She blinked and looked at him. “That was not what I expected.” She poked her head in her room and turned on the light. There was a queen sized bed with a headboard and footboard of rich oak and a vanity made of the same. The curtains were a deep, dark purple, as was the bedspread. On one wall hung a thick tapestry of a Celtic pattern in black and gray. “I feel like I walked into a Bronte sister novel,” she whispered.
“That guy is freaky,” Seth muttered.
“Seth, go get our bags,” Evie demanded as she fingered the tapestry.
His eyes bulged. “Are you out of your mind? That guy probably has a dungeon and a torture chamber. If I get in his way, he’ll do awful things to me!”
Evie scowled at him. “Then don’t get in his way!” she cried. “Just go, Seth! I’m not going back home! This is an opportunity for my future. I don’t care how much of an ogre that man is, I’m staying. Now go!”
Seth threw his hands up in the air and started to grumble incoherently as he made his way back down the hall.
Evie heaved a sigh and flopped down on the bed. Her hands were still shaking. She was good at putting on a front for Seth that she didn’t care how evil Traevyn Whitelaw was, but the truth was, after that display, she had no idea how she was going to survive the next three months. This was not at all what she had expected. She’d pictured Traevyn Whitelaw as this insanely passionate, yet somehow normal man who would be patient, show her his technique, and share his life experiences with her. She had not expected a devastatingly handsome Heathcliff with no desire to have her in his home at all. The way he had spoken to her, like she was an intruder in his entire universe, made her uneasy. How was she supposed to learn anything when her teacher didn’t even want her there?
Barrett deBoer’s insensitive words flooded her mind and made her frown. Maybe she could just get by on her intelligence, but she doubted it. This man seemed much worse than Barrett, if that was possible. Maybe if she was some gorgeous supermodel he would have reacted differently to her presence.
She all but groaned aloud. What she had imagined was going to be an amazing experience, she was now convinced was going to suck horribly.
It was going to be a long summer.
Chapter Three
Evie had never in her whole life felt a week drag on longer than the past one had. She had barely even glimpsed Traevyn Whitelaw since their first, rather brutal meeting. When she had, he had only offered a curt nod. It was getting old. She and Seth had driven thirty minutes every night to eat at the same pizza parlor in Monterey because they were afraid to even venture into the kitchen. The rest of the time they had been living off of snack cakes and toaster pastries. Not once had Traevyn come to see if they were all right, needed anything, or were even still there.
There was never any noise in the house. It was so silent it was eerie, and the chilling fog that encompassed it in the morning and evening made everything seem gloomy. All of the floors on the upper story were hardwood, which made everything colder when the fog came in. Half the time Evie was sitting in bed, huddled under a pile of blankets. No one could have convinced her that it was summer if she hadn’t known any better. She felt more like she was in a prison than in a famous artist’s home.
A knock sounded on Evie’s door as she attempted to sketch something and she called for Seth to come in. She knew it was him. Who else would it be? He opened the door, then shut it with a note of irritation. Evie looked up to see him standing there with a withered expression on his face.
“This sucks,” he announced.
She arched an eyebrow.
“Seriously, I have watched so many dumb reality shows on MTV and so many re-runs of Full House that I think my head is going to explode. I go to sleep at night and have dreams of Uncle Jesse.”
Evie smiled as her brother came to sit on the end of her bed. Considering they had not had any other human contact for the past week, they were getting along rather well. Most of the time they watched television in Seth’s room. When they couldn’t take any more of that, they usually resorted to playing card games and I Spy. It had gotten that bad. “Hey, at least you have a TV,” she reminded him. “When I can’t stand your company anymore I have to come in here and stare at the walls.”
He rolled his eyes.
Evie giggled.
“Why are we even still here?” he asked. “It’s obvious that guy doesn’t give a crap whether we’re here or not. Come on, Evie, we’re going to die of starvation soon. I am sick of eating pizza. We’ve been eating it every night for seven straight days because it’s all we can afford. Sooner or later, our money is going to run out and then we won’t even be able to get home! I mean, has he even come to talk about painting?”
She sighed. “No. The most I’ve received is a Neanderthal-like grunt.”
Seth sighed as well and ran his fingers through his short hair. “Please, Evie, let’s just go home. This sucks so major.”
She thought for a moment. Seth had a point. It was apparent that Traevyn had no intention of ever even acknowledging their presence. It irritated her. She’d had to quit her job to come on this trip. Meg was taking care of her cat, and her parents were paying her rent. Paybacks for springing Seth on her at the last minute. She should at least be getting money for being there if she wasn’t getting anything else. What Seth said about running out of funds was true. If they kept going at the rate they were, they wouldn’t only be broke, but fat and pimply and probably sweating pizza sauce.
She smiled. “I have an idea.”
He frowned.
“This will either give us some money, or change his attitude.” She stood with a smirk and headed for the door. “Either way, it’ll improve our current situation. I’m going to go find our dungeon master.”
Seth snorted. “Good luck. If you die, I get your car.”
