by Laura Briggs
I had not realized what she was really saying to me until now. "You want me ... to come with you?" I said. "I thought ... I thought you meant you wanted to email me or call me when we discussed the book. But you're talking about me actually going with you to Paris."
Paris was nowhere near Cornwall in terms of trains, or even ferries.
"How could one ever discuss things properly over a mobile?" asked Alistair. "I never touch the thing, frankly. And if you are truly any sort of fan of my career, you know that I abhor email. No, the only sensible thing to do is for you to come with me when I leave tomorrow for the rest of my summer itinerary. Then we can really discuss your work as it deserves, and you'll have the full measure of my influence and experience."
Leave Cornwall, leave the hotel Penmarrow. Leave Sidney. That was the price of my dream. I hadn't seen it coming, although I should have. It was truly the only sensible choice, as Alistair said. What sense did it make for me to stay in a situation created only by my initial desire to meet Alistair Davies when I had met the famous author at last?
The reasons I would stay had nothing at all to do with my novel or my future dreams.
"You look as pale as a ghost, darling — you needn't be afraid of extravagant hotel bills, for you would be my guest. I have a sizeable flat in London, an apartment in Paris — minor expenses for you in terms of train tickets and little items of comfort or convenience, really."
"That's so generous of you," I said. "But —" I hesitated.
"But what? If the train fare is a bit of a sticky wicket, then I'm happy to forward you the sum. I do remember the days of being a starving artist myself, you know."
"No, it's not the ticket." I shook my head. "It's not the money. I have some." A good part of what I had saved for the Tucker Mentorship experience was still intact, though I had whittled away at my small savings this past year.
"Surely you're not afraid of making changes to your book?" said Alistair. "Revisions are the inevitable, darling. You are ready for the next stage, I trust, else you wouldn't have shown it to me?"
I knew I was ready, because I had told Sidney as much a week ago, when we lay on his blanket in the clearing. It was time for my novel to move on from endless, tiny tweaking of descriptions, and for me to move on from this writer's fog that threatened stagnation for my work.
I would be crazy to miss this opportunity. But I would be crazy to walk away from my life here. Even though everything was about to change, it was still my life — the place where I had found myself as a writer, and found the confidence to share my voice. I had discovered things about myself I had never known.
I couldn't forget about the person who helped me find those things. I could never forget about him.
"You mustn't plan to huddle over your manuscript year after year, tweaking it according to your rules of perfection," Alistair continued. "Not if you want it to live as it deserves."
"I know." My voice was quiet, and distant. "You're offering me the opportunity of a lifetime. And I ... I want to say 'yes' in the worst possible way, believe me." My voice trembled, as much with emotion as sheer shock for all of this.
"Then do," said Alistair. "Pack your things and come with me to the station tomorrow, and we'll talk about all the ways your manuscript can become more magnificent. It's the very least I can do — if I hadn't rushed off from the hotel a year ago, you wouldn't still be here, would you? You wouldn't have been tangled in this dreadful business over the robbery, exciting though it was."
An unintentional sucker punch, this reminder of Sidney's miserable past week. He had seen me through this novel's changes, through the heart and soul of its characters taking shape, and I wouldn't have done it without him. Even now, he still offered me his help when we both knew I was beyond a simple reader's opinion.
You are the only one who knows what you need. You're the only one who can answer any of those questions, and answer for what comes after you decide.' Sidney's voice in my head, his reminder that I had to make a choice.
Find someone I trusted. A writer who would read it fairly and critically, who didn't want to crush my dream but help me find a realistic option for it — like a publisher in the young adult world, perhaps, who loved epic tales. That was the kind of reality within reach for me, if Alistair was as honest as she seemed.
A year ago, I might likely have made a dismal mess, even a failure, of a mentorship with Alistair Davies, but now, I was a better, more confident writer whose work was more than a mere outline and some loose chapters. Deep inside, I knew there would never be a better time to have an author guide me to the next stage. An author who was offering me more than credit with the Tucker program and a mere shot at the Ink and Inspiration Prize if I wanted it: a chance to skip these steps and find an audience for my book without them.
I want you to do this as you want to do it, and need to do it. Whatever it be, Maisie, you have my wholehearted support for it, and I would never dream of offering anything else.
"Maisie?" A touch of concern in Alistair's voice.
"I will," I said. I steadied my voice before I spoke again. "I'll come with you. I'll tell Mr. Trelawney as soon as my shift is over ... I'll pack my bags and be ready tomorrow."
I would be crazy to answer any other way.
"Splendid," declared Alistair. "I'll arrange a second ticket on the Eurostar for next week. We'll be meeting my friend Paige again briefly in London for lunch before she leaves for Edinburgh, then we'll be off." She tucked her eyeglasses on the bridge of her nose and made a little note in her book with its decorative pencil. "The car will collect us tomorrow at nine a.m. A teeny bit early, but you know how train schedules do make a body rush about to meet them."
The murmurings of a nearby table of guests caught my ear. "There's the policeman again." Alistair and I both glanced in the direction of the dining room doors, catching a vanishing glimpse of a constable in uniform who must have descended the staircase moments ago. I could see men in suits following — Mr. Trelawney, Mr. Tiller, and the Scotland Yard inspector.
