“You need to free yourself before you can move on.”

“Yes.” She nodded, then remembered and repositioned her head. “That’s it exactly. Until Mama’s killer is caught, time for me will stand still. I can’t go away and leave it-the suspicion-behind; it’ll follow me wherever I go. So I have to shatter it, disperse it, eradicate it, before I’ll be free to start living again.”

He said nothing. She slanted a glance his way. He was rapidly sketching. A small, beguiling smile played at the corner of his lips.

“What are you smiling at?”

He looked up, met her gaze-and she was instantly aware of a sense of communion, a connection of a sort she’d never shared with anyone else.

Looking down, he continued sketching, but the curve of his lips deepened. “I was thinking I ought to call this ‘Waiting for Time to Move.’ ”

She smiled, turning her head fractionally so she could direct that smile at him.

He looked up; his gaze sharpened, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t move-stay just like that.” His fingers had already whipped the page over and he was furiously sketching anew.

Mentally raising her brows, she did as he asked. “Sitting” was tiring, but also strangely relaxing.

They’d been sitting in perfect peace for ten or more minutes when a firm step on the path approaching the stone viewing stage, not far away, had them both turning to look.

Gerrard got to his feet, closing his sketchbook. “I’ve got enough of that pose for now.”

He crossed to where she sat and reached for her hand; he ignored their mutual sensitivity-that odd, concerted leap of their pulses-and drew her to her feet. Her hand locked in his, he held her beside him and turned to face whoever was marching along the path; it wasn’t Barnaby, and no gardener walked with such an assured tread.

“It’s Jordan,” Jacqueline said, as if sensing his alertness.

Sure enough, brown hair ruffled and nattily dressed-a trifle overdressed for Gerrard’s taste-Jordan came into view, stepping onto and then off the stone viewing platform. Straightening, he saw them.

It was instantly apparent he hadn’t come looking for them, yet it wasn’t just surprise that showed in his face. A petulant expression came into being, but as Jordan approached, Gerrard got the impression it wasn’t disapproval of him and Jacqueline being alone, but the fact they were there at all that had irritated.

Jacqueline tugged; unobtrusively, he released her hand.

“Good afternoon, Jordan.”

Jordan nodded. “Jacqueline.” His gaze moved to Gerrard. “Debbington.”

Gerrard returned his nod. “Fritham. Are you looking for Lord Tregonning?” If so, that was odd, for Jordan wasn’t coming from the house.

“No, no-just out for a constitutional.” Jordan glanced at the gardens around them. “I often walk here-Eleanor and I were made free of the gardens a long time ago.”

Turning back to him, Jordan looked at his sketch pad. “Making a start on the portrait?”

“Indeed.”

“Good, good.” Jordan shifted his gaze to Jacqueline. “The sooner that’s done and all can see the result, the better.”

The comment-in tone as well as words-was ambiguous. Gerrard glanced at Jacqueline, but could detect nothing in her expression to guide him; her inner shield was up. Whatever Jordan thought wasn’t going to be allowed to touch her, yet she’d said Jordan was one of the few who believed in her innocence. Perhaps he was one of those who thought portraits were inherently false, revealing nothing real.

“Well.” Jordan shifted; Jacqueline had given him no encouragement to dally, but he didn’t seem to wish to. “I’ll leave you then. Don’t want to delay the great work.”

With a nod to them both, he continued on, heading up the garden to the northern viewing stage.

Gerrard turned to look in the direction from which he’d come. “How did he get here?”

Jacqueline’s inner reserve melted away. “He walked. The Manor’s in the next valley-although it’s a considerable way by road, the house is much closer as the crow flies. The ridge”-she nodded toward the southern ridge bordering the gardens-“is only ten minutes’ walk from the Manor’s side door, and there’s a footpath that leads down through the woods to join the gravel walk in the Garden of Diana.”

“Does he often just turn up like that?”

“Sometimes. I don’t know how often he walks here. The gardens are so large, I doubt anyone would know.”

“Hmm.” Jordan had gone through the wooden pergola and then disappeared into the Garden of Dionysius. Looking down the long valley to the west, noting the angle of the sinking sun, Gerrard waved Jacqueline on. “Let’s try the Garden of Poseidon. Water’s an interesting element at sunset.”

