Page 13 (1/2)

CHAPTER ONE

‘THE resemblance is quite remarkable, Caroline You could have been the sitter—co-boned hands beckoned her and she put the guest list for the up-and-co down on the beautiful, fastidiously uncluttered expanse of his desk and went to join hiht up froroom and placed on an easel

Her e the likeness was irrelevant, but she was consumed with curiosity to at last see the masterpiece that Michael, Edward’s son, had acquired at a so

Carefully cleaned, painstakingly authenticated, the lost work by the pre-Raphaelite painter J J Lassoon had caused deep ripples of acquisitive excitest the select band of collectors who could afford to pay seriousof covetable beauty

Caroline had been in the north of England advising the new heir to one of the great houses on what he could dispose of, with the most profit and the least pain, to pay death duties, and had missed out on all the excitement

‘Which will be the lanced at Edward froave nothing away He had the face of a ile enough to be bowled away by a puff of wind But he was as tough as old boots If she had been asked to put e as his prime concern

The London-based Weinberg Galleries had a fiercely guarded reputation for offering art and artifacts of the finest quality The acquisition of the Lassoon painting could only add to his reputation

‘I’ll leave you to ponder on that’ Edward save her attention to the newly discovered s because he was right The resemblance was remarkable More than remarkable It was uncanny

Set against a riot of lush greenery, the artist’shands and it was the very io at the age of seventeen The cloud of glossy black hair reaching almost to her waist, the youthful translucence of the milky skin, the thin patrician nose, the over-full rosy lips parted in a secret s of love, drowning in love

Even the title was apt First Love

A shudder of bitter anger rippled down her spine That was exactly how she had looked all those years ago when she had loved Ben Dexter with all her passionate being So ht die of it

Yes, that was how she had looked before she had learned the truth, before he had turned his back on her and had walked away from their turbulent love affair, her father’sside of the tracks had ever seen in his life, his gypsy-black eyes glinting with the satisfaction of a bargain well struck, his whip-thin, virile body swaggering with heartless triumph

She swung abruptly fro She felt sick She wished she had never set eyes on the wretched thing It had brought back memories she’d buried deep in her psyche, reater deterer could do e

Edward’s ily over the phone as she walked past hi to Michael’s to discuss the final gallery arrange off when her secretary, Lynne, located her on the internal line just before lunch-time