Portrait Of A Lover (3 page)

“What time is it?” Millicent asked, looking around, confused.

“It’s just past three,” Annabelle replied.

“I think I fell asleep for a few minutes.”

“Did you?”

Annabelle struggled to smile casually at her aunt. She and Mr. Edwards glanced briefly at one another.

“We should be arriving soon,” Millicent said, running a hand over her hair, patting down some untucked strands. “Thank goodness. It was a rather tedious trip, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Auntie,” Annabelle lied.

In a matter of minutes the train was slowing down, but Annabelle’s heart was racing faster and faster, for she was about to disembark and never see Mr. Edwards again. She had just rejected him, and surely he was under the impression that she did not wish to see him again, that she did not trust him, nor find him interesting or appealing.

Though she did not know him well enough to trust him, she certainly did find him appealing, in every possible way.

With the slow lumbering of the locomotive and the noisy screech of the brakes, Annabelle felt more and more as if the walls of the train were closing in on her. She was running out of time, and soon she would have to say good-bye to Mr. Edwards for good.

If that happened, she knew she would always wonder what would have become of them if they’d had more time to get to know each other…

Aunt Millicent leaned forward and shouted to the older lady, “We’re pulling into the station!”

The woman jumped and awakened. “Oh, we’re here, are we? Thank you, dear.” She reached shakily for her cane.

Annabelle was breathing hard now. This was it. They would be getting off in a few short minutes.

She glanced across at Mr. Edwards. He returned her steady gaze.

“Don’t forget your book,” Aunt Millicent said, picking it up off the seat and handing it to Annabelle.

“Does anyone see my pen?” the older lady asked, appearing flustered as she searched around her seat. “My grandson gave it to me. Did it fall on the floor?”

Everyone leaned forward to look. Then Annabelle was struck by a thought. Well, not so much of a thought. It was more of an involuntary action. She reached into her own reticule for her pen and sketch pad, and while everyone was distracted by the older lady’s panic, she scribbled something on a small corner of the pad and ripped it out.

The pen was soon located by Mr. Edwards, who had spotted it under Aunt Millicent’s feet. Annabelle quickly crumpled the note in her hand.

She knew she was doing something rash and imprudent, but she couldn’t help herself. She could not get off this train and say good-bye forever to Mr. Edwards. She could not explain it. She simply had to see him again, even if it was only to discover he was an unscrupulous character. At least then she would know.

A short time later the train screeched to a halt at the station and they all stood.

“It was a pleasure traveling with you,” the older lady said to Annabelle and Aunt Millicent.

“Indeed it was,” Millicent replied.

One of the uniformed guards opened the door and helped the elderly lady down first, and as soon as Millicent took the first step down, Annabelle turned and discreetly slipped her crumpled note into Mr. Edwards’s hand.

He glanced up, surprised at first, then his eyes filled instantly with a flirtatious spark of understanding that sent Annabelle’s senses whirling. He held her for a moment in the pounding allure of his gaze.

That instant, she knew she had to see him again. She simply had to, and she prayed he would understand what she had written in the note and would not let her down.

Physically wrenching herself away, she turned for the door, seizing the opportunity to steal just one more backward glance at him before she left the train.

Magnus watched Miss Lawson walk the length of the platform until she was gone from view, then he immediately opened the tiny, crumpled note and read it.

Bloody hell…

He stuffed the note into his breast pocket.

What had he done? What the devil was wrong with him?

Sitting forward, he dropped his head into his hands, raking his fingers through his hair. He could never have her. Never, never, never. She came from that world. She lived with—and loved—the very people he despised, the people who despised him equally in return.

He still could barely comprehend that she was one of them, because she was so undeniably different, and for most of the day he had practically forgotten the connection. He supposed he’d been distracted by the shining, disturbingly lovely blue of her eyes.

Magnus sat back again and gazed with weariness out the window at the mulling crowd on the platform. The uniformed guard blew his whistle, signaling that it was time to depart.

This was a wretched predicament indeed, he thought, recalling the pleasure of stroking her slender wrist and the displeasure of having to resist touching his lips to it.

His actions had been beyond reproach, to say the least, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself.

No, he should not see her again. He should not, for on top of everything, he had lied to her about who he was.

The best thing to do was put her from his mind. Forcefully.Permanently. He was a strong man. He could do it.

But as the train pulled away from the station, damned if he wasn’t thinking about her luscious full lips again, and feeling most inconveniently aroused.