When the day before he’d set eyes on the spot where the stream flowing out from the Garden of Night emerged into the light, cascading over shallow stone steps to pour into a narrow rectangular pool, he’d suspected he’d found the perfect setting. Now he knew what his painting had to achieve, there wasn’t a skerrick of doubt left in his mind. It had to be here. He’d paint her in the studio, but the setting in which, in the final portrait, she stood, would be this.

“I want you over there-sit on the edge of the pool.” At the bottom of the stone steps, the water gathered into a channel, then flowed into the pool through a spout.

She went to do as he’d asked. From beneath his lashes, he watched for any sign of unease, and was relieved when he detected none.

“Like this?” She sank gracefully onto the stone coping beside the spout, facing him.

He smiled. “Perfect.”

It was; the golden light of the westering sun flowed up the valley to carom off the pool’s surface and bathe her in soft gilt. Her skin took on a shimmering glow; her hair came alive, rich and sheening. Even her lips seemed to hold a touch of deeper mystery, and her eyes were full of…dreams.

He felt something inside him still; she looked past him, down the valley, into that golden light. The expression on her face…

Without further thought, he drew.

Furiously fast, yet exact, precise, he transferred all he could see in that brief, shining moment onto the white page. He knew the instant he had enough, when one more line would ruin it. He stopped, leafed over the page, and looked up, pencil poised.

Her lips curved lightly. “What next?”

“Just stay there.” What next was for him to get the first rendering of the setting he wanted. The lower entrance to the Garden of Night, an archway of deep green leaves and vines beyond which dark shadows drifted, lay behind her-ten good paces behind her, but perspective in an artist’s hands was a tool, a weapon. When he finally drew her, she would stand framed in that archway; the Garden of Night was the perfect symbol of what held her trapped, of what she wanted to and needed to escape, and from which the portrait would release her. The rectangular pool would lie before her feet, reflecting light up over her, a symbol of her emergence from the darkness into the light.

Perfect.

The essence of the Garden of Night came to life beneath his pencil, created with deft strokes of his fingers.

When he finally paused and truly looked at what he’d done, he was satisfied.

More, he was moved; it was the first time he’d attempted to meld the artistic halves of himself-the lover of Gothic landscapes, and the observer and recorder of people and their emotions. He hadn’t consciously realized he would, but he had, and now he knew.

He couldn’t wait to dive deeper into the challenge.

Turning over another leaf, he looked at her. “Tell me about your mother.”

“Mama?” She’d learned not to look directly at him; she continued to stare down the valley.

A moment passed, then she said, “She was very beautiful, quite vain in fact, but she was always so alive. Enthused by life. She truly lived every day-if she woke up and there wasn’t something to do, she’d organize some outing, some event however impromptu. She was something of a butterfly, but a gay, giddy one, and there was no unkindness in her, so…”

He let her talk, watched, waited until the right moment to ask, “And when she died?”

Her expression changed. He watched the sadness close in, dousing the happy memories, saw not just loss of a loved one, but loss in a wider sense-a loss of innocence, of trust, of security.

She didn’t reply, yet his fingers flew.

After a very long moment, she murmured, “When she died, we lost all that-this place and all who lived here lost our wellspring of life.”

“And of love?” He hadn’t meant to say the words; they just slipped out.

After another long silence, she replied, “More that love became tangled and confused.”

He continued sketching, very aware-elementally aware-when she drew in a deep breath, and shifted her gaze to look at him.

For some moments, her expression was unreadable, then she asked, “What do you see?”

A woman trapped through others’ love for her. The words rang in his mind as his eyes held hers, but he didn’t want to reveal how clearly he saw her, not yet. “I think”-he closed his sketch pad-“that you saw her more clearly than she saw you.”

She tilted her head, studying him, examining his words-and, he suspected, his motives. Then she inclined her head. “You’re right.”

He looked steadily back at her. His comment, he felt sure, was also true for others-like her father, Mitchel, Jordan, even Brisenden. Their view of her was of a weak female; they were the type to assume that females were inherently less able, less strong than themselves on any plane. He’d grown up too close to too many strong women to make such a mistake. Jacqueline was nothing if not strong, and commitment only strengthened her resolve.

If he were the killer, he’d be very wary of her.