With a deep sigh, Mrs. Macpherson let the blankets fall back on the bed. “Aye, she left some behind. If you’ll wait here, I’ll go find them.”
The woman’s evasive behavior didn’t sit well with Natalia. Something strange was going on, and she was determined to find out what. “Oh, that won’t be necessary. I’ll come with you.”
Mrs. Macpherson hesitated, casting Natalia a pained look. “I’d prefer to fetch them myself, lass.”
“I want to go with you.” Natalia refused to back down and a long, tension-filled moment passed between them.
At last, Mrs. Macpherson shrugged. “I’ll take you then. But you must promise you won’t think poorly of Patrick for keeping them. He never meant no harm by it.”
“Of course not,” Natalia agreed, but her mind spun. Patrick? Why on earth didhehave Fiona’s paintings?
Gesturing for Natalia to follow, Mrs. Macpherson led her up to the fourth floor. She stopped before a room at the end of the corridor and opened the door. Natalia stepped inside and caught her breath as she saw what lay within.
Sparsely furnished, with only a neatly made bed and a small armoire, the room’s walls were covered with paintings of every conceivable size and shape. Some were expensively framed, others mere canvases, and some weren’t even finished. The result was a kaleidoscope of color. Natalia turned slowly, trying to take it all in.
Dylan had said his mother was an artist, but the word didn’t begin to describe the depth and beauty of her work. Fiona had painted from her heart; that much was obvious.
Many of the paintings were of Aldabaran. She’d painted her home from every angle and season. There were also pictures of the forbidding rocky cliffs, and the churning sea far below.
But the portraits were by far the most arresting. Natalia took a few steps toward one of a small boy, his gray eyes sparkling with laughter. “Dylan.” She reached out to touch her husband’s painted cheek, enchanted by the image of the carefree boy he’d been.
“Aye.” Mrs. Macpherson’s wistful voice startled Natalia, so lost had she been in her own reverie. “That was always my favorite. I found it a great comfort, during all those years when the lad was gone.”
Natalia raised a brow, still struck by the obvious affection the old woman had for Dylan. “The countess was very talented. How sad to think of her dying so young.”
“Sad, indeed,” Mrs. Macpherson murmured. “Not a day goes by that we don’t mourn her loss.”
“How did she die? Was it childbirth?” Another portrait caught Natalia’s attention, and she moved toward it. This one was also Dylan, but, strangely, in this one, he was full grown.
“Oh, if only she had.” The old woman shook her head. “How much easier that would have been for all of us who were left behind.”
Natalia turned, reluctantly looking away from the picture of Dylan. “What happened to her?” she asked, wondering if she really wanted to know.
Mrs. Macpherson approached, and she, too, seemed captivated by the picture Natalia had been examining. “She used to come home every summer. But that year, the earl came early to fetch her back to London. They had a terrible row, and later that night, she fell from the cliffs.”
A cold chill travel down Natalia’s spine. “She fell?”
Mrs. Macpherson blinked back a rush of tears. “They say she jumped, took her own life. But I’ve never believed it. Not our Fiona.”
Dylan had never said anything about his mother’s death, and now Natalia knew why. He’d been so young. A mere child. How had he dealt with such a devastating loss? Perhaps he hadn’t, which would account for the nightmares that left him trembling and drenched in sweat.
She returned her gaze to the portrait. In it, Dylan stood at the edge of the cliffs his mother had fallen from. Wind whipped his hair and clothes. But his pale eyes shone with love.
She wanted him to gaze at her this way. As though she were the only thing in the world that mattered to him.
“How did she know what he would look like?” The accuracy of the painting amazed her, given the fact that Fiona had never lived to see the man her son would become. Had Fiona painted this portrait after she decided to kill herself, perhaps in an effort to imagine the grown man she’d never know?
“Why, he posed for it. Fiona always did love to paint Patrick.” Mrs. Macpherson gestured to another painting, which Natalia hadn’t examined yet. “I’ve always like that one, of the two of them together.”
Patrick? Upon closer examination, she realized the portraitwasof Patrick. The resemblance between the two men really was remarkable. Still trying to fit the pieces together in her mind, Natalia turned to look at the other painting Mrs. Macpherson had indicated.
The two of them together.
The dark-haired man and boy stood on a grassy hill, the man’s hand resting on the boy’s shoulder. The man smiled down at the boy was such love, such pride, and the little boy looked up at the man as though he’d hung the moon. Patrick and Dylan.
Father and son?
It all made sense now. Dylan’s resemblance to Patrick—his lack of one to Sherbourne. The Macphersons’ absolute delight upon seeing Dylan again—the Earl of Warren’s shameful lack of interest.
