That Summer

by Lauren Willig

  Olivia had fled the schoolroom while Penbury was still mourning over her sodden curls, which were now no longer auburn but a rather greenish black. It was, Olivia had decided, safer to be out of the way until the hubbub had died down.

  But where to hide? Penbury knew most of her usual haunts: behind the thick drapes in the drawing room, beneath the claw-footed sideboard in the dining room, in that curious little nook between the day nursery and the night nursery. She couldn’t take refuge in the trees in the orchard; the world outside was uniformly damp and gray and Olivia had no desire to be dripped upon, even in the interest of eluding Miss Penbury and a—she had to admit—somewhat deserved scolding.

  But only somewhat. It wasn’t as though she had intended to ruin Penbury’s false front. Although it had turned a rather fascinating color once the ink had spilled on it.

  Somehow, Olivia suspected Penbury wouldn’t quite appreciate that.

  For want of better options, she darted into Aunt Jane’s room. Papa’s room was off-limits, and the room that had belonged to Olivia’s mama was too sacred to enter. Papa had kept it just as it had been when she was alive, and Olivia didn’t go there. Sometimes, she would creep as far as the door and, heart high in her chest, open it and peer inside the shrouded interior—and then close it again very quickly, before she was caught.

  But Aunt Jane was just Aunt Jane, and while she might be cross at finding Olivia hiding at the back of her wardrobe, she would certainly be less cross than Penbury. By rights, Aunt Jane’s room was forbidden territory; Olivia wasn’t meant to be fussing with her aunt’s things. In practice, though, Olivia couldn’t imagine Aunt Jane would scold, any more than she had scolded when she caught Olivia wearing her best going-to-church hat and one of Father’s cravats as a scarf. Aunt Jane pretended to be strict, but her scoldings were usually followed with a slice of bread and jam, the amount of jam directly proportional to the length of the scolding.

  Olivia had once overheard Aunt Jane telling Father that Olivia was the daughter she had never had. While she knew this was meant kindly, Olivia was secretly, guiltily, glad that Aunt Jane wasn’t her mother. Her real mother was much more interesting. She knew very little about her, only that she had been beautiful—there was her portrait in the drawing room, all dark hair and big, soulful eyes—and that she had died bringing Olivia into the world, which Olivia found terribly sad and romantic.

  Aunt Jane, prim, prosaic Aunt Jane, with her graying blond hair and the horrible candies that gave her breath an odd stench, just couldn’t compete, although in the everyday course of things it was Aunt Jane to whom Olivia went running with scraped knees and small triumphs.

  Her room also had the distinct advantage of boasting a commodious wardrobe, with plenty of room for an agile seven-year-old to scrunch in tight at the back. One side was filled from top to bottom with drawers, the other crowded with cloth-covered dresses hanging from pegs. With a quick glance over her shoulder Olivia tugged open the doors of the wardrobe and scrambled into the opening, burrowing between a wool petticoat and a scratchy thing of stiffened horsehair, only to find her ingress thwarted by something large and rectangular leaning against the back of the wardrobe, something that took up all of the valuable hiding space behind the dresses.

  It wobbled dangerously as Olivia bumped into it, and she caught at a cloth-shrouded corner to keep it from falling. The linen wrappings tugged free in her hand, revealing a corner of a brightly painted scene, like something out of a storybook.

  She had only the briefest impression of a king with a crown, and a lady with a cup, and, best of all, a darling black and white dog with its paws stretched out in front of it before there was the sound of angry footsteps and someone was upon her, hauling her out backward by the collar of her dress.

  “You wicked, wicked girl!” It was Aunt Jane’s voice, but Aunt Jane as Olivia had never heard her before. “What are you doing here?”

  Aunt Jane’s face was flushed with anger; she seemed to crackle with rage, from the top of her head down to the bottom of her crinoline. Olivia felt uncertain. She had never seen Aunt Jane like this before. She hadn’t thought that Aunt Jane would mind so about Miss Penbury’s curls.

  Dropping her head, Olivia scuffed the toe of her buttoned boot against the carpet. “Miss Penbury—”

  Aunt Jane grabbed her ungently by the arm and hauled her forward. “You can imagine I shall have a word with your Miss Penbury! Allowing you to run wild—like a little savage!—what your father will say…”

  Olivia pulled back against Aunt Jane’s arm, too curious to be wise. “But, Aunt Jane, what about the picture?”

  Her aunt stopped abruptly. Her hands descended on Olivia’s shoulders like talons. “There is no picture,” she said.

  “But there was,” Olivia began stubbornly. In her short life she had seldom been contradicted and thwarted, and certainly not by Aunt Jane, purveyor of jam and bread. “It was the prettiest—”

  Olivia’s teeth rattled in her mouth as her aunt shook her hard enough to make the ribbon slide free from her hair. Olivia looked up at Aunt Jane in shock and indignation. What she saw in her aunt’s face scared her, scared her into silence.

  “There is no picture,” Aunt Jane said savagely. “Do you understand me?” Another shake. “There is no picture.”

