by Megan Chance
"Imogene," he said, rising. He hurried over, holding her out at arm's length while he studied her. His smile faded a bit when he took in her dirty dress, her straggling hair, but still he leaned forward and gave her a brief, dry kiss. "I was certain you would show up, girl." He threw a smug look to Thomas. "Didn't I tell you, Tom, that you were mistaken? Imogene and Whitaker . . . what a preposterous idea."
Imogene went suddenly cold. "Papa—"
"Why, Imogene's never committed an indiscretion in her life," he went on jovially. "She doesn't have the spine for it. Now if you'd said Chloe—well, that girl was so full of life I would have believed anything you told me."
At the table, Thomas looked supremely uncomfortable. He set aside his wineglass and leveled her a regretful look. "I'm sorry, my dear. I felt he should know."
"You should learn how to nip these scurrilous rumors in the bud, girl." Samuel barely acknowledged that Thomas had spoken. "God knows you're so damned meek you're prime fodder for gossipmongers."
Imogene throat was too tight to swallow. "Papa," she said quietly. When he went still beside her, she forced herself to continue. "What Thomas told you . . . it's all true."
Samuel Carter frowned. His fingers tightened around her arm almost painfully, the furrow between his heavy brows deepened in confusion. "You don't know what you're saying, Imogene," he insisted. "Do you even realize what your godfather told me?"
Imogene nodded. She had to fight to get her voice out. "I imagine he told you Jonas Whitaker and I were . . . having an affair."
Her father's frown grew; his gaze swept over her. She knew too well what he was seeing: mousy hair and pale skin and mud-brown eyes. She knew without hearing the words what he was thinking. Whitaker interested in her? I don't believe it. It couldn't be true.
She saw the moment his confusion eased. His frown changed to a smile, and he barked a laugh. "An affair?" he repeated, shaking his head with amusement. "Good God, girl, you must be mistaken. I'm sure you thought he might harbor an interest in you—after all, I've taught art a time or two myself, I know what it's like. It requires great attention, but that's quite different from romantic intentions." He patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Jonas Whitaker is a famous artist, a man of great discernment. If you consider that for a moment, I'm sure you'll realize this 'affair' is only in your imagination. I mean really, Imogene, doesn't it seem odd that he would notice you?"
How easily he did it. How easily he turned her into nothing again. Imogene felt immediately foolish and naive, the doubts he planted grew and spread in her mind, insidiously corrosive. Maybe her father was right. Maybe she was imagining that Jonas needed her. After all, he'd told her to go. He'd told her—what had he said? "Look at me, Genie. Look at who I am. Surely you know you can't stay here."
The words danced in her head, joining with her father's mockery, and Imogene winced and turned her eyes away, swept with a fierce, unrelenting pain. Jonas had told her to go, and though she could deny the reasons forever, it didn't make them any less true. Jonas wanted someone else, that was clear enough. Someone more beautiful. Someone he wouldn't be embarrassed to have beside him. Someone to match people's expectations—
"I don't think she was imagining Whitaker's intentions, Samuel," Thomas said dryly.
Samuel ignored him. He bent slightly, holding Imogene's gaze. His smile was slightly off-kilter, but it was reassuring nonetheless, begging confidences. "Let's be realistic, girl," he said softly. "Maybe you wanted him to kiss you, but he never did, did he? He never touched you."
He wanted her to tell him no, she knew, and Imogene found herself wanting to say it. He would forgive her if she told him Whitaker hadn't touched her. Her father would still love her. The longing for that rose up so sharply her heart ached. But then she thought of how he'd pushed her to study in Nashville, how he'd brought her into his salons and walked away in disgust and disappointment when she wasn't witty or charming. Her quiet listening had only angered him.
And she realized he didn't really want her to say no. He didn't want a milksop daughter; he never had. He wanted a Chloe, a woman who could captivate an artist. If she told him what he expected to hear, she would only disappoint him again. But if she told him the truth ... if she told him the truth, he might love her at last. He might respect her.
