Amazing. She would never have believed he’d seen all that, much less that he could with mere paints depict it-her inner fears, the sense of imprisonment that had dogged her for the past year, her desperation to escape it, to flee. To leave it all behind, knowing, simultaneously, that she couldn’t.
He hadn’t painted simple innocence, although innocence was plainly there, but the emotions that gave innocence its credibility. Loss, confusion, and a sense of betrayal that had sunk to the soul.
She shivered; despite the heat, she wrapped her arms about her and clutched her wrapper close.
The setting was potent, frightening. Even safe in London in the attics of his house, she could taste the danger, the suffocating tension. Raw menace seeped from the dark leaves of the garden, trying to engulf her and draw her back, into the shadows. The moonlight was faint, a mere suggestion of illumination, not strong enough to light the path ahead.
Darkness predominated, not mere black but a palette of shifting colors, not passive but active evil, alive, still hungry, still wanting her.
The woman in the painting desperately needed someone to reach out and haul her free of the cloying web that miasmalike held her trapped.
The woman in the portrait was her.
She let out a shuddering breath. Drew another in, and looked away, slowly stepped away, out of the portrait’s hold. Beyond evocative, it would free her. Looking around, she searched for its creator.
For her champion who would succeed.
She found him in the alcove, asleep.
Stripped, he’d sprawled facedown across the bed. Standing in the gap between the tapestries, she let her gaze roam, over his muscled shoulders, over the sweep of his back, the indentations below his waist, the swell of his buttocks, the long, muscled lines of his legs.
Moving inside, she let the tapestry close behind her, shutting off the lamplight. Moonlight fell softly, illuminating the scene as she paused by the bed and let her wrapper fall. Raising her hands, she undid the ties of her loose nightgown, and let it slide down to puddle at her feet. Stepping free, she lifted one knee to the bed and crawled across it, to him.
He knew her touch; he didn’t wake when she set her palm to his side, and slowly, lovingly, ran it down. She didn’t stop to think, to question her heart; instead, she let it guide her, and followed it to its desire.
Gently, she urged him onto his back; obligingly he rolled over, still asleep.
Gerrard awoke to sensation. To the touch of her lips, to the heat of her mouth as she closed it around him. To the caress of her hands on his bare hip, on his balls. To the scent of her in the steamy night. To the swish of her hair like silk across his thighs, across his groin.
To the knowledge that she was there, naked, kneeling between his spread thighs, ministering to him. Evocatively. Devotedly.
The shuddering breath he drew in wasn’t enough, not nearly enough to steady his whirling head. Blindly, he reached down, touched her head, helplessly slid his fingers into the thick locks and clutched as his hips rose, thrusting to her tune.
To the music that rose about them.
Pleasure cascaded through him; eons passed as she played, then at his fevered urging rose up, straddled him, and took him in.
She rode him through the night, swept high on the wild winds of ecstasy, through a storm of passion while desire rained down and swamped them. Swirled, built, then dragged them under.
He rose and flipped her over, thrust deep and filled her.
Their bodies merged, slick and heated, in the relentless primal dance.
Total surrender.
It came on the moonlight, whispered through them both, and took them. Racked them.
At the last drew back and left them, sated and exhausted, together in the tangled ruins of his bed.
He woke the next morning with sunshine on his face.
Pleasure in his mind. Memories washing through him.
He lay on his back, sprawled naked beneath the dormer windows.
He’d never felt so decadently alive.
His lips curved, then he smiled, lifted his head and looked around.
She was no longer there, but her scent lingered. Her taste was still on his lips. He had a vague recollection of her whispering that she had to go back to her room, but that he should remain, and sleep.
In the hours prior to that they’d forsaken slumber, too hungry for each other. The minutes had spun out, desire drenched, stoked with passion. In the heat of the night, they’d burned. Soared. Shattered.
The pleasure of her abandoned loving had been soul-shatteringly sweet.
Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he sat up. He ran his hands over his face, then remembered, rose and walked through the tapestries into the studio. To the portrait that sat, complete in its last detail, on his easel.
It was done, and it was, as he’d always known it would be, the finest thing he’d yet accomplished.
Triumph welled, yet it wasn’t solely the triumph of achievement, of pride in a painting well done. It went deeper than that, ranged on a more fundamental plane.
After last night, he knew what she felt for him. There’d been a joy and a rightness in their joining that she’d seen and acknowledged, that she’d openheartedly embraced as strongly as he.
All the necessary pieces were falling into place.
She loved him. She would marry him.
All he had to do was take the portrait back to Cornwall, slay the specters of her past, expose the murderer if they could and win her free.
The future thereafter would be, not his, but theirs.
Turning, he strode to the bellpull and rang for Masters.
Jacqueline slept late. After rising and donning a new gown of sprigged muslin, she consumed a late breakfast in her room, then went downstairs.
Minnie, Timms and Millicent were in the drawing room, heads together, discussing their arrangements for the evening. When they’d learned that the portrait would be completed that day, and that Gerrard was set on returning to Cornwall with it as soon as possible, Millicent, urged on by Minnie and Timms, had declared they would hold a farewell dinner for all those of his family who had helped and supported them during their stay.
And, of course, have a private unveiling of the portrait, in reward as it were.
Gerrard had grimaced, but to her surprise agreed. To her, he’d admitted, “I’m curious to see how they’ll react.”
Patience and Vane had already left town, but most of the others who’d rallied around, encouraged Gerrard and lent her countenance, were still there, although most were, indeed, planning to leave for their estates any day.
Jacqueline confirmed that Gerrard hadn’t yet appeared downstairs. She listened to the guest list, made a few suggestions as the three older ladies wrestled with their seating plan, then excused herself and slipped away.
Going upstairs, she wondered if Gerrard was still sleeping. But as she climbed the hidden stairs to the studio, she heard voices. Looking up, she saw that the studio door had been left ajar.
In the same moment, she recognized Barnaby’s voice.
“Stokes was most exercised over the incident with the arrow.”
Arrow? Jacqueline halted on the last step, a yard from the door.
“Like us,” Barnaby continued, “he thinks the murderer attempting to kill you is an indication that the entire series of murders revolves about Jacqueline herself. She’s the only common link between the victims.”
Jacqueline stilled; she stared at the door, unseeing.
Barnaby went on, “Unlike us, Stokes doesn’t think it’s anything as simple as a jealous suitor.”
Jacqueline heard a swishing sound; Gerrard was cleaning his brushes.