  Despite herself, Olivia nodded. This was worse than Miss Penbury, worse than the discolored curls. “Aunt Jane…”

  “Come along.” Taking hold of her arm, her aunt propelled her forward. “You’re going back to the nursery and you’ll stay there while I tell your Miss Penbury what I think of her notions of discipline.”

  Meekly Olivia obeyed, although she couldn’t resist taking one last look over her shoulder as her aunt tugged her through the door of the room. But it was no use. The angle of the wardrobe door hid any sign of the picture within.

  There had been a picture. She had seen it; she had touched it. But she knew enough not to press the point. Aunt Jane had never raised a hand to her in anger before, had never called her wicked. The words stung.

  Olivia was confined to the nursery for a week, a long week with an indignant Penbury, still furious at Olivia over the destruction of her beloved hairpiece and even more outraged over the dressing-down she had received from Aunt Jane over Olivia’s conduct. Olivia was set to writing out lines. A young lady must never …

  There were to be no walks in the garden until she showed herself capable of behaving like a young lady, and she was forbidden the use of her watercolors for a month.

  Inwardly Olivia seethed at the injustice of it all. She didn’t understand why Aunt Jane was so angry. It wasn’t as though Olivia had meant any harm, and didn’t the vicar always say it was intentions that counted? And there had so been a picture.

  The idea of the picture haunted her. At night, she lay in her narrow bed in the night nursery, with Penbury snoring in her little room just beyond, and tried to reconstruct the scene from the little bit she had seen.

  Bit by bit, life fell back into its normal patterns. Penbury bought herself a new cap and seemed resigned, if not reconciled, to the loss of her curls. Aunt Jane indicated her forgiveness by allowing Olivia to wind her wool, despite Olivia’s tendency to get it into tangles. The weather cleared enough to permit the walks that Miss Penbury loosely termed “instruction in natural history.”

  It was several weeks before Olivia had her opportunity. She waited cunningly until Miss Penbury was laid up with a toothache and Aunt Jane had been called away to a meeting of one of her benevolent societies. Having assured, via a visit down the back stairs, that Anna and Cook were engaged in a comfortable coze in the kitchen (and secured herself a biscuit in the process), she crept into Aunt Jane’s room.

  The wardrobe, that object of desire, stood unattended at the far side of the room. On stockinged feet, Olivia crossed the floor. She carefully wiped her hands on her pinafore to remove any trace of biscuit crumbs before curling her fingers around the brass handles.

  Her
chest tight with anticipation, she pulled open the doors—and saw nothing.

  There were only Aunt Jane’s dresses, ghostly in their linen wrappings, with the cloak she kept for best hanging from its own peg. Olivia pressed with her hands against the back of the wardrobe, but nothing met her palms but a flat expanse of wood.

  There was no picture.

  Thwarted and confused, Olivia retreated to her favorite tree in the apple orchard. Perhaps Aunt Jane was right; perhaps there had never been a picture. It had appeared so vivid—but she must have imagined it. Mustn’t she?

  She and Aunt Jane never spoke of the matter again, and by the time spring had blossomed into summer Olivia, with the resilience of her age, had forgotten the matter entirely.

  If she sometimes dreamed of a brightly patterned scene featuring a king at his high table and a dog panting in the rushes, the memory of it was always gone by morning.

  Herne Hill, 2009

  “Does it matter now who killed Thorne? Other than for pure curiosity’s sake,” Julia amended.

  On the other side of the closed doors to the drawing room, the portrait of Imogen Grantham still hung, with Gavin Thorne’s signature on the bottom, the lovers united on the canvas if not in life.

  “Whatever happened then, it’s comforting to think that they’re together now, wherever they are.” She wrinkled her nose. “Does that sound soppy?”

  Nick donned his most superior expression. “Very soppy. But rather sweet.” Nick’s voice was carefully neutral as he said, “Once the media show dies down, what do you mean to do?”

  Between the police station and fighting off the media and then Nick’s business trip, there’d been no chance to talk since last Sunday. Not about them.

  Corpses could be very distracting. Especially when both parties had a long-ingrained habit of avoiding tough conversations.

  Avoiding Nick’s eyes, Julia said, “I’d like to see if I can get Thorne buried next to Imogen. It seems only right that they should finally be together.”

  Nick captured her hand, twining his fingers firmly through hers. “I didn’t mean about them. I meant about you.” He paused for a moment and said with an effort, “Do you mean to stay or go?”

  Julia thought of Nick’s mother, leaving him in London and traipsing back to LA. The visits that were meant to happen but stopped. If they were going to have a chance of being together, long-distance wasn’t really an option, at least not at the beginning.

  Julia pulled herself slowly up against the cushions. “I’ve been thinking about it. A lot.”

  She thought about her life in New York. There wasn’t much there that she would miss. Her father and Helen and the boys, yes. Lexie. But she spoke with them all on the phone more than she saw them, anyway. Her apartment could be rented or sold. If she went back, it would only be because she was afraid to stay here.

  There were ways she could maneuver staying in England—if she knew that Nick really wanted her there. If she weren’t so terrified that it might not work.

  Julia thought about Gavin and Imogen, and the life they might have had together if someone else hadn’t intervened. They had been willing to risk all they had for love. She had nothing at stake but her own fears.