Evie strode down the dark hall with its wrought iron candle sconces and made her way to where the staircase met the top floor. Branching off the other direction from it was another hallway, his hallway. She squared her shoulders, raised her chin in a determined fashion and plunged ahead, wondering where in the heck she was even going to find him. His house was only about the size of a small country.
She opened the first door that she came across, which was an office filled with so many books that she had to stop and stare. She stepped forward with caution, forgetting her purpose. She was drawn to the many works before her. Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, John Steinbeck and so many others. She ran her finger gently along a row of them. Well, he was a well-read ogre. Too bad he didn’t have a book on manners somewhere. Her fingers grazed the spine of a book that was worn and frayed. She frowned and peered at the title. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. She smiled and pulled the book out, flipping through some of the pages. Many were dog-eared. This book had apparently been read many times.
“Taking up snooping, are we?”
Evie jumped and whirled, dropping the book.
Traevyn stood in the doorway, regarding her with his piercing green eyes. He strode forward and picked up the book. He snapped it shut with a scowl and placed it back in the shelf, trailing his fingers across the spine in almost a caress.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm the pounding of her heart that his unexpected entrance had caused. “Mr. Whitelaw,” she began, sounding much braver than she currently felt. “I have a proposition for you.”
He turned with a frown and folded his arms. “Do you?”
She nodded. “I want to clean your house.”
He blinked, his frown growing deeper. “You want to clean my house?”
She nodded again. “I had to quit my job to come here and my funds are limited, being as I am a ‘starry-eyed college student’. My brother and I have been living off of pizza, oatmeal pies, and cream cakes for the past seven days. If we are to continue in this fine fashion, I will need compensation.”
His expression never changed. He just stared at her. “And how much do you charge for your services?” he asked, his voi
ce laced with edgy mockery.
She ignored his tone and folded her arms, mirroring his posture. “Twenty an hour, once a week.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Twenty an hour, you say?”
She frowned. “Perhaps that’s too steep for a famous artist living in a Gothic mansion. What do you think?”
His eyes narrowed. “I think you have a lot of nerve coming in here, looking through my things, and running your mouth.” His voice resembled the warning growl of a large animal.
She met his unrelenting gaze. Her apprehension of him was quickly dissipating and turning into great irritation. “That’s funny. I think you have a lot of nerve treating me and my brother the way you have. Did you think if you ignored us we would just go away?”
His shrug was flippant. “I was hoping.”
She shook her head, not believing what she was hearing. “Then why did you even say yes to Professor Roth when he asked you to do this? Did he hold a gun to your head? The last time I checked, we lived in America where we had free will and the power to say no.”
He heaved a sigh, as if it was taking great patience just to talk to her. “I am doing this as a favor to Professor Roth. Out of gratitude.”
“You’re saying thank you by being a jerk? Wow, I guess my parents were sick the day they were supposed to teach me that life lesson. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong here, but that entire thing just seems slightly contradictory to me.”
He shrugged again with indifference. “No one asked you what you thought.”
She stared at him for a minute. The rage she had felt at Barrett right before she had drenched him in lemonade rose inside of her like magma. “You know something?” she said through clenched teeth. “I was so excited when Professor Roth told me about this trip. I thought that meeting you would be such an amazing experience, but I don’t even care anymore. As far as I’m concerned you can take your bad attitude and your sullenness and shove it!” She put her hands on her hips, her blood feeling like it was boiling in her veins. “I am sure my brother has better things he could be doing than watching TV in his prison cell, and I know I have better things to do. So, thank you, Mr. Whitelaw. It’s been so invigorating.” She turned to leave.
“You mean you don’t want me to teach you your craft?” he drawled after her.
She spun, and glared at him with defiance. “I don’t need you to teach me my craft. I know my craft. I’ll be an artist with or without your help. Besides, I don’t see a whole lot of teaching going on around here anyway. Unless, of course, you’re trying to teach me how to be a Grade A prick, because, in that case, you’re doing wonderfully!” She blazed down the hall, fuming. The nerve. The outright gall of that arrogant, no-good— “Seth!” she shouted, barreling into her room. “Come on! Pack your stuff! I am not staying here one more second!”
Seth’s eyes brightened and he leapt off Evie’s bed. “Seriously? All right! Finally!” He ran out of the room and back into his own.
Evie threw her suitcase on the bed and started to shove random stuff into it. She couldn’t believe the audacity of that man. To act like she was the one to blame for all this! Like she forced her way into his home and took over or something! It was ridiculous. She let out a frustrated growl as she remembered the way his light green eyes had regarded her. As if she was inferior.
With a scowl, she turned to search for her sketchpad. She screamed when she saw Traevyn’s figure looming in the doorway. Good lord! Where had he even come from? She put her hand over her wildly pounding heart. “What, are you an assassin or something?” she cried. “Make some noise the next time you decide to sneak around!” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m leaving, all right? You don’t have to stand guard.”
He sighed and clasped his hands behind his back. “Twenty an hour, once a week,” he stated. When she paused from her erratic slinging of clothing into her suitcase, he met her eyes. “Twenty-five if you can figure out what to do with the items in my refrigerator every evening.”