1892

S truggling to banish such painful memories of her unforgettable first love, Annabelle gazed upward at the swaying branches of the oak tree and listened to the leaves fluttering in the wind. She covered her face with both hands.

A lump formed in her throat. She swallowed hard over it, trying to suppress it, but couldn’t, because it had been years since she’d recalled that day in such vivid detail, when she had met Magnus for the first time on the train.

Yes, that had been his real name. It had not been John Edwards, as he’d led her to believe.

These days, she only remembered the unpleasant things about Magnus, because she had forced herself to forget the way he had made her feel when she first met him. Forced herself to forget how handsome he had been, how charming and polite with the elderly lady, and how her body had responded to him.

He had awakened every passion that existed within her, when she had not even known she possessed such passions to begin with. She had never been in love before.

Nor since. It had been thirteen long years, and she was a woman now—an experienced, sensible woman—no longer the girl who had stepped on a train believing in love and romance and the private mate of one’s soul. Those beliefs had been very dangerous, and had set her up for a tremendously painful and damaging fall…

She dropped her hands to her sides and squeezed the cool, green grass between her fingers. It hurt to remember all this. Why was she doing it? Because she knew she would have to see him again?

His letter angered her suddenly. Why was he back here, thinking he could write to her as if none of it had happened?

Well, it had happened…all the lies and betrayals.

She rolled over onto her stomach and rested her chin on her hands. She watched a bee land in a patch of clover a few feet away. The bee collected some nectar, then buzzed away, searching for more.

Annabelle inhaled the scents of the grass and earth, so close to her nose. She closed her eyes and again thought of the letter in her pocket. She also thought of the first one he’d written a few weeks ago, when he arrived in London, which she had not answered. It was locked away in the cedar box in her desk…

She could feel the key to the box, which she wore on a long chain around her neck inside a locket, pressing uncomfortably between her breasts.

Annabelle sighed and rolled over onto her back again. She had started something today with these memories, and somehow she knew that if she were going to see him again, she would need to remember everything, especially how he had hurt her. She could not forget that. She would need to strengthen her guard.

So she forced herself to go back to the two excruciating weeks that had followed that first day on the train, the weeks she had spent longing to see Mr. Edwards—Magnus—again. She had thought of nothing but his face and his hands and the sound of his voice. She had dreamed of being reunited with him, being held in his arms, and finally running away with him.

Oh, she had been so young and innocent…

August 1879

T he crumpled up note Annabelle had placed in Mr. Edwards’s hand had said:

National Gallery

Two weeks, 2 P.M.

Dupre

THE DAY HAD FINALLY COME
.

There she stood, pacing back and forth in front of Dupre’s painting, while her brother Whitby was elsewhere in the gallery, moving along at his own pace.

Whitby and Annabelle had come here many times in the past, and thankfully he had learned to give her time alone to admire the art. Which was why she had chosen this place.

Annabelle checked her timepiece, praying Mr. Edwards had understood what her note meant and would be able to find her. Her heart began to pound when she noted the time. It was two P.M. She nervously glanced around at the other patrons.

Oh, she hated this. She hated worrying that he would not come, or that he had met another young lady on another train and forgotten all about her, while she had spent the past two weeks dreaming of nothing but him.

She anxiously squeezed her reticule in her hand. The wretched truth was that what she felt for Mr. Edwards two weeks ago had proliferated into an ardent, sweeping desire more powerful than anything she’d ever known. She had butterflies in her belly constantly, and was either deliriously happy with the dream that he, too, was missing her, or was inconsolably miserable, thinking she would never see him again.

The logical part of her brain realized that perhaps she had begun to idealize him. She was probably romanticizing their conversations and overestimating the level of desire he felt for her.

Yet she could not stop herself from believing that she loved him, like no woman had ever loved before.

She chuckled rather bitterly, finding some humor in the fact that she was finally grasping what the poets had been going on about for centuries.

An older couple wandered into the room, and Annabelle made an effort to look as if she were just another gallery patron, admiring the paintings at her leisure. She stood before the Dupre, staring at it: Willows, with a Man Fishing.

It was not a large painting. It was not even twelve inches wide, but it was a good choice for today—rather brilliant in its romanticism, she had to admit. It was a painting she wanted very much to show Mr. Edwards. She wanted to explain that the Barbizon style was very different from the way she painted, and if she were ever to paint him in his boat the way they had discussed on the train, she would approach the trees and the water very differently.

Though that took nothing away from how she felt about this painting. She had always admired it for its quietness and intimacy.

