The Art of Inheriting Secrets(36)

And yet she hadn’t at all, had she?

The looping back roads were relatively empty, the car exquisitely comfortable, and I found myself drifting off, waking with a start only when we bumped over a rutted road into a long drive. The sun had broken through, chasing clouds off to the sea, and entire swaths of bright, clean blue sky showed through. Beneath that splendor sprawled a house made of gold stone, surrounded by open green lawns dotted with painterly trees.

“Here we are,” Robert said. “Marswick Hall.”

Unlike Rosemere, Marswick had been well tended. A gleaming row of windows marched across the face, end to end for four stories, each row getting smaller until they culminated in a small, ordinary row just under the eaves. Wide stone steps led to a pair of gigantic doors painted dark blue, one of which was open, guarded by another man in a suit, balding and ostentatiously aloof, like a butler from an old movie.

But this was no movie, and he probably was the butler. I smoothed my trousers and took a breath. He came down the steps to greet me. “Lady Rosemere.” He bowed a little. “Please follow me.”

The house was long but not deep. The marble corridor at the entrance led straight through to a pair of glass doors at the other end, doors open to the garden at the rear. I could hear music and voices, the ring of laughter. I steeled myself to enter the party, but the butler turned right and led me down a corridor to a room that must be a parlor of some kind. A genial-looking black Lab leapt to his feet and trotted over to greet me as the butler announced, “The Countess of Rosemere, Olivia Shaw.”

“Very good, Mr. Tims. Thank you.” A man stood, lean and fit despite his advanced years. He’d said he’d known my mