Floats the Dark Shadow Read Online Free Page B

She’d known since she was little that she was a bastard. John Faraday, the man who’d raised her, the man she’d believed was her father, had called her a Faraday but never adopted her. His wife was concerned for her own two sons’ inheritance, so he put nothing for Theo in his will, not even her favorite horse. Then they were all dead in a train wreck, except for the wastrel youngest son who tossed her out on her ear. Theo had nothing left but the clothes in her closet, her paints, and her grief.
    The suitor who had seemed most ardent came to see her after the funeral. She remembered her rush of gratitude when he appeared. Her world had been shattered. Emotional comfort and financial security would help mend that world, and Theo felt the promise of love like a rosebud ready to unfurl and open the tight clutch of her heart. But the ardent suitor did not offer marriage. Instead, he suggested a nice little house in San Francisco, where he would visit occasionally.
    It was a hard lesson, being jilted and tossed on the rubbish heap. Nothing she had believed in was real. There was death, and after death, betrayal. Coldly, Theo decided she would never marry. A husband would believe he owned her. Intolerable. Nor would she make the daring leap of taking a lover—she might as well sell her heart into slavery. Loving her art would be enough.
    But she had found art was an expensive amour , one she could barely afford. She’d developed her skill with pencil, with pen and ink, because tubes of paint were too dear. Sometimes she’d felt all the color had faded from her world. It was a miracle that she wasn’t still slaving at the Louvre Bar in the rough end of Mill Valley, thinking that was the closest to Paris she would ever come. But the miracle had happened. A lawyer climbed the rickety stairs to her room to tell her Phillipe Charron was her true father—an elegant French portrait painter who had seduced an American society girl. The lawyer adamantly refused to name her mother. But her father would bring Theo to Paris, if she wished. Yes . Theo wished.
    So she sailed to Paris—and in Paris she once again had family. There was the new father she seldom saw, an invalid grandmother who spent all her time with her ancient poodle, an uncle she loathed, an aunt she pitied, an insipid female cousin she liked too little—and the male cousin she liked far too much.
    Loved.
    From the first, Averill had captivated her. His compassion had soothed her lingering pain and eased her still raw anger. Ignoring the turmoil churning inside her, Theo set about glossing her rough surface. She’d struggled to reclaim the finishing school polish that had become so tarnished, to transform her haphazard schoolgirl French to something approaching Parisian fluidity and her raggedy wardrobe into Bohemian chic. Averill had helped her with it all. Fellow artists, they quickly became fellow conspirators, fellow rebels, dearest friends. His morbid moods made her frightened for him, sometimes even frightened of him. But always she was fascinated. Averill was everything mysterious and seductive that was Paris to her—challenging, enticing, and forever elusive.
    Bathing in the sunshine, Theo lifted her hands to cup her face, fingertips curved to her cheeks, where the sensation of Averill’s kisses still lingered. The throb of excitement pulsed through her once again, hot and sweet. Her heart and her body were at war with her mind.
    There was knocking at the door. She spun around eagerly, even as she realized the quick barrage of taps wasn’t Averill’s. She went and opened the door. “ Bonjour , Matthieu.”
    “ Bonjour , Mlle. Faraday,” he said politely.
    He was a beautiful boy, with curling light brown hair, and large expressive hazel eyes. But not just beautiful. Her first painting had not captured his energy or his impish curiosity, his secret seriousness. The portrait now on her easel overcompensated, gaining vitality but forcing a hard look onto