She had not forgiven him, but he was not surprised, given what he’d done to her and the number of years she’d harbored and nurtured her hurt. He had expected as much when he got out of bed that morning. He’d known there would be a quarrel of some sort.
He’d also known she would think he was here to exact further vengeance upon Whitby.
He’d told her he didn’t give a damn about her brother—which was God’s own truth—but he doubted she believed that, because there was a time when he very much had given a damn. Those five years after their breakup had been the darkest of his life. He had hated Whitby more than ever, and his bitterness had been all consuming, eating away at him like a disease. There were times when he’d become a villain himself, taunting his cousin, just to inflict pain on him where he felt pain was due.
And once, when Whitby was gravely ill, Magnus had actually hoped he would not recover. That was how dark those days had been.
If Magnus hadn’t left for America when he had, he didn’t know what would have become of him. He would surely have continued to wallow in his anger, on a downward course straight to hell.
But those days were over. After eight years in America, his life was no longer dismal. He’d made a success of himself, had learned to have hope, and because of that, he finally felt worthy of Annabelle.
Even though she had been unwavering in her antagonism today, he would press on. He would not give up. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all. He would simply have to be patient, and lay one precious brick at a time.
Annabelle returned to Century House that evening, exhausted after the three-hour train ride from London. Carrying her empty art case with her, she greeted Clarke, the butler, and went straight to her rooms to dress for dinner.
A short time later she was hurrying into the drawing room to join Whitby, Lily, and the children.
“Annabelle, you’re back,” Lily said cheerfully, standing by the piano, holding John’s hand, her youngest, who was only three. He ran to Annabelle, and she scooped him up into her arms.
“Auntie Annabelle!”
“Johnny!” she said. “Did you miss me today?”
“No.”
“No!” Annabelle replied, laughing out loud.
“Father took us fishing!” Johnny explained, squirming out of Annabelle’s arms, forcing her to set him down before she dropped him.
Annabelle gazed at Whitby, who was sitting on the other side of the room, across from young Eddie at the chess table. “You went to the lake?” she asked.
“Yes,” Whitby replied. “It was a perfect day, wasn’t it?”
“Perfect indeed,” Eddie replied distractedly, moving a chess piece.
“I didn’t want to go,” Dorothy said in a haughty voice, for Dorothy—Lily and Whitby’s only daughter as of yet—was a very grown-up four-year-old, who would never be caught dead touching a fish. She preferred her dolls and hair ribbons.
“So if you didn’t go with the boys,” Annabelle said, “what did you do today? Did you stay indoors?”
“No. I took Helen for a walk in the garden,” Dorothy replied.
“Well, thank you very much. I’m sure Helen enjoyed the exercise.”
Dorothy nodded proudly, then Annabelle moved to the sofa and sat down next to Johnny and Lily. Her thoughts drifted back to the fishing excursion.
“That old boat still floats?” she asked, realizing she hadn’t been in it since that long-ago summer.
“Like a boat should,” Whitby said. “We didn’t have to bail, did we, boys?”
“What’s a bail, Father?” Johnny asked.
“It’s when the water leaks into the boat and you have to scoop it out with a bucket so you don’t sink.”
“I wouldn’t like to sink,” Johnny said.
Lily messed his hair. “I should think not!”
Lily and Annabelle shared an amused glance as Johnny slid off the sofa and went to join young James, who was sitting on the floor playing with his army of tin soldiers.
“How did everything go?” Lily asked in a quiet voice, though her eyes were brimming with curiosity.
Annabelle hesitated, glancing across at Whitby. “It went fine. He liked my other paintings, and he’s going to include them in the exhibition.”
“That’s wonderful.”
Annabelle then told Lily about the American artist, George Wright, and how it was an honor to be shown in the same gallery.
“But how was everything else?” Lily asked in an even quieter voice.
Annabelle wasn’t sure where to begin. “It was rather nerve-racking. We talked about what happened years ago.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yes, and he apologized to me, Lily. Can you believe that?”
Lily sat back. “I thought perhaps he might.”
“Did you really?”
“Yes. Why would he come all this way and contact you unless he had something important to say?”
Annabelle gazed pensively toward the boys playing with their little army on the other side of the room. “I’m still not certain he came here just for the single purpose of apologizing. He seemed very determined, as if he were on a straight path toward something.”
She thought about what he’d said to her, that he had missed her. Was it possible she was the something he wanted, and he was here in London to claim her? Could he be that presumptuous?
Yes, he probably could.
“He’s purchased two buildings in London,” Annabelle told Lily, attempting to distract herself from the idea of Magnus actually “claiming” her.
Lily’s eyebrows lifted. “He must have money beyond the allowance from Whitby. Did he say anything about that?”
“Yes, he said he doesn’t want it anymore, and he intends to inform Whitby as such.”
Lily gazed lovingly at her husband. “You’re going to have to tell him everything, Annabelle. I can’t keep it secret any longer. He knows me too well.”
Annabelle watched her brother playing chess with his son. Eddie made a move, and Whitby shouted with laughter. “Brilliant, Eddie! I didn’t see that coming!”
