The Light Over London(66)

She could see the touch of a smile warm his profile. “I know, darling. I know that you sacrificed everything in Haybourne because of me. It’s only natural to have moments of doubt.”

She wanted to tell him that it hadn’t just been for him that she’d joined the ATS. She’d done it for herself too, but the words felt impossibly thick on her tongue.

In the end, he saved her from having to explain, because he kissed her. Only this kiss wasn’t like the ones before. This one was hard, as he crushed his lips against hers and raked his hands through her hair. He bent her back so that he could kiss the side of her neck, his other hand darting up to cup her breast. A frisson of heat shot through her, desire and surprise and hesitation all at once.

“I want you. You must know that,” he said, breathing heavily as he kissed down to the top of her uniform’s shirt.

Here in this perfectly respectable flat he had become something altogether less respectable. Gone was the polish of a well-heeled childhood spent in a mansion flat, a public school education, and reading at Cambridge. Now he was just a man overcome by a woman. She was that woman.

The seductive knowledge of her own power surged up in her. Sliding her hand up his shoulder to his neck, she guided him back up to meet her, slipping her tongue between his lips.

He groaned, “Louise . . . I can’t wait any longer.”

Careful not to break his gaze, she lifted her hands to the buckle of her tunic and undid the wide belt. His eyes fixed on her fingers as she swiftly unbuttoned the heavy garment and let it slide off her shoulders. Then she picked up his hand in hers and said with more surety than she felt, “I’m ready, Paul.”

With one more swift kiss, he pulled her into the darkened bedroom.





17


CARA


Cara hit save on her work laptop, laced her fingers together, and stretched her arms high over her head. The last of the items from the Old Vicarage were catalogued in Wilson’s inventory and up on the auction sites Jock favored.

Already a few pieces had sold, with others going to private clients Jock kept apprised of his stock. Just two days ago, an American woman on holiday had bought a Tiffany lamp they’d found in one of Lenora Robinson’s guest bedrooms. The woman had been delighted with the maze-like shop, all enthusiasm and praise for the rambling rooms jammed full of furniture, paintings, china, and objets d’art. Cara had chatted with her as she took the woman’s details to ship the lamp back to her home in Iowa, and when the woman left, Cara had the comforting feeling that another of Lenora Robinson’s things had been placed into good hands for this next part of its life.

The experience had prompted her to pick up the phone and call one of Jock’s associates working out of London. Her parents had had some good pieces that were in storage, but either because they clashed with her own style or because of the close quarters of her cottage, Cara didn’t want to keep them. She and the dealer had arranged a time to meet in early November, and when she’d hung up, she’d felt somehow buoyed. There was still loads to do, but this would be a start.

Cara began to weave her way from the office off the storeroom to the kitchenette at the back of the shop to fill the electric kettle and celebrate with a little tea break, but before she could get there the door jangled. She stilled for a moment, waiting to see if Jock would intercept the person or whether she’d be needed. The low rumble of a male voice followed by another drifted back to her. She was off the hook.

She was just pulling down a Burleigh teapot with a cracked lid Jock had rescued from an estate sale years ago when her boss appeared in the door. “Miss Hargraves, you have a visitor.”

He stepped back, revealing Liam.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, surprise and pleasure pinking her cheeks. She’d spent half of the past four days telling herself that Liam had just been tired when he’d turned down her invitation to dinner and the other half chiding herself for worrying that he was done with her. But now he was standing in her shop—well, Jock’s shop, but still.

“I have news,” he said. “About the diary.”

Cara slanted a look at Jock, who stood back, his arms over his chest, observing them as though he were a spectator at a chess match.

“And you came here to tell me?” she asked.

“As soon as I found out. I tried you on your phone but I couldn’t reach you and it didn’t seem fair me knowing something before you. Do you remember that Cornish historian I told you I’d reached out to?” he asked.

“The one who was going to figure out where Bakeford’s was.”

He nodded. “It’s in Haybourne. Or at least it was.”

“Where?” she asked with a frown.

“Haybourne is a tiny village on the Cornish coastline,” said Jock, earning stares from both of them. “I used to spend my summers in Newquay when I was a boy.”

“I’d never heard of it before, so I looked it up on a map. It’s just down the road from Saint Mawgan,” said Liam.

“Where she had her first dance with Paul,” Cara said.

“Exactly.”

The kettle clicked off its boil, and she set about pouring the hot water over the leaves and pulling down three mugs. Liam was staying for tea.

“We’ve been trying to track down the author of that diary I found at the Old Vicarage,” she said by way of explanation for Jock. “If we know where she’s from, we can track her down.”