
he asked you to do this? Did he hold a gun to your head? The last
time I checked, we lived in America where we had free will and the
power to say no.”

He heaved a sigh, as if it was taking great
patience just to talk to her. “I am doing this as a favor to
Professor Roth. Out of gratitude.”

“You’re saying thank you by being a jerk?
Wow, I guess my parents were sick the day they were supposed to
teach me that life lesson. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong here,
but that entire thing just seems slightly contradictory to me.”

He shrugged again with indifference. “No one
asked you what you thought.”

She stared at him for a
minute. The rage she had felt at Barrett right before she had
drenched him in lemonade rose inside of her like magma. “You know
something?” she said through clenched teeth. “I was so excited when
Professor Roth told me about this trip. I thought that meeting you
would be such an amazing experience, but I don’t even care anymore.
As far as I’m concerned you can take your bad attitude and your
sullenness and shove it!” She put her hands on her hips, her blood
feeling like it was boiling in her veins. “I am sure my brother has
better things he could be doing than watching TV in his prison
cell, and I
know
I
have better things to do. So,
thank you, Mr. Whitelaw. It’s been so invigorating.” She turned to
leave.

“You mean you don’t want me to teach you your
craft?” he drawled after her.

She spun, and glared at him
with defiance. “I don’t need you to teach me my craft. I
know
my craft. I’ll be
an artist with or without your help. Besides, I don’t see a whole
lot of teaching going on around here anyway. Unless, of course,
you’re trying to teach me how to be a Grade A prick, because, in
that case, you’re doing wonderfully!” She blazed down the hall,
fuming.
The nerve. The outright gall of
that
arrogant, no-good—
“Seth!” she shouted, barreling into her room.
“Come on! Pack your stuff! I am not staying here one more
second!”

Seth’s eyes brightened and he leapt off
Evie’s bed. “Seriously? All right! Finally!” He ran out of the room
and back into his own.

Evie threw her suitcase on
the bed and started to shove random stuff into it. She couldn’t
believe the audacity of that man. To act like
she
was the one to blame for all
this! Like she forced her way into his home and took over or
something! It was ridiculous. She let out a frustrated growl as she
remembered the way his light green eyes had regarded her. As if she
was inferior.

With a scowl, she turned to search for her
sketchpad. She screamed when she saw Traevyn’s figure looming in
the doorway. Good lord! Where had he even come from? She put her
hand over her wildly pounding heart. “What, are you an assassin or
something?” she cried. “Make some noise the next time you decide to
sneak around!” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m leaving, all right? You
don’t have to stand guard.”

He sighed and clasped his hands behind his
back. “Twenty an hour, once a week,” he stated. When she paused
from her erratic slinging of clothing into her suitcase, he met her
eyes. “Twenty-five if you can figure out what to do with the items
in my refrigerator every evening.”

She stared at him, raising herself to her
full height in an attempt to make herself feel as less like a
midget as possible next to his towering frame. She regarded him for
a moment. His face was impassive. He waited for her answer
patiently, and she noticed something in his eyes as he stood there.
Something sad. Something lonely…. It did a funny thing to her
heart, and she felt her anger melt. She nodded slowly. “Deal.”

He gave a curt nod. “Bring your portfolio to
me later tonight. I’d like to look at it.” He turned abruptly on
his heel and strode from the room.

Evie sighed and slumped down on the foot of
her bed. Her head started to hurt. What was that? What had she seen
buried so deep within his eyes? It troubled her and she had no idea
why. She let out an irritated snort and shook her head. “Seth!” she
shouted. “Never mind! We’re staying!”

“What?” he screeched from the other room.
“Oh, no way!”

She lay back on the bed and stared up at the
ceiling. Well, at least she had access to the kitchen now. That was
a definite plus.

“Evie!” Seth cried, flying into the room.
“Come on!”

She sat up with a triumphant grin. “Fear not,
little brother. I just got me a job. Our dungeon master is paying
me twenty-five dollars an hour to clean his house once a week and
make dinner every night.”

Seth frowned and folded his arms. “You come
on this trip to be an apprentice painter and end up being a
housekeeper? That’s degrading, Evie.”

Her eyes widened. “Excuse me? Do I see you
rolling in the Benjamins right now? You want to keep eating cold
toaster pastries? ‘Cause I sure don’t.”

“Fine, but still. I mean, what gives him the
right to treat you like a servant when he’s the one who volunteered
to take on an apprentice in the first place?”

She shrugged. “Who cares? Don’t worry about
staying out of his way, either. You want to watch TV in the living
room? Go for it. You want to play your guitar? Do it. You can sit
in the middle of the hall and holler like Tarzan for all I care. If
we have to live here for three months, you can bet we’re not going
to do it like captives. He knew what he was signing on for. Let him
deal with it.”

Seth smiled. “No
more
Full House
?”

“Not unless you
want
to keep having
dreams about Uncle Jesse.”

“Well, he
is
a hottie.”

Evie laughed.

Seth chuckled and sat down on the bed next to
her. “What if he gets all bent out of shape and yells at me or
something?”

She snorted. “He’d better not even try it.”
She grabbed her portfolio and started to sift through her sketches,
trying to decide which ones she should show the Master of the House
later that night.

* * * *

Her pictures never changed. Pictures never
did. They were meant to capture the feelings and sights of a
specific event or time. They remained unchanging, locked within
their perfection. And, try as he might, he could not help but lapse
back into the emotions of old every time he looked at them. He
didn’t know why he tortured himself so much. He was a
masochist.

With a heavy, weary sigh, he set the
pictures aside and went to the French doors in his office. He could
see the ocean crashing against the nearby cliffs and wanted
suddenly, more than anything, to hear the thunderous sound. He
pushed open the doors and stepped out onto the terrace, embracing
the evening fog as it coiled around him. He closed his eyes and
listened to the pounding waves, surging forward like the emotions
in his soul and crashing against the cliffs in a violent crescendo.
A fleeting moment of peace stole into his heart, and he wrapped his
fingers around the cold, black iron of the railing. He relished the
brief moment of tranquility and the sound of the sea.

It was the only thing that ever brought him
solace.

Traevyn’s chaotic thoughts briefly touched
on the young artist in his guest room and the way she had spoken to
him earlier. He had to admit, it had come as a surprise, the way
she had lashed out at him. She was so small and looked so studious.
He had not expected her to hold a powder keg within her. Especially
since she had barely made a peep all week.

He sighed, cursing himself
yet again for allowing Professor Roth to talk him into this whole
foolish apprenticeship idea. He had been a recluse for the past two
years, unwilling and not desiring to share the company of others.
Now he was thrown a fire-breathing art student and an added teenage
boy, and was expected to act as a perfect host? He had to have been
out of his mind to agree to this. And it would have been nice if
Professor Roth had asked
him
first before he’d told Evelina that it was all
right for her to bring her brother along.