She stared at him, raising herself to her full height in an attempt to make herself feel as less like a midget as possible next to his towering frame. She regarded him for a moment. His face was impassive. He waited for her answer patiently, and she noticed something in his eyes as he stood there. Something sad. Something lonely…. It did a funny thing to her heart, and she felt her anger melt. She nodded slowly. “Deal.”
He gave a curt nod. “Bring your portfolio to me later tonight. I’d like to look at it.” He turned abruptly on his heel and strode from the room.
Evie sighed and slumped down on the foot of her bed. Her head started to hurt. What was that? What had she seen buried so deep within his eyes? It troubled her and she had no idea why. She let out an irritated snort and shook her head. “Seth!” she shouted. “Never mind! We’re staying!”
“What?” he screeched from the other room. “Oh, no way!”
She lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Well, at least she had access to the kitchen now. That was a definite plus.
“Evie!” Seth cried, flying into the room. “Come on!”
She sat up with a triumphant grin. “Fear not, little brother. I just got me a job. Our dungeon master is paying me twenty-five dollars an hour to clean his house once a week and make dinner every night.”
Seth frowned and folded his arms. “You come on this trip to be an apprentice painter and end up being a housekeeper? That’s degrading, Evie.”
Her eyes widened. “Excuse me? Do I see you rolling in the Benjamins right now? You want to keep eating cold toaster pastries? ‘Cause I sure don’t.”
“Fine, but still. I mean, what gives him the right to treat you like a servant when he’s the one who volunteered to take on an apprentice in the first place?”
She shrugged. “Who cares? Don’t worry about staying out of his way, either. You want to watch TV in the living room? Go for it. You want to play your guitar? Do it. You can sit in the middle of the hall and holler like Tarzan for all I care. If we have to live here for three months, you can bet we’re not going to do it like captives. He knew what he was signing on for. Let him deal with it.”
Seth smiled. “No more Full House?”
“Not unless you want to keep having dreams about Uncle Jesse.”
“Well, he is a hottie.”
Evie laughed.
Seth chuckled and sat down on the bed next to her. “What if he gets all bent out of shape and yells at me or something?”
She snorted. “He’d better not even try it.” She grabbed her portfolio and started to sift through her sketches, trying to decide which ones she should show the Master of the House later that night.
* * * *
Her pictures never changed. Pictures never did. They were meant to capture the feelings and sights of a specific event or time. They remained unchanging, locked within their perfection. And, try as he might, he could not help but lapse back into the emotions of old every time he looked at them. He didn’t know why he tortured himself so much. He was a masochist.
With a heavy, weary sigh, he set the pictures aside and went to the French doors in his office. He could see the ocean crashing against the nearby cliffs and wanted suddenly, more than anything, to hear the thunderous sound. He pushed open the doors and stepped out onto the terrace, embracing the evening fog as it coiled around him. He closed his eyes and listened to the pounding waves, surging forward like the emotions in his soul and crashing against the cliffs in a violent crescendo. A fleeting moment of peace stole into his heart, and he wrapped his fingers around the cold, black iron of the railing. He relished the brief moment of tranquility and the sound of the sea.
It was the only thing that ever brought him solace.
Traevyn’s chaotic thoughts briefly touched on the young artist in his guest room and the way she had spoken to him earlier. He had to admit, it had come as a surprise, the way she had lashed out at him. She was so small and looked so studious. He had not expected her to hold a powder keg within her. Especially
since she had barely made a peep all week.
He sighed, cursing himself yet again for allowing Professor Roth to talk him into this whole foolish apprenticeship idea. He had been a recluse for the past two years, unwilling and not desiring to share the company of others. Now he was thrown a fire-breathing art student and an added teenage boy, and was expected to act as a perfect host? He had to have been out of his mind to agree to this. And it would have been nice if Professor Roth had asked him first before he’d told Evelina that it was all right for her to bring her brother along.
It was true that he didn’t want them there. He had grown to not care for people and to hate intrusion. He felt as if they were invading his privacy, his way of life. However, as much as he hated to admit it, she’d had a point. He had been the one to accept the position. It was his own fault they were there. She was not the one to blame. She was a stranger. She didn’t know him at all. She had not expected any of this.
He shoved a hand through his hair in agitation. Had he really lost all traces of humanity? What was he turning into? The troll on the bridge? Was he going to start eating goats soon? He sighed again and turned to go back inside. Well, if nothing else, he would get dinner out of the whole deal. That was the only advantage as far as he could see.
Chapter Four
Evie’s stomach rumbled at the smell of her own supper. She hadn’t had much to work with, but she had found enough ingredients to make spaghetti. It wasn’t gourmet cuisine by any standards, but it was better than pizza and cream cakes.
Seth wandered into the kitchen and grinned at his sister. “It smells so good in here.” He groaned. “It’s killing me.”
She smiled in return and began to set the table. “It’s a miracle I was able to make anything at all. I’m thinking this guy must eat bugs and rats or something because this kitchen is barren. The Sahara Desert has more food than this man does.” She set the spaghetti noodles, sauce, and garlic bread in the middle of the table and brushed off her hands.
Dark Masterpiece (Serendipity Series 3) Page 3
