The sound of his pregnant wife’s voice seemed to arrest Whitby on the spot. He sat back on the floor, cupping his forehead.
Magnus staggered to his feet and wiped the back of his hand across his bleeding lip. He was out of breath and panting.
Magnus jabbed a finger at him. “I’m warning you, Whitby. Don’t even try to come between us. We’ll be leaving for America tomorrow, and don’t expect to visit, because you won’t be welcome in my house.”
Shocked and shaken, Annabelle turned to her brother and sister-in-law, who were waiting for her to say something.
All the weight of the world descended upon her at that moment, and she wasn’t sure she could find the words to speak.
Then Magnus’s arm curled around her waist and he closed his eyes and pressed his face against her cheek, and she found herself holding tight to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
She looked back down at Whitby and Lily and felt a wretchedness of heart she’d never imagined possible. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m going with him.”
With that, she and Magnus left the drawing room.
They made it only as far as the staircase, however, before Annabelle stopped and took hold of the railing, her anger finally spilling over the edge of her composure. “What in the name of God was that?”
The fire from the struggle was still burning in Magnus’s eyes. “What do you mean? He insulted you.”
“How?”
“He said you were lonely and desperate.”
Annabelle shook her head at him and descended the stairs, hearing him follow fast behind her.
“That wasn’t about me,” she said accusingly. “It was about you seizing the opportunity to fight him. You were waiting for it.”
They were practically sailing down the stairs now.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said. “Don’t try to make it seem like it was me. I sat there calmly through all of that. It was your brother who wanted to fight from the first minute he set eyes on me. He wanted to crush me, like always.”
Annabelle walked quickly across the entrance hall, her strides snapping her skirts between her legs. “You think it’s him and he thinks it’s you. I’m sick of it.”
Magnus followed her out the front door and down the steps to the coach. She climbed in and sat down, and he climbed in beside her, slamming the door shut, but the coach didn’t move.
“How can you be angry at me?” he asked. “I was a bystander.”
“Oh, yes, you were very unassuming when you smashed him up against the tapestry!”
“I did it for you, Annabelle. I was defending your choice to marry me. I was not going to let him stop us.”
“But I saw the fury in your eyes! You were out of control, and all this time you’ve been promising me that Whitby no longer has any power over you—that you had left all that behind, and the only reason you came back to England was for me. I believed you. I trusted that you were telling me the truth.”
“Don’t do this, Annabelle,” he said. “Don’t let yourself. You’re so ridiculously loyal to him! Just because he took you in and raised you does not mean you have to live your life only to make him proud. You must find your own way and your own happiness. Be true to yourself. You don’t owe him your whole future.”
“It’s not as easy as that. I trust him to know what is best for me and what will make me happy, when I don’t really trust myself.”
“Or me,” he said.
She did not reply.
“Say it, Annabelle. I am the reason you don’t trust yourself.”
“Yes!” she shouted. “I made an error in judgement years ago. I was fooled. Duped. And after what just happened, how can I not still have doubts? How can I believe that there is not some truth to what Whitby just said—that you want me because you want to feel you have won. You simply want to take something from him.”
His eyes darkened with frustration. “That’s not true. You’re letting him influence you. Trust your heart, Annabelle. You know I love you.”
“But you were still fighting the same battle today that you always were! What has changed?”
Magnus sat forward and wiped his lip again, examining the blood on his hand.
“Whitby is not a bad man,” she told him. “He only wants me to be safe and happy, and I don’t think either of you really knows why you hate the other.”
That statement caused him to lift his head and look at her with dismay. “I know very well why I hate him, Annabelle.”
“Why?”
“Because he has always taken pleasure in making my life a living hell! He has deprived me of my birthright, beaten me to a pulp on numerous occasions, spread cruel gossip about my father and me, causing us to be treated as outcasts and lunatics. As a child, I was spit upon in the streets, kicked and beaten by those who enjoyed thrashing a fallen aristocrat. But it was my father I pitied the most, because he died a broken man. That is why I will always hate your brother—for continuing his grandfather’s legacy of heartlessness.”
Stunned by his outburst, Annabelle could feel her throat closing up. “But you told me you didn’t care about Whitby anymore, that that was behind you. How can I trust completely that there is not a part of you that is using me? Do you even know it yourself? I saw the satisfaction in your eyes when you told him I belonged to you now, not him. At that moment, I was nothing more than a weapon to use against him. And I can see the hatred in your eyes now. I just heard it in your voice.”
She looked out the coach window toward the horizon over the treetops in the distance.
“You can’t blame me for hating Whitby,” Magnus said. “But it has nothing to do with you.”
“But that’s just it! I do blame you for hating him. It’s not his fault you and your father were cut off from the family. Your father was dangerous. He tried to light his own brother on fire.”
