Rubies Among the Roses

by Vivian Conroy

  Guinevere closed her eyes. What a mess. She should never have agreed to keep it to herself. But then Max wouldn’t have told her. And she had wanted to know.

  For the case?

  Or because she liked Max?

  Because it made her feel special to know something about him that other people didn’t know? His followers and fans who considered him to be theirs. They had responded so violently to even the smallest suggestion he was seeing someone.

  That he was seeing her?

  Was she reallysorry for Max like she had told Oliver? She did feel for his position as it resembled her own and it was easy to imagine the emotional turmoil he lived in so close to his real father and unable to tell, unable to build the bond he had longed for.

  But was that all that connected them?

  Or had there been more, even before he had told her this? A sort of inexplicable connection that Oliver had crudely covered with the ridiculing ‘infatuated’?

  Like it was a disaster to fall in love.

  Or a crime.

  But was it really so terrible? Even if that other person wasn’t perfect?

  She didn’t glorify Max or ignore that he had rough edges. She hadn’t even forgotten there was a case to solve here.

  Guinevere walked to her bed and sat down on the edge. Dolly followed her and wanted a cuddle, but Guinevere was too focused on her problem to notice. She was sorry now that she didn’t have a mobile phone with internet access. Then she could see what Max had been posting today and how people responded to that. She had a feeling that if she could see his shots and the feedback, the universe he was usually a part of, away from here, the place where they had met, that she could understand him better. She wanted to understand him better.

  Most of all she wanted to understand her own feelings better and what it was that drew her to him even though he was so confusing and even infuriating at times.

  But to get online she’d have to go to the library where Bolingbrooke’s computer was and she didn’t want to run into Oliver right now. Or into anybody else for that matter. She felt confused and even guilty about her promised silence. What if Bolingbrooke also blamed her for it, later on?

  Nonsense, why would he ever find out about it? Under the circumstances Max wasn’t likely to tell Wadencourt the truth. It would probably never be discussed between them.

  And it might be better that way, for both of them. Wadencourt wasn’t the type of man to embrace a son he had never wanted to acknowledge, and Max wasn’t the type to accept kind help from a father who had never been there for him.

  In fact, Guinevere would have guessed based on his independent act the other day that he wouldn’t even want to get to know his father. Not after that father had walked out on both his mother and him.

  But maybe Max had wanted to see what was possible?

  Maybe if Wadencourt had been a different man, it could have been?

  Guinevere sat and thought about it, turning it over and over in her mind, but the uneasy feeling stayed. A sense of having failed Oliver and Bolingbrooke and Cornisea.

  A sense of betrayal.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Guinevere came downstairs to dinner, in a silk dress she had sewn herself, she was surprised to see a familiar figure walking down the corridor. ‘Lady Serena?’ she called out.

  The woman turned to her, a fiery red flush on her face. ‘I’m looking for Bolingbrooke. I want to tell him that I think it’s outrageous he sent the police after me while I was onlygoing about my own business. If I want to sell something that is legally mine, I can. I need not explain myself to some shabby policeman in an old overcoat.’

  Guinevere suppressed a laugh at this less than accurate description of the smartly dressed LeFevre. ‘Lord Bolingbrooke must be downstairs to have dinner. Didn’t Cador show you in?’

  Lady Serena waved a hand. ‘I let myself in. The door was ajar. I was onlylooking.’

  Guinevere studied the aristocratic claimant better. The scarf around her neck was askew, and there was even a sort of dark something on the edge of her dress.

  As if she noticed Guinevere’s stare, Lady Serena looked down. ‘Oh.’ She reached out and brushed across the dark thing. It fluttered to the floor. ‘These old country houses are so full of dirt.’

  With her head held high, Lady Serena turned around and walked away in a clatter of her designer high heels.

  Guinevere bent down and picked up the dark thing. It was a clump of dust. Cornisea Castle had a lot of dust and cobwebs, but a visitor didn’t get covered in them in every corner.