"I'll be back," I said to Alistair, and slipped from my chair. I seized a duster from inside the hall's cleaning cupboard before I entered the foyer, where all three were talking. Sergeant MacEntire was on the reception desk's phone, Brigette trying to look dignified and uninterested in his official call as she smoothed the registration book's open page.
"... that's right, sir. A little hollowed-out space behind a wooden flower medallion in the trim. He must've worked at it to pry it out, and hollowed the wall with chisel or the like. Painted over the seam with a bit of white nail polish to cover it from sight." He paused to listen. "We found the combs and the ruby pin all right, from the list of stolen items, but not a trace of the diamonds," he said. "We've searched all over, but there's not another hiding place. Reckon La Fleur has 'em."
"I never should have believed his credentials," groaned Mr. Tiller. "They looked quite perfect — and I naturally assumed the phone call was indeed from Tennyson & Son. The blasted company claims they've never had a policy of sending investigators to look into these matters, relying on the reports of the 'appropriate authorities' assigned to the case." He ran one hand wearily over his features. "Now the diamonds are hopelessly lost — I can only imagine where they will end up."
"No doubt on the black market, sir," answered Inspector Giles. "In the private collection of whatever wealthy criminal types make contact with the likes of La Fleur." He shrugged on his coat. "But Harold Basil won't be among them. He'll be awaiting trial for theft this time."
" ... likely enough La Fleur's got away by now, sir," said the sergeant. "We've sent word to the train stations and bus stations, but a master thief like him knows ways. Probably even figured out how to slip through some of these rural roads by now. I'm sending one of my men to check the old orchard road for tire marks."
Anson had asked if there was a way to escape in secret, and Sidney had told him two ways to slip through both the usual highways and usual waterways witho
ut being noticed. Had Anson made his getaway by one of them?
"If you would have the goodness to collect the suspect's luggage from the suite upstairs, perhaps you'll locate further evidence," suggested Mr. Trelawney. "Incriminating nail polish or chips of paint, perhaps."
"PC Jones will fetch it shortly," said the inspector. Sergeant MacEntire was dialing another number on the phone.
"Pringle? It's your sergeant. Let Mr. Daniels and Miss Fifer go. We shan't be holding them after today. We have our man, more or less."
My pretense of dusting the palm fern's leaves ended. I wanted to find Mrs. Finny and quickly — and not to discuss erasing my name from the rest of the week's schedule. I went to the office by reception and pushed open its door, but the swivel chair behind the chief housekeeper's desk was empty, a CD of love songs playing softly beside a pile of open files.
"Where is Mrs. Finny?" I asked Brigette.
"In the gold parlor, deciding how best to put it to rights after the security team's equipment is gone."
Mrs. Finny was gazing worriedly at the stain on the carpet from the spilled coffee and the grooves made by chairs pushing back and forth from the security monitors. I rapped on the door frame until she noticed me at last. "What is it, Maisie?"
"Permission to take the rest of the day off, Ma'am," I said. "A personal matter has come up. It's very pressing." More than one had come up, but I thought I would serve my notice later tonight. There was no rush.
"I suppose you may. Of course," she said, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. "Help Katy clear away the coffee trays and then go." The security team's coffee station consisted of two large percolators, a French press, and various coffee mugs that had been left behind by the final investigative team. Katy was stacking things on a tray for transport to the kitchen, so I joined her in the process.
A half-dozen or so coffee cups and assorted silver spoons later, I drew off my maid's apron; instead of taking it to the laundry or my room, I tucked it in the employee's uniform closet on a hook as I borrowed another cardigan someone had left behind. Briefly, I remembered the first time I had taken an apron from this same closet, seconds before running into my ex-boyfriend in the hotel's lobby.
Rows of uniforms in the same blue stripe as my own, starched porters' jackets and aprons — all exactly as they were the first time I opened this door. My first uniform had been a vast, striped tent I had never even worn because I rushed off too quickly on an errand, and, one hour later, I had found myself in Sidney's arms.
It felt as if it had happened yesterday, but it hadn't. Shouldn't it feel like a year of my life had passed in this place, and not just a few weeks of it? Would it feel that way after I left the hotel?
As I entered the foyer again, I saw someone hurrying through the front door. A harried young blond woman in an expensive summer jacket climbed the stairs eagerly, her mobile in hand — Genevieve Fifer had been released from the station already, and was on her way to collect her things and finally go home. Whatever charges might be made against her for taking her great-great grandmother's journal weren't ones that would keep her in England after all.
If she was free, so was Sidney.
***
I didn't take the long and private way through the shrubbery hedge near the church to reach Sidney's shed, but the direct lane to its little gate that was never locked. I knew he would come home as soon as they let him, and would probably shortly be fussed over by Mrs. Graves for being poorly shaven and ill fed, and be licked to death by his frenzied, overjoyed dogs.
Tails wagging, the dogs greeted me enthusiastically as I entered the garden and skirted past the open door of the work shed. I didn't knock on Sidney's door to his quarters, though I probably should have. I lifted the latch and opened it instead.
