The frame is thick and ornate, the gold partly rubbed off and dust in the crevices of the moulding. I shine the light over the date on the plaque that was meant to fool everyone: 1899. It’s the frame from the John Singer Sargent painting sold a year earlier at auction. It seems so simple – but then, I suppose the best deceptions usually are.
I set down the torch and try to lift the painting off the wall. But it’s almost as tall as me, and very unwieldy. Something thumps to the floor from behind the heavy frame. For a second I’m worried that I’ve broken something, but I lower the painting back to the wall and it’s still firmly affixed in place. I pick up the torch and shine the light over the bundle by my feet. At first I think it’s a book that’s missing a cover, but then I look closer and realise that it’s a stack of airmail envelopes bound together with an elastic band. I pick it up, squinting in the dim light. The envelopes are addressed to a ‘Miss A Reilly’. I haven’t heard the name Reilly before, but surely it’s Arabella like the other letters that I found?
And then I hear it: gravel crunching; the noise of a car engine. The blood freezes in my veins. Although it can’t be – there’s a car outside.
I shove the bundle of letters into the inside pocket of my jacket and switch off the torch. I can’t see headlights, but the sky in front of the house lightens.
There’s only one thing I can do – hide. I flatten myself against the staircase and begin inching down, my heart thundering. If I can just make it to the East Wing corridor then I might be able to keep out of sight until whoever it is goes away.
A cracked piece of marble gives way beneath my feet. I tumble down the last few steps; the torch clatters to the floor of the main hall splaying batteries. A car door slams. Terror grips me – is it Mrs Bradford? Or the police who drove past earlier? I’m not sure which is worse. Leaving the torch on the floor, I creep across the main hall to the front windows.
The car’s headlights penetrate the darkness like the eyes of a cat, then go off. A door opens; a pencil torch flicks on. A dark silhouette of a figure opens the boot, takes something out, and closes it again. Another tiny light goes on – a BlackBerry or mobile. The intruder is composing a text message as they walk to the front door. Definitely not Mrs Bradford or the police.
I leg it to the door that leads to the East Wing corridor and pull on the handle. The door sticks; I pull with all my strength. Nothing – it’s locked. Panic rises in my throat. I’m trapped in the open. The lock of the front door jangles as a key is turned. The hall is dark – if I can just stay absolutely silent, I might be able to slip out the front door―
The door opens. From the pocket of my jacket, my mobile beeps. I stifle a gasp and fumble for my phone. It’s too late.
The beam of the visitor’s torch jerks across the floor towards my feet. A deep and familiar voice cries out.
‘Who’s there?’
- 35 -
Jack Faraday.
Oh my God, it’s Jack Faraday! It can’t be. But it is.
I cower against the wall, gripping my phone. Escape is now impossible. The beam of light flicks upward to my face. I put my hands in the air – I’m guilty!
‘Amy? Amy Wood? Is that you?’
I shield my eyes with my arm. ‘Oh, hi Jack. Umm, I left my uhh…’ I lower my hands. His skin glows like marble in the near-darkness. My body begins to quiver in all those unmentionable places. I realise how much I’ve cocked things up. It’s not like Jack and I have a future, but now, he must think I’m, at worst, a criminal or, at best, a nutcase – or the other way around. The one saving grace is that I didn’t throw my phone at him.
‘Amy, what are you doing here?’ His voice chills the air.
I slump to the floor, defeated. ‘I’m breaking and entering with an intent to poke my nose where it doesn’t belong.’
He frowns – probably deciding whether or not to call the police.
‘It’s the painting – the one on the stairs,’ I say. ‘I had a hunch that I needed to follow up…’ I swallow hard. ‘I’m sorry.’
He’s silent for a moment, his eyes shiny and penetrating. ‘Any idea where the light switch is?’ he says.
‘By the door, left side.’
I struggle to my feet and dust myself off.