  Besides, that clump of dust had been on the edge of her dress where it would be if she had knelt down to look at something.

  Or under something?

  Why had Lady Serena really let herself in? Why had she come upstairs to hang about the library and the adjacent rooms?

  Wadencourt’s?

  Max’s?

  With an uneasy feeling Guinevere rushed downstairs. She heard Lady Serena talking in the dining room. ‘Next time you turn the police on me, you’d better consider what I will do in response. I will sue you.’

  ‘I doubt you have the money for that,’ Oliver said coldly. He stood beside his father, like a protective force.

  Lady Serena’s face turned mottled. ‘How dare you. Just because I happened to be selling a small family heirloom …’

  ‘Away from London where someone might see you and start rumours flying?’ Oliver smiled. ‘I bet if we had a close look at your financial situation that we’d discover you could very well use a goblet full of rubies and diamonds turning up.’

  ‘But it hardly turned up full of rubies and diamonds,’ Lady Serena hissed. ‘The stones are gone! Someone who’s not entitled to them has them now. And I’ll find out who it is. I will!’

  She turned around and left the room, almost bumping into Cador, who carried a soup terrine.

  Guinevere said, ‘I ran into her upstairs. Her scarf was askew, and her dress had dust on it. She must have been crawling about to find the stones.’

  Bolingbrooke slammed his hand on the table. ‘That does it! I’ll call LeFevre and charge her with trespassing.’

  Wadencourt walked in and said, ‘She could have planted the bottle with liquid in my room. She must have the stones. She found the alcove behind the clematis before I did.’

  ‘But how? If Lady Serena knew of it, she could have acted before there were other people about. Why wait?’

  ‘But we don’t know when she got her hands on the all-revealing clue,’ Oliver said. He looked at Wadencourt. ‘I think it’s time you told us how you worked it out.’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you anything.’ Wadencourt leaned back.

  ‘Did Jago give you the book he had borrowed from Meraud?’ Oliver asked.

  Wadencourt said, ‘No.’

  The reply came too quickly, and his face twitched as he said it.

  They all kept looking at him.

  Wadencourt released his breath in a sigh. ‘He did offer to show it to me. But I refused. I know how these things go. After my find he’d claim a huge part in it and I’d have to share with him or look like a brute for not giving that nice, normal, small-town fisherman his dues. But I had worked it out myself and I wasn’t about to share with anyone.’

  ‘So who did Jago show the book to?’ Oliver mused.

  Guinevere said, ‘Maybe he borrowed it to show it to Wadencourt and after Wadencourt refused to see it, he never did show it to anyone.’ She tapped a finger against her lips. ‘But where is it now? LeFevre said it didn’t show up anywhere so far.’

  Wadencourt waved a hand. ‘Excuse me. Can we sit down to dinner?’

  They sat down, and Cador served the soup.

  Bolingbrooke was staring at his plate with a brooding expression. Then he said to Wadencourt, ‘You could at least reveal to us how you came to investigate the goblet of Rose and Stars.’

  Wadencourt seemed to rela
x a little. ‘My speciality is objects of silver that were used in ceremonies. But not in religious ceremonies like in churches or abbeys or monasteries, but objects used in ceremonies by ordinary people. Objects having to do with marriage, baptism, death.’

  Guinevere cringed for a moment at the word death.

  Wadencourt didn’t seem to notice that he had touched a sore spot and enthused, ‘Those objects were used by people to mark important occasions and therefore they were kept carefully and handed down the generations. I can imagine it was quite a special day when a father decided to pass such an object on to his son.’

  Guinevere was glad Max wasn’t here to hear this.

  Where was he anyway? Didn’t he want dinner?

  Wadencourt said, ‘I can see the scene clearly in my mind – the moment when the object changed hands and the new owner realized he stood in a long line of people who had cherished this very thing. The engravings sometimes give names, or the motto from a coat of arms or a description. Sometimes dates. Every object tells a story.’

  ‘And you aren’t at all interested in the monetary value?’ Oliver asked with disbelief in his voice.

