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His chin was turning blue already. Arthur said, “You stay here and keep the ice on your face. I’ll take it home. We’ll have supper when I get back. You can get Indian takeaway if you like.”
“Only if I can have it Indian-spicy.”
“You’ve been my heir for three minutes, and you’re already trying to bump me off?”
“Just payback for the busted face.”
“You were prettier than me anyway,” Arthur said. “Now we’re equal.”
“Right,” he said. “Equal.”
Arthur picked up the paintings. Charlie was already on his phone, but Arthur was relieved to see he was pulling up the webpage for the London School of Economics.
He loaded the paintings into his Landy. The drive home was about an hour, and he spent every minute of it dreaming of a future with Regan that might or might not happen. It had to happen, though. Didn’t it? Lord Malcolm had brought them together once. Maybe he could do it again?
The sun was setting as he drove through the imposing gates of Wingthorn, their ancestral home. He carried the paintings to the front door, put in the house code. The doors popped open for him. He stepped into the entryway, which smelled of fresh paint and plaster. New stair bannister. The ancient ceilings didn’t look quite so ancient anymore. A fine face-lift all around.
As he passed his mother’s morning room, Arthur noticed one thing had changed quite dramatically. The room which had been rose-red for a century or more was now white. He stepped inside and switched on the lights. The old red damask wallpaper was gone, replaced now with white wallpaper covered in scrolling green rose vines.
The wallpaper Regan had seen in her dream. It had to be.
He walked to the white fireplace mantel and gazed up at his mother’s portrait. His mother’s name was Mona Lisa, and so in her portrait she was dressed as theMona Lisa—same hair, same outfit. A quirky portrait for a countess. Then again, his parents were rather notoriously eccentric.
The very first Countess of Godwick had hung her own portrait in this room, and this is where all the countesses’ portraits would hang until the end of the line. In the dream Regan had described, the one with Lord Malcolm, she had seen her future. One day she would be the next Countess of Godwick.
And even if she hadn’t seen that future, Arthur could see it, and it was more beautiful than any work of art in Heaven or on Earth.
15
Portrait of an Artist
The feeling came on softly, like the way the morning warms slowly in late May. First she’d been almost chilly as the night air lingered, comfortable, then warm, warmer, finally almost hot as the sun climbed into the sky. Happiness. Regan was happy. Happy with her work today. Happy with the soft northern light permeating her Montmartre studio. Happy to be alive.
She wiped sweat from her brow and took a long drink of mineral water and ate a handful of blueberries. After ten years without painting, she’d nearly forgotten how physically taxing the work could be. Standing for hours lifting a brush heavy with paint. Her back ached and so did her feet. Not even sore feet and a little back pain, however, could dent her happiness. Not now that she was painting again and free.
And she saw the proof of her freedom every day in the mirror. She’d cut her hair off into a chin-length bob. It was Sir Jack who’d wanted her hair long, more “feminine” supposedly—but in her mind, simply impractical for a painter. Now she just tucked her hair behind her ears every morning, pulled on jeans and a paint-stained t-shirt and went straight to work. And no more contact lenses, only glasses, which she pushed up on her head when doing fine detail work, put on her face again when she was making her broad strokes. Short hair. Glasses. A wrist tattoo, no watch, and torn jeans. Regan felt seventeen again with her whole life ahead of her, even if it wasn’t a long life, she thought, maybe…it might be a happy one.
She made a few final touches to her painting and stood back, arms crossed, brush dangling from her right hand, heedlessly dripping paint on the floor.
She tilted her head left, then right, then took another step back. Was it done, really? Finally? Should she deepen the shading? Should she change the background color from grey to blue?
“It’s perfect.”
Regan jumped and spun around.
Arthur stood in the doorway of her studio.
She could only stare at him a moment, standing before her like an apparition. He’d changed, too, since she’d last seen him in early December. Almost six months had passed, and he already looked years older. Shorter hair, too. Taller? No, but he had on his army boots, which gave him more height. His camo fatigues were rolled up to his elbows, showing off his tanned and muscular forearms. He looked bigger, older, more powerful. He looked like a man who could protect her from any and everything.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m on leave,” he said. “One week.”
“How did you find me?”
“You had Zoot send you your things.”
“She wouldn’t give you my address.”
