The Truth About Love (16 page)

“Now.” Glancing up, he met her gaze, and smiled with his usual easy charm. “Talk to me.”

Her brows rose. “About what?”

“Anything—tell me about your childhood. Start as far back as you remember.”

Her brows remained high as she considered, then slowly lowered, her gaze growing distant. He waited, his eyes on her, his fingers smoothly moving lead across the paper. She wasn’t looking directly at him; he didn’t think she would. Like most people relating such things, she’d fasten her gaze to the side of his face, giving him precisely the not-quite-direct angle he wanted. His suggestion of topic hadn’t been as idle as he’d intimated; thinking of childhood elicited all sorts of memories, memories that showed in his subjects’ faces.

“I suppose,” she eventually said, “that the earliest moment I can remember clearly is being set atop my first pony.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Oh, yes! His name was Cobbler. He was a tan and black cob, and had the sweetest nature. He died years ago, but I can still remember how he loved apples. Cook always gave me one when I went out for my riding lesson.”

“Who taught you?”

“Richards, the head stableman. He’s still here.”

“Did you go walking through the gardens?”

“Of course—Mama and I used to walk every day, rain or shine.”

“When you were a child?”

“And later, too.”

For a moment, he let silence claim them. She didn’t move, either because she was held by her memories, or because she knew how fast his fingers were moving, how rapidly he was re-creating the expressions that had flowed across her face—the simple delight of childhood happiness shadowed by more mature sorrow.

Eventually, he flipped over the page; without looking up, he said, “It must have been quite lonely when you were young—the Frithams weren’t here then, were they?”

“No, they weren’t—and yes, I was lonely. There weren’t even children among the staff or the nearer workers, so I was entirely on my own except for my nanny and later my governess. It was wonderful, the start of a new and exciting life, really, when the Frithams came.”

Again, the happiness in her face shone clear; Gerrard worked to get some sense of it down. “How old were you then?”

“Seven. Eleanor was eight and Jordan ten. Their mama, Maria, and mine were childhood friends, which was why they came to live close. Overnight, I had an older brother and sister. Of course, I knew the area much better than they did, especially the gardens, so we were more equal, so to speak. Later…well, Eleanor is still my closest friend, while Jordan treats me much as he does Eleanor, as an older brother.”

He was tempted to ask how she viewed Jordan; instead, he asked about their youthful exploits. She described a number of incidents, the process occasionally bringing a smile to her lips, a laughing glint to her eyes.

After twenty minutes had passed, she glanced at him. “Is this working?”

He added a few more strokes, then lifted his gaze and met her eyes. “You’re doing wonderfully. That’s all there is to this stage of sitting. Just chatting and letting me get acquainted with your face, your expressions.”

Finishing his latest sketch, he flipped back the earlier sheets and critically reviewed them. “During the next days”—he scanned what he’d caught so far, various expressions all from the same angle—“I’ll do a lot of these, but as I become more certain what expressions I want to work more deeply with”—and what topics elicited the emotions in her that gave rise to those expressions—“I’ll do fewer sketches but they’ll be in greater detail, until I have enough practice in re-creating exactly the effect I want to show.”

Looking up, he met her gaze. “Until I can draw you as we need to portray you.”

Jacqueline held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. “It seems far easier than I’d thought, at least for me.”

“This is the easy part—the further we go, the more time I spend on each sketch, the longer you’ll have to sit in one place, in one pose.” Shutting the pad, he smiled. “But not yet. By the time we get to the final sittings and you need to sit perfectly still for an hour, you’ll be trained to it.”

She laughed, conscious of a tightening in her chest, of a tension she was coming to recognize as more akin to excitement and anticipation than fear.

He rose; sketch pad in one hand, he held out the other.

She looked up at him, then laid her fingers across his palm. Steeled herself as his long fingers closed over hers.

Felt, for one finite instant, her heart skip, still, then start beating again, more rapidly.

His eyes were locked with hers; he didn’t move.

And she suddenly saw, realized, understood that what she was feeling, sensing between them…it wasn’t just her alone.

He felt it, too.

She saw the truth in the shifting planes of his face, the sudden tightening of his jaw, the almost imperceptible flare of something behind the glowing brown of his eyes.

He drew her up and she rose. He hesitated, then released her hand.

Looking down, she smoothed her skirts; glancing up from beneath her lashes, she saw him look away, saw the rise of his chest as he drew in a breath—one that seemed as tight as hers.

He waved deeper into the gardens. “Let’s walk. I want to see you against different backdrops, in different levels of light.”

They walked into the Garden of Diana, but after two quick sketches, he shook his head. Dappled shade, he declared, wasn’t appropriate. They strolled on into the Garden of Mars, which met with his approval. He had her sit by a burgeoning bed while he sprawled nearby. Again he asked questions and she answered; it was odd for he didn’t expect her to meet his eyes. From his sudden silences, filled with the swift scratch of pencil on paper, she realized he wasn’t really listening but watching, that it was her expressions he was reading.

A curious communication.

A strange catharsis—she quickly realized she could say almost anything, and he wouldn’t react; he wasn’t there to judge what she said, but to see how she felt about the subjects he raised, to explore her feelings as she allowed them to show.

It had been a long time since she’d spoken her thoughts freely; the exercise, focusing on her reactions, allowed her to examine them, to know and recognize what she felt and how she felt.

After a while he rose, drew her up briskly and waved her on into the Garden of Apollo. He had her sit before the sundial; this time, he sketched from her other side. “Given we’re here,” he said, “let’s talk about time.”

“Time how?” she murmured, cheek on her updrawn knees as he’d requested.

“Time as in, do you feel, living down here, that it’s passed you by?”