He stood by the table, where he was sorting through a pile of mail beside a large basket of muffins that could only be the doing of Mrs. Graves. He heard me and looked up — a little tiredness in his face, a little unkemptness in his appearance from days of being locked up, but otherwise he was exactly the same as always.
"You're home," I said. "I thought you would be — but I thought it would happen days ago, so I couldn't be sure until I saw you." I entered his room, the door swinging closed on its own behind me. "Are you okay? Really and truly okay?" I asked softly, although it was really more a demand, this question.
"No worse for wear," he said. And grinned, but, once again, it was more for show than for humor. "Nothing a bath and a tidier shave won't set right. A good night's sleep — and seeing someone who isn't PC Pringle for a change."
"He thought you were guilty," I said. "You should have heard the things Mrs. Graves said to him when she was taking him to task for suggesting you could ever be guilty. I almost winged one of the vicar's neighbors who always gives you dirty looks with a jar of Mrs. Graves's jam afterwards ... then I decided if I went to jail, too, it wouldn't help you. Your dogs would starve while I was serving time for assault."
"Thank you," he said.
"You don't have to thank me," I said, blushing. "The dogs were really no trouble. Except Kip wouldn't eat his food because he ran to the door every other second, looking for you."
"No. I meant thank you for believing me," he said. "Thank you for not ... doubting that the rumors about my shiftless motives for thievery couldn't possibly be true."
He smiled at me. It was a wistful, boyish one, not like his usual one, or any of the others. Maybe Sidney's past was in it, the real one that had nothing to do with ridiculous stories about diamond heists; I didn't know what it was, only that it pulled me to him, physically and emotionally, as nothing else had.
We both stood there for a moment. "How?" I began, softly. "How can I feel like I've known you all my life when I still know nothing about you?"
It made no sense, really. I trusted him implicitly; I would tell him anything, if he asked me for my secrets. Yet the number of facts I knew about him could be counted on one hand — my feelings flew in the face of every rumor I had ever heard about him, and every instinct I had about strangers and stupid decisions. But the first words I thought of today when facing a hard choice were his own. The first person I thought of for advice, as a friend who would need to be told, as a reason not to choose it at all — was him.
His smile became his own again, ever so faintly. "It's my natural charm seducing you," he said. "Isn't it?" The playfulness of the first part was almost gone from these last words, giving them the feel of a real question. Spoken in a way that suggested he didn't want my answer to be 'yes.'
"Do you want it to be?" I asked.
He shook his head. "No," he answered. Tenderly, even in his solemnity. His smile dimmed, then faded until it was almost gone, except for the sake of giving his features warmth.
I covered the distance between us without speaking. My hands framing Sidney's face the way he had framed mine in times before as I pressed close to him, pressing my lips against his in a kiss. It didn't linger on the threshold of desire, nor brush light as a feather against his skin, but laid itself against his mouth with an unexpected strength. I rose on my toes, willing to stand on his shoes if that's what it took to be closer to him.
His arms closed around me as he kissed me back. Strong enough to lift me off my feet if he wasn't already drawn down to meet me as closely as possible, my hands holding tight to the folds of his old cotton shirt. He pushed me up against the wall of his room, his own hands bracing him on either side beneath my arms; holding him there, holding me against him.
Our kiss parted and we were face to face. In Sidney's eyes, I saw a new kind of fire, nothing like his ordinary self — one alive with a different kind of emotional danger, the devil behind it an unknown one. It made me feel alive with wonder in return.
He didn't speak in those first few seconds, nor did I, though it seemed the right moment for saying everything in as few words as possible. We both caught our breath, waiting for our pulses to slow. I knew what I was going to say when I spoke
, looking deep into those hazel eyes.
"I think I love you," I said.
Sidney's gaze was still locked with mine. In his eyes, something strange flickered — I could see his surprise beneath it, which he couldn't hide in the breathless laugh that emerged from his lips.
Maybe that had been a little too unexpected. Even in this rush of feeling, I had a sudden fear I had stepped into the same pitfall as the broken hearts of Sidney's past — mistaking something for love that was merely one-sided. His reaction was not for my saying it at last, but that I said it at all.
He ran one hand over his face. The laugh came again — not one of discomfort or awkwardness, at least. He met my eyes. "Maisie," he said, softly.
I knew the rest of what was coming. The light in his eyes was still burning strong, and even if he didn't say the words, I knew what they would be. But the rest of mine came next.
"Sidney ... I have to tell you before anything else ... I'm leaving tomorrow." My voice was not steady for these words. "I promised to go to London, because another author is going to mentor me there ... to give my writing its chance."
The look in Sidney's eyes was changing rapidly, layers of disbelief and dismay forming in place of previous emotions. "Who?" he asked.
"You won't believe it." I glanced down, looking away from him, oh so briefly. "It's actually Alistair Davies."
Silence from Sidney. Even his ragged breathing didn't hide his utter surprise for this. "Alistair Davies?" he repeated.
"It's crazy, I know — he's not what I thought at all," I said. And almost laughed, though not quite, at the memory of what I had expected. "I didn't have a chance to tell you before — I found out by accident he was staying at the hotel."