She turned away from the Dupre, glancing discreetly around the room, hearing only the echoed sounds of a woman’s heels as she walked quickly through another room, and the whispers of the other patrons quietly discussing the works of art.

It was ten minutes past two.

Annabelle tapped her gloved hand upon her thigh. She was beginning to lose hope. He wasn’t going to come.

No, she mustn’t jump to conclusions. He was only ten minutes late. He could be dashing up the front steps of the gallery at this very instant, as eager to finally see her as she was to see him.

She took a deep, steadying breath. Oh, how she yearned to see him. She was growing tired of picturing him in her mind. She wanted the real man—tall and strong and smiling at her. She wanted so badly to be alone with him right now…

And so it was that two more hours passed, every minute painstakingly slow, and when a man finally entered the room where the Dupre was located and spoke Annabelle’s name with affection, she was barely able to keep the tears from her eyes. Tears of disappointment, heartbreak, anger. For the man coming to fetch her and take her home was her brother, Whitby.

OVER THE NEXT FORTNIGHT
, Annabelle grew to despise the Dupre painting, each day hating it more than the last. She didn’t want to think about it; she was irritated on the days Cook served fish for dinner, and most of all, she was angry with herself for becoming so deeply infatuated with a man who had evidently toyed with her feelings and taken some perverse pleasure in leading her to believe there was something special between them, when there was no such thing.

She had fallen victim to the charms of a thoughtless man, who no doubt flirted with every woman he stumbled across and had probably ruined more than his fair share of young innocents. He probably had a whole host of illegitimate children, too. Maybe he wasn’t even a bank clerk. Maybe he was one of those confidence men. Or worse—good heavens—a stage actor.

She held firmly to the certain belief that he was a rake of the worst kind, until on the fifteenth day there was a surprise waiting for her in the formal gardens at her country house in Bedfordshire—that surprise being Mr. Edwards himself.

Annabelle had taken a walk to be alone, and lo and behold, there he was, waiting for her beyond the tall lilac hedge, leaning at his ease against one of the columns of the open rotunda.

Heart throbbing suddenly in her chest, she stopped dead in her tracks, not quite ready to believe she was seeing properly. But then he pushed away from the column, removed his hat and held it at his side, and she knew it was really him.

He was wearing the same black jacket and trousers he had worn on the train. He looked exactly the same, just how she remembered him, tall and handsome and so darkly appealing.

Annabelle struggled to comprehend what she was feeling. One part of her wanted to stick her nose in the air and storm off, for she was so angry with him for not being there to meet her that day in the gallery.

But another part of her was melting into a puddle of forgiveness right here on the grass, because he had found her. He had come all the way to her brother’s country house. He had not forgotten her. Perhaps he’d had a good reason not to be there that day. She had certainly considered that over the past two weeks, but found it easier and safer to presume otherwise, for she had not wished to continue pining away for a man she would most likely never see again.

But here he was…

Magnus held his hat in a firm grip, his breath ragged, his mind in turmoil. It had been a full month since he’d seen Miss Lawson, and part of him had hoped that when he came here today, her effect on him might have diminished.

But no, it had not. Seeing her now in her clumsy black boots and wildly knotted hair—her eyes as vivid and piercing as he remembered—sent him dangerously out of control with wanting her.

He knew then, with devastating certainty, that he had failed in his valiant struggle to forget her.

“Miss Lawson,” he said in an apologetic tone, because any fool could have seen she was angry with him. “Hello.”

When she made no greeting in reply, he cut straight to the point. “I came to tell you I’m sorry…For not being at the gallery that day.”

At least part of it was true. He was sorry. Sorry for disappointing her.

But the truth was—he had been there. Unfortunately, Whitby had been there, too, so Magnus had been forced to retreat in order to avoid a confrontation with his enemy.

Not that he feared confrontations with Whitby. He could handle himself, and there might even be a very serious confrontation about Annabelle sometime in the near future. In fact, over the past two weeks Magnus had begun to dream about it. He’d never been more determined to take what he wanted from his powerful, influential cousin, who had always enjoyed keeping him in his place.

Because this time what Magnus wanted was Miss Lawson.

Blood quickening in his veins, he slowly, cautiously, approached her as if she were a deer who might bolt at any second.

Finally she spoke, her expression cool and stern. “I waited for two hours.”

He nodded, because he knew how long she had waited. “I swear to you, I wanted to be there. I thought of nothing else after we parted on the train. I was counting the days until I could see you again, but on my way to meet you, I…”

“You what?”

