A Silken Seduction

by Yvonne Lindsay

  * * *

  Waverly’s was quiet when he let himself in. Only one office appeared to be occupied, Ann Richardson’s. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now so he turned in the other direction and headed for his office. He hadn’t been at his desk long when he heard a gentle knock at his door.

  “Marcus? Is that you? I thought I saw you come in,” Ann said, letting herself in and settling into the chair opposite him. “You’re in early. What does your new wife have to say about that? Congratulations by the way, I’m sorry I couldn’t make the ceremony on Saturday.”

  Marcus shot her a weak smile. “Work to do, you know how it is.” He couldn’t speak to her about what had happened with Avery last night. It was still too raw. He deflected the focus of conversation off himself. “Did you even go home last night?”

  She laughed, a self-deprecating chuckle. “Fair call, and for the record, yes, I did go home last night. Speaking of last night, how did dinner go?”

  “The food was great,” he commented, saying more with what he’d left unsaid.

  Ann sat back in the chair, and waited for him to tell her what he imagined she’d really come to hear.

  Marcus continued. “There’s something about him… I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I don’t trust him. He offered me a job with Rothschild’s. I expect you probably already guessed that was his intention.”

  “Was it a good offer?” she asked.

  “It was a great offer. I didn’t take it, of course.”

  “Of course.” She smiled but the action lacked any warmth. “Thank you for your loyalty, Marcus. It won’t go unrewarded. I know you’re hoping for a partnership and you’ve earned the right to expect that. Just let us get through the next few months.”

  “Whatever it takes, Ann. I’m not in a hurry to go anywhere else.” He sighed inwardly, wondering how much of Dalton’s discussion he should share with her. It was probably only fair that she know the kind of scurrilous rumors he was spreading. “Watch your back with Rothschild, Ann. He’s got a lot to say about you, and none of it’s good.”

  “I suppose he’s still beating that drum about the alleged collusion?”

  “That, and the situation with the Gold Heart statue. We’re certain it’s not stolen property?”

  Ann’s mouth drew into a straight line. “Roark has never let me down before. He wouldn’t have done so now.”

  “You hope.”

  “Yes, I hope.” She shook her head. “No, I know he hasn’t. Everything will turn out all right. We just have to be patient.”

  She rose to leave and Marcus was struck by the physical similarities between his boss and Avery. Both tall, both slender, both blonde and beautiful. Even their eyes were a similar blue, but that’s where their resemblance began and ended. While Ann was an undeniably attractive woman, and he had the deepest respect for her, she had never appealed to him physically. There was little vulnerability about Ann, at least not that he’d ever noticed before, and it was the vulnerability about Avery that had drawn him so inexorably toward her.

  He realized it was also that vulnerability that had made him think she was weak, that she needed his strength and protection. But he could see she had strength in full measure. It was that strength that had seen her walk away from him. It was that strength that would take care of her right now.

  Perhaps that was part of his problem, Marcus conceded. His inherent need to be a knight in shining armor, slaying dragons for everyone else—but himself. Not ever wanting to acknowledge the things that could, and did, hurt him. It may be wrong of him, but that need to protect was what made him decide that his boss deserved all the support she could get. He may have hopelessly let down one of the women in his life; he was not about to do the same to the other.

  “Let me know if there’s any more I can do, Ann.”

  “Thanks, Marcus,” she said with a half smile that didn’t quite negate the worry in her eyes.

  * * *

  Avery’s eyes burned with exhaustion as her cab pulled up outside her home. She felt as if she’d aged seven years, not just seven days since she’d last been here. She’d called her lawyer’s office the moment her flight had landed but had been thwarted when she’d been told he was out of the office all day. She hadn’t left a message or asked to speak with anyone else. Her stupidity was still too painful a reality for her to be comfortable giving that information to anyone else.

  “Come on in, you poor love. I have your room all ready for you.”

  Mrs. Jackson’s comforting chatter washed over her with the long-standing ease of familiarity and she allowed the older woman to guide her up to her room, help her undress and put her to bed. But, despite not being able to sleep on the flight, Avery could only lie on her bed, her body rigid with tension, her eyes staring unseeingly at the molded-plaster ceiling.

  After an hour she couldn’t take it any longer. She rose and pulled on a pair of faded blue jeans and a long-sleeved sweater and went down to the garden.

  The place looked beautiful. Ted had worked a miracle. But although she could appreciate the hard work he’d put into setting the garden back to rights, back to how her father had loved it, she took little joy in its splendor.

  “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon,” Ted said, coming around the side of the house to stand beside her. “But I’m glad I can say goodbye in person.”

  “Nor did I,” Avery said, her voice flat. She turned to face him. “Thank you so much for all your work here. I know you said from the beginning that you’d only stay a month, but is there any chance I can change your mind? You’ve done a marvelous job. I’d love it if you could stay on.”

  “It was a delight, thank you for entrusting it to me. As lovely as it was, I think it’s time I headed homeward soon. Folks will be needing me there.”

