Читать книгу Tall, Dark... Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Carole Mortimer - Страница 21

NICK inwardly cursed as he leapt forward to catch Hebe before she hit the carpeted floor, swinging her up in his arms to carry her over to the leather sofa at the back of the room.

He had been expecting some sort of reaction to the portrait, but it certainly hadn’t been this!

Embarassment, perhaps—because it was obvious that Andrew Southern had been Hebe’s lover. And surprise that Nick actually had possession of the portrait had also been a possibility.

But he certainly hadn’t expected Hebe to faint as she denied she was the woman in the portrait!

That birthmark apart—a pretty rose-shaped mark—there was no one else it could be but her.

He laid her down on the sofa, and Hebe started to groan slightly as she came back to consciousness, finally opening her eyes to look up at him as he bent over him.

And instantly closing them again, as if even the sight of him was too much for her.

‘Hey, come on, Hebe. I realise I’m no oil painting, but I’m not that bad either!’ he mocked as he moved back slightly.

The painting, Hebe remembered with a pained wince, trying to collect herself. But to come to terms with the enormity of what she had seen, and what she was thinking, was going to take longer than the few seconds she’d had so far.

She swallowed hard, not sure how she felt about any of this. If that portrait really was who she thought it was, then—

‘Here.’

She opened her eyes to find Nick holding out a glass of water.

She was freaking him out with this ‘dying swan’ routine, Nick decided impatiently as he put the rest of the bottle of water back in the fridge neatly disguised as an oak filing cabinet.

Who really fainted nowadays? People who were ill, hungry or had been hit over the head! He could rule out the former, because Hebe certainly wasn’t ill. Nor had she been hit over the head. Except maybe metaphorically. That just left hungry.

‘Have you had any lunch today?’ he prompted suspiciously.

‘Actually—’ she swung her legs to the floor to sit up and take a sip of the chilled water ‘—no.’

He gave a shake of his head as he moved back to the fridge. ‘Why haven’t you?’ he demanded as he took a chocolate bar out and handed it to her. ‘Eat it,’he instructed, when she just looked at it. ‘You’ll feel better if you do.’

Hebe somehow doubted that, but the chocolate certainly couldn’t do any harm. She had heard it was good for shock too. And she was certainly in shock.

She glanced at the portrait again as she slowly ate two squares of the chocolate.

The woman in the portrait was beautiful, much more so than her. Couldn’t Nick see that? And that woman had a sultry air about her, a sensuality, those golden eyes half closed with a secret that only she possessed.

Hebe felt herself begin to shake again as she took an educated guess at what that secret was.

She ate another two squares of chocolate before speaking huskily. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘I told you—the north of England.’ Nick moved restlessly about the confines of the office.

Hebe gave him an impatient glance. ‘Can’t you be more specific? Who did you buy it from? Where did they get it?’ It was suddenly imperative she knew these things.

Nick raised dark brows at her intensity. ‘I bought it from a young couple who had just inherited an old house from the guy’s great-uncle, or something like that. They had never seen the painting before he died, because the old man had the portrait hung in his bedroom, of all things,’ he revealed, with a certain amount of distaste.

He couldn’t say he felt exactly comfortable with some old man drooling over a portrait of a woman—Hebe!—who was certainly young enough to be his daughter, if not his granddaughter.

But the couple hadn’t known anything about the woman in the portrait—who she was or how the great-uncle had come to have her portrait. Nick had known who she was—he just didn’t have any idea what her portrait was doing in some old guy’s bedroom and not in the possession of the man who had painted it with such love.

Hebe didn’t look as if she were about to answer that question for him now, either!

She moistened dry lips. ‘What was the man’s name?’

‘Hell, Hebe, what difference does it make what his name was?’ Nick snapped his impatience. ‘He had your portrait, isn’t that enough?’

