Portrait Of A Lover (21 page)

Except for The Fisherman, of course. It was the one piece she was proud of, and she had painted it during the one and only time in her life that she had felt truly free to be herself.

Then suddenly, something prompted her to pick up her brush and palette—with its outlandish, muddled mixture of color—and approach the canvas.

She could still see Magnus in the waterfall.

Tilting her head this way and that, she dabbed at the image, moving the thick paint around to better capture what she was seeing.

She didn’t even bother to try to make it look like a photograph. She was seeing something very different that morning, and she was holding the brush in a way she’d never held it before…

Three hours later, after wielding her brush swiftly and furiously without a single break to rest her arm, Annabelle stepped back and looked at the colors on the canvas.

For the first time in her life she felt satisfied setting down her brush.

One month later

The London Times

August 21, 1892

LOCAL ARTIST TURNS

LONDON ART WORLD

ON ITS EAR

The latest exhibition at the Duke of Harlow’s Regent Street Gallery has been causing a stir among art enthusiasts here in England and as far as Paris, with the modern expressions of artist Annabelle Lawson. Miss Lawson has risked her reputation as a landscape realist to produce a body of work so nonrepresentational that one simply must stop to study the themes of reflection and reality, so evident in the artist’s passionate brushwork. It cannot be denied that no English painter has yet dared to challenge the aesthetic sensibilities of the public, and in so doing, has freed all future English artists from the tedious constraints of competition with the camera…

W ith a glass of red wine in his hand, Magnus stepped out of his bedchamber onto the second-story veranda that lined the rear of his South Carolina mansion by the sea.

The sun was just setting over the water, and it was a warm evening for November. He could smell the saltwater in the air, hear the power of the surf on the beach.

A sailboat was visible in the distance, and he raised a hand to shade his eyes and watch it heel impossibly in the wind, until the sails were almost touching the waves. At the last minute it righted itself and turned toward the horizon.

Magnus took a slow sip of his wine, then sat down on the cushioned wicker chair. He lifted his feet onto the small table, crossing his legs at the ankles.

He sat here often in the evenings after dinner, watching the sun go down. It was his favorite time of day, and his staff knew not to bother him, for he worked hard from sunup to sundown and needed this time to rest and reflect.

Consequently he was surprised when his butler stepped through the door onto the veranda. “I beg your pardon, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you, but you have a visitor.”

Magnus lifted his legs off the table. “Who is it, Bradley?”

“She didn’t wish to give her name, sir, but she has an English accent.”

Magnus knew that his butler was aware of what had occurred with Annabelle in England, though he never spoke about it directly. As a result, the comment caused Magnus to rise to his feet so fast he almost knocked over his chair.

“I didn’t hear anyone arrive,” he said.

“The surf is rather thunderous tonight, sir.”

Magnus looked down at the waves crashing on the beach. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

He set down his glass and straightened his tie, then glanced at Bradley and saw an emotion in the man’s eyes he’d never seen before.

Was it pity?

Magnus checked himself. Bloody hell. What was he doing, getting his hopes up like this again? How many times had he received a female caller and run downstairs hoping it would be Annabelle?

And had it ever been her? No. It was always some other woman, looking for a charitable donation, or someone visiting the area and looking for directions, and each time it happened, his anger toward Annabelle and everything that had occurred between them resurfaced.

He really needed to stop doing this, he told himself. It was over. Even if she did come back to him, he would not wish to rekindle anything. He would not wish to return to constantly having to prove himself to a woman who simply could not believe in him. He believed in himself, and that was enough. He had finally put the past to rest.

“Thank you, Bradley,” he said, relaxing his shoulders and speaking in a calmer voice. “I’ll see what she wants.”

“She’s in the library, sir.”

Magnus entered the house through his bedchamber and made his way to the main staircase and down to the ground floor. He peered out the front window and saw a carriage outside, then went immediately to the library.