The shock of hearing that seemed to stir Magnus’s anger all over again. “That’s a blatant lie! My father was not dangerous. He was sick and weak. That is the reason why my grandfather didn’t want him. He lacked the appropriate stature of an aristocrat.”
Annabelle felt her brows pull together in a frown. “That’s not what Whitby believes.”
Magnus shrugged and looked off in the other direction, as if what Whitby believed was of no consequence to him.
Hope sparked anew in Annabelle’s veins. “I feel a great need to get to the bottom of this.”
He shook his head at her, as if he was puzzled by that desire. “Why? It’s in the past.”
“It is not in the past, because you are still bitter about it.”
“I’m bitter that you won’t trust me!” he shouted, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. “You continue to trust Whitby over me, when what I need is for you to take a leap of faith. Just believe in me now. Forget about the past.”
Annabelle shifted uneasily on the cushioned seat. “Perhaps I could talk to Whitby and tell him you think there’s been a mistake,” she said. “He might listen to me.”
Magnus took hold of her shoulders. “Annabelle, it was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter. Just trust me now and come away with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why? What are you looking for? Concrete proof that you can trust me? Because you will never get that. The trust has to come from here.” He touched her chest, over her heart.
Annabelle gazed at him in despair. “But there is so much to be sorted out here.”
“Annabelle, I’m asking you…Don’t confuse all this with your fear of letting yourself love me. Just look in your heart.”
He regarded her intently with eyes dark and beseeching, and she did as he asked. She did look into her heart, where she felt passion and love and hope and desire. She wanted Magnus with every breath in her body. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
But he was asking her to take a blind leap of faith and simply believe him, when she could not. She was afraid to, especially when there were still so
many unanswered questions.
She wished it was not so, but she needed something more than Magnus’s word—his word against Whitby’s—to hang her trust upon.
She lowered her gaze, knowing it was going to kill her to say this, and it was going to kill him to hear it…
“I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Magnus tipped his head back on the upholstery and stared up at the dark ceiling of the coach. “You’re going to trust Whitby’s word over mine?” They sat in silence for a moment. “Don’t do this, Annabelle. Come with me now.”
“No, not like this. Don’t make me choose between you and them when I’m not ready. If it’s me you love, you’ll be patient.” She crossed in front of him to climb out of the coach.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Back inside.”
“Please tell me you’re going to collect your things.”
She opened the door and stepped out. “No. I can’t go with you, Magnus.”
She backed away from him, toward the house.
He climbed out of the coach, too. “Please, don’t go back in there.”
“I have to. I need to fix this.”
“You can’t fix anything!” he shouted. “Even if you find out there had been a mistake and my father was wronged, it won’t give you what you are looking for. Why can’t you accept that?”
She stopped and sucked in a breath, overcome suddenly by self-doubt, but then she kept going, because she simply could not take that leap of faith. She wished she could, but she could not.
He called to her one more time. “Annabelle!”
But she kept going.
Magnus pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead, then strode back to the coach and pounded his fist against the outside of it over and over. He grunted with fury and frustration as he kicked a wheel, then got back inside, slammed the door and shouted at the coachman to drive off.
Gathering her skirts in her fists, Annabelle strode purposefully up the stairs and returned to the drawing room, where Whitby and Lily were standing together in front of the window. Whitby was holding a cloth to his forehead.
She stopped in the doorway, and Lily immediately came hurrying across the room to hug her.
“Oh, Annabelle.”
When they stepped apart, Annabelle gazed at her brother, who was still standing at the window. He must have seen what had occurred out front.
“Thank God,” he said, lowering the cloth and tossing it onto the marble table beside him. “I’m relieved you had the good sense to come back.”
Annabelle loved her brother, and she knew he only wanted what was best for her, but she had never, ever been more angry with him.
“I have not come back,” she said, “at least not the way you think.”
He shook his head at her, as if he couldn’t get over her foolishness, then turned and faced the window.
Annabelle strode toward him. “How could you, Whitby?”
He faced her again. “How could I? You were the one who brought an enemy into our home and told me you wanted to marry him. Marry him, Annabelle! Of all the men in England, you had to choose him!”
Annabelle tried to explain. “I fought it every step of the way—honest, I did—but then I just couldn’t. I am in love with him.”
Whitby’s eyes fumed with shock and dismay. “So you are determined? You’re going to choose that scoundrel over us?”
“I have not yet made that decision,” she said. “I am still…unsure.” And that was putting it mildly.
He seemed to relax at hearing that. “So you still have some reservations about him?”
Annabelle paused, nodding her head. “How can I help but have reservations? I’ve had a broken heart since I was twenty-one. I’m not capable of trusting any man.” She sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. “Heaven help me, I’m still such a misfit.”
Whitby crossed toward her and touched her shoulder. “You’re not a misfit, Annabelle. You’re just cautious, and wisely so.”
