The Layton Prophecy

by Tatiana March

  At the end of February, my turmoil increased when a letter arrived from Miles. Not an email, but a letter in the post, in his own handwriting. As I started reading, it caught my notice that Miles had used the proper spelling of my name. Pleasure radiated inside me that he’d noticed I had changed my own practice.

  Dear Alexandria,

  I owe you an apology for bringing Petra out to see you without a warning. I acted out of anger and hurt, but that is no excuse.

  That day, when I took you to Layton Manor, and almost lost you when the wall collapsed, I learned two things.

  I learned that the curse is gaining in strength, and my presence puts you in danger. But even if I were willing to defy the Layton Prophecy to be with you, I wouldn’t want to, because I also learned that you don’t trust me.

  In a rock fall, the safest place to stand is pressed against the mountainside. Any mountain climber knows that. Rocks bounce out, but they rarely hit the first few feet nearest to the wall. I tried to push you into safety, but you fought back, and I could see the fear in your eyes.

  You thought I was trying to harm you.

  I don’t know what has made you afraid of me, but I have learned that a relationship without trust is doomed. I saw it with Francis and his wife, and you have seen it with your parents.

  If you don’t trust me, everything else becomes irrelevant.

  I expect that your friends will have told you about the offer from Dryfield Homes for access rights through Layton Manor. Perhaps I should have mentioned it to you, but then you might have asked me why I wasn’t interested in pursuing the opportunity for making a lot of money, and I would have had to explain.

  The answer is two words. Seattle Semiconductors. Ask Rosemary to look it up on the internet.

  Perhaps I didn’t trust you either, since I didn’t wish you to know. I prefer to think that I didn’t want to tell you because that’s not who I am, how I live, and I didn’t want things between us to get even more complicated than they already were.

  Promise to be careful. I will do whatever is needed to break the curse, but I seem to make little progress on any front.

  Miles

  I could hardly wait for Aunt Rosemary to come back from Layton Manor.

  I made her read the letter as soon as she was in through the door.

  “Petra has dumped him,” Aunt Rosemary told me.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Easy.” She handed the letter back to me. “He isn’t making progress on any front. That means he hasn’t found any new clues for locating the loot, and he isn’t managing to bring love to Petra.” She pursed her lips. “Miles really blew it when he brought her to the Royal Goat.”

  “What do you mean?” My hands shook as I folded the letter.

  Aunt Rosemary lifted her brows. “Didn’t you see the anger in Petra’s eyes when Miles went to pieces because you cut your lip? A girl like her isn’t used to being made to feel like that. I expected she’d dump him instantly.”

  “There is something I haven’t told you.” I stole a sideways glance at her. “I’ve got this crazy idea in my head that Miles might be trying to harm me.” I raised my chin, faced her squarely, and gave an awkward shrug as I made my confession. “I’ve been suspecting him of wanting to kill me, so he can inherit Layton Manor.”

  “What?” Aunt Rosemary’s voice took on dangerous edge.

  I explained how Miles had pushed me at the rock fall, and I told her about the gas leak at Rose Cottage. And all the while, I racked my brain, trying to come up with a sensible reason as to why I hadn’t spoken to her about it before.

  There was only one I could think of.

  I loved Miles too much.

  Aunt Rosemary listened to me in narrow-eyed concentration, and then she went ballistic. “Not telling me was totally irresponsible,” she blustered. “I rent out the place. What if the valve on the gas fire is faulty? I might end up killing people.” She stormed into the kitchen, and I waited in meek silence while she called British Gas to arrange for an immediate inspection.

  “What was all that garbage about Miles killing you to inherit Layton Manor?” she said when she hung up, sounding peevish.

  I listed the facts for her. We had no proof that Miles loved Cleo. If Cleo was dying anyway, it would make a big difference to Miles if I died first, with huge sums of money on offer from Dryfield Homes for Layton Manor.

  “Let me get this right,” Aunt Rosemary said, drawling out each word. “You took a lot of convincing that an ancient curse could be real, but you instantly leaped to the conclusion that Miles is trying to murder you?”

