Altered Images Page 10

  But where was Frederica’s bold, modern, unique style? And what the hell had she used . . . ? Manoeuvring the canvas near a window, he peered closely at the faint lines, and realised what she’d done. She’d used charcoal at first, drawing in a freehand that looked shockingly competent. Then . . . yes. His heart thumping, he realised she’d gone over that with a fine brush charged with raw umber and much diluted with turps. He knew what her next move would be, as surely as he knew his own name. When it was dry, she would brush off the charcoal. Once painted, the tell-tale lines would disappear and not even an expert like himself would ever guess they’d been there.

  It was incredibly, remarkably, cunning. ‘Oh Frederica,’ he murmured sadly, a resigned, grim smile twisting his lips. ‘Well, at least you’re good, my girl. Very good. But not, my darling, good enough to fool me.’ He put the canvas back, covering it in precisely the same way as he’d found it, and left the Ruskin again, this time heading straight for his car.

  The village of Cross Keys was a tiny place, and at the village pub, he was easily directed to Rainbow House. As he parked in front of the pleasing farmhouse, he realised that he hadn’t yet thought of an excuse for the visit. As he got out, his feet crunching on the gravel, a sun hat popped up from behind a thick standard rose tree. ‘Hello, can I help you?’

  Lorcan turned at the woman’s voice, seeing an older version of Frederica step out of the rose garden and walk towards him.

  ‘Hello, you must be Frederica’s sister,’ Lorcan smiled, holding out his hand.

  Donna Delacroix blushed happily. ‘Her mother, actually,’ she said modestly.

  Lorcan looked surprised. ‘Oh. I’m so sorry.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m Lorcan Greene, one of . . .’

  ‘The gallery owner?’ Donna breathed, an excited look in her eyes.

  ‘Yes. I’m a Visiting Fellow at the Ruskin at the moment. I wondered if . . .’

  ‘Freddy never told me!’ Donna interrupted, and Lorcan began to relax, realising an excuse was not going to be needed.

  ‘Well, please, come inside. You’ll want to see the collection of course?’ she asked.

  Lorcan instinctively knew that as far as this woman was concerned, anybody coming to Rainbow House had to be coming to see the paintings. He smiled and simply let himself be carried along on the tide of her enthusiasm. Now, all he had to do was . . . What? Always before he had worked to a certain pattern—logic, reason, a smattering of instinct. Now he was just blundering about blindly, acting on impulse. And he knew why of course. Or rather, he knew who had got him into this state.

  I need to see Frederica, he told himself firmly. He’d woken that morning with that one, single thought, that single command, in his head—and nothing was going to shift it.

  The big flagstone kitchen was blissfully cool, and in a moment he had a glass of iced tea in his hands and was being shepherded into a library, where a man snoozed contentedly on a leather-buttoned armchair.

  ‘James!’ Donna hissed, waking her husband and introducing him to ‘Frederica’s teacher’, Lorcan Greene. Lorcan bit back a grin at the description. So far, it was the other way round. Frederica had been teaching him a thing or two! Like the fact that he was vulnerable when it came to liquid dark eyes and freckles.

  With her husband in reluctant tow, Donna began the journey through the house’s many rooms, and various art works. After an hour and a half they were back in the kitchen. ‘Well, that was simply . . . incredible,’ Lorcan said. Never had he been shown so many good and bad paintings, hanging side by side.

  ‘I’m surprised Frederica didn’t tell us you were coming,’ James Delacroix said, helping himself to a piece of fruit cake, whilst his wife’s back was momentarily turned.

  ‘Oh, I was just passing through on the way back from an auction,’ Lorcan lied smoothly. ‘And since I met Frederica a few weeks ago, and offered to buy some of her work . . .’

  Donna shot Lorcan a dazed glance of utter astonishment. Even James paused, in the act of transferring the cake to his mouth.

  ‘You want to buy Frederica’s work?’ he asked, hardly able to believe his ears.

  ‘Of course,’ Lorcan said, genuinely puzzled. ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

  James shot his wife a ‘help me’ look, to which Donna responded with a rather unconvincingly laugh.

