I feel it now—we’re safe. For the moment, at least.
He moves quickly and I dodge his movements to keep out of his way as he sets up. He mumbles a bit to himself, as if he’s always lived alone. He throws furtive glances my way, stands protectively close, and frowns. Was I talkative before? Does he expect me to chatter? I turn, he shifts, and we collide.
“Oh. My apologies. I didn’t—”
“No, no.” He waves his hand. “Think nothing of it.” He spreads a blanket and food, which is a generous spread for a hasty snack: boiled eggs, bread, and cheese. It must have been his lunch, but the pain in my belly won’t let me turn it down. Curling my legs beneath me, I eat quickly, feeling strength and clarity returning. He hovers as I eat, and then I lift my gaze and he’s watching me. No…studying.Relearning the planes of my face, the angles of my features. The exact hue of my eyes.
That face. It’s so familiar.“I dreamed of you,” I admit.
“Did you?” He smiles. He has a mustache, neatly trimmed, just above his well-formed upper lip.
“You kept asking me not to leave. But I always did…not on purpose. I simply woke up.” I set the food down and plant my palms on the rock. “I didn’t mean to stay away so long.”
He brushes the hair from my face again. “All I know is that you’re back. I can scarcely believe it.”
I look into his face, that kind and gentle face, and I tell him much of the last three years. The accident, the lost memories, thelong years of living in a fog, the unknown past that nipped at my heels. We speak for a long time as the sun fully rises—or rather, I speak and he listens, asking questions here and there.
At last I stop, unable to bring up either Cecil or AJ yet, and we fall silent. I’m asking a lot of him, I realize. I’ve just dropped onto his beach after years away and asked him to help me escape without much explanation. He should be questioning me, especially about the man from whom I’m running, but he treats my presence as a fragile ornament one must handle gently.
He takes my hands, looking at me with a soft glow. He holds me close for the briefest moment, then releases me, as if afraid to overwhelm me with his advances, and then he tips his head, face alight. He has a request to make—it’s working its way to the surface. “May I paint you?” He asks it reverently, as if I am royalty.
“If you wish,” I say. I can scarcely breathe the way he’s studying me now, and cannot imagine what it would be to have him paint me. He’d note the shape of my lips, the exact curve of my neck as it sloped down toward my white linen dress. Every flaw, every nuance, would be seen and recorded.
Yet I take his hand, allow him to escort me away from the overlook. He’s watching me, never taking his gaze from me, as if he cannot believe I’m real. There’s a heady sense of déjà vu as we walk hand in hand over the grassy ledge, leading the horse toward a giant rock where I know he’ll have me pose. “This is how it started, you know,” he says, his voice low. “You agreed to be my model. Do you remember?”
“It does seem…familiar.” I wish to say yes—yes, I remember everything about us—but my vague answer doesn’t seem to ruffle him. “How did you propose?”
He drops his gaze. “There was a path of wildflowers. All our friends were there, and you were…radiant. I asked you in the moonlight, on the beach.”
“We were married there too, weren’t we?” That’s the scene I keep seeing. The one in a white dress, flower petals blowing in the wind.
He clears his throat and looks down. “Yes. Yes, we…” He turns from me, extracting another easel from where he left it wrapped in oilcloth in a rock crevice, then his canvas. He arranges them, then hands me up onto the rock. Taking a few paces back, he looks up at me and blinks back moisture. “More beautiful than ever.”
My heart swells and I reward him with a smile. As he flits about behind his canvas, my mind wanders to Cecil. I clear my throat. “There’s more I must say to you.” Although I don’t wish to. “I know it isn’t fair to ask you for anything more.”
“The answer is yes. Anything you wish, it’s yes.”
I tell him about the legal battles with Sabine and about Cecil and what a singular boy he is. Rupert grins. “A child. Well, we must help you fight for him.”
A swirl of relief. All the pieces of the puzzle are coming together to form the picture I should have seen all along. I clung to AJ and safety, avoiding my past, only to find each piece I discover is more beautiful than the last. And that it is exactly where I belong after all.
Telling him of Cecil was surprisingly easy and I cannot think why I was afraid to reveal this particular part of my new life.
If only I could stop there.
I saved the most difficult reveal, however, for last.
Chapter 29
Whatmakesaportraittake so long? An entire day to record a single moment. We venture farther up the path to a high knoll blocked from the beach by boulders. It’s so hidden that there’s no chance of anyone finding us here. Not for a while, anyway.
We talk more—I close my eyes and lay back on a rock, allowing his smooth, warm voice to fall upon me. He explains how to mix paint as he does it. He tells of his parents back in Grosvenor Square, chiding and doubting him. Did I know all of this once? Did we speak of it? We must have, because it feels so ordinary. So natural. We pause and share more of his food, and he continues painting and talking.
This. This feels so familiar.
I’m lounging on cliffs overlooking Newlyn as he cleans and dries his brushes, and he tells me a story of smugglers. Meanwhile my own shadowed story is pressing in against my mind. The tightness of a headache begins to form at the base of my head and I rub my neck. We’ve skimmed the surface,dancing about the truth, but now it’s time to dive in. To ask him questions about my past…and reveal more of my present.
When the pause is sufficiently long, the question slips out: “Was I happy here?”
