would let him speak before flinging him straight back down the stairs. Listening, he waited, and eventually heard soft footfalls on the other side.
Then “Who is it?”
His stomach plummeted. Not the baritone rumble he’d expected. Not even a male voice. Soft, musical, the light cadences fell sweetly in a familiar pattern. Words thickened on his tongue, unformed like his thoughts. Yet one word, one thought, cut crystal bright.
Loveday.
One thought twisted clear of the tangle…and with it, anger.
“It’s me—Evelyn. Open the door.”
A bolt scraped back and the door opened.
“I see six years have not robbed you of one iota of charm,” said Loveday Trehearne.
For a moment all he could do was stare at the woman in the misshapen doorway, and try to reconcile her with the girl he remembered. Long-lidded tawny eyes, the red-gold hair, the firm chin. A small, reddened hand came up in an achingly familiar gesture to push back an errant curl.
So much the same…and yet where the golden eyes had once held the joy and bubble of laughing innocence there was the hard edge of wariness, and with it something darker—despair? Where once her bright curls had been bundled into a loose knot with bits forever escaping, now it was confined severely—just that one shorter lock tumbling down to tempt a man’s fingers. And her mouth, once so soft and quick to smile, looked as though it had forgotten what a smile was.
“Dammit, Loveday,” he said, stepping past her. “What in Hades is Lionel about, bringing you to this…dump!”
Her eyes sharpened to blazing daggers. “Did I invite you in, my lord?”
The icy tones slashed deep, touching hurts he’d rather forget.
“If you didn’t intend to invite me in, why open the door?” he demanded. And wanted to bite his tongue out. This was Loveday, and she had every right to want his hide for a hearth rug.
Her fists clenched, and her mouth flattened. “Good question. Easier to push you down the stairs with the door open, do you think?”
He dragged in a breath and forced a lid on the roiling ferment within. He had deserved that.
“I’m sorry. All right? I never meant to hurt you!”
“You didn’t mean anything!”
Lord! Where had that frozen whip come from?
“I made a mistake. I never should have touched you.”
“You made a mistake?” Her teeth were clenched, eyes narrowed., “How unfortunate for you.” And as quickly, the blaze was extinguished in a cool smile. “You were told not to come here. That was part of the agreement, as I recall.”
“Did you make that stipulation?”
She shrugged. “Why would that make a difference?”
It shouldn’t.
“Where is he? Lionel made good money as a painter. Judging by the sketches he sent me, he still could. Why are you living like this?”
The delicate brows rose. “Like what? In squalor? Fashions change, my lord. In art…as well as women.”
“Don’t do that!”
“What? Stop speaking the truth?”
“Stop ‘my lording’ me as though I were a stranger!” He fought down hurt and anger. “For God’s sake, Loveday—let me help you. Let me give you some money. I can—”
“No!” It burst from her.
“Dammit, Loveday! It’s just money. It doesn’t mean anything!”
Her lip curled. “Easy to say when you’ve plenty of it. Anyway, money for what? Money for what we did six years ago?”
Money for…His hands balled to fists as her meaning slammed home, and the cool speculation in her eyes scored deep. He closed his eyes, reaching for control.
Opening them again, he found her still watching, her face a mask. His own control shredded, he gritted his teeth against the rising tide of fury…and saw, really saw, the stacked canvases around the dingy room.
“Paintings,” he heard himself say.
“I beg your pardon.”
No, that should be his line, but the blank mask had at least been replaced with a puzzled frown.
“I’ll buy paintings.” Surely if he bought enough paintings it would help Lionel get her out of this…this hell without trampling their pride in the mud. Without making her feel that she had been paid off like a whore, albeit belatedly.
“What? You haven’t even looked at any of them!”
He didn’t really need to; they were Lionel’s. “Easily remedied.” He strode past her to a stack leaning against a battered table, and crouched down, flipping through them backward and forward. Mountainscapes; Italian, he supposed. Beautiful, evocative, painted by the old Lionel. Any or all of these could grace his collection. Evelyn put one aside…and his breath stopped. The next canvas glowed. A lonely shore with a single, distant figure standing bathed in golden light where the sand met a dreaming sea…Silently, he set it aside, and kept looking through the stack until he came to the last one…
His hands shook as he drew it clear. He knew this one. Not the painting; he’d never seen it before. But the subject—the young girl curled up reading in that shabby old wing chair she’d loved, one hand caressing a tabby kitten asleep in her lap, red-gold tresses tumbling over her shoulders, glimmering against the dark, cracked leather.
Lionel must have painted it just before or after…as a reminder?
“How much for these three?”
She stared. “You want those? Even the seascape?”
“Yes. Especially that one. How much?”
The mask had crumbled. Instead there was panic in the wide golden eyes and parted lips. “I…I don’t know.”
“Fifty, then?”
“Fifty? For three?” Some of the spark rekindled and she scowled at him.
“Fifty each.”
“But that’s too much!”
“No, it isn’t. They’re good. Better than good.” They were, too. Especially the beach scene, which must have been painted after whatever cataclysm had transfigured Lionel’s style; it had the same quality of yearning that infused the murals.
“What happened to him, Loveday?” he asked, without looking up from the painting.
“What…what