  Keeping her eyes on the tarnished silver tea strainer, she said, “If the Tate buys Tristan and Iseult, I can afford to stay here for a year while I get my grad school applications in.”

  She felt the couch cushions move as Nick shifted beside her. “You don’t mind letting the picture go?”

  “It belongs in a museum where other people can see it.” Julia took a deep breath. “And it would be nice to stay here a little bit longer. As long as you want me to?”

  She felt his hand tighten on hers. “If you need a part-time job for your gap year, there’s a shop that could use your assistance. I hear the shopkeeper’s not a bad sort.”

  Julia felt a wave of giddiness wash over her. Or maybe it was just Nick’s proximity. He smelled of aftershave, tea, and ginger biscuits. “Is this your way of trying to drum up some cheap labor?”

  “I wouldn’t call it cheap. If anything, I would say it was rather dear.” His arms went around her, and she heard his voice half-laughing, rough with relief, in her ear. “No. Scrap that. Very dear.”

  Julia rubbed her cheek against the wilted linen of his shirt. “Were you planning to seduce me between the Chippendale and the Sheraton?”

  “No,” said Nick reproachfully. His breath traveled from her ear, along her cheek, towards her lips, sending little tingles down Julia’s spine. “I was thinking more the couch in the back room.”

  “Sketchy,” managed Julia, “hitting on an employee.”

  Somehow, she wasn’t quite vertical anymore. Nick might be rubbish at relationships, but he clearly had some experience on the seduction front.

  “It’s a good thing you aren’t one, then,” he murmured.

  It was some time before they came up for air, long enough for the shadows in the room to have shifted and the last glowing embers on the hearth to have fizzled into ash. Julia nestled comfortably in Nick’s arms. The couch wasn’t really big enough for both of them to lie side by side, but neither was complaining.

  She could feel Nick’s voice start deep in his chest. “I was thinking,” he began, and Julia automatically stiffened a bit. This whole trust thing didn’t come easy.

  Baby steps, she told herself. Baby steps.

  “I was thinking,” Nick said meditatively, “that since tomorrow is a Saturday, and Tamsin is still in the shop…”

  Julia levered herself up on an elbow, her hair swinging down over her face as she looked down at him. “Are you inviting yourself over, Mr. Dorrington?”

  “Purely to protect you from reporters,” he said smoothly. “Although, just to be safe, I should probably stay in your room. In the event of invaders under the bed, of course.”

  “Of course,” Julia agreed. “And when the media invasion is over?”

  Nick smoothed the hair away from her face. There was a roguish glint in his blue-green eyes. “Didn’t I promise to inspect your artwork?”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Some books are easy and flow lightly off the pen. Others don’t. This book fell squarely in the latter category.

  Huge thanks go to my editor, Jennifer Weis, for her insight and her patience; to my sister Brooke, who played plot doctor when I needed it most; and to the entire team at St. Martin’s Press, for providing suggestions, okaying extensions, brainstorming titles, and designing and redesigning the cover. Thanks also to Joe Veltre, for being my cheerleader through the rough beginning of this book, and to Alexandra Machinist, for putting a fine polish on it at the end. Every book is a team effort, and this one even more so than usual.

  Thank you to the regulars on my Web site and Facebook page, for your suggestions, your encouragement, and your enthusiasm. I feel so fortunate to be blessed with such a warm and creative community to turn to on those days when the blank page is particularly blank.

  A special shout-out goes to Kristen Kenney, for postcards from the Tate, countless visits to the Burne-Jones exhibit at the Met, and freshman afternoons at the BAC. Whenever I think of Pre-raphaelites, I think of you.

  As always, so much love and gratitude to my husband, my parents, and my siblings, who make this book and all others possible by putting up with the author during the writing of them and providing emergency cupcakes when necessary.

  Last, but not least, thanks go to my daughter, Madeleine, for graciously waiting until after revisions on this book were handed in before making her appearance in the world, as well as for condescending to nap most of the way through copyedits. Both of these courtesies were greatly appreciated, and have been forwarded on to Santa for future reference.

  ALSO BY LAUREN WILLIG

  The Ashford Affair

  THE PINK CARNATION SERIES

  The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

  The Masque of the Black Tulip

  The Deception of the
Emerald Ring

  The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

  The Temptation of the Night Jasmine

  The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

  The Mischief of the Mistletoe

  The Orchid Affair

  The Garden Intrigue

  The Passion of the Purple Plumeria

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LAUREN WILLIG is also the author of the New York Times bestselling Pink Carnation series and a RITA Award winner for Best Regency Historical for The Mischief of the Mistletoe. She graduated from Yale University and has a graduate degree in English history from Harvard and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She lives in New York City, where she now writes full time.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THAT SUMMER. Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Willig. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover photograph © Andy Williams / Getty Images

  eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PRINT EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Willig, Lauren.

  That summer / Lauren Willig.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-250-01450-4 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4668-5147-4 (e-book)

  1. Inheritance and succession—Fiction. 2. Antique dealers—England—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.I575T48 2014

  813'.6 23—dcho

  2014008045

  e-ISBN 9781466851474

  First Edition: June 2014