Jack Faraday goes over to the door and flips the switch. Harsh light from the dusty, bare-bulbed chandelier floods the hall. But a second later, a loud pop makes us both jump. The chandelier goes out and everything is black. Unlike last time when the sudden darkness promised everything, this time he keeps his distance.
‘Another damn fuse,’ Jack says. ‘Unless you’ve get a good torch, we’d better get out of here. And you can tell me exactly what the hell is going on.’
- 36 -
The atmosphere is glacial as he drives me to the main road where I’ve left my car. I try – and fail – to make a bit of idle chit-chat: ‘When did you arrive?’ ‘Early this morning.’ ‘How was your flight?’ ‘Fine.’
I’m heartbroken over the unspoken questions I want to ask: ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Why didn’t you ring me?’ ‘What next?’
Things improve marginally when he drops me off at my car. ‘Now, I still want that explanation,’ he says gruffly, ‘and you can buy me a drink for good measure.’
‘Sure.’ Hope kindles inside my chest.
‘You can follow behind.’
‘Okay.’
He rechains the gates as I get into my own car. I follow him to the White Horse Inn just outside Little Botheringford. My palms are clammy on the steering wheel. I know the place – a traditional Elizabethan country hotel with diamond pane windows and wisteria vines growing up the front. We park our cars and go inside. At all times I’m conscious of his proximity – and his distance. Inside the bar area, a few tables are occupied. I point to a small table in the corner.
‘What would you like?’ I say.
Jack shakes his head. ‘I was joking about you buying.’ His tone is anything but light. ‘What would you like to drink?’
‘Red wine, please,’ I croak.
He goes to the bar. I take the opportunity to nip to the loo. My reflection in the mirror is appallingly dishevelled: my eyes have dark circles underneath, my hair is dusty, my lips are chapped from the cold. I look less like a cat burglar and more like something the cat dragged in. Not that it matters. The disappointing reality is that there was never anything between Jack and me. Now, I’ll explain myself and then leave. I’ve only got to endure his painfully attractive presence for maybe half an hour, max.
I go back to the table as Jack arrives with the drinks. He sits down, his face like carved stone. ‘Okay, now start talking. And you’d better make it good.’ He crosses his arms. ‘Convince me not to call the police – and your boss.’
I grip the stem of my wine glass. ‘It’s the mystery of the girl in the painting. I’ve solved it… or, at least I think have.’
‘What mystery? What are you talking about?’
Jack Faraday is judge and jury as I sum up the details of my ‘research’. I start by recounting what Mrs Bradford and her sister told me – about how young Maryanne came to have her portrait painted – and finish with my hunch about the painting. He listens in silence, his face and thoughts unreadable.
‘So I went there tonight,’ I finish. ‘But I’d already given back the key.’
Jack frowns. ‘Let me get this straight. You saw something on television – what was it again – Antiques Roadshow?’ His raised eyebrow says it all. ‘It made you think there might be a missing Rembrandt hidden somewhere in the house – a painting that everyone thought was destroyed in a fire? And no one’s discovered it over all these years until you came along?’
‘I know it sounds—’
‘Crazy?’
I hang my head.
‘So you felt you needed to go to the house dressed like a burglar, and break a window to get inside?’
‘I wanted to look for the painting. It’s not like I was there to s
teal anything.’
‘So having got inside, did you find this priceless missing Rembrandt?’
‘Well… no. I didn’t really have a chance to look. But I did find these.’ I reach into my pocket and set the bundle of letters on the table. ‘They were in the gap between the frame and the wall. I just wanted…’ I trail off, defeated, ‘I don’t know… to find something worth saving before Rosemont Hall was lost.’
‘Lost?’
‘It was my fault.’ My voice quivers. ‘It was my job to sell it. My job to find someone who would restore the house. Bring it back to life.’ I stare at the letters and the untouched wine in my glass, dark red like old blood. ‘You said once that I was like a house matchmaker. Only, this time – when it was most important – I failed.’
He picks up the bundle of letters and stares at the name on the front: ‘Miss Reilly’. He makes a point of tucking them away in his jacket pocket and looks at me in silence.