  Put in those words, it sounded irrational, but didn’t want to admit having been led astray by my imagination. “There are dozens of murders committed every day.” My chin jutted out into a stubborn angle. “When did you last hear about a curse on the ten o’clock news?”

  “I’ve been angry at Miles for the way he’s been treating you, keeping you waiting in the wings while he tries to woo Petra to break the curse.” Aunt Rosemary crossed her arms over her chest, still clad in the jeans and sweater she’d worn for her daily hike up to Layton Manor.

  I stood in silence, her disapproval like cold cloud around me.

  “Now I find out that you’ve been no better, suspecting him of being a killer.” She pointed at the letter from Miles I was holding in my hand. “And, by the sound of it, he knows what’s going on in your mind.”

  “What’s Seattle Semiconductors?” I asked. Partly it was to distract her, partly because I wanted to know.

  Aunt Rosemary sighed. “I don’t know. Let’s look it up.”

  It was either Steven’s mellowing influence, or a measure of how sorry she felt for me, but whatever the reason, Aunt Rosemary allowed me to watch over her shoulder as she tapped into her laptop.

  “Seattle Semiconductors,” she read aloud. “Founded in 1972. Pioneer in computer components. Later diversified into communications technology.” She scrolled down the screen. “Chairman, George Kendrick, age seventy-five. Estimated market value, USD one point two billion. Privately owned. Resists pressure to go public.”

  Aunt Rosemary turned to me, her face deadly serious. “He’s in love with you, Alexandria.”

  Hope lurched in my chest. “How do you know?”

  “Because he didn’t want you to know that his father owns a business worth a billion dollars, in case you’d be influenced by his money. And because now he’s come clean. He wants no secrets between you. And because he’s hurt by your assumption that you think he is trying to kill you.”

  “Wouldn’t he think that even if he didn’t love me?”

  “No.” Aunt Rosemary rolled her eyes. “He’d find it so absurd that he’d roar with laughter.”

  I stood up straight. “But he thought I would be influenced by his money?”

  “Not as bad as thinking he was going to kill you for financial gain, and for a paltry two point five million pounds at that.” Her voice rang with sarcasm. “I wish you’d told me about your silly fears. I could have put your mind to rest.”

  I bit my lip and said nothing.

  “Do you still want him?” Aunt Rosemary asked.

  “Are you crazy?” I jumped to my feet, her computer desk teetering from the force of the jolt I gave it. “Of course I want him.”

  She smiled, a little indulgent. “Then what are you waiting for? Go find him. Is there a return address on the letter?”

  I raced down the stairs to fetch the envelope. There was nothing written on it.

  “Petra might know,” Aunt Rosemary said.

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  “Do you know which model agency she works for?”

  I shook my head. “The lawyer,” I said, hesitating. “I recommended Simon Crosland to her. She might have contacted him. He might know how to reach her.”

  We dialed the number to Crosland and Baxter and got as far as Simon Crosland. “I’m sorry, Alexandria,” he said, his manner polite b
ut cool, “but I can’t tell you if Petra has contacted me for legal advice. I can’t discuss my clients.”

  Aunt Rosemary pushed me out of the way and yelled into the speakerphone. “This is Rosemary Holt. If we leave our number, can you ask Petra to call us?”

  I heard the lawyer sigh. “Go ahead. I’ll see if I can reach her.”

  Aunt Rosemary rattled out the number and we hung up.

  “Something odd is going on,” Aunt Rosemary said. “He was cagey. And he called you Alexandria. What did he call you before?”

  I stared at her. “He’s always called me Miss Holt before.”

  “There you go.” Aunt Rosemary nodded, her eyes sharp with concentration. “He suddenly seems to know you better. And he said Petra, not Miss Osterhuis. He knows her too.” She shook her head, looking perplexed.

  The telephone rang a few minutes later. It was Simon Crosland, letting us know that Petra was out on a photo shoot. He said he’d left a message on her cell phone to call us as soon as she was free.

  We waited. And waited.

  ****

  Nobody contacted us that evening. Late at night, I awoke, warm beneath the covers in my bed in Rose Cottage. A pounding noise echoed around the house, the bedroom around me inky black. Someone was banging on the front door. I crept downstairs, holding my breath as I unlatched the lock with trembling fingers.

  I found Miles standing on the doorstep, his face a mask of despair. “Petra told me you tried to reach her yesterday.” He rasped out the words, as if it hurt to speak.

  I stared at him, my chest tight. “I wanted to ask her how to contact you.”

  “Why?”

  I swallowed. “I got your letter. You were right. I thought you wanted to kill me, so you could inherit Layton Manor.”

  “I can only inherit Layton Manor if both you and Cleo die.” Miles took a step closer. The hallway light landed on his face, and I could see the glimmer of tears in his eyes, and the deep lines of worry etched around his mouth. “She’s dying, Alexandria. Her vital signs are dropping, and they don’t know what to do.”

  Pity surged inside me, mixed with joy, because he’d come to me with his pain, and he was allowing his feelings to show. I reached up and cupped my palm against his stubble-roughened cheek. “Should you go to her?”

  He shook his head, the bristle rubbing against my fingers. “I’ll keep trying until the end. The key to the curse is here. I’ve been going through the Lloyds insurance archives to see if anything was recovered from the wreck of the Neptune.”

  “Do you really believe in the curse?” I asked, like I’d asked many times before.

  “I don’t know.” He leaned against the doorframe. “It might have started as a puzzle, as game, but all I know now is that the doctors have run out of ideas. They don’t understand what’s wrong with Cleo. It makes more sense to continue trying to break the curse than it does to give up.”

  “What about Petra?”

  Miles exhaled a long sigh. “She’s brushed me off. I guess she noticed how I reacted when you cut your lip at the Royal Goat. We never went to Salisbury. She wanted to drive back to London that night. She’s staying with another model in Kensington. I’ve been living in a hotel near Heathrow.”

  “I see,” I said softly.

  “It’s all right.” Miles reached out and pulled me against him. “I tried my best to get interested in her, but it just didn’t work. All the time, I was thinking of you, where you were, what you were doing, and how my actions must be hurting you. I don’t think I could have gone through with it anyway, not even to protect you.”

  “It really was because you thought that you needed to...” I stared up at him.

  “Yes.” He brushed a kiss on my forehead. “Let’s go and get some sleep.”

  Slowly, we climbed up the stairs, his arm tight around me. We didn’t make love, just held each other close, sharing our warmth. At two o’clock in the morning—nine in the evening in New Jersey—Miles called the hospital to get a report from the nurse who was about to finish her shift.

  No change, she told him. Miles sat on the edge of the bed, his head buried in his hands. “If the curse is real, you’ll be next.” His voice was choked. “I don’t know if I can bear to watch you die, the way I’ve been watching the life slowly drain out of Cleo.”

  I reached up to stroke his broad back. Shame filled me now over how I’d thought he wished for Cleo’s death, as well as mine. His pain seemed so intense, as if all the emotions he’d kept under a tight leash were suddenly allowed their freedom at once.

  How blind I’d been not to see his vulnerability before.

  “It’s all right,” I said, finding the courage to be the strong one now.

  We settled down again and slept, until the cold winter dawn poked its fingers through the curtains. After breakfast, Miles went on the internet, and I started to read Francis Layton’s diaries once more, in the hope of spotting something we’d missed before. Miles confessed he’d ransacked the contents of my bag while I lay injured on the sofa in Mill Cottage after the rock fall. He’d sensed my sudden wariness of him, and instead of asking for my permission to take back the documents, he’d helped himself.

  We struggled through the day, trying to come up with new ideas, but no success. Soon after four, it grew dark outside. Miles called the hospital again. Cleo was holding on to life. We curled up on the bed. We’d only dozed for a few minutes when an urgent clatter of the knocker interrupted us, and we heard someone shouting outside.

  I rushed down the stairs and opened the door, to find an extremely muddy creature standing on the doorstep. It took me a while to recognize the tramp as Aunt Rosemary. She was hauling two dirty plastic shopping bags full of gravel.

  “How is Cleo?” she asked.

  “Weak,” Miles told her over my shoulder. “We’re out of time.”

