going well anyway. If only passion for a subject made up for a lack of everything else, she thought as she reached for the linseed-oil-scented rag on the shelf of her easel and wiped her hands before turning to see what the fuss was about.
Her housekeeper usually had no trouble heading off visitors at the front door. The woman was fiercely protective of Avery and fully respected the younger woman’s wish for privacy. But it seemed someone had managed to cut past Mrs. Jackson’s normally effective defense. The man walking a clear yard ahead of the stout housekeeper had his eyes on only one thing. Avery.
Tall, with dark blond hair that, while short, managed to look like he’d just rolled out of bed, and a light beard that suggested he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, there was no doubt he was disreputably good-looking. There was also something vaguely familiar about him. No, surely not. She would have remembered meeting him before. She didn’t know him at all. Sure you do, a tiny voice whispered from deep inside. Wasn’t he that guy Macy had pointed out when they were in New York for the Tarlington auction? Avery shoved the voice back down where it belonged as a shiver of something undefined shimmered up her neck. Not fear. Not even apprehension over the stranger striding so determinedly toward her, strangely enough.
No, this was something else. Something she had about as much trouble putting a name to as she’d had capturing the beauty of her father’s favorite garden in oils on canvas. Whatever it was, it made a bloom of heat kiss her cheeks and she felt her pulse rate lift a notch. Irritation at being disturbed, she told herself, but she knew it was anything but.
“I’m sorry, Miss Cullen, I informed Mr. Price you aren’t taking visitors but he just wouldn’t listen.” Disapproval was clear in every vowel of the housekeeper’s London East End origins. She gave an indignant sniff. “He says he has an appointment.”
Mrs. Jackson’s rosy cheeks glowed even brighter than usual at this clear invasion of her mistress’s privacy.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Jackson. He’s here now,” Avery answered as soothingly as she could and, summoning the hospitality that had been drummed into her from an early age, she offered, “perhaps our guest might like some tea on the terrace before he leaves?”
“Coffee, please, if you have it,” the man said, his voice pure Boston Brahmin all the way, but it was his name that finally filtered through her memory and caught her attention.
As Mrs. Jackson bustled off to prepare the coffee, still bristling with outrage and muttering under her breath, Avery gave him her full consideration.
“Price? So you’d be Marcus Price, of Waverly’s in New York?” she asked.
Waverly’s was the auction house that had handled her friend Macy’s mother’s estate sale. Seeing what Macy had gone through over the sale had made Avery all the more determined to hold on to the treasures that made up her past—whether she liked them or not. At least she had the luxury, literally, of not having to sell those memories as poor Macy had.
“I’m flattered you remember my name,” he said with an easy smile that made her stomach do an uncomfortable flip in response.
“Don’t be,” she answered in as quelling a tone as she could muster, given the unbidden buzz of heat that unfurled through her body at his nearness. “I made my position on the sale of my father’s Impressionist collection quite clear when you first contacted me. You’ve come a long way for a wasted journey.”
He smiled in response and a flutter of unadulterated feminine interest flickered through her veins. A flutter she attempted to suppress as rapidly as it arose. As handsome as he was, and he certainly was that, she knew his type all too well. Bold, brash, confident. He was everything she wasn’t and he was in for a disappointment if he thought she would be talked into selling her late father’s much-coveted collection.
“Now I’ve finally had the chance to meet you, I know my time wasn’t entirely wasted.”
His voice was laden with innuendo and the surety he would get what he came for.
“You can stop trying to flatter me, Mr. Price. Better men than you have tried…and failed.”
“Marcus, please.”
She nodded, a bare ascension of her head. “Marcus, then. It doesn’t change anything. I’m not selling and I really don’t understand why you’re here.”
“Your assistant, David Hurley, arranged our meeting two weeks ago. I had assumed he’d told you but—” his green eyes narrowed as he obviously noted the flash of anger that she knew must show across her expressive features “—I can see from your expression that he neglected to do so. I’m sorry, Miss Cullen. I believed you were open to discussions.”
Oh, he was good. Charming, sincere—she could almost believe him if she didn’t wonder just how much he’d bribed David to set this up. She would have hoped her late father’s assistant was above such a thing but apparently not. And, to be honest, she couldn’t imagine any other way Marcus would have succeeded in getting the appointment he’d been hounding her for in the past month. She made a mental note to follow up with David as soon as possible. He was still based in her hometown of Los Angeles and despite the years of service he’d given her dad, if he didn’t have a valid explanation, she was prepared to lose him over this. Trust was something earned and, when breached, easily broken.
“Your coffee should be ready,” Avery answered, refusing to confirm or deny David’s part in this. “Shall we go up to the terrace?”
“Thank you.” Marcus held out one hand, gesturing for her to precede him.
She couldn’t help but feel the assessment of his eyes on her back as she followed the path that led to the terrace at the side of the house. Every feminine cell in her body wished she was wearing something more…. Well, anything other than the old jeans and T-shirt she’d chosen to wear for painting today. In the instant she thought it, she dashed the vanity from her mind. She wasn’t out to impress Marcus Price or anyone like him. She’d learned the hard way how to read people who wanted to use her for their own advancement and she had no doubt that securing the Cullen Collection, the Impressionist paintings her father had acquired over the past two and a half decades, would be a golden feather in this hotshot’s career-advancement cap.
They arrived on the terrace just as Mrs. Jackson wheeled out a cart laden with afternoon tea—or coffee as the case was—and transferred the cups and saucers to a small wrought-iron table set with two matching chairs. Avery invited Marcus to sit down.
“Cream or milk?” Avery asked as she finished pouring the aromatic dark brew from the silver coffeepot embossed with the crest of her English mother’s family.
“Just black, thanks.”
“Sugar?” she continued, striving to follow the social graces her parents would have expected of her had they both still been alive.
“Two, please.”
She arched a brow. “Two? Ah, yes, I can see why.”
“You think I need sweetening?” There was a hint of laughter in his voice.
“You said it, not me.”
Using silver tongs, she dropped two cubes of sugar in his coffee and handed the cup and saucer across to him.
“Thank you,” he said, holding it in one hand while with the