“I’m not so sure. I love him, Whitby. Why can’t I just trust him? Why must I live in constant fear that the rug is going to be pulled out from under me, with no warning whatsoever?”
“Because that’s what happened the last time.”
Her brother’s eyes softened with compassion, which Annabelle greatly appreciated at that moment, when she felt so very alone and was worrying that she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life, walking away from the man she loved.
She sighed heavily. “Maybe it would help if I understood more about his father being sent away,” she said, still fearing that Magnus was right—that she was using the past as an excuse, giving it more importance than it deserved because she was simply afraid of letting herself love him.
Whether or not that was the case, she did not know, so all she could do was press on. “Magnus truly believes they were wronged.”
“That’s not what I know about it,” Whitby said.
He appeared less angry now, and she wondered if it was possible that he might take pity on her and help her.
“Well, it’s your word against his,” she told him, “and I’m tired of all the questions, Whitby. I need to feel as if I know what I’m doing.”
But even if she did know the truth, would she ever feel completely sure?
Annabelle spent the rest of the day questioning various members of the household about Whitby’s grandfather and his twin sons, and everyone who worked in the house said the same thing Whitby had always said—that the boy had been sent away because he’d been violent and dangerous.
One woman had even said that Magnus’s father had “the devil in him,” which had done nothing to improve Annabelle’s optimism.
Of course, there were very few servants who had actually worked in the house when Magnus’s father lived there, and it was so long ago that no one even remembered what he looked like.
Annabelle had the distinct feeling that people merely believed what they’d heard through gossip over the years, and that the story had essentially taken on mythic proportions.
So when all her questions turned up no new information, she spent the evening in her studio, distracting herself from the stresses of her life by working on the painting of the waterfall.
She still could not seem to get the reflections in the water to look real, so she finally gave up, chocking it up to the fact that she was too anxious to concentrate.
That night, Annabelle went to bed feeling certain that she was wasting her time on this futile search. What was the point of it, after all, when Magnus said he didn’t care about the past? What difference would all this make once they got to America, if she went with him? What had happened to his father had nothing to do with their lives now. If she was going to give her whole heart to Magnus, she was going to have to do as he’d asked and somehow find the courage to take that blind leap of faith.
Just then a quiet knock sounded at her door, and she leaned up on both elbows. “Come in.”
The door creaked open, and there stood her brother, holding a kerosene lamp. He was still wearing his dinner jacket, but his shirt was open at the collar, his tie loose around his neck.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” he said.
“You didn’t. I wasn’t sleeping.”
He hesitated a moment. “I need to speak to you.”
Annabelle sat up.
He closed the door behind him, walked to the bed and set down the lamp, then pulled a chair up and took a seat.
“Today, after you told me that Magnus believed his father was wronged,” Whitby said, “I began thinking about it, and I remember whispers and gossip when I was growing up. Gossip about my grandfather.”
Annabelle’s pulse began to beat. “Pertaining to what?”
Whitby ran a hand through his hair. “Evidently, there was a parlor maid who worked here in the house, and she and my grandfather were intimate lovers, and they almost ran away together.”
“It sounds scandalous,”
Annabelle remarked.
“This maid was let go after a few years, but I seem to recall hearing that she was sent away at the same time Magnus’s father was.”
A disturbing notion suddenly occurred to Annabelle. “Was she the mother?”
Whitby held up a hand and shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that. Magnus’s father and my father were definitely twins, that is certain.”
Annabelle was not sure where her brother was heading with this, until he reached into his waistcoat pocket and handed her a folded note. “But perhaps this woman knows something and can give you some insight into what happened. If she’s still alive, that is. I have no idea.”
Annabelle unfolded the note and read the woman’s name, Rose Michaels, along with a London address.
“I don’t know if her family still lives there,” Whitby said, “but it was all I could find in the employment records.”
Annabelle tossed the covers aside and slid to the edge of the bed. “How can I ever thank you?”
He stood and took her hand. “Don’t be so grateful. I still don’t trust Magnus, and I’m hoping this woman will prove me right. I just want you to be sure of your decision, whatever it turns out to be.”
She wrapped her arms around him, and he held her briefly before he drew away. There was a note of warning in his voice when he spoke.
“All I ask is that you be careful, Annabelle. Don’t let your emotions rule your head. But God forbid, if you do, and you decide to go with Magnus, please know that you can always come home to us. We will be here for you no matter what.”
“Thank you, Whitby. It is good to know.”
He turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway. “You should also know that if that man ever hurts you again, I swear I will cross the ocean to make him pay. I promise you that, Annabelle.”
And she knew that if circumstances warranted it, her brother would make good on that promise.
His head in a fog, Magnus entered his hotel room and looked around.
The maids had been there. The bedclothes were in order, the drapes were open, and everything was tidy. It was almost as if Annabelle had never been there.
Portrait of a Lover Page 20
