Page 14 of A Portrait of Love

“Adequately.”

“Well, I’m sure you won’t be working all the time, so I hope you’ll allow me to show you some of the beauties of Whitcomb.”

Before she could answer the door opened and a footman entered with her portmanteau.

“Ah, here is your baggage,” Mr. Fairchild said. “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering a light tea and I will send up a maid to assist you.”

“You’re most kind,” Honey murmured.

“Is there anything else I can arrange for you, Miss Keyes?”

“No, thank you. This is all very lovely.”

“The duke’s study is at the other end of the Old Gallery. Ring the bell and a servant will escort you. His grace will expect you at seven.”

“Thank you.” Honey didn’t bother telling Mr. Fairchild that she’d be able to find her way back to those portraits asleep and in the dark.

Chapter Four

Honey was ready a full fifteen minutes before her meeting. Rather than sit in her room staring out at the view—admittedly quite a remarkable one that provided a sweeping panorama of the topiary and past that, the deer park—she made her way back to the old gallery.

The wide, black and white tiled corridor was partly illuminated with windows set high above, perhaps thirty feet. The angle of the light was such that it would never touch directly on a painting.

She noticed that she was actually walking on tiptoes as she made her way down the length of the hall, as if approaching a holy relic. Well, for her this was the equivalent of a holy relic.

Her gaze flickered greedily across the collected booty of centuries: a Van Dyke, a Devit, a Seymore—complete with trusty steed, a Dance-Holland, a—she gasped and lurched toward a portrait slightly smaller than those beside it—a Hogarth! The subject, a beautiful woman whose eyes and expression invited the viewer into her boudoir, indeed, who promised and enticed—

A door down the hall swung open so violently it crashed against the wall hard enough that she could feel the vibration in her feet.

“You can go sod yourself, Wyndham!” The roar filled the hallway, although its owner was still inside the room.

Honey had never heard the voice pulse with so much rage when she’d known him, but she recognized it all the same.

Instead of simply scurrying away—as she should have done—she stood motionless, her eyes riveted on the gaping doorway. A soft murmur broke the silence—the person who was currently being yelled at, she supposed.

“Ha!” The word dripped with loathing and fury. “I don’t bloody care; haven’t you been listening? The whole place can go to the devil and you along with it. I’m telling you for the last time, Wyndham—do not meddle in my affairs ever again or I swear you shall live to regret it.” The enraged speaker catapulted out of the open doorway.

Even though Honey was frozen, he must have noticed something out of the corner of his eye because he stopped and whipped around to face her.

She gave a small, nearly inaudible, gasp of surprise. Good Lord. What had happened to him?

He surged toward her with an odd, lurching gait that drove her back a step, raw rage rolling from him like waves of heat.

“Who the devil are you? And what are you doing lurking about and listening at keyholes?” He kept walking, driving her back and back, until she hit the wall and felt something sharp jab her hip. The thought that she might have damaged a priceless painting was even more horrifying than the furious man stalking her. She turned to look over her shoulder and nearly fainted with relief when she saw it was only the corner of a plinth bearing a marble bust.

A hand grabbed her arm ungently and swung her around. The face that scowled down on her was not far different from the beautiful portrait she’d painted all those years ago—at least on the right side.

But the left side had been vandalized with angry red scars that had destroyed the smooth, high-boned beauty. The slashes and gashes and pits bore the slick sheen of recently healed wounds. His magnificent golden-blond hair had been cropped brutally close, doing nothing to hide what remained of his left ear or the deep horizontal groves that began at his jaw and deeply scored his cheek. He glared down at her with the same beautiful blue eyes, but the left eyelid was pulled down at the outside corner, the stretched skin giving the eye a perpetually sinister cast. He’d been tall and lithe when she’d known him but now his broad shoulders were heavily muscled and massive rather than slender.

It was Simon, but it was not Simon.

The man in front of her was a byproduct of war: a more intense, distilled version of his prior self. He was sinew, muscle, and bone—all softness and excess flesh had been burnt away. What remained was pure warrior, a man branded, bent, and distorted by violence.

This was not the Simon she knew, nor did he appear to know her.

The crushing realization left her sick inside; he looked at her with no recognition at all in his glorious eyes. He did not know her.

Honey wanted to weep.