Henry raised one hand towards her before dropping it. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” Ellie’s throat closed around her words. “And if you love me, you will respect my decision.”
Henry looked at her for a long minute, then nodded once before turning and quitting the room, his hands buried in his pockets.
Chapter 31
“I’mgoingtocancelthe exhibition.” Voicing the words aloud, words Henry had been thinking for weeks, struck him like a punch to the gut. Throwing himself into work for the fortnight since Ellie had tossed him to the curb had produced… “Total garbage,” he muttered, dropping his palette on the cluttered table.
“Like hell, you’ll cancel,” Alex replied, walking over to stand next to Henry’s canvas. Alex and his wife Fern had returned to London the day before, after spending a month in Birmingham with his mother.
The two men stared at the landscape in progress, a field of wildflowers on the border of his family estate in the Cotswolds. A beautiful scene, the brushwork capturing the brilliant colors, the lush canopy of trees, but something was… wrong.
“I’m not an expert in art,” Alex said cautiously, “but it’s…”
“Soulless,” Fern supplied, entering the room with a tea tray. She laid it down amongst the discarded paint trays and brushes in Henry’s workspace, a studio he had rented at the back of a brownstone in Knightsbridge that was used for smaller exhibitions. His artwork had been his refuge in the past two weeks, alongside his daily boxing exercises. With his mind busy and his body exhausted, he had little space to dwell on Ellie.
At least, that was the plan. And as often happened with Henry, nothing had gone to plan.
“Soulless?” he echoed, as Fern took a cup of chocolate and a biscuit from the tray and walked to her husband’s side. Alex wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him, where she settled her head against his shoulder before taking a massive bite of the sweet, groaning with bliss. Alex looked down at her with pure adoration, and Henry fought a sneer at the intimate gesture.
“What does this scene mean to you?” she asked. Fern was an accomplished artist alongside her gifts as a mathematician. Her brilliant mind was always looking for detail, pattern, logic among chaos. “There is no emotion here. I would forget this painting the moment I walked away from it.”
Alex winced, but Henry gave a begrudging smile. Fern had a tendency to speak her mind, often without considering how others would react to her words. Some were offended, but Henry had grown to find her honesty endearing. “I think I will forget this the moment I finish painting it.”
Fern turned her wide hazel eyes to him. “Why did you paint this?”
The question set him aback. Why did he do anything? “I thought people would like it.”
Her gaze narrowed. “But you don’t.”
Henry sighed. “I don’t.”
A smile played on her lips. “So, what doyouwant to paint?”
Henry’s gaze darted to Alex, and his best friend’s eyes widened. “Fern,” Alex said. “Would you mind if I spoke to Henry alone for a moment?”
Fern tilted her head. “You’re not talking about me, are you?”
Alex kissed her forehead, and Henry chuckled. Fern had been the subject of many conversations between the friends in the past, often over copious amounts of whiskey. “Not this time, my love,” Alex said with a smile.
“Good,” Fern replied, picking up her chocolate and collecting a novel from her satchel. “An excuse to read for a bit. Don’t get me until I finish this chapter.”
When she had closed the door behind her, Alex fixed Henry with his steady blue gaze. “What’s the matter, Henry? When I saw you two months ago, you were getting ready for the exhibition and to travel, but you haven’t said a word about Italy. Did something happen?”
Henry turned and dropped onto a stool, rubbing his palms over his eyes. “I didn’t go alone to Italy. I brought someone with me.”
Alex groaned. “Who was it?”
“Lady Eleanor,” he said, hearing her name on his lips for the first time in weeks. He shivered slightly at the power it had over him still.
Alex’s brows furrowed. “I’ve lost track. You’ve mentioned her before… the widow?”
“Yes.”But she’s so much more. “We’ve been friends for some time, years, but there was nothing romantic between us.”Lies, he thought. He couldn’t even admit to himself how long she had meant the world to him. “She wanted to see the galleries in Rome.”
“And you went with her.” Henry nodded. “As her friend.”
Henry exhaled through clenched teeth. “As her husband.”
