“My dog. Named after the Welsh landscape painter, Richard Wilson.”
“Your favorite artist?”
“My father’s favorite artist.”
“Did he paint the landscapes hanging throughout Blackberry Manor? They all seem to be of a similar style.”
“No.” He leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
Well. Clearly he didn’t wish to discuss landscape artists. Evangeline turned back to the painting. “You look happy.”
“I was.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten.”
“Do you have other family portraits?”
He shrugged. “At Meadowbrook, where my brother lives.”
His brother, the gangly teenage boy with the fishing pole. How lovely those days must’ve been. Evangeline had always wanted siblings. “Do you visit?”
“Never.”
“Has he visited you?”
“He would rather die.”
“Does—oh.”
Evangeline turned from the painting of a small laughing child to consider the large serious man he’d become.
Mr. Lioncroft’s gaze was dark, inscrutable. Although he remained in his usual pose, his muscles seemed tense, his posture less casual, as if answering her questions about his family was the last thing in hell he preferred to be doing.
“Rose,” he said at last, “may not visit again, either. My proximity has a distinctly abortive affect on the longevity of her family members. I shouldn’t be surprised if this is the last time I see my sister or my nieces.”
His jaw locked and he swiveled his gaze back to the painting, as if he regretted being so candid.
Mr. Lioncroft, Evangeline was beginning to realize, had a lot of regrets. He was not the cold-blooded, black-hearted beast rumor made him out to be.
“To be fair,” she ventured, “it is not as if you forced the girls into the passageway. Perhaps you ought to have locked the access doors a bit more securely”—his eyes flashed at this admonition, but he said nothing to defend himself—“but I, too, remember what it was like to be a child. Children get into mischief.”
“And her husband?”
“What of him?”
“He didn’t get into mischief on his own.” He stepped closer, blocking the meager sconce light. “Everyone believes I killed him.”
She shook her head. “Not everyone.”
The words were scarcely out of her mouth before his lips crushed hers. His fingers gripped the sides of her face, bruising her with passion. The stubble of his jaw chafed deliciously against her skin, just as she’d imagined.
Evangeline’s hands barely had the chance to grip the hard muscle of his upper arms before he pushed her from him, as though he had not meant to kiss her, and sorely regretted the impulse.
She stood, wanting, trembling. Waiting for some explanation—why he’d kissed her, why he’d stopped, why he’d thrust her from him.
He said nothing. Tensed. Turned away.