She thought about that. “Yes, I suppose I do. There’s very little to do down here. I’m twenty-three and I feel my life—my adult life—should have started by now, yet it hasn’t.” She paused, then added, “What with Thomas disappearing, and then Mama’s death, I feel as if I’ve been placed in limbo.”

“You need to free yourself before you can move on.”

“Yes.” She nodded, then remembered and repositioned her head. “That’s it exactly. Until Mama’s killer is caught, time for me will stand still. I can’t go away and leave it—the suspicion—behind; it’ll follow me wherever I go. So I have to shatter it, disperse it, eradicate it, before I’ll be free to start living again.”

He said nothing. She slanted a glance his way. He was rapidly sketching. A small, beguiling smile played at the corner of his lips.

“What are you smiling at?”

He looked up, met her gaze—and she was instantly aware of a sense of communion, a connection of a sort she’d never shared with anyone else.

Looking down, he continued sketching, but the curve of his lips deepened. “I was thinking I ought to call this ‘Waiting for Time to Move.’ ”

She smiled, turning her head fractionally so she could direct that smile at him.

He looked up; his gaze sharpened, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t move—stay just like that.” His fingers had already whipped the page over and he was furiously sketching anew.

Mentally raising her brows, she did as he asked. “Sitting” was tiring, but also strangely relaxing.

They’d been sitting in perfect peace for ten or more minutes when a firm step on the path approaching the stone viewing stage, not far away, had them both turning to look.

Gerrard got to his feet, closing his sketchbook. “I’ve got enough of that pose for now.”

He crossed to where she sat and reached for her hand; he ignored their mutual sensitivity—that odd, concerted leap of their pulses—and drew her to her feet. Her hand locked in his, he held her beside him and turned to face whoever was marching along the path; it wasn’t Barnaby, and no gardener walked with such an assured tread.

“It’s Jordan,” Jacqueline said, as if sensing his alertness.

Sure enough, brown hair ruffled and nattily dressed—a trifle overdressed for Gerrard’s taste—Jordan came into view, stepping onto and then off the stone viewing platform. Straightening, he saw them.

It was instantly apparent he hadn’t come looking for them, yet it wasn’t just surprise that showed in his face. A petulant expression came into being, but as Jordan approached, Gerrard got the impression it wasn’t disapproval of him and Jacqueline being alone, but the fact they were there at all that had irritated.

Jacqueline tugged; unobtrusively, he released her hand.

“Good afternoon, Jordan.”

Jordan nodded. “Jacqueline.” His gaze moved to Gerrard. “Debbington.”

Gerrard returned his nod. “Fritham. Are you looking for Lord Tregonning?” If so, that was odd, for Jordan wasn’t coming from the house.

“No, no—just out for a constitutional.” Jordan glanced at the gardens around them. “I often walk here—Eleanor and I were made free of the gardens a long time ago.”

Turning back to him, Jordan looked at his sketch pad. “Making a start on the portrait?”

“Indeed.”

“Good, good.” Jordan shifted his gaze to Jacqueline. “The sooner that’s done and all can see the result, the better.”

The comment—in tone as well as words—was ambiguous. Gerrard glanced at Jacqueline, but could detect nothing in her expression to guide him; her inner shield was up. Whatever Jordan thought wasn’t going to be allowed to touch her, yet she’d said Jordan was one of the few who believed in her innocence. Perhaps he was one of those who thought portraits were inherently false, revealing nothing real.

“Well.” Jordan shifted; Jacqueline had given him no encouragement to dally, but he didn’t seem to wish to. “I’ll leave you then. Don’t want to delay the great work.”

With a nod to them both, he continued on, heading up the garden to the northern viewing stage.

Gerrard turned to look in the direction from which he’d come. “How did he get here?”

Jacqueline’s inner reserve melted away. “He walked. The Manor’s in the next valley—although it’s a considerable way by road, the house is much closer as the crow flies. The ridge”—she nodded toward the southern ridge bordering the gardens—“is only ten minutes’ walk from the Manor’s side door, and there’s a footpath that leads down through the woods to join the gravel walk in the Garden of Diana.”

“Does he often just turn up like that?”

“Sometimes. I don’t know how often he walks here. The gardens are so large, I doubt anyone would know.”

“Hmm.” Jordan had gone through the wooden pergola and then disappeared into the Garden of Dionysius. Looking down the long valley to the west, noting the angle of the sinking sun, Gerrard waved Jacqueline on. “Let’s try the Garden of Poseidon. Water’s an interesting element at sunset.”

When the day before he’d set eyes on the spot where the stream flowing out from the Garden of Night emerged into the light, cascading over shallow stone steps to pour into a narrow rectangular pool, he’d suspected he’d found the perfect setting. Now he knew what his painting had to achieve, there wasn’t a skerrick of doubt left in his mind. It had to be here. He’d paint her in the studio, but the setting in which, in the final portrait, she stood, would be this.

“I want you over there—sit on the edge of the pool.” At the bottom of the stone steps, the water gathered into a channel, then flowed into the pool through a spout.

She went to do as he’d asked. From beneath his lashes, he watched for any sign of unease, and was relieved when he detected none.

“Like this?” She sank gracefully onto the stone coping beside the spout, facing him.

He smiled. “Perfect.”

It was; the golden light of the westering sun flowed up the valley to carom off the pool’s surface and bathe her in soft gilt. Her skin took on a shimmering glow; her hair came alive, rich and sheening. Even her lips seemed to hold a touch of deeper mystery, and her eyes were full of…dreams.

He felt something inside him still; she looked past him, down the valley, into that golden light. The expression on her face…

Without further thought, he drew.

Furiously fast, yet exact, precise, he transferred all he could see in that brief, shining moment onto the white page. He knew the instant he had enough, when one more line would ruin it. He stopped, leafed over the page, and looked up, pencil poised.