‘No.’ She shook her head slowly, turning to look at him with dark gold eyes. ‘Because, no matter what you might think to the contrary, Nick, the woman in the portrait isn’t me.’ She gave a humourless smile at his obvious scepticism. ‘No, Nick, it isn’t,’ she insisted. ‘Andrew Southern couldn’t possibly have painted my portrait because I’ve never met him! But it looks as if my mother may have done,’ she added, so softly Nick had trouble hearing her.

Her mother?

Hebe was trying to say the woman in the portrait was her mother?

How stupid did she think he was? Of course the portrait was of Hebe. It couldn’t be anyone else.

Could it…?

Nick gave her a dark frown. ‘You’re telling me that you look exactly like your mother did at that age?’

‘Ah.’ She gave a grimace. ‘Now, that is a very difficult question for me to answer—’

‘Why is it, damn it?’ he interrupted irritably. ‘How difficult can it be to know whether you do or do not look like your mother?’

Hebe eyed him ruefully, understanding his incredulity at the situation, sympathising with it, even, but at the same time knowing she didn’t have the answers that he wanted.

Except for one…

She raised silver-blonde brows. ‘How about if you’re adopted?’

Nick stopped pacing the room, looking down at her with disbelieving eyes. Was she seriously trying to tell him, expecting him to believe—?

But why not?

Hundreds of kids were adopted every year.

He moved to stand in front of the portrait, studying it closely. He had quickly seen the mirror-like similarities, but now he looked for the differences.

There was that birthmark, of course. But that didn’t prove anything. It was a pretty birthmark, and perhaps Andrew Southern had used a little poetic licence—a lover’s rose-coloured glasses—when he’d painted it there above the woman’s breast?

There was that air of sensuality, too, he supposed. But, God knew, he knew just how sensual and sexual Hebe was. He’d seen her look just like that the night they’d spent making love together. No, that proved nothing.

Neither did the lean length of her body, those thrusting breasts and delicately arched throat.

The ring!

There was an emerald and diamond ring on the third finger of the woman’s left hand. Nick assumed that it wasn’t Andrew Southern Hebe had been engaged to, but the now deceased owner of the painting. Why else would someone have kept a piece of art worth so much? Especially if keeping it had been to spite his future wife and her lover. Hebe didn’t wear a ring like that anymore. But if Hebe’s fiancé had realised that she was having an affair with Andrew Southern—and how could he not, with the evidence of the portrait in front of him?—then he would have had every right to break off the engagement; apart from the fact that she was wearing such a revealing dress, Hebe looked as if she had just come from her lover’s arms. And Nick, better than most, knew exactly how she looked at that moment!

No, there was nothing about this portrait that said Hebe was telling him the truth.

But what reason would she have to lie?

Because she had been found out?

Because, having already let two wealthy men slip through her grasp, she still hoped the two of them might have some sort of relationship?

His mouth twisted derisively as he turned back to her. ‘It’s an interesting idea, Hebe, but not very plausible, is it?’ he dismissed.

She straightened defensively. ‘Why isn’t it?’

Damn it, why couldn’t she just let it go? Admit she was the woman in the portrait and tell him where the hell he could find and speak to Andrew Southern?

He shook his head. ‘Because it’s too damned convenient, that’s why,’ he snapped.

‘For whom?’ she challenged shakily. Because it certainly wasn’t convenient for her.

Her parents had told her long ago that she was adopted, of course. They were such wonderful parents, and because of this, and the fact that she never, ever wanted to hurt them, she had never even attempted to find out who her real parents were.

What would have been the point? Obviously they hadn’t wanted her when she was born, so why should they want to know about her as an adult…?

‘Look, Hebe, I don’t give a damn if you’ve posed nude for the guy. I just want a way in to Andrew Southern, past his guard-dog of an agent!’Nick told her with brutal honesty.

Hebe flinched slightly at his callousness. ‘Well, when you find it,’ she said evenly, ‘please let me know—because after this I would like to talk to him too!’

Nick’s mouth twisted derisively. ‘You’re right; talking isn’t something you do too much of when you’re in bed, is it?’

