accident and forgotten, was because they all believed that any examination of the facts would point to me.”
She drew breath, and more evenly stated, “They think they’re protecting me. The only people who believe in my innocence are Millicent, Jordan and Eleanor. The other younger people weren’t aware or involved, so they don’t have any real opinion, but everyone else…we’ve tried, but none of us can get the subject mentioned, let alone discussed!”
Frustration rang in her tone; Gerrard squeezed her fingers. “So while you were in deep mourning, essentially cut off, you were tried, found guilty-and then absolved, with the incident to be buried.”
“Yes!” She thought for a moment, then amended, “Well, no, not quite. Everyone around has known me all my life-they don’t
“But you don’t want it left alone.”
“No!” She shot him a glance-wondered, fleetingly, why she felt she could be so open, so direct, so unguarded with him. “Mama’s death
She saw in his eyes that he understood. After a moment, she went on, her gaze locked with his, “Jordan and Eleanor gave up, but Millicent and I-we kept thinking. We had to find a way to make people question the notion that’s become embedded in their brains-that it was me. We thought of a portrait. If it was good enough to show my innocence clearly…it was the only way we could think of to open people’s eyes.”
His eyes narrowed, steady on hers. “So having me paint you was your idea.”
She shook her head. “The idea of the portrait was ours. Millicent took months to seed the notion into my father’s head. For him, a portrait was a viable way forward-if it shows me guilty, he’ll hide it away; even if someone finds it, it’s not proof, not real proof that can convict someone of a crime. To him, a portrait is the only way to end his…well, his misery. He loves me, but he loved Mama even more, and he’s torn by thinking I killed her-and yet not knowing.”
Her voice had thickened; clearing her throat, she went on, “Entirely fortuitously through her correspondents in town, Millicent heard of the Academy’s exhibition and your portraits-the information seemed godsent. She suggested your name to Papa.” She paused, then added, “You know the rest.”
Gerrard held her gaze for a moment longer, then straightened; looking out across the regimented rows of olive trees, he leaned back against the edge of the fountain. The stone was cold across his shoulders; the sensation helped to anchor him, to help him re-form his view of what, precisely, was going on at Hellebore Hall.
So much more than he’d imagined when he’d accepted the commission to paint Lord Tregonning’s daughter.
What she’d told him…he didn’t doubt it was the truth. Not only was he sure she couldn’t successfully lie to him, what she’d said explained so much he hadn’t understood, like Tregonning’s position-invidious indeed-and his choice of the way forward, and the attitude of others toward Jacqueline. And hers to them.
He’d held her hand throughout; the feel of her fingers, slim and slender under his, helped settle his thoughts, and focus his mind in the right direction. Forward. “What are you expecting to happen once the portrait is painted and shown?” He glanced at her, caught her gaze. “Once people start to question the circumstances of your mother’s death, won’t they think…” He paused, then rephrased, “Couldn’t the answer be suicide?”
She shook her head vehemently. “No-no one who knew Mama would even suggest it. She loved life, loved living. She wouldn’t have suddenly decided she no longer wished to.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. No one has ever raised that prospect, not even though, believing me guilty yet not wanting it to be so, they’d grasp at any straw, even that.” She straightened, briefly searched his face. “Until I-we-convince them it wasn’t me, that it’s all right-safe if you like-to look for Mama’s killer, they won’t. And the real killer will remain free.”
Looking into her eyes, he grasped the point she knew, but had thus far not stated. “Your mother’s killer is still here-he’s someone you know.”
She held his gaze steadily. “He must be. You’ve seen the estate. It’s not easy to slip in undetected, not unless you know the place, and there were no gypsies or suspicious outsiders in the area when she died.”
He looked away, across the garden, still, silent and eerily beautiful under the now waning moon. A moment passed, then he felt her fingers tense within his hand, lightly grip. He turned his head, met her gaze, darkly shadowed in the night.
“You will paint my portrait, won’t you?”
How could he refuse?
She angled her head, brows arching, faintly challenging. “Can you do it? Paint me that well that my innocence will show?”
“Yes.” He had absolutely no doubt he could.
She drew a breath, held it, then quietly said, “I can understand your resistance to being manipulated into being an unwitting judge, but at my request, could you agree to being a witting one?”
He held her gaze, let a moment tick by purely out of habit; he didn’t need to think. “If you truly wish it, then yes. I will.”
She smiled.
“There will, however, be a price.”
Her brows rose, this time in surprise, but, her eyes searching his, she didn’t confuse his “price” with his commission. “What?”
He didn’t know-he didn’t even know what had prompted him to utter the words, but he wasn’t about to take them back. “I’m not certain, yet.”
She held his gaze, then calmly replied, “Let me know when you are.”
Desire lanced through him. From her tone, low and faintly sultry, he couldn’t tell whether she was deliberately challenging him, or simply meeting
She drew breath and evenly continued, “Until then…I’ll do whatever you ask, tell you anything you wish, sit for however many hours you want-just as long as you paint me as I truly am so that everyone will know I’m not my mother’s murderer.”
“Done.” He held her gaze for an instant longer, then lifted the hand he held to his lips. He brushed a kiss to her knuckles, watched the slight shiver she fought to suppress, then turned her hand and, watching her still, deliberately pressed a much more intimate kiss to her palm.
And had the satisfaction of seeing her lids fall, of sensing her irrepressible response.
She was the quintessential damsel in distress and she’d asked him to be her champion; as such, he was entitled to her favor.
But he’d yet to decide what he wanted from her, and they were in the middle of an open garden. Reining in his impulses, with her unusually strong, unexpectedly definite, he rose, drew her to her feet, and escorted her back into the house.
Hell’s bells-what a coil!” Barnaby paused to study Gerrard’s face. “Can you truly do that- paint innocence?”
“Yes, but don’t ask how.” Sprawled in an armchair, waiting while Barnaby dressed for the day, Gerrard looked out at the sunlit gardens, at the lightly ruffling canopies. “It’s not so much a finite quality, as something that shines through in the absence of aspects that dim or tarnish it, like guilt and evil. In this case, given the effect the crime has had on Jacqueline, it’ll be a case of painting all she is, of getting the balance of the different elements right so that it’s plain what isn’t there.”
“The evil necessary to commit matricide?”
“Precisely.”
Seeing Barnaby loading his pockets with the paraphernalia he always carried-not just the usual gentlemanly things like handkerchief, watch and coin purse, but a pencil and notepad, string, and pocketknife-Gerrard rose. “In the circumstances, I want to get started on the portrait straightaway. The sooner I get to grips with it-get down what I need to show and decide how to pull it off-the better.”
The sooner Jacqueline would be free of the haunting of her mother’s death. And the sooner he’d be free, too,