  ‘Oh, she probably wanted to surprise us. She’s very . . . er . . .very spontaneous isn’t she, James?’

  James, thinking that his daughter was more likely punishing him for getting her into this copying business, coughed and looked away.

  ‘She’s gone for a walk by the river,’ Donna added hastily.

  ‘It’s such a nice day . . .’ She trailed off suggestively, and Lorcan instantly took the hint.

  ‘Hmm. I think I could do with stretching my legs a little.’

  Donna directed him to the public footpath that led past the river and Mill Race, and watched him go, an excited look in her eyes. Could it be possible that the Delacroix family, at long last, had produced a real artist? Then Donna’s excitement turned in another direction altogether. Lorcan Greene, she’d read in a woman’s magazine recently, was one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors.

  * * *

  Frederica stood on the river bank, more or less where Forbes-Wright must have placed his original easel when he sat down to paint ‘The Old Mill and Swans’. Of course, the Mill House had long since been renovated but the basic structure was the same. The pollarded willows in Forbes-Wright’s painting had been left to grow unchecked now, and of course, on this occasion, there were no swans on the Mill pond—they were too busy sitting on eggs. Still, this was the original scene which . . .

  ‘Your nose is turning red.’

  Frederica yelped and twirled around, hardly able to believe her eyes. Lorcan Greene, dressed in casual grey slacks and a shirt open half-way down his chest, stood behind her. The summer breeze was ruffling the sleeves of his shirt, making the material billow out from his shoulders, giving her a glimpse of lightly tanned skin. She blinked.

  ‘You need sunscreen,’ he added. ‘Fair people like us can scorch easily in the sun. Come on, let’s head for the shade.’

  He held out his hand and she took it. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for both of them. Lorcan led her to a crumbling wall, overhung by a massive red horse-chestnut tree, buzzing with honeybees and singing birds. He stretched out on the cool grass, slipping off his shoes, and, after a moment’s hesitation, she did the same. He leaned back on one elbow and picked a blade of grass, twirling it and looking at her with an oddly helpless look in his hazel eyes that set her heart racing.

  The fact was, when he’d seen her standing there on the river bank, dressed in a nearly see-through, white summer dress, her hair flowing free down her back, he’d been gripped by a sense of destiny that had all but paralysed him. Everything about the moment seemed designed to undermine him—the sound of the water, the first startled and then overjoyed look which had filled her eyes. Even this particular spot seemed magical—completely hidden from human eyes by the wall and the shade of the tree.

  Knowing that he was about to make a momentous decision, Lorcan slowly tossed away the blade of grass.

  Frederica watched the small green blade twirl away, and when she looked back he was already reaching for her. She swayed forward, turning into his embrace, until she was lying in his lap, her arms looped around his neck. His mouth lowered to meet hers and she felt their lips touch. His seemed hesitant, at first, almost reluctant. Almost as if he didn’t want to kiss her. Then they were clinging together.

  Her hand wandered to the nape of his neck, running through the wheat-coloured locks of hair, warmed by the sun. She could smell the slight scent of his lemony, cool after-shave, the warmth of the dappled sunlight on her bare legs, the burning touch of his fingers on the tops of her arms and the small of her back. And then his hand was moving, from her arm to her ribcage, and up, up and around, to curl around her breast. This was the
point where she tensed up. Where she pushed her groping suitor away. At least, in the past, that’s what had always happened. The touch of a male hand on her breast had always felt like a trespass before. An unwanted liberty. But now . . . now . . .

  She gasped, feeling her nipple harden and pulsate in the palm of his hand. The late May day had become too warm to wear a bra, and the thin silky material of the dress was no barrier at all to the warm, questing strength of his fingers.

  Lorcan raised his head and took a shaky breath. He looked down into trusting eyes as beautiful as ebony velvet. ‘This is . . . impossible,’ he said, his voice sounding husky and thick, and for the first time in a long time, bearing the faintest nuances of a cockney accent.

  Frederica blinked. His eyes, she thought, were the colour of a Turner seascape—not greeny-blue, not grey nor hazel, but a combination of all three. Like a warm, inviting sea.

  ‘It’s impossible,’ he repeated again.