She met his gaze. "He touched me," she said simply. "He kissed me."
Samuel froze. The silence stretched between them, and Imogene waited for his surprise and his praise, waited for his ringing, boisterous laughter and his admiration. The things he had given Chloe without hesitation, the things he had never given Imogene. And in the split second before he dropped her arm, she thought she might have it. She thought he might finally say "Dammit, girl, but you're just like Chloe, after all. You've made me proud."
But then he released her and stepped away, and she knew in that moment he wasn't going to say the words —and that he was horribly, terribly angry. It was so familiar, the look in his eyes, the tension in his body. Lord, she'd seen it a hundred times before. Her hope withered in sheer, desperate disappointment. She waited for the attack.
She didn't have to wait long.
His eyes flashed. "Your sister," he said slowly, each word a dozen little knifepoints stabbing into her heart, "would never have behaved this way."
"Papa—"
"She was a true artist." His eyes narrowed as he drove his point home. "That's the difference between the two of you, Imogene. Chloe would have taken this opportunity to study art, not to spread her legs for her teacher."
Imogene flinched.
"Samuel," Thomas interjected.
Samuel turned to him. "Well, that's what she's doing, isn't it? All this fine education I provide her, and what does she do with it? She becomes some artist's whore." He glanced back at her, his mouth tight with anger. "What was it, girl, couldn't you learn anything Whitaker had to teach you? Was that it? I suppose you thought you could seduce him into giving me a good report."
Imogene gasped. His words slammed into her so painfully she stepped back. "Papa, no—"
"At least you've found your true talent," he sneered, ignoring her protest. "God knows you've never been much of a painter. Just a milk-and-watercolorist, and not even a good one."
"That's enough." Thomas's quiet voice cut through the bitter aftermath of her father's words. "Samuel, I must ask that you not talk to her that way."
"She's my daughter, Gosney," Samuel retorted. "I'll talk to her however I damn well please."
"Not while you're in my home."
At the end of the table, Katherine rose and put her hand on her husband's arm. "Darling," she said softly. She gave Imogene a sympathetic glance, a glance that helped soothe her humiliation, and then Katherine looked back to Thomas. "Perhaps we should leave Samuel and Imogene to discuss this alone."
Thomas frowned. "I don't—"
"It's all right, Thomas," Imogene said quietly, wishing it were true. She saw her godfather's embarrassment and regret, but the thought of him further witnessing her humiliation was too much to bear. "I'm fine."
Samuel gestured impatiently. "Yes, leave us, won't you?"
Imogene backed against the wall, feeling the smooth yellow silk wallcovering beneath her hands, taking strength from its reassuring solidity. She heard her father's harsh breathing, knew he was struggling to keep his temper under control while Thomas and Katherine left the table and moved to the door. Just before he stepped out, Thomas stopped, touching her arm with a gentle concern that hurt as much as it reassured.
"My dear," he began.
Imogene cut him off with a shake of her head. "I'm fine," she said shortly, seeing the regret in his eyes. She wanted to say more, wanted to punish him, to be angry with him for bringing her father here, but she couldn't. Thomas had only been worried, she knew. He'd wanted to protect her. She could not condemn him for that.
When he and Katherine left the dining room, pulling the heavy brocade curtains across the doorway to give them privacy, Imog
ene only felt more alone than ever. Thomas's presence had given her support, if nothing else. Now she was alone with her father, and she knew his tirades too well to believe she would be all right. He wouldn't hurt her—not physically, anyway—but emotionally. . . .
She licked her lips and turned back to face him, steeling herself. "Papa," she said, "I—"
"Don't you dare speak to me," he said, glaring at her. "Not until I'm finished with you."
She swallowed and pressed harder against the wall.
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath before he looked up at her again. "Do you realize," he said slowly-, "what a scandal this will cause? No, of course you don't. Just as you didn't even wonder what the hell it was Whitaker wanted from you. Why did you suppose he would he even look twice at you? Hmmm? Did you think it was your looks he was after?"