He hesitated outside the door, however, for despite all his self-imposed lectures on letting go of the memory of her, he wanted to savor this moment, because he knew that as soon as he walked through the door, the dream would be snuffed out again, as always.

He supposed certain elements of his past would never be resolved.

Finally taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and entered. A woman wearing a colorful floral scarf over her head stood across the room with her back to him, looking out the window at the ocean, perhaps watching the sailboat that was now just a tiny speck on the horizon.

She must have heard him walk in, because she turned and faced him. When their eyes met, Magnus felt his blood rush to his brain.

It was her this time…It was Annabelle.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d asked him a thousand questions at once, because he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even think, he was so shocked by the vision of her, looking more beautiful than ever before, and so different.

Her clothes were not the same. The scarf over her head was wild and vibrant, and her dress was unfashionably loose with fringe at the cuffs. She wore no gloves, and her golden hair was spilling over her shoulders in wild, frizzy waves.

The sight of her made his breath catch in his throat, and he had to struggle to steel himself against the attraction he felt toward her—because he had to protect himself.

When he continued to stand there without speaking, Annabelle lowered the scarf and draped it over her shoulders. She took an uneasy step forward, as if she weren’t sure she should have come. “You’re surprised to see me.”

He swallowed over the elephant in his throat. “Yes.”

They continued to gaze at one another while the sound of the waves crashing outside filled the silence.

“How have you been?” he finally asked, because he could not be rude, but he maintained a cool tone.

“I’ve been well, thank you. I’ve been painting.”

He saw her gaze move discreetly over the walls of the library.

“It’s in the drawing room,” he said, somehow knowing she was looking for The Fisherman. “Hanging over the fireplace.”

She nodded. “I see. I wasn’t sure if you would still have it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he replied, his voice still cool and detached.

Annabelle shifted her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Well, after what happened between us.”

Beneath her surface politeness, he thought he detected a note of apology in her voice, but he couldn’t be sure, because he remembered all too clearly how they had parted and what she had said to him. She had believed he’d only wanted to triumph over Whitby, that he never really loved her, and she had looked at him with disdain.

The bitter memory of how she had not been able to trust him—despite everything he’d done to prove that she could—made him steel himself again.

“What do you want, Annabelle?” he asked directly, deciding that he didn’t want to play games or engage in small talk with her. It was too late for that.

She looked down at the floor before finally lifting her gaze to meet his. Her voice was steady, her chin held high. “You’re angry with me.”

He raised his hands at his sides. “Nothing has changed since we parted.”

“May I inform you,” she said, “that I’ve been angry with you, too, Magnus. You deserted me. After everything that happened between us, after I’d given myself to you, you left.” Suddenly, she began spewing out every thought that must have been on her mind over the past few months. “What if there had been a child?” she asked. “There wasn’t, thank God, but what if there had been? Did you not wonder about that?”

“Yes, I wondered about it,” he told her. “But I thought that if there had been, you would have contacted me. On the other hand, if you had chosen not to…Well, that wouldn’t have come as any great surprise.”

Her delicate brows drew together in a frown. “What do you mean by that?”

“It would have been consistent with every other aspect of our time together if you had not believed I would act honorably, or if you had not wished to marry me because you did not trust me enough to be a decent husband and father.”

Her face softened slightly. “Is that what you thought?”

“Naturally, yes.”

She turned and faced the window again, while Magnus stood waiting, still wondering why she was here. She hadn’t really answered that question, had she?

He walked toward her and leaned a shoulder against the wall so he could look at her profile—her tiny nose, her deep-set blue eyes and full lips. The truth was, he still thought she was the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth, and being this close to her made his blood course through his veins like a damn raging river.

It aggravated him, because he didn’t want to feel that way about her. He wanted only to remember how angry he had been over the past few months.

“Why did you leave England so quickly?” she asked, facing him. “Were you using me like the last time?”

“What a question!” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “Of course I was not using you, but I’m not going to stand here and try to convince you of that until I’m blue in the face. If you can’t believe it, or you don’t already know enough about me—”

“I do believe you,” she said flatly, and Magnus wondered if the earth had just shifted under his feet.