He narrowed his gaze, considering whether he should speak the truth and tell her his real name, after tearing himself apart about it for the past month.

I withdrew because my name is Magnus, and I am Whitby’s cousin. The one he loathes. Why am I loathed, you ask? Because I am my father’s son, and surely you’ve heard the disturbing stories about my father’s madness…

He tried to imagine her response. She would probably be aghast. She would run back to the house and call out the dogs.

Just then he experienced a twinge in his stomach—that old familiar shame and agony from his childhood, when he had been rejected and spat upon in the streets by those who knew that he and his father were banished by an earl. He’d been called a lunatic. A son of the devil.

No, he couldn’t tell her. Not now, when he was standing on thin ice to begin with…

“I had concerns,” he tried to explain, struggling to choose his words carefully, while pushing all thoughts of his childhood to the back of his mind.

Suddenly he was aware of nothing but the need to conquer, to hasten forth into an overrun battlefield, swinging his sword at an oncoming charge of enemy soldiers. He would do anything to have her—to win her heart and take her for his own.

Swallowing hard, forcing his brain to formulate the right words so as not to scare her off, he continued what he had begun to say. “I had concerns about our situation. I’m not someone your family would approve of.”

It was the truth.

Annabelle stared uncertainly at him, her freckled cheeks flushing pink as she wet her full lips, until Magnus couldn’t resist her anymore. He’d been having erotic dreams about this woman for a month, and here she was at last, standing before him in the flesh. She was a unique, beguiling beauty, a sweet, ripe maiden, and he simply had to touch her.

Moving closer, he raised her gloved hand to his lips and gently kissed each knuckle. Somehow, she would belong to him. No matter what it took.

ANNABELLE DID NOT PULL
her hand away. She stood motionless, watching the top of Mr. Edwards’s head while he dropped leisurely kisses across the back of her hand. His lips were soft and tantalizing. She could feel the moist heat of his breath through the thin fabric of her glove.

She had to scramble to keep her head, for her body was aching and burning to be even closer to him, to step into his arms and feel his chest pressing against her breasts. She felt dizzy, intoxicated by something far more potent than wine.

Somehow, however, she managed to withstand the pounding force of her desires. She could not give into those feelings, not so easily when she was still hurt by his failure to meet her that day, and she still knew so little about him.

A moment later he gazed intently into her eyes. “I wish you would speak, Miss Lawson.”

“I don’t know what to say. I was very disappointed when you did not come.”

Something in his manner changed. His eyes glimmered with a sensual light and his voice softened, like a caress. “I wanted to see you, but there was another far more serious problem.”

“What was that?” she asked, feeling shaky with longing.

“I wanted only to be alone with you, and I was plotting ways to steal you away and take you home with me—to my bed.”

His bed.

Annabelle knew she should have been scandalized. He had said something very wicked, something no gentleman should ever say to a well-bred young lady like Annabelle Lawson.

But surprisingly, she was not scandalized, because it filled her with a strange inner excitement that caused a passionate fluttering in her belly. And if she was understanding him correctly, he had not shown up that day because he had wanted her too much, and had not trusted himself to resist her.

Forgiving him today was suddenly becoming very probable.

“Why did you wait until now to tell me this?” she asked, nevertheless. “I’ve just spent the past two weeks thinking all kinds of hateful things—like how many ways there are to push a man like you out of a fishing boat.”

He looked down at her hand in his and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “You had every right to be angry with me, and I probably deserve to swim with the fish.” He hestitated a moment before continuing in a quieter voice that was almost a whisper. “To be frank, Miss Lawson, I wasn’t ever going to tell you. I was never going to see you again, because I wanted to do the right thing. I didn’t want to complicate your life. I am not from your world, remember.”

It was true, and she had known it would be complicated. He was not the kind of man her brother or aunt would accept as a husband for her, despite the fact that her parents were who they were. Whitby considered her his sister, and he was an earl.

“We could have been friends,” she said.

“Do you really think so? You and me?” He shook his head. “Even if we could be, I believe I would rather pound my forehead against a brick wall than spend every day trying to resist kissing you, then God forbid, congratulate you, while I watched another man take you as his wife.”

Annabelle shook inwardly. Was he really saying all this? They barely knew each other. No man had ever spoken so candidly to her before.

Mr. Edwards was either impossibly rakish and arrogant, or he was utterly and hopelessly in love with her.