  ‘Not in the first place. The historic value interests me, the things we can deduce from studying the objects and the people who owned them. Of course it’s nice when an object also appeals to a popular interest in everything that glitters but …’

  ‘That is in fact a little beneath you,’ Oliver supplied with a grimace at Guinevere.

  Wadencourt hitched a brow. ‘I am the first to admit that people visit museums to see a spectacular crown or a bejewelled drinking cup rather than to stare at some small insignia they can’t make sense of or tools when they have no idea what they were used for. The big finds that appeal to people are needed to keep museums afloat.’

  ‘And to keep people like you in work.’ Oliver leaned back against the chair. ‘We’ve heard that you had to turn up a significant find to ensure you had people willing to back you up.’

  Wadencourt’s mouth tightened, but he stayed calm. ‘It’s sad that we live in a time where the value of everything is measured by results. Immediate results, if you please. It can’t always be done. Research takes time, and history can’t just be unravelled because a sponsor demands it.’

  ‘It also takes luck,’ Max said. He stood in the doorframe. ‘You have to hit on the right clue and then suddenly you’re in.’

  Wadencourt looked at him, colour rising in his pale face. ‘I hope you’ve been doing something useful today. The police haven’t been sniffing around your room?’

  ‘They searched it and they searched me. I had to turn out my pockets. They even slashed up my bean bag. And you?’

  Wadencourt was now a deep red. ‘How dare you?’ he hissed. ‘I was denied the goblet that could have established me as the leader in my field and you imply I had something to do with the disappearance of the stones?’

  Max shrugged. ‘I’m merely answering your question about the police. Yes, they did search my room and they searched my person.’

  He walked into the room and pulled out his chair. It seemed like the sound of wood on wood was too loud in the silence.

  Max said, ‘I see I missed the soup. But never mind. I’m sure the main dish is something good.’

  Guinevere was sorry that Wadencourt’s enthusiasm for his subject had been cut short. It had sounded rather fascinating. Maybe she could look up some facts about wedding goblets in the library before she went to bed?

  Cador came in with two dishes: one with chicken, the other rice.

  Wadencourt rose. ‘I think I’ve lost my appetite.’

  ‘Please tell the rest of your story,’ Max said. ‘I’m sure the others want to hear it.’ He sounded neutral, not challenging. He looked at Wadencourt. ‘You’re still the leader in your field, whether you found the goblet or not.’

  ‘I did find the goblet,’ Wadencourt hissed. ‘I just missed out on the stones because someone damaged the ruddy thing.’

  He seated himself again and leaned on the table heavily. ‘That was a criminal act and you know why? Not because of the theft of the stones. No. Because an object that had been loved and cherished for generations was treated like that. Do you have any idea how many hands have held that goblet? And not to admire the stones or the engraving. No, to drink from on their wedding day. A day of joy and of feeling connected with people around you. Those hands touching it were hands of people who followed a tradition. The drinking from the goblet signified togetherness, loyalty, love. For time to come.’

  ‘Until death do us part, huh?’ Max said softly.

  Guinevere sat motionless. In the light of what she knew of Wadencourt’s betrayal of Max’s mother and his marriage to a woman he hadn’t loved but who was simply needed to promote his career, Wadencourt’s words about love and loyalty did seem to ring false. Max challenging him was only natural.

  But Wadencourt didn’t seem to notice the undertone in Max’s remark. ‘The goblet wasn’t kept hidden in a dusty cabinet or trunk, no, it was put on display for all to see. People wanted to remember their wedding day and for their children to hear about it.’

  ‘But if it was so important to them, Lady Rose must have left clues to the goblet’s whereabouts,’ Oliver said.

  Wadencourt shook his head. ‘Lady Rose left nothing of the kind.’

  ‘Then how on earth did you manage to find it? If there is nothing left of that time …’

  ‘Ah,’ Wadencourt said. His eyes sparkled. ‘You asked if Lady Rose left clues. And I said she didn’t. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left of that time.’