‘Insults are going to get us nowhere, Nick,’ she told him shakily, the chocolate seeming to have done very little to allay her shock. In fact, she felt decidedly sick now.

But then, it wasn’t every day you were confronted with a painting possibly of the mother you had never known. A painting, moreover, that was everything Nick said it was.

Whoever the woman was, Andrew Southern had been in love with her when he’d painted her portrait. It was there in every brushstroke, every soft nuance of the woman’s sensual beauty.

Did that mean that the artist was Hebe’s father…?

Or had that been the man who had owned the portrait all these years and kept it hidden from view?

They were questions that Hebe certainly wanted answers to.

But for the moment she had to deal with Nick’s disbelief…

She drew in a deep breath. ‘You can think what you like about the portrait, Nick. Your opinion is really of little interest to me. I know that woman isn’t me, and that’s what’s important.’

He looked at her frustratedly for several seconds. ‘You’re seriously expecting me to believe, if that portrait is of your mother, that it’s—what?—twenty-six, twentyseven years old?’

She shrugged at his sceptisism. ‘That timescale would certainly fit in with the period when Andrew Southern was still painting portraits, yes. And for the record, Nick,’ she added ruefully, ‘I’m not expecting you to believe anything. I told you, it’s what I think that’s important.’

And what she thought was that she had to see Andrew Southern herself, and ask him about the woman in the portrait…

But if a man like Nick Cavendish, with all of the prestige of the Cavendish Galleries behind him, couldn’t get past the reclusive artist’s agent, then how did she expect to do so?

She would find a way.

She had to!

There was no way she could just leave here and pretend she had never seen that portrait. The portrait of the woman who surely had to be her mother…

She would need to speak to her parents too, of course. She couldn’t just go off in search of her real parents without telling them about it first. She owed them that, and they would understand, she was sure. They had brought her up with a sure sense of how important she was to them, of how much she was loved, but at the same time had taught her independence of spirit and mind. They couldn’t fail to support her in her search for the woman in the portrait.

‘Well, if that’s all, Nick, I think I’ll go now.’ Hebe put the glass of water down on the low table in front of her before standing up.

And instantly swayed dizzily again.

In fact, she felt as if she really were going to be sick!

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Nick stepped forward to grasp her arm, his expression dark and brooding.

She looked up at him with slightly unfocusing eyes. ‘I told you—I haven’t had any lunch today.’She tried to move away from him. Even that light touch on her arm was enough to send a thrill of awareness coursing through her veins.

So much for hating him!

Reasonably she might do so; he had been nothing but insulting today, with none of that exciting lover of six weeks ago about him. But emotionally her body still responded to his slightest touch.

‘You’re coming upstairs with me,’ he announced grimly.

‘Upstairs?’ She stared at him with startled eyes.

His mouth twisted derisively. ‘Don’t look so worried, Hebe; I’m not so filled with lust for you that I’m dragging you upstairs to have my wicked way with you!’

‘Again!’ she came back tartly, stung by his mockery.

‘Again,’ he acknowledged tauntingly, keeping a firm hold of her arm as he walked her over to the door. ‘You’re dizzy from not having eaten any lunch, and I have food upstairs in my apartment; the logical thing to do is take you up there and feed you,’ he explained dryly.

Logic? When had logic had anything to do with their relationship so far?

‘If you’re happy to let me go for the day, I can easily go home and get myself something to eat.’ She firmly stood her ground.

She did not want to go upstairs to his apartment. Today had been humiliating enough without returning to the scene of her naïve stupidity in thinking this man seriously liked her!

Nick’s mouth tightened. ‘No, I’m not happy to do that, Hebe. For one thing, you don’t look as if you could make it downstairs, let alone home,’ he derided. ‘And, for another, I haven’t finished talking to you yet.’

That sounded ominous…

‘I’ve told you—I don’t know anything about Andrew Southern,’ she insisted stubbornly. ‘Not where he is or how you might get to meet him. I wish I did!’