  ‘Why?’ she asked simply.

  Lorcan couldn’t think of an answer. He knew there was one somewhere, but right at that moment, when he needed it the most, he couldn’t think of it. A ray of sunlight filtering through the trees turned a lock of hair curled around his wrist into a flaming auburn manacle. All he had to do to be free, was to pull away from her. But his limbs felt like lead.

  She reached up, her hand cupping the hard, flat plane of his cheek. She rubbed a thumb across his lips, felt the small sigh of his breath, and then a molten heat began to flood over her, turning her bones liquid and her body into a sensual, warm, waiting, receptacle.

  Lorcan shut his eyes. But it didn’t help. The touch of her thumb on his lips became a torment. The scent wafting from her hair reminded him of violets. She felt light as air in his arms, but somehow she was dragging him down, down, down . . .

  They lay sprawled on the grass now, one of his legs between hers, his hands on either side of her head. They kissed, parted, kissed, parted and kissed again, each touch of the lips becoming more urgent, more needy, more passionate.

  His fingers found and unbuttoned the plain buttons of her dress. His hand slipped inside, and she cried out, her back arching off the grass as skin touched skin, palm to breast, the sheer intimacy of it taking her breath away.

  Lorcan moaned, finally surrendering to the inevitable. Ever since he’d met her, he’d been fighting a losing battle against attraction. A battle against his own desire. A battle where logic fought emotion, and emotion, smug in the knowledge of its superiority, now emerged the clear victor.

  He sighed, somewhere deep inside him, knowing that he was now entering uncharted territory. No woman had ever affected him like this. And it had to mean . . .

  He moved his lips down, over her pale, arched throat, down to the tender spot on her sternum, then across, to one hot, pink, pulsating nipple. Frederica cried out, opening her eyes to a giddying kaleidoscope of blue sky, pink blossom, and wheat-coloured hair. She closed her eyes again as his lips left her tender breast, but then she was sitting up, and he was smothering her neck, her throat, her shoulders, with kisses, pushing the dress back off her arms, the material falling down to her waist. Her skin was pale as milk as he lay her back against the grass.

  He took a few deep breaths and opened his eyes, but the sight of her, naked and innocent, eyes as dark and knowing as Eve, had him shaking his head. He knew, dimly, that he was on the edge of a precipice. That if he fell, he might never be able to climb back to where he’d been before. For an instant, a fierce primordial anger began to rise, deep inside him.

  But then, Frederica reached up and pulled him back to her, sighing with pleasure at the feel of his firmly-muscled thigh against hers. Her hands brushed against the hardness of his loins, and she felt him stiffen and tense. She saw his jaw clench, saw the eyes snap open and spark.

  So much power! She had never realised before how much power women had over men. And, in that instant of eye-clashing, soul-exchanging intensity, Lorcan was lost. Frederica watched him unbuttoning his belt, and stiffened, waiting for some sensation of denial or panic to start building up in her.

  But it didn’t come. It was as if all those boys she’d rejected suddenly made sense. In the past she hadn’t never really understood why she’d clung on to her virginity for so long, in the teeth of modern-day thinking. Now she knew. It wasn’t because she was frigid, or immature or downright prim. It was because none of them had been him. The man for whom she’d been waiting all her life.

  Now she reached out, helping him to push the slacks down, and when she finally saw him, proud and hard, she swallowed back sudden tears of tenderness. ‘Lorcan,’ she whispered, about to warn him. He was used to women who were his equal when it came to lovemaking. Not . . . But his lips were on hers again, and when she felt his hand move up her thigh, pushing aside the dress, finding the plain white cotton of her briefs, she felt her legs fall apart, welcoming him.

  She gasped as he pulled the panties down, over her knees, and tossed them to one side. Lorcan groaned, his body as tense as violin wire. He moved over her, her knees like silken pillars as they moved against the sides of his buttocks. ‘Lorcan,’ she tried to warn him again, but then she felt the very tip of him pressing against her, and she gasped, tensing for just one instant before melting, melting . . . And then, with one fluid, sure, dominating thrust, he was inside her, filling her, causing just one instant of shocked pain, before a sensation of fulfilment and pleasure took its place, blocking out that memory for ever.

