LITMIR.BIZ

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he breathed, and Hebe looked at him again. He was a man aged in his early fifties, tall and handsome, with grey eyes that seemed to see into the soul.

      An artist’s eyes, Hebe decided. Eyes that saw beyond the outer shell of a person into the very heart of them. As he had once seen beyond Claudia’s youthful recklessness…?

      ‘Would you like to come inside?’ she invited shyly as she pushed the flat door open, aware of Nick standing back until the older man had entered, and then following behind carrying the portrait.

       The portrait…!

      Nick anticipated Hebe’s request, placing the portrait on the table before removing the covering, then turning to look at the older man as he propped the portrait against the wall.

      Andrew Southern went even paler, seemingly possessed by the same stupor as first Hebe and then her parents had been on seeing the portrait.

      The difference was that this man had actually painted the picture, already knew every loving brushstroke, every soft nuance and shading of Claudia’s beautiful face and body.

      ‘I never thought I would see this portrait again,’Andrew Southern murmured as he gazed at it in wonder. ‘How did you get it?’ he breathed raggedly.

      Nick was the one to answer him. ‘I bought it from Jacob Gardner’s great-nephew after he died.’

      ‘Claudia!’Andrew’s voice broke emotionally. ‘I tried to buy it back from Jacob Gardner myself after—after Claudia left. But he refused to sell it to me.’

      ‘He never married,’ Nick told him quietly.

      ‘No.’ Andrew sighed. ‘How could any man after Claudia? My darling Claudia…!’ He buried his face in his hands and began to sob.

      This man, Nick knew with startling clarity, had loved Claudia with the same depth, the same deep need, with which he now loved Hebe.

      But for some as yet unexplained reason Andrew had lost his Claudia.

      Was Nick really going to allow the same thing to happen to him where Hebe was concerned?

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ Hebe murmured, and she moved forward to put a hand on Andrew Southern’s shaking shoulders.

      The artist looked up with a tear-ravaged face. ‘You’re sorry?’ he choked self-derisively. ‘I let this wonderful creature slip through my fingers like molten gold, and you’re sorry?’ He gave a self-disgusted shake of his head. ‘I should have acted sooner than I did. Should never—’ He broke off. ‘I’ve spent the last twenty-six years aching for just another glimpse of her, just to see her smile in that mischievous way of hers, to be able to hold her one more time!’

      No! Nick cried inwardly. He was not going to live his own life in that way—give Hebe up without even telling her how he felt about her. And if he tried hard enough he just might—might!—be able to convince her into caring for him with even a little of the deep love he felt for her.

      ‘Claudia is the reason you stopped appearing in public?’ Hebe prompted softly. ‘The reason you stopped painting portraits, too?’ she realized, with sudden insight.

      ‘Losing Claudia is the reason I gave up those things, yes,’ Andrew Southern confirmed gruffly. ‘I changed my life completely after what I had done!’

      Hebe looked at him quizzically. ‘What did you do?’

      He shook his head. ‘Claudia was engaged to marry Jacob Gardner when he commissioned me to paint her portrait, and I was married—if not happily—but it made no difference. We—we took one look at each other and neither Jacob nor my wife seemed to matter any more.’

      At last Hebe had a possible explanation as to why Claudia, after breaking off her engagement to Jacob Gardner, had left alone rather than with Andrew Southern. Because he’d already had a wife…

      ‘But why, if you loved each other, did you let her go off alone like that to have her baby?’ She frowned. ‘Or didn’t you love her enough to leave your wife, is that it?’

      All of this was starting to have a familiar ring to it as far as Hebe was concerned. History repeating itself. Well, not quite, she corrected herself. Nick didn’t love her, but he was leaving her to have her baby alone and going back to his ex-wife.

      ‘Of course I loved her enough to leave my wife!’ His eyes glittered emotionally. ‘But we argued. Claudia—she didn’t believe me when I said I would end my marriage to be with her. But I did end it. And I went to see her the same day to tell her I had, that I only wanted to be with her, wanted her to come and live with me. She didn’t tell me she was pregnant!’Andrew groaned fiercely. ‘She had been there the day before, but when I went back the next day to tell her I couldn’t live without her, that I loved her, she—she had gone. I never saw her again.’ He closed his eyes as if to shut out the pain.

      Except Nick knew that the older man couldn’t do that, and he couldn’t either. The image of Andrew’s Claudia, and Hebe for him, couldn’t be shut out. It was etched into the brain for all time.

      Claudia and Hebe were women the men in their lives loved for a lifetime.

      Jacob Gardner had continued to love Claudia even after she had betrayed and then left him. The portrait in his bedroom after all those years was evidence of that. And Andrew Southern’s pain at losing his Claudia was unmistakable. Nick knew without doubt that he loved Hebe in that same all-consuming way.

      ‘I—’ Hebe paused, moistening suddenly dry lips. ‘You realise I’m Claudia’s baby?’ she asked Andrew Southern warily.

      He gave a choked laugh as he looked at her. ‘You couldn’t be anyone else!’ He reached up a shaking hand to touch her cheek lightly. ‘You are so like her,’ he breathed softly. ‘So very, very like her.’

      Hebe shot Nick a rueful glance. ‘Yes.’

      A glance he returned with a glittering determination she didn’t understand. But then, she never had understood Nick, so why should that change now, when he was shortly going to go out of her life for good?

      She turned back to Andrew Southern. ‘The question is—’ she grimaced ‘—am I your daughter or Jacob Gardner’s?’

      ‘Mine, of course!’ the artist claimed frowningly. ‘Claudia—your mother—didn’t have that sort of relationship with Jacob Gardner. In fact she had never had that sort of relationship with anyone before me,’ he admitted gruffly.

      Hebe blinked. ‘But—’

      ‘There was no one else before me, Hebe,’ he told her firmly. ‘Claudia liked to give the impression that she was wild and untamed, that she was worldly-wise, even. But in reality she was a sweet, enchanting young woman who had never been with a man before me. I felt a complete heel when I realised that the first time we made love.’ He gave a shaky sigh. ‘I wasn’t happily married, but that was no excuse for seducing an innocent!’

      Hebe didn’t really care about that. She just felt happier knowing that her parents’ love and care for Claudia hadn’t been misplaced at all, and that she really had just been the rebellious teenager Hebe had told Nick she’d been.

      Andrew Southern’s gaze was pained. ‘I tried to find her. I really tried, Hebe.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘But she had just disappeared.’

      Hebe gave a tearful smile. ‘I don’t think she intended you to find her—or anyone else, in fact.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t know when I wrote to you on Friday, but—but Claudia’s parents only learnt of her whereabouts when the hospital called them as next of kin. She died giving birth to me,’ she explained as gently as she could. ‘They brought me up, and have been the only parents I’ve never known.’

      Andrew gave another choked sob. ‘All these years…I never knew what had happened to her, Hebe. Why she left so suddenly,’ he explained as she looked

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