“I must be hearing things,” he said with a bitter laugh.

She gave him a stern look. “I’ve thought about it a lot over the past couple of months, Magnus, and I’ve been able to at least recognize the fact that I was incapable of trusting you, but only because you had hurt me so deeply the first time. Maybe you can’t understand that…”

Oh, but he did understand it—because he was feeling that way himself at this very moment. He was afraid to trust her.

“Then why didn’t you write to me?” he asked.

She hesitated. “Because it took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to say, and to be honest, for a long time I was too angry with you for leaving. You didn’t even try to resolve things between us.”

“I didn’t try?” he burst out. “I’d been trying to resolve things since the first day, but nothing I said or did made any difference to you.”

“But you didn’t have to leave the very next day. You could have at least waited.”

Frustration heated his face. “For how long? You knew I had booked passage on the ship that morning, yet you didn’t try to stop me. I even stood at the rail and watched for you, but all I could think of was the fact that you would never be able to trust me, that you would always think ill of me. And when you didn’t show up at the dock, I had to force myself to let go of the hopeless need for your approval or forgiveness.”

Annabelle’s eyes filled with tears. “I was at the dock,” she told him, her voice full of pain and regret. “But I went to the wrong place, and then I was too late.”

He felt his body shudder as he drew in a sharp breath. “You were there?”

“Yes,” she said. “Despite all my fears that I would be rejected again, I went there hoping I was wrong. I was going to plead with you to forgive me for not trusting you, and I was going to tell you I loved you. I wanted to prove to you that I could take the leap.”

He shook his head skeptically. “But I was looking for you. I would have seen you.”

“I got there just as the ship pulled away. I was there, Magnus.”

He turned away from her and crossed to the middle of the room. “But for months I have believed otherwise. Why did you not come here sooner?”

“Because after you left, something changed in me, and I needed to understand it.”

Magnus walked to the other window to look out, on the opposite side of the room from where she was standing.

Annabelle let out a frustrated sigh. “I know this may sound strange, but part of the reason I came here was to thank you.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t really know who I was until you left me,” she explained. “Something in me exploded that day—all my anger, my frustrations, my passions. I’d always known I was living by rules that didn’t suit me, but that I was afraid to break out and do anything risky. I’ve always thought myself a misfit, as you well know. But when I watched your ship leave, all those rules were broken. I was so angry, I didn’t care about anything anymore. I was no longer afraid, because nothing seemed to matter, and it made me open my eyes to certain things.”

He shook his head at her, and she crossed the room to the bookcase, bent forward and picked up her large portfolio. He hadn’t noticed it there.

“Maybe you’ll understand when you see what I brought you.” She set the case on the table in the center of the room and withdrew a painting.

Magnus looked at it from where he stood at the window. “It’s me.”

Though how he knew that, he couldn’t be sure. It was hardly a conventional portrait.

But rules of portraiture aside, it was astounding. He walked toward it and took it in his hands, holding it up to the light to study it.

It was as if he were looking at himself through rain-covered glass. Or perhaps water. Yes, water. Deep, choppy water. There was movement, too, as if he were forever changing with the swells.

“My God, Annabelle. When did you do this?”

“The day you left.”

He studied the image of his face, then let his eyes wander to the outer edges. He looked at the colors, the shapes, the shadows and contrasts. One rock in particular caught his eye…

He pointed at it, in the top left corner. “Good Lord, you were angry, weren’t you?”

She smiled faintly. “Yes, but it was the setting that enraged me. I think this is my aunt Millicent.” She pointed at a rather bulbous boulder in the bottom corner, and Magnus chuckled despite himself.

“I believe I see the resemblance. That must be her nose.”

Annabelle laughed, and despite all their arguing just now, it was the sweetest sound he could ever imagine.

They stood in the library for a long time, side by side, looking at the painting.

“It’s extraordinary,” Magnus finally said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Has anyone else seen it?”