  “No, we’re not,” Aunt Rosemary said bluntly. “Get me a bucket.”

  Miles raked a concerned gaze over her. “Are you going to be sick? You don’t look too good.”

  “I’m exhausted.” She gestured at me. “Get a bucket, Alexandria. Quick.”

  I dashed into the kitchen and brought out the red basin I used to clean the kitchen floor. “Will this do?”

  “Perfect.” Aunt Rosemary hoisted up one of the plastic bags and tipped the contents into the basin.

  Miles snapped to attention. “What’s this?”

  “Drainage gravel. From the bottom of the plant pots in the conservatory at Layton Manor.”

  “Get some paper towels,” Miles told me.

  “Quick, Alexandria.” Aunt Rosemary flapped her hand to hurry me along.

  I hurried into the kitchen and returned carrying a roll of kitchen tissues.

  “When you grow plants in pots, you must cover the bottom of the pot with a couple of inches of drainage gravel,” Aunt Rosemary said. “It keeps the roots from rotting.” She sat in a sprawl on the hallway floor, the jeans she’d borrowed from me smearing mud onto the floorboards. I’d never seen her look so disheveled.

  “This is from the plant pots in Layton Manor?” Miles asked.

  “Yes.” She gave him a tired nod, but her eyes glittered with triumph.

  Miles picked up a handful of pebbles and wiped them clean with the length of kitchen roll I’d handed to him. “Get a small bowl,” he told me, not looking up.

  I made another dash into the kitchen. By the time I got back, Miles had three transparent pebbles cradled in his palm. He dropped them into the bowl and continued to shift through the stones, discarding the dull ones and passing the clear ones to me.

  “Is this just from one plant pot?” he asked Aunt Rosemary.

  “This is the first good one. I’ve done five. The other four contained nothing but plain gravel.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Miles asked, scowling at her.

  “Steven was adamant that I mustn’t. We have to follow the prophecy. Gold and diamonds, it’s all there, one can get them, one who’ll ca
re.” She slouched on the floor and gazed at Miles. “When Petra said the fortune teller had told her to remind us it’s all twice now, I knew I had to do it alone. You care for Cleo, and you’ve done your part of interpreting the prophecy. I care for Alexandria, and I had to do my part of finding he loot.”

  Miles raised his brows. “How did you know to look in the plant pots?”

  Aunt Rosemary shrugged. “I didn’t. It was a shot in the dark. It was either the plant pots, or the bottom of the ocean.”

  “The gold must have been hidden amongst the ‘Rocks of Scientific Interest’ on the Neptune,” Miles said as he raked his fingers through the pebbles in the second plastic bag.

  “That’s what I thought,” Aunt Rosemary said. “Francis Layton was a shrewd man. I expected that he’d spread his risks. If the gold was on the Neptune, I hoped the diamonds were on the Andromeda, and the only cargo he sent on that vessel was the plants in their pots.”

  “Will you be all right if we leave you now?” Miles finished shifting through the gravel and stood up from his crouching position.

  “Of course.” Aunt Rosemary managed to pat her blond curls while sprawling on the floor. “I’m going to have bath and heat up a bowl of soup, and then I’ll call Steven and go to bed for at least twelve hours.”

  Miles grinned. “Say hello to Steven. Tell him not to worry about a diamond if he needs an engagement ring.”

  “Well, actually...” Aunt Rosemary blushed pink and stole a glance at me.

  “When?” I cried out. “What did you tell him?”

  “What do you think I told him?” she muttered. “That I’m not marrying anyone without living in sin first.” Her blush deepened to scarlet. “I’ve got an engineer coming in next week to install a chairlift.” She pulled a face at me. “And you, my petal, will be banned from entering a room without knocking first.”

  “All this can wait,” Miles said. “Get in the car, Alexandria.”

  I forgot about Aunt Rosemary and turned to Miles. “Yours or mine?”

  “The AVIS car. I’m driving.” He pointed to the bowl in my hands. “Bring those.” He tipped the gravel from the red basin back into the tattered plastic bag and yanked up the second muddy bag, hauling both of them along as he rushed to the door.