But there was something else he did not see coming, and she was not looking forward to explaining it.
Later that night, after the children had gone to bed, Annabelle returned to the drawing room with Lily and Whitby—as was their habit most evenings after dinner, when they would read or chat or play cards.
While Lily played the piano, Annabelle sat on the sofa with Whitby, but she wasn’t really hearing the music, for her mind was occupied with thoughts about what had occurred that day and how she was going to tell Whitby what she had kept from him.
Taking a deep breath, she finally met her brother’s gaze. “There’s something I need to tell you, and I hope you won’t be angry.”
Whitby sat back, his brow furrowing with concern.
“Over the past few weeks,” she began, “I’ve received two letters from…a gallery owner. He wanted to include one of my paintings in an exhibition.”
Her brother touched her arm. “That’s wonderful news, Annabelle. Congratulations. But why would you think I would be angry?”
She bit her lip, then decided to cease her stalling and meet the problem head on. “Because the letters came from Magnus, and you’re not going to like this, Whitby, but he has returned to London.”
For a moment her brother stared at her as if he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard her correctly, then his eyes darkened with worry and he looked across the room at Lily, who was tapping away on the piano.
Annabelle understood her brother’s anxiety. He’d lost many loved ones in his lifetime—which was why he’d always been so protective of her—and he considered Magnus a serious danger.
“He wrote you letters while posing as a gallery owner?” Whitby asked.
Annabelle looked down at her hands upon her lap. “Well, he wasn’t exactly posing. He really does own a gallery, and I went to see him today.”
Whitby stared at her in disb
elief. “Did you know it was him when you agreed to meet?”
“Yes, of course,” she assured him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but—”
Whitby cupped his forehead in a hand. “Why the hell didn’t you, Annabelle? Who knows what could have happened? You shouldn’t have gone there alone.”
He stood up, looking as if he wanted to dash out of the house at that instant, find Magnus wherever he was, and confront him again, just like he had the last time.
All of a sudden the music stopped. Lily noticed her husband rise. “Is everything all right?” she asked.
“Magnus has returned,” Whitby told her directly.
“Oh my,” Lily replied.
For a long intense moment Annabelle’s brother stared at his wife fixedly. “You knew, didn’t you?”
Lily’s lips parted. “Well…”
Annabelle felt immensely guilty for asking Lily to keep something so important from her husband, but that was apparently not Whitby’s first concern. He strode to the window, contemplating what all this meant.
“He should not have come back. He is in breach of our agreement.”
“Please, Whitby, sit down,” Annabelle said. “Let me tell you what happened.”
Thankfully, he returned to the sofa, and Lily sat across from them to listen in.
Annabelle decided to start at the beginning. “That summer that we spent together thirteen years ago, I painted Magnus in the boat fishing, and that’s the painting he brought with him—the one he wanted to hang in the gallery.”
“Wait a minute,” Whitby said, holding up a hand. “You painted him? You never told me that.”
“I didn’t really want to talk about it.”
He gazed in the other direction for a moment. “I saw that painting over his mantel once—on the day I offered him the money to leave England. You painted that?”
“Yes.”
“It was one of the most beautiful paintings I’d ever seen, Annabelle,” Whitby said. “I didn’t recognize it as one of yours. Not that I don’t think your work is exquisite, but it was different.”
“I almost didn’t recognize it myself,” she said, “when I first saw it today.”
Both Lily and Whitby waited in silence for her to continue. She took a moment to decide where to begin and what in particular she should tell them. It all seemed rather smudged together at the moment.
“When I met him today, he explained that he regretted the way he had treated me all those years ago, and that he hoped I could forgive him.”
Whitby’s jaw clenched visibly. “You didn’t believe him, I hope.” It was not a question, but rather a very strong suggestion.
“No, not really.”
Where had that come from? It should have been a firm Absolutely not.
“Not really? You’re not sure, Annabelle?” Whitby’s tone dripped with disbelief.
Annabelle felt suddenly frazzled. “No…I mean of course I’m sure! And I told him so—that I could never trust him, not in a hundred years.”
There was no mistaking the fact that Whitby’s body relaxed significantly upon hearing that. His shoulders rose and fell, and his fist opened on his lap.
“I’m relieved to hear that, Annabelle. Did you get your painting back? He doesn’t deserve to have it. We can hang it here. In a prominent place.”
Nervous butterflies invaded her belly as she prepared to answer. “No, he still has it, and I left three more with him as well.”
Whitby’s hand slid up and down upon his thigh, as if he were trying to wipe something from his palm. “Why?”
“Because he is opening that gallery soon, and I want my work included in the exhibition.”
Whitby chuckled bitterly, as if he had expected things to unfold exactly as they had. “But don’t you see? That was his plan. He bought the gallery for the singular purpose of seducing you with it. That manipulative scoundrel.”
Annabelle frowned as she fought to understand the reasons why her brother was so afraid for her, when he already knew she hated Magnus for breaking her heart.