Nick eyed her frowningly. Did she seriously expect him to believe that?

Yes, he acknowledged impatiently after a glance at her guileless expression, that was exactly what she expected.

It was up to him to ensure that she knew she hadn’t succeeded in convincing him of anything. Not for a moment!

‘We’ll talk again after you’ve eaten,’ he told her firmly, taking her with him out into the carpeted hallway.

Hebe glared at him. ‘Do you never take no for an answer?’

Nick gave a wolfish grin. ‘You, of all people, should know that I don’t!’

That had certainly silenced her, he noted with satisfaction. That poutingly kissable mouth was set firmly as the two of them got into the private lift to go up one floor to his apartment.

Meaning that Hebe would enter his completely private domain for a second time!

‘Is an omelette okay with you?’ he rasped tersely, releasing her arm to stride through to the open-plan kitchen with its white and chrome fixtures.

Hebe took her time following him, obviously no more comfortable being back here than he was to have her here.

He would feed her the omelette, get some straight answers out of her, and then she could leave—

Where the hell was she?

He strode back out into the sitting room, coming to an abrupt halt as he saw her holding and looking at one of the photographs that usually stood on the coffee table in front of the window. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he bit out coldly, his face devoid of all expression.

Hebe almost dropped the photograph she had picked up to have a better look at, grasping it with both hands against her chest, knowing from the furious look on Nick’s face that his question didn’t require an answer—that he knew exactly what she had been doing.

The photograph was of a little boy about three or four years old. A gorgeous little boy grinning happily into the camera lens. A little boy, with Nick’s dark hair and blue eyes…

Nick moved forcefully across the room to snatch the photograph out of her hands, those blue eyes glacially cold as he glared at her through narrowed lids.

She swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry. I—he’s very beautiful.’

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Yes, he was,’ he ground out harshly.

Was. It was his son, then.

Hebe felt a tightening of her chest at the thought of all that life and boyish happiness no longer existing.

How much worse was that realisation for Nick…!

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

Nick put the photograph carefully back on the table before giving her a sharp glance. ‘You know who he is?’

‘I—yes,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘One of the other girls told me that you had a son.’

‘Luke,’ he bit out harshly. ‘His name was Luke.’

Luke…Four years old. His death simply too much for his parents to deal with together, driving them irrevocably apart.

‘I really am sorry,’ Hebe repeated huskily. ‘I shouldn’t have—Please believe me when I tell you I never meant to—’

‘To what?’ he challenged with a lift of that arrogant jaw. ‘Pry? Stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong?’ He gave a disgusted shake of his head, his face set in grim lines.

Hebe flinched at his obvious fury. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she protested softly. ‘I just saw his photograph, and—’And what? Hadn’t she been prying, after all? Well…yes. But not with any intention of annoying or upsetting Nick. She had just been curious, that was all.

And in being so she had turned Nick’s undoubted anger on her once again.

So what was new?

But surely he knew she hadn’t deliberately set out to cause him pain in this way? Even though it seemed that was exactly what she had done.

‘I really am sorry,’ she said again firmly, before moving past him to walk into the kitchen, feeling it best to give him a few minutes’ privacy.

It seemed to be an afternoon for upsets. Nick where his son was concerned and her own puzzlement and curiosity about the woman in the portrait and the man who had painted it.

But she would possibly be able to find answers to her own questions, whereas Nick would probably never understand why his son, a little boy of four, had had to die.

It probably all came down to a matter of faith. And the death of a four year old child certainly tested that to the limits!

She looked up nervously a few minutes later as Nick came back into the kitchen, thankfully with some of the colour back in his cheeks, his expression less grim.

‘I got eggs and milk out of the fridge.’ She shrugged, pointing to where she had placed them on the worktop. ‘I wasn’t sure what else you needed.’