She shook her head, forcing back the tears, feeling his verbal blows clear into her soul. "No," she whispered. "Of course not."
Her father paced the room. "Well, at least you're that intelligent. Dammit, no doubt I'll get a message from him in a few days, demanding money or something. And he'll get it too, because if Nashville hears about this we'll never get you married off."
Imogene swallowed. "He won't do that," she said. "And I—I don't want to be married off."
"I don't give a damn what you want." Samuel jerked to a stop. "I had hoped that, given enough education, you might develop some of your sister's better points, but to my disappointment, that hasn't happened. It's clear you don't have talent to give the world. The best you can do is find a husband somewhere and hope you stay well long enough to give him children."
The harshness of his words paralyzed her. She felt skewered to the wall, pierced through with his bitterness. "I haven't . . . been ill . . . for a long time," she managed.
He didn't seem to hear her. He put his hands to his head, running them through his bushy gray hair, pressing on his skull as if the motion could somehow calm him. He stopped pacing, lumbered heavily to the table and sagged into a chair. "Well, there's no help for it," he said on a sigh. "I'll meet with Whitaker and see what he wants. But then—" He turned to her, his eyes shooting sparks. "Then we're going back to Nashville, and once we're there you'll do exactly what I say. Is that clear?"
Imogene's fingers curled into fists. With effort, she nodded. There was no point in disagreeing, after all. She had no other choice. "Yes, Papa. I understand."
"Good." He took a deep breath and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. "Oh God," he murmured. "God, why not you?"
He spoke under his breath, but Imogene heard the murmured words as clearly as if he'd screamed them. Words she'd heard a hundred times before. And even though he hadn't said them, she heard the words that followed, too, the ones she knew were in his mind. "Why didn't God take you instead?"
Why not you?
She had no answer for him, because she wondered that herself, had wondered it since the day the cholera took Chloe. And just as she had since the day her sister died, Imogene felt guilty that she had lived. She should have traded places with Chloe somehow; she should have been the one to die.
She wondered if her father would have loved her any better if she had.
The thought knotted her stomach. Deep inside she knew even that wouldn't have made a difference, and it bothered her that she cared so much, that her father's love was so important. He'd never done anything but hurt her. He'd never looked at her. He didn't really see her at all.
Like Jonas, she thought, but the words didn't ring true any longer; she didn't quite believe them. Maybe once that had been the case, but things had changed. She remembered this afternoon, heard again the melody of Jonas's soft words, saw the tenderness in his eyes. "Ah, Genie. ..." His whispers came winging back, tender and haunting. "Genie, my love. ..."
She grabbed on to the memory, holding it like a bulwark against the world, against her father's hurtful words, against his disappointment and his illusions. In it, she found strength—enough strength to walk away from her father, to escape through the heavy curtains into the hallway and pass by Thomas, who waited anxiously at the foot of the stairs. She clung to it as she climbed the stairs to the safety of her room, where the reassuring scent of her almond soap awaited her, where the armoire welcomed her with its scores of pastel dresses. She could bear this, she told herself. She could bear it all, if only she could keep hold of the memory of those precious nights with Jonas. If only she didn't forget the things he'd taught her.
But then she saw the sketch hanging on the wall, the crumpled and smudged drawing of a half-dressed woman with a mysterious smile. A beautiful woman. A woman who was not her at all, and her father's voice came back to torment her, a truth she couldn't run away from no matter how hard she tried.
"Why would he even look twice at you? Did you think it was your looks he was after? Hmmm?"
The good memories melted away. Imogene collapsed on the bed and cried.
Chapter 24
He missed her so terribly he couldn't sleep. Not that he'd been sleeping well anyway, but that first night without her was interminable. He watched the seconds tick by, watched the shadows grow and change on the studio walls, and told himself it would be all right. The longing would ease, and in a few days he would be fine. Things would be fine. When dawn finally came, he forced himself to set out his paints, to grind colors. The day-to-day routine eased him somewhat—at least he was doing something. But he couldn't banish her face from his mind, not her compassionate brown eyes or her delighted smile or her soft vulnerability. And the restlessness her presence banished was back again with a vengeance.
