“Lynmouth, Devonshire.”
“This is the crate of paintings Stephen had delivered home from Devon for me. My paintings from the winter, weeks before he ever set foot in the county. I met Sophie long before he did,” Wesley said. “He should never have married her.”
“Is that what this is about—jealousy?” his father scoffed. “You’re trying to prove you set your sights on her first?”
In reply, Wesley picked up a crowbar lying nearby—as though he’d been waiting for just the right time to reveal its contents.
With a creak and a groan and a splinter, he pried up the lid and laid it aside. He pawed out the paper wrapping and began pulling forth one canvas after another and lining them up along the walls.
Sophie’s stomach wrenched, and she feared she would be ill. Her body flushed and perspired, and she could look at no one, her mortified gaze flicking from one portrait to the next and recognizing herself in more than she remembered posing for. From demure, reluctant poses, to private smiles and admiring glances, to the Grecian robes he’d insisted she don, and then slipped from one shoulder...
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Mr. Overtree pronounced, his voice as dry as crushed November leaves, his expression as withering. “You said you knew Sophie from Lynmouth, but I didn’t think you meant you’d known her... like this.”
Sophie’s face burned, and she ducked her head.
“I’m sorry, Sophie. I don’t do this to embarrass you,” Wesley said gently. “But yes. I knew Sophie first. I met her last year and spent more time with her this winter, before I left for Italy. We... fell in love. Don’t look at her like that, Mamma. She was an innocent, proper young lady until I came along, I assure you.”
“And the child...?” his mother asked.
“Is mine, yes,” Wesley replied.
“What?” his father’s face contorted in disbelief.
“I didn’t know she was with child. I left for Italy, and when Stephen came looking for me, he met Sophie and took advantage of the situation. He didn’t even try to find me!”
Mrs. Overtree turned to her. “Why didn’t you tell Wesley you were carrying his child?”
“He left before I gathered my courage to do so. I thought he might ask. Guess.”
“Foolish girl.”
“I left without warning, and she had no idea how long I would be gone,” Wesley defended her. “She felt desperate and believed Stephen’s assessment of my character—that I would not return, and could not be counted on to do the right thing even if I did. He fed her fears.”
Mr. Overtree looked at his son in bleak disillusionment. “How could you, Wesley? How could you leave a girl whose youth and innocence you had seduced, with no help, ignorant of your address? You did what no gentleman of feeling would do.”
“I did write. But that snake, O’Dell, hid the letter. But even if he had not, it would have reached her after she had already eloped with Stephen. For he lost no time in marrying her himself.”
Mr. Overtree shook his head in disgust. “This is thenoblecharacter of the son I raised.”
“Do not blame him alone, Mr. Overtree,” his wife said. “I don’t say Wesley is innocent, but what was he to think when a young woman spends time alone with him, posingen dishabille? Painters’ models are known to be loose women.”
“I was not a model,” Sophie insisted.
Mrs. Overtree flicked a hand toward the canvas. “Evidence to the contrary.”
“Only for Wesley.”
Mrs. Overtree glowered at her. “Is it not enough that you slept with one of my sons? But then to prey on the sympathies of the other?”
“It wasn’t like that!” Sophie cried. Her throat constricted, trapping the explanation inside:“Heoffered to marry me. Insisted. Said it was his dutyand his destiny...”Instead, all that emerged from her mortified body were tears.
Mr. Overtree sighed. “Poor Stephen.”
“Poor Stephen?” Wesley exclaimed. “What about me? What about Sophie?”
Mrs. Overtree gestured toward the bare-shoulder portrait. “She made her bed. Her choices.”
“Did Stephen know you were with child when he married you?” Mr. Overtree asked.