  Wadencourt looked from one to the other to stretch the tension. ‘Well, I might as well tell you.’

  He puffed up his chest. ‘It’s going to be in all of the newspapers tomorrow. I gave an interview this afternoon. Over the phone of course, there was no other way. But they will be coming here no doubt – the reporters – to see me and ask questions. Then they can photograph me at the castle, at the site of the find.’

  ‘I was to photograph you.’ Max’s voice was a little shrill.

  Wadencourt shook his head. ‘You’re no portrait photographer. You wouldn’t give it the right touch.’ He looked around the table. ‘Do you want to hear how I figured it out or don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’ Bolingbrooke said, leaning forward, and Oliver nodded, looking like he was all ears.

  Only Guinevere looked at Max, reading the vulnerability in his features. How the casual dismissal by his father ate at him.

  Wadencourt said, ‘Lady Rose didn’t leave clues. But a clergyman who stayed here at the time kept a diary of the siege. Parts of it were written down later by a steward who thought it was interesting for the generations to come. One little line in there held the clue. People looked at it before me and didn’t see the significance of it.’ His whole face shone with self-importance.

  Max sat with his face down, his shoulders slumped.

  Guinevere didn’t know what was worse: to see him so small or Wadencourt so puffed up in his silly ‘tell all’ moment.

  Wadencourt said, ‘The line said that in this time of need Lady Rose paid extra tribute to St Ganoc, as the clergyman had seen her standing in deep devotion at the niche that held the statuette. Now think about it. Why would she pay tribute to a patron saint of fishermen? What did that have to do with the siege? Could she hope for St Ganoc to stop the enemy army? Wouldn’t she have been more likely to pray to other saints then?’

  He looked around. ‘No, it had nothing to do with seeking help. Lady Rose had hidden the precious goblet in that niche, inside the statue. She knew no one would ever look there. It was the safest place in the world.’

  He threw his weight back and eyed them one by one. ‘Ingenious, or what?’

  ‘I must say I can hardly believe you could draw such a conclusion from one little line about a siege,’ Bolingbrooke grumbled.

  ‘That’s why I do this wo
rk and you don’t,’ Wadencourt retorted. ‘You have to have an eye for detail and sift out what matters from all the hundreds of things that don’t.’

  Max’s face contorted at the words ‘what matters’.

  Guinevere swallowed. Wadencourt might know his area of expertise, but he didn’t understand what was really important in life. He had thrown away the possibility of happiness with family for his career. His name, his glory.

  Then there was a knock at the castle’s entry doors. An urgent banging.

  They all started. ‘Who can be out there?’ Bolingbrooke asked. He rose.

  Cador had already left the room to attend to the door.

  In moments LeFevre was there with two policemen behind him. He surveyed the dinner table and then said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb your meal. But I must ask one of you to accompany me to the police station for interrogation.’

  Wadencourt looked at Max. ‘Maybe the contents of your pockets were less innocent than first thought?’ he said with a hitched brow.

  LeFevre took two more steps. ‘It’s you, I mean, Mr Wadencourt,’ he said. ‘You made a mistake.’

  Wadencourt looked at him. ‘A mistake?’ he echoed with a puzzled look.

  ‘Yes. You should have taken along the goblet and when the statuette was found to be empty, you should have acted like you were bewildered as well. Then there would have been no police involved, at least not right away, and you might have left with your loot. But right now you’re under arrest.’

  ‘Arrest.’ Wadencourt still sounded self-assured. He looked LeFevre in the eye. ‘I don’t see for what. The goblet was defaced, the stones gone.’

  ‘Then explain to me how we found one of the stones among your possessions.’

  ‘What? One of the stones? That can’t be. It must have been put there.’

  ‘No, you told us you never let the notebook you write in out of your sight until you went to the niche this morning, to show off the goblet to all the others. It was on you all of the time.’

  ‘It was,’ Wadencourt said. ‘I even slept with it under my pillow.’

  ‘Then please explain to me how one of the rubies removed from the goblet last night ended up in the binding of your notebook?’