Nick slipped off the jacket of his suit and hung it on the back of one of the bar stools before taking down one of the frying pans from a display of them hanging from a rack above the work table in the middle of the kitchen. ‘Cheese or mushrooms?’ he bit out economically as he cracked the eggs into a bowl.

Hebe had to swallow down the nausea at the thought of either filling. ‘Plain, if that’s okay?’ It still felt decidedly strange to be up here in Nick’s apartment again, let alone having him cook for her.

Kate, having witnessed their departure, was going to be more than a little curious when Hebe finally returned downstairs to the gallery!

Nick’s impatience was all inward as he warmed the oil in the pan while beating the eggs, before adding the milk. He was regretting now that he had made the offer to cook for Hebe in the first place.

He never talked to anyone about Luke. He couldn’t. Still, three years later, he found his son’s death too painful to discuss with any degree of emotional normality. It was because the subject had been too painful that he and his now ex-wife Sally had stopped talking to each other—neither of them able to think of anything else when they were together, but unable to put those thoughts into words, the whole thing being just too painful.

So he certainly didn’t intend discussing Luke with Hebe, a woman he had spent a single night of passion with!

He dropped the egg mixture into the frying pan and let it cook before turning to speak to Hebe. ‘You’ll find a knife and fork—What the hell—!’ he rasped, as a white-faced Hebe ran past him out of the kitchen, her hand pressed tightly to her mouth.

She barely made it to the bathroom that adjoined the master bedroom—ironically, the only bathroom she knew the location of—before she was well and truly sick.

It had been the smell of the eggs cooking in the frying pan that had done it, tipping her sensitive stomach over the edge, the nausea just too much to control any longer.

‘Here you go,’ Nick murmured behind her seconds later, and he placed a damp cloth on her forehead.

This was so humiliating!

Not quite as bad as that morning six weeks ago when, the night over, Nick hadn’t been able to wait for her to leave, but pretty close.

She sat back on her heels, holding the cloth to her forehead herself now, the nausea seeming to have passed. Although quite what she had found to be sick with, considering she hadn’t eaten anything today except the chocolate Nick had insisted on giving her a short time ago, was a mystery!

‘Feeling better now?’ Nick prompted abruptly.

‘A little—thank you.’ She nodded, not quite able to look at him.

She had caused nothing but trouble this morning—trouble she was sure Nick couldn’t wait to be rid of.

‘I’ll just give my face a wash, and then I think I would like to leave, after all.’ She could probably quite happily eat the omelette now that she had got rid of whatever had upset her stomach, but in the circumstances it was probably better if she didn’t stay.

‘I don’t think so, Hebe.’

She looked up at him sharply. Only to find him staring at her with cold, glittering blue eyes, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

‘What do you mean?’ she prompted warily.

‘I mean I don’t think that you’re going to be leaving here any time soon,’ Nick bit out tautly.

Hebe’s eyes widened. ‘But I can assure you that I feel absolutely fine now.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you do,’ he ground out harshly. ‘It’s a curious fact, but women in your condition usually do feel better once they’ve actually been sick,’ he added forcefully.

She blinked frowningly. ‘My condition?’

Nick drew in a harsh breath, looking at her as if he would dearly like to put his hands around her throat and strangle her. ‘Hebe, unless I’m very much mistaken—and Lord knows I hope I am!’ he muttered grimly, ‘the fact that you fainted a short time ago for no reason—’

‘I had just seen a portrait of the mother I’ve never known!’ she defended incredulously.

Nick shook his head, so tense Hebe almost felt as if she could reach out and touch it. ‘The fact that you fainted, coupled with your earlier dizziness and your nausea just now, when I started cooking the eggs, all point to one conclusion as far as I can see.’

Hebe blinked, her hand on the side of the sink as she slowly stood up to face him. ‘They do…?’

The glittering gaze moved down the length of her body, coming to rest on her stomach. ‘You’re pregnant, Hebe,’ he bit out abruptly. ‘About six weeks, I would say!’ he added with barely suppressed fury.

Pregnant!

But she couldn’t be!

Could she…?