Jonas cursed as he prepared his pallet and began to paint. She'd barely lived here a week; it should be easy enough to erase her from the studio. It was only a matter of time until he forgot her. In a few days the smell of her perfume would waft away; the long golden- brown hairs he found in his bed would vanish. One morning he would wake up without even thinking of her. One morning soon. Soon, he knew it.
He wanted to believe it. He had to believe it. Jonas tightened his fingers around the brush, swirled a pool of lead white into one of ultramarine. He'd never thought so much about a woman, never felt so . . . so dependent on one. But Genie—ah, she was hard to forget. Hard enough that he found he was constantly reminding himself why he had to let her go. You did the right thing, he told himself. For once, you did the selfless thing.
Now if only he could make himself believe it.
The knock on the door startled him—it had been so long since he'd had a visitor. He felt a swift surge of relief and pleasure, the unreasoning hope that it might be her. He forced himself to calm down, to think. It wasn't her. It couldn't be her. Still, he couldn't banish the thought. He tried to keep his voice as steady as he could.
"Come in."
The door opened the second he said the words. He saw the top of a blond head, and his heart raced in the split second before he realized it was Rico. Rico, back from the dead, or wherever the hell he'd gone.
Childs dodged inside, a wide grin splitting his features as he closed the door behind him. "Bonjour, mon ami," he said amiably. "I've missed you."
Jonas snorted. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Here and there." Rico shrugged. "I had a little business to take care of in Bridgeport. Besides, I wanted to give you some time alone with your little butterfly." His gaze scanned the room. "Where is she, anyway?"
Jonas ignored the stab of pain that seared through him. He tried to speak as tonelessly as he could. "Gone."
"Gone?" Rico raised a brow. "You're developing a real talent for obscurity, my love. What do you mean, gone? Is she out for a walk? Gone to market?" From the table he grabbed the pink bonnet she'd left behind, dangling it from its strings. "She didn't go far, apparently."
"Far enough," Jonas said. He focused his attention on his pallet. "She's not coming back."
"No?" Childs sat on the edge of the table, spinning the
bonnet in his hands. His voice was mild, nonchalant, but Jonas heard the question beneath it, the sharp curiosity—and something else he couldn't identify. Concern, maybe. Or ... or sadness.
"No," he repeated firmly. "She left two days ago."
"Hmmm." Rico stared at the hat thoughtfully. "And you let her go?"
Jonas dabbed paint forcefully on the canvas. "I didn't have a choice."
"Which I take to mean that you asked her to leave," Rico said.
Jonas clenched his jaw. He focused on the painting, smudged a shadow here, and here, smoothed a line. Perhaps if he ignored Rico long enough, he would leave. But then he heard Childs sigh, and Jonas's chest tightened. He took refuge in anger. "Spare me the lecture," he said between clenched teeth.
"No lecture." Childs rose from the table, setting the bonnet aside, and strode with languorous ease to where Jonas stood. "I'm just surprised, that's all."
"She's an innocent," Jonas said. "The most naive woman I've ever known."
Childs said nothing.
Jonas flashed him a glance. "Christ, Rico, you saw her. You know. All I had to do was look at her and she crumbled."
"That's not what I remember," Rico said calmly. "And I don't think you believe it either."
"You weren't here," Jonas said. He clutched the brush hard in his hand. "You didn't see."
Rico leaned against a stool, crossing his arms over his chest. His pale blue gaze was too cool, too measuring. "Don't lie to me, Jonas," he said softly. "Did you think I would leave her with you if I thought she couldn't handle it? Did you think I would have simply abandoned you?"
Childs's words cut into Jonas's heart, along with guilt. He closed his eyes, struggling for breath, for words that pushed away, that protected. "You've done it before," he said.
"Never when you were like that," Rico reminded him—a little insistently. "Never when I knew you needed help. Afterward, yes. After."