“Tell me something,” she said. “Why do you still hate him so much after all these years? I know you blame him for your brother’s death, but everyone knows there was no concrete proof that—”
“Are you falling in love with him again, Annabelle? Is that what’s happening here?”
She clenched her teeth together. “Of course not,” she assured him. “I just want to know what I am dealing with. You believe he has returned for further vengeance upon us as a family—but vengeance for what? Surely he does not still harbor hatred because of what happened to his father. That was two lifetimes ago, and he seems to have moved on.”
Whitby paused a moment before he spoke. “But you already know why Magnus has always been rejected here.”
Annabelle sat with her back poker straight and squeezed her hands together tightly on her lap. “You told me that his father was dangerous, that he tried to harm your father when they were children. But how exactly?”
“Among other things, Magnus’s father tried to set my father on fire.”
Annabelle covered her mouth with a hand. “Surely not.”
“The bed went up in flames, and my father suffered burns on his arms and legs, but thankfully managed to get out of the room alive.”
Annabelle flinched at the cold, disquieting tone of her brother’s voice. “But what did Magnus do?” she asked, needing more specific information. “Why was he also cut off from the family?”
Whitby raked a hand through his hair, his eyes clouding over with disdain. “From what I understand, no one even knew of Magnus’s existence until he was nine. His birth was kept secret from us.”
“How did you find out about him?”
Whitby sat forward, elbows on knees. “When Magnus’s father died, his mother took it upon herself to demand financial support from us, and promised my brother John—who had just become earl that year and was only fourteen years old—that if he didn’t give her what she wanted, she and Magnus would make all our lives a living hell. Then they did. Magnus threatened and even attacked John dozens of times over the next few years, and it didn’t stop until John was dead.”
Annabelle’s blood chilled in her veins. “But Magnus would have only been a child.”
“His father was a child when he lit my father’s bed on fire. He was mad, Annabelle. He was jealous and hateful, and Magnus was the same. You know it yourself. You know what he did to you, how he used you. You know his heart is cold like ice.”
She began to feel ill.
Whitby blinked slowly at her. “You were only an infant when Magnus came into our lives,” he said.
“I was three when John died,” she added. “I barely remember him. All my life you have been my only family. And now Lily and the children, of course.”
Yes, Whitby had been her guardian as long as she could remember. Her protector. He had taken care of things when he learned how Magnus had used and discarded her, and he had held her while she wept.
Annabelle squeezed Whitby’s hand. He was a good man, and now he was a husband and father. He loved his children with every inch of his being, and would gladly lay down his life for any one of them. There was no one in the world more devoted and loyal to those he loved, and Annabelle was thankful to be one of those fortunate people.
If she had to decide whom to trust—Whitby or Magnus—of course it would be Whitby. There was no question.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “The only thing I care about is that my paintings will hang beside George Wright’s paintings, and he’s an artist I greatly admire. And I will not be seduced. I am not the foolish, trusting girl I once was. So I assure you, it will be impossible for Magnus to ever win back my esteem. Especially after what I’ve heard today.”
Whitby closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, while Annabelle glanced uneasily at Lily, who shrugged helplessly.
They all sat in silence for a minute or two, until Whitby s
poke. “There is still the issue of my contract with him. He is in breach.”
“He knows it,” Annabelle said. “But he told me he didn’t want your money anymore. He’s prepared to terminate the agreement.”
Whitby looked up in surprise, as if he couldn’t believe any of this and almost found it humorous on some strange, outlandish level.
“Well, it’s not up to him, is it? Whether he likes it or not, the payments stop now.”
Annabelle merely nodded.
“Where is this gallery he purchased?” Whitby asked.
“Two twelve Regent Street,” Annabelle replied, knowing full well why Whitby wanted the address, but she was not going to stand in his way. If he had something to say to Magnus, he could say it. It was none of her affair. She didn’t care. They were both grown men.
Though in truth, they had always been more like two bulls locking horns, ramming into each other at every opportunity.
Whitby stood. “I’ll be traveling to London in the morning.”
“I suspected as much,” Annabelle replied.
He turned to leave, but Annabelle stopped him. “Wait, Whitby.”
Her brother faced her, and she briefly mulled over what she wanted to say to him.
“You might find him different now,” she said. “He has money.”
Her brother stared at her briefly before he narrowed his gaze. Lily nervously cleared her throat.
“Rich or poor,” Whitby replied, “I will not find him different.” Then he turned and left the room.
Chapter 11
M agnus was leaning over a table he had purchased at an auction that morning, pushing hard upon the sander—back and forth, back and forth—taking pleasure in knowing that when he was finished, this piece would be exquisite. He would set the gallery cards upon it.
Feeling the strain in his back and arms, he straightened and swiped an arm across his brow. It was hard work, sanding paint off mahogany, but well worth it. And he’d always enjoyed working with his hands.
Just when he was about to lean back into it, the gallery door opened, and who should walk in but Whitby.
Bloody hell, Magnus thought, setting the sander down and letting out a deep sigh of frustration, for he did not want to stop what he was doing, especially not to talk to his cousin, but he knew it was necessary. Best to get it over with.
Portrait of a Lover Page 12
