Finding Home (34 page)

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 steal 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.

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 ending 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'—?

‘Did your grandma ever go by “Anne” by any chance?' I say breathlessly.

He furrows his brow. ‘I don't know. Once when we were little, Flora called her “Granny Annie”. She flew off the handle and said never to call her that again.'

The fabric of time that I've carefully constructed in my mind rips apart. All along I assumed that the original letters I found were between Henry and Arabella. I never considered another possibility. All those benign, innocent love letters that I thought were written between a future husband and wife – who were married to each other for over forty years.
They never had any children
. And now it seems that all along, the great love story of Rosemont Hall never existed. Not between Henry and Arabella, at least.

‘The other letters I found – the love letters I told you about. They were between “H” and “A”. Arabella, I'd assumed. But maybe I've been wrong all along. Could they be between Henry and your grandma?'

‘It's possible, I guess.' He frowns, as if it's all too much to process at once. ‘I'd like to read them. Are they still at the house?'

A blush rises to my cheeks. ‘Actually, they're at home in my knicker drawer.'

He laughs. ‘Of course they are.'

I laugh too, but my brain is still whirring. ‘The letters I found stopped just before Henry's 21
^st
birthday party. That was the night of the fire. That must be significant. Do you know much about her past? How she ended up in America, for example?'

Jack narrows his eyes. ‘As I'm sure you can imagine, she's not really the type to be open about that kind of thing.'

I nod. I
can
imagine.

‘I don't know all the details, but she gave birth to my mom not long after she arrived in America. She settled in New York and found work in a big hotel – told them she was a widow, I think, to avoid the stigma. It must have been difficult with a baby – I don't know how she managed it. But she ended up marrying the hotel manager, Tim Bradford. Grandpa Tim. He was great,' he smiles. ‘Taught me how to ride a bicycle and build a tree house – stuff like that. We even took apart an old Radio Shack computer together. They were married for a good many years before he died.'

‘He sounds like a good guy.'

‘They didn't have children of their own. But my mom grew up and married my dad. Then Flora and I came along. That should have been the end of it – a happy ending, if you like. But it wasn't.'