  “I’d be happy to give you a reference if you need one.”

  “Thank you, but, no. I won’t be needing one.” Ted gave her a searching look, his gaze dropping to her left hand. “That’s a mighty pretty set of baubles you’re wearing there. Congratulations.”

  Avery tried to tug the rings off her finger, but her hands had swollen slightly during the flight and hadn’t settled back down. “Don’t bother congratulating me,” she said as she tried to work the set off. “It was a mistake.”

  “A mistake? Marrying someone is a pretty big step. You wouldn’t have done that without thinking about it.”

  “That’s the problem,” she said, a sob rising in her throat. “I didn’t think.”

  “There, there now,” Ted comforted, patting her awkwardly on her shoulder as he led her to a bench and sat her down. “Tell me all about it.”

  Before she could stop herself she heard the words babbling from her lips—everything. How she’d been attracted to Marcus from the start, how she’d known she was falling in love with him. How he’d been so obsessed with Lovely Woman and then the awful truth about discovering his relationship to the painting and how he’d used her to get joint ownership of it.

  “You know,” Ted said gently as she continued to sob beside him on the bench, “while Price might have sought you out to further his career, and to get the painting, I have no doubt the man loves you dearly. Working here in the garden gave me a chance to watch him, and to watch the two of you together. He fought it, yep, he really did. But he couldn’t stop himself from loving you.”

  “Loving me? No, you’re mistaken. The only thing he loves is that canvas up in my studio,” Avery responded bitterly.

  Deep down, though, she wanted Ted’s words to be true. But Marcus’s actions, the very words from his own lips when she’d accused him of using her, made such a hope ridiculously impossible.

  “I’m sorry, Avery. Really sorry. But I think you should give the man another chance.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” she
whispered.

  “Look into your heart,” Ted said. “You’ll find the answer there. Well,” he said with a sigh, “my work here is done. Remember what I said. Give him another chance. He’s worth it—and so are you.”

  * * *

  The next morning Marcus slept through his alarm. He had been up all night again, calling collectors the world over for any news of Avery’s angel, eventually hitting the sheets somewhere around 3:00 a.m. He’d thought he was close at one point, but as it had so many times before, the trail had been a false one. He was seething with frustration as he made his way toward his office.

  “You can’t just leave that in there!” Lynette’s voice filtered down the hall, the outrage in her tone a bittersweet reminder of Mrs. Jackson’s indignation that first time he’d gone to Avery’s house. God help him if the two women ever got together!

  “What’s going on?” he asked, coming around the corner to see Lynette standing in his office doorway, her body rigid with irritation.

  “I tried to stop them, Mr. Price. I told them and told them, items need to be inventoried in the storerooms downstairs and that they’re not supposed to come to the seventh floor.”

  “Just following orders, miss,” said the guy who was obviously senior to his partner as they maneuvered a large packing crate, about six feet high and equally as deep, off a low gurney and onto the floor at one side of Marcus’s office. “Are you Marcus Price?”

  “I am. Show me those orders,” Marcus commanded, stepping around his PA and into the office.

  The spokesman for the pair of deliverymen handed Marcus a sheet of paper and pointed a grubby finger at the clearly specified delivery instructions. URGENT. To be delivered personally to Marcus Price. He then keyed a few digits on the electronic device he pulled from his belt and requested Marcus’s digital signature on the screen. Bemused, Marcus did as requested.

  “This is highly irregular, Mr. Price. We really must be seen to follow procedure,” Lynette sputtered in the doorway as the two men shuffled past her.

  “I agree, but let’s see what it is first, hmm?”

  “You’ll be needing this, then.” Lynette disappeared from the doorway for a moment then returned, passing him a long slim crowbar.

  Marcus raised his eyebrows at her. “You keep this in your desk?” At her nod he replied, “Remind me not to make you mad.”

  “Just open the crate,” she said.

  The sides of the crate squealed in protest as Marcus pried them loose, nail by nail. He pulled away the packaging inside, strewing it across his office floor as, when the shape of the contents began to become clear, an unexpected excitement lit inside him.

  “Oh, my, isn’t she a beauty?” Lynnette commented, stepping forward to touch the pale marble face of the winged angel.

  Avery’s angel.

  Marcus couldn’t move. All he could do was stare in disbelief. For weeks he’d tried to find it, and now here it was in his office. He grabbed the sheet of paper the deliverymen had left with him, searching it for some identifying address as to its origin. But there was nothing.

  “Lynnette, call the delivery company and find out where this came from,” he instructed, his eyes once more glued to the serene beauty of the angel.

  She was back in a moment. “No details, I’m sorry.”

  “That can’t be right. In this day and age? To ship something this valuable without a full manifesto detailing where and who it came from?”

  Lynette just shrugged. “Apparently so.”

  “But, why?” Marcus mused out loud.

  “Maybe this will give you some idea,” his PA said, stepping forward and pulling a white envelope with Marcus’s name on the front from behind the wing of the statue. “It was taped on,” she said, passing him the envelope.

  The handwriting gave no clue as to who had penned his name with such bold black strokes of a pen. Marcus ripped the envelope open and pulled out the single sheet from inside.

  My wedding gift… My work here is done. —the gardener.

  “Who’s the gardener?” Lynette asked, unashamedly reading the note over Marcus’s shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” Marcus said, although something plucked at the back of his mind.

  The only gardener he knew of was the man who’d been tidying up Avery’s garden. Surely someone like him wouldn’t have had access to something like this? At least not legally.

  Marcus racked his memory. What was the guy’s name? Ted something…Wells, that was right. Ted Wells. Avery had met him through some discussion board. Which begged the question, if the guy knew Avery was looking for the statue and had obviously known where the angel statue was all along, why had he kept it from her all this time?

  Fifteen

  Avery stood at her studio windows, staring at the light drizzle that fell steadily outside. Its cool gray emptiness was the perfect metaphor for how she felt right now. Colorless, lacking substance and with no clear lines marking a beginning or end to the confusion and unhappiness that dwelt deep inside her. She’d been home for three whole days and still she’d been unable to shake Ted Wells’s words from her mind.

  Give him another chance, Ted had urged.

  A part of her wanted to do just that, but another—the part that still throbbed painfully with the knowledge that he’d used her—held firm and unforgiving. It was one betrayal too many.

  Her hand fluttered to her belly. The life inside, mere cells replicating, an integral part of her already. And a part of Marcus, as well.

  Would their baby be like him? Would it be an eternal torment to look upon their child and perhaps see Marcus’s eyes looking back at her? She turned and walked over to her easel. The oil she’d done of Marcus was still lying against it as she’d left it after his final sitting.

  She tried to consider the piece with a critical eye, considering whether or not to simply reduce the canvas to a blank sheet once more, but the ache in her chest at the thought of painting over his likeness, of making it as if he’d never been there, impossible. She loved Marcus, and she wanted the hurt to go away, but she didn’t think she could trust him now. Especially not knowing that he’d deliberately kept his real reasons for coming here to himself even when they married.

  Avery twisted her rings around on her finger. Her fingers had settled down again, back to their usual slenderness and she could have taken the rings off at any time. Yet every time she thought about it she felt his loss just that much deeper. Now, it forced her to face the truth. She didn’t want to be without him. He was the father of her baby, the man she loved as she’d loved no other. Was it possible they could ever consider trying anew together? Could they build the kind of marriage her parents had enjoyed until her mother’s illness had stolen her life from them?

  She imagined living a half life, as her father had done for all those years after her mother had died. A half life without Marcus at her side. No wonder her father had never remarried. He’d loved once, deeply, forever—as Avery loved Marcus. She was more her father’s daughter than she’d ever imagined. Right now she couldn’t even begin to imagine entrusting her heart to another person. No wonder her father had never been able to do the same.

  Suddenly she couldn’t bear to look at the painting any longer. She turned and left the studio. Mrs. Jackson was looking for her downstairs.

  “There’s a delivery truck at the gates,” she said, coming to meet Avery as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “They say they have a consignment for you, from New York.”

  “I’m not expecting anything, did they give you any details?”

  “No, but they insist they have all the correct paperwork for you to sign.”

  “We’d better let them in, then, but ask them to bring me the paperwork before they unload,” Avery said, her curiosity tempered with caution. The only person who’d be sending her
anything from New York would be Marcus. So what was he up to? she wondered.

  When Mrs. Jackson brought her the paperwork she felt an unexpected surge of fury.

  Marble Angel Statue, circa 1900.

  “How dare he?” she fumed. Did he think he could buy her off with some replica of her angel? Did he imagine for one second that she could be fooled into accepting anything but the original?

  She stormed off, looking for Mrs. Jackson so she could tell the deliverymen they could take their darned consignment and deliver it right back where it came from. To her horror, she saw them through the French doors leading onto the terrace. They were in the garden already, and the sides of the crate were being removed. She flew through the doors and across the terrace.

  “Don’t—” she started to shout but whatever she was about to say next died in her throat as she saw what was inside the crate.

  “I never thought I’d see the day,” Mrs. Jackson said as she sniffed, tears unashamedly trickling over her rounded cheeks. “Isn’t she beautiful? She’s finally back where she belongs.”

  Avery sank to her knees, oblivious to the moisture on the grass soaking through the denim of her jeans. She could barely believe her eyes as the team who’d come with the delivery truck and a portable crane, lifted the angel from the crate and back onto the empty plinth where she’d resided so many years ago.

  As if to lend its seal of approval, the sun broke through the clouds, gilding the marble with its warm glow. Around her, the delivery crew gathered together all their paraphernalia and tools and withdrew. Avery was vaguely aware of the sound of the truck leaving the property but she still couldn’t take her eyes from the statue.

  “Look at you,” Mrs. Jackson chastised, “you’re getting yourself all soaked there in the grass. Come on inside.”