For Tessa, the memory of this night was too precious to share, even with her best friend. Her lips parted, about to spout some outlandish tale which bore no resemblance to the actual events, when the portrait hanging above the fireplace caught her eye. She was no longer capable of speech. Her feet carried her to stand behind the winged back chair facing the fireplace, the one in which he had been sitting. Her legs were suddenly so weak, had she not been gripping the back of the chair Tessa wasn’t sure they would hold her.
“Jessica, who is the man in the painting?” she whispered when she was at last able to force words past a throat which had tightened up on her.
“Gorgeous, isn’t he?” Jessica answered. “That’s Bryce Mathison, the man who built Rosehaven in 1856.”
The man smiling down from the painting was so familiar, Tessa’s heart stuttered within her chest. He was wearing tight black britches tucked into knee-high riding boots and a black silk shirt opened to the waist. His hair was black as a raven’s wing and his eyes were a deep, dark, mesmerizing onyx. Standing beside his horse within a field of daisies, his hand was extended as if he were offering a single daisy to a lover who stood just beyond the canvas.
The Phantom Lover Page 3