  Lorcan’s eyes shot open. ‘Frederica . . . ?’ he groaned, realising, in one heart-stopping, earth-shattering moment, the precious quality of the gift she’d given him. A gift he’d never even suspected might be his for the taking.

  She sighed, opening her velvet eyes and smiling up at him. ‘Make love to me, Lorcan,’ she commanded him softly.

  And so he did.

  Gently. Carefully. Skilfully bringing her to the brink of desire again and again with slow, deep, powerful thrusts, until her head was thrashing from side to side in the grass and her fingernails raked down his back in frustrated ecstasy. The spiralling sensation of tight, undreamed of pleasure, exploded inside her, and she called out his name, sending a pair of thrushes flying from the tree in alarm.

  Her back arched, her bare heels dug convulsively into the ground, and her head fell back against the grass as she trembled in the violent aftermath of climax. Lorcan watched her with a tenderness and rage and puzzlement that she was too oblivious to notice. And then, just when she thought it was all over, it began again.

  * * *

  Back at Rainbow House, James got a telephone call from George Makin, an old friend of his from college days, who was now the senior partner of a large firm of solicitors.

  ‘So,’ George said, after they’d caught up. ‘Who’s the big villain you’re working for now?’

  ‘Big villain? Around here? You must be joking,’ James laughed.

  ‘Oh.’ George, a big, amiable man, sounded suddenly uncomfortable. ‘But I thought . . .’ There was a long silence, and then, ‘I say, James, old chap—you haven’t by any chance been doing anything . . . odd . . . with that collection of paintings of yours?’

  James bolted upright in his chair. ‘No!’ He cleared his throat. ‘No, why do you ask?’

  Now George’s embarrassment was palpable, even over the telephone. ‘Oh, nothing much. It’s just . . . a clerk over at the Fletcher Chambers told me . . . well, that someone in the Art Fraud Squad had been nosing around. Something about ongoing investigation in Oxford. Your name was mentioned. Naturally, I thought . . . well, that you were acting for some dodgy dealer or something.’

  James Delacroix licked lips gone suddenly dry. ‘No, can’t say I know anything about it. But there’s nothing wrong here, I can assure you.’

  ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear to it,’ his old friend laughed. They chatted about a class reunion for a while, and then hung up, George cheerfully, James looking worried.

  For a
long while he sat and stared at the carpet in front of him. Nobody could know that he’d asked Freddy to copy the Forbes-Wright for him, could they? So what interest could the Art Fraud Squad have in them, for pity’s sake! It wasn’t as if Rainbow House ever sold paintings, they only bought them.

  No, they were all right, him and Freddy. They must be. Weren’t they?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The small gaggle of interested actors approached the set of massive gates and stepped through the entrance to St Bede’s, finding themselves in a small, flagstoned quad.

  ‘Wow, I feel like I’ve just stepped into a church or something,’ Julie whispered in awe, looking round at the mellow ivy-covered walls and rows of large sash windows.

  On their left was indeed a large building with a beautiful round stained-glass window. A student, slouched against a wall, suddenly came to life. ‘Hello. Are you the people who are doing the murder mystery weekend?’ he asked jovially.

  ‘That’s us, dear heart,’ Norman Rix couldn’t help teasing.

  ‘Er . . . right. The Principal asked me to show you around the good ol’ Venerable. It’s what everyone calls us.’

  The entire cast made a mental note of his comment.

  ‘Right, well this is the lodge, as you can see, where we pick up our mail. Oh, I’m Barry, by the way. At the moment, we’re standing in St Agatha’s, or St Agnes’, Quad, depending on which Classics professor you talk to. Over there is the chapel, of course. Built in the Middle Ages.’

  ‘Can we go inside?’ Annis asked, thinking of the Sunday morning scene, when she had to make a fuss about sitting in a pew far away from the radiators.

  ‘Of course. It’s always open,’ Barry said, and led the way inside, the cast shivering in the sudden coldness. But the high-beamed ceiling was magnificent, and Annis began to fully appreciate how much this magnificent backdrop would help ‘the play’.