‘I’m not some kind of deranged nutcase, Jack. Really, I’m not.’
Having said my piece, I await sentence.
He drains his pint and turns the empty glass around in his hand. ‘You wanted a happy ending,’ he says.
‘Sorry?’
‘A happy ending, like in one of your classic English novels.’
I look at him. Every cell in my body shivers and realigns itself, like leaves growing towards the light. How can he possibly know me so well? How will I ever get over the ache of sitting across the table from him knowing that there’s no future. Tears spring to my eyes.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s it exactly.’
And I pray that he’ll make it happen, but instead, he stands up and walks over to the bar. And the tiny part of me that isn’t in love with him, hates him a little. By rights I should just leave. But I don’t.
He returns to the table with a second pint, and (I’m pleased to see) a glass of water for me. ‘You could have just called me,’ he says. ‘If you’d told me about your “hunch”, maybe you could have saved yourself the trouble of breaking and entering.’ He fiddles with the beer mat. ‘In fact, when I saw you there, I thought maybe…’ he hesitates. ‘Maybe you got my text.’
‘Text?’
‘I sent you a text earlier. You didn’t get it?’
‘No – I…’ I reach for my handbag – my phone must be somewhere.
‘Never mind,’ he says. ‘I’ll just tell you. It was to let you know that I was in town. I wanted to surprise you. I guess I did.’
My breath catches. ‘But when we spoke, you said that your life was familiar. I thought that meant you were gone for good.’
‘I was.’ His aquamarine eyes bore into me. ‘I had some important work on the patent that couldn’t wait. I flew home just liked I’d planned. But as soon as I got there… and you called me in the middle of the night…’ He shakes his head.
‘What?’
‘I went to my home. I went to my meetings. I went to work. But familiar was no longer enough. Nothing felt right. Something happened when I was here. Something completely unexpected.’
I sit frozen in my chair.
‘I realised that I had unfinished business. Something more important than computer chips or patents. Much more important. So I booked myself onto the first flight to London. I didn’t know if you’d even see me, after the last time.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, Amy. You.’ He stares at me intently. I can feel a flush creeping up my neck.
‘And then you didn’t respond to my first text. I figured that was my answer. I paced the room for a while but I couldn’t sleep. So I decided to visit the place that most reminded me of you – Rosemont Hall.’ He shrugs. ‘When I got there I sent you another text – you know – the tell-tale beep.’ He gives me a half-smile. ‘When I saw you there with your torch, I thought you’d come after all.’
He narrows his eyes beneath his long dark lashes. ‘But now, I realise you were a burglar.’
‘No, Jack! I didn’t get your message.’
‘So the question now is…’ he pauses, probably to make me sweat a little more, ‘if you had read my text – asking to see you – what would you have said?’
‘I would have said that I was a complete idiot before – running away like that. And I’ve regretted it every moment since.’
He moves his chair closer and takes my hand.
‘Spoken eloquently, like an English teacher.’ His soft laugh sends delicious shockwaves through my veins. And at that moment, my appetite for mystery disappears, leaving room for nothing except him.
‘No, Jack, I’m just an estate agent.’
He smiles and draws me close, his breath ruffling my hair. ‘In that case, Amy Wood, just an estate agent,’ he whispers in my ear, ‘I’d love to hear more about your sleuthing. But maybe we can continue this little chat upstairs.’
He stands up and takes a room key from his pocket. This time, I can’t even imagine running away. I leave my drink on the table and follow him out of the bar.
- 37 -
From the moment I enter his room, I’m lost. We come together with the urgency of two travellers in a desert seeking an oasis. His kiss is hard and searching, his hands delicate as they remove my clothing and explore my skin. The bed is a large four-poster; and we fling ourselves onto it. I pull him over me and he shudders as I run my fingers through his hair and over his chest. Together we fumble with the zip on his trousers. ‘Amy,’ he whispers, and then the words are lost as our lips come together and speak their secret language.
And when we finally lie still in each other’s arms, Jack whispers in my ear, ‘I didn’t think I’d ever find this again.’
‘I can’t believe it either,’ I whisper.
‘Well, believe it,’ he says, and after that, neither of us have the opportunity to speak for a while.
*
Tennyson wrote that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I spend the night and all the next day with Jack. Somehow, the logistics get sorted: I phone in sick to work, breakfast arrives on a tray and we eat it together at the little table in his room that looks out onto the village green. Then we’re back in bed and the duvet is warm and Jack’s skin is warm; and his mouth is soft and yielding; his hands confident and demanding. I want it to last, but of course it won’t. I know that there’s no future and that when we say goodbye, it will be forever. There are still unanswered questions and unspoken topics between us: the house, the painting, the family secrets. But cocooned in his hotel room, a universe of two, I put all that out of my mind.
Finally, we sleep for a few hours, tangled in the sheets and each other’s arms. When I wake up, it’s late afternoon. A cold fear grips me. I don’t want this to end.
Jack feels me stir and rolls over.
‘Amy…’ he says, stroking my thigh under the blankets.
‘Hmm?’
‘We should go while it’s still light.’
‘Go?’ My heart freezes.
‘I assume you want to go have a look for that painting. We can’t count on the lights working.’
‘You mean… you don’t mind?’
I roll over. His face is grave.
‘I don’t know anything about lost paintings, portraits, old letters, or anything like that. You have to admit – it sounds pretty far-fetched. And the house will be sold, Amy – make no mistake. I don’t want you here under false pretences. But if you need to go back there one more time – to say goodbye or whatever, then I’m not going to stop you.’
I shiver with regret. The hands of the clock are winding down so fast. I don’t want things to end. But that’s precisely what’s going to happen.
‘I don’t know, Jack.’ I run a fingernail delicately over his chest. ‘Maybe it’s better if I don’t go back there. You’ll return to America, and I’ll go back to my life. I might wish that things were different, but the truth is…’ I turn away so he can’t see the tears in my eyes, ‘you’ve already given me more of a happy end
ing than I ever could have hoped for. I just want to enjoy this – while it lasts.’
He brushes a piece of damp hair off my face but doesn’t try to correct me. ‘That’s not the Amy I know,’ he says. ‘What about your hunch?’
‘In the end, the house will be sold.’ I choke back a sob. ‘As you’ve pointed out, it’s really none of my business.’
Jack sighs. ‘It’s complicated, Amy. And I don’t know how much Gran has told you.’
‘Not a lot. Just snippets here and there.’
‘I don’t know the whole story either – far from it. But I do know that for her, bygones are not bygones.’
‘What do you mean?’ I prop up on my elbow.
He looks at me with his arresting blue eyes. ‘When Flora and I were kids, Gran used to come and visit us every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes we’d sneak out of our bedrooms at night and sit on the stair landing listening to the adults. Gran would have a few drinks, and then start talking about England where she came from. Something about a big mansion, and how something happened to her there.’ He pauses. ‘She always said that America was the land of opportunity. There wasn’t all this business about class and family heritage.’
He fingers a lock of my hair, but his eyes are far away.
‘Her story was a bit garbled and pieced together, but I gather that when she came over to America – in the 50s, I guess – she was pregnant with our mom. It was just like something out of one of your classic novels. She’d been seduced by Henry Windham.’
‘Seduced?’ I pull away, stunned. ‘By Henry? But… I thought, I mean… the letters! He was in love with Arabella. Wasn’t he?’
‘Probably, I don’t know,’ Jack says. ‘Or maybe all that came later. All I know is that Gran was a nobody – just a girl from the village. But incidentally, her maiden name was Reilly. She could be the “Miss Reilly” on the letters you found behind the painting.’
I sit bolt upright as the possibilities explode in my mind like fireworks. I’m thinking not of the letters behind the painting, but about the original letters I found in the library. Reilly. Maryanne Reilly. ‘A’—?
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