Who Is Deborah? by Elise Title

Author:Elise Title
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

I didn’t see Nicholas for the rest of that day. When I came down to the dining room for dinner at seven in the evening, only one place was set on the long, gleaming mahogany table. Was this to be the way it would be from now on? I wondered. Would Nicholas and I be strangers in our own home? Was he still avoiding me because of the fiasco of the night before, or was he now punishing me for having “trespassed” and uncovered my ravaged paintings?

But I wasn’t trespassing. This was my house, too. By all accounts, save my own, I was Nicholas’s wife. Those paintings were mine. He’d had no right at all to destroy them. Nor did he have the right to keep me from having access to the studio I had once used. If I chose to resume using the studio to paint again, I saw no reason why I couldn’t.

Actually, that was the first real impulse I’d had to take up a paintbrush since I’d arrived at Raven’s Cove. I’d been in too constant a state of turmoil to even consider it. I felt as if all my creative juices had been drained out of me. Yet, I knew I needed to get back to painting. It would be good for me, provide a real escape from my misery. I remembered how good I’d felt at the hospital when I painted. It had been my sanctuary. It would be—again.

Yes. I’ll begin tomorrow. And then I thought of that attic studio and shivered. I couldn’t paint up there, the scene of such violation. I would never be able to get the image of those slashed paintings out of my mind. I would have to find some other place in the house. There were certainly plenty enough unused rooms for only two people. No, I reminded myself. Not two. Three. Lillian might only occupy a tiny bedroom on the third floor and preside over the kitchen, but I could feel her haunting presence throughout the house. She was always watching me. Like the night before, in the den with Nicholas. And again this afternoon with Greg. I wondered if she reported my meeting with Greg to Nicholas. She must have seen him comforting me. Would she distort the encounter into some romantic liaison, hoping to turn Nicholas against me even more? Was that another reason why he hadn’t joined me for dinner? How could I have forgotten about Lillian, even for an instant? Wishful thinking, I supposed.

I forced her from my mind once more, concentrating on what would be a good spot for a new studio. One of the north-facing bedrooms on the second floor. Yes. That would do nicely. It would mean moving out some of the furniture, or at least reorganizing the pieces so there’d be room for me to set up an easel by the window. I could clear off a bookshelf and line it with some vinyl shelving paper to store my paints.

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