“That’s difficult though, isn’t it? This business affects Nathaniel.”
“Mallory probably drank too much in the tavern and wandered around in the dark. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s drowned that way.”
“Or he leapt to his death because of a broken heart?”
“What a romantic you are.” Cilla grinned. “I came across Mallory once in the woods when I was picking wildflowers. Their colors are useful for my work. He had Mina, the maid at Wolfram at the time, up against a tree. Her blouse was open and her skirts hiked up around her waist. It must have pained her, that rough bark rubbing against the delicate skin of her back as he drove into her.”
Laura flushed at her blatant description. “Do you think Mallory forced himself on her?”
“No. She was mad about him.”
“Was this before he and Amanda…created the rose arbor?”
“I can’t remember.” She frowned. “What is this about, Laura?”
“I want to understand what happened here,” Laura said, frustration causing her voice to tremble. “You don’t have the slightest suspicion how Amanda met her death?”
The amusement fled from Cilla’s features, rendering her face pinched and rather plain. “No. I thought we were discussing Mallory.”
“Mallory told me that Amanda was unhappy here.”
“Amanda was a difficult woman to make happy. She wanted too much.” She shook her head. “This will be hard on Nathaniel. More fuel to add to the gossip mill.”
Laura sucked in a sharp breath. “They can hardly blame him. Why should any of this fall on Nathaniel’s shoulders? Mallory had been to the police. He’d told them what he knew. An act of revenge perhaps. Or might he have withheld some guilty person’s name and that person killed him to keep him silent?”
“You would make a good detective.” Cilla turned toward the door. “I’ll make us some tea.”
Laura rubbed her arms as she strolled around the small sitting room. There was always so much to distract one here, from a delicate wildflower to a strangely shaped stone. A tiny likeness in an oval frame hung from a blue velvet ribbon on the wall. On closer inspection, the woman resembled Amanda as she was portrayed in Cilla’s painting at the abbey.
Struck by a sudden thought, Laura whirled around. She moved quickly to the annex and, with a glance at the kitchen door, lifted the cloth which covered the painting. She gasped. A nude, fair-haired woman lay on a blue velvet chaise. Her expression seductive, she invited the viewer in with a tempting curl of her lovely lips. The position in which she lay reminded Laura of Titian’sVenus of Urbino. The woman held a posy of flowers in one hand, while the other rested at the top of her thighs hiding her sex. Lying beside her, incongruously, was a blue parasol with a pearl handle, the same umbrella that was in Amanda’s portrait. This work was unlike the rest of Cilla’s paintings, the fine detail lovinglywrought.
Laura felt as if she’d glimpsed something intimate. Hearing the rattle of the tray, she dropped the cloth and turned to see Cilla staring ather.
Scowling, Cilla placed the tray on the table. “I asked you not to look at my paintings until they were finished, Laura!” She shook her head. “You are so impatient. Why couldn’t you wait?”
Laura was surprised by the force of Cilla’s reaction. She looked quite bereft. “I’m sorry, I’d forgotten.” She wondered if Cilla would ever have shown it to her. “It’s Amanda, isn’t it?”
Cilla sank onto the sofa. She unloaded the tray. “Amanda was the perfect model. She fascinated me because, inside, she was nothing like she presented to the world.” She handed the cup to Laura. “Her beauty mesmerized one. So delicate of feature, so slender a body, and her skin…” She shook her head. “But inside she was as hard as those granite cliffs. I don’t believe she was capable of love.”
Cilla constantly shocked her. Laura could never be sure what she would say next. “Do you think Amanda broke Nathaniel’s heart?”
Cilla shrugged. “How should I know? He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve.”
“I just can’t see how Mallory fit into all this. If, as you say, Amanda didn’t care for him.”
“Amanda was a flirt. She even tried to beguile Pitney, but she got nowhere with him. Mallory was just another of her conquests she used to her advantage. She had him eating out of her hand. I didn’t ask her how she went about it.”
“But surely Amanda wouldn’t have encouraged Mallory. She was carrying Nathaniel’s child.”
Cilla took a sip of tea. “I wondered if she really wanted to be a mother. She hated the way the pregnancy changed her body and made no secret of the fact.”
Amanda might have felt uncomfortable and complained, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want her baby. Laura wondered if Cilla, so wrapped up in her art and not particularly maternal, might fail to understand a woman’s need for achild.
“Have you been lonely? You seem so self-contained.”
Cilla studied the painting on the easel. “I’m content to be alone most of the time. People demand too much from you. They’re exhausting.”
“Amanda’s close association with Mallory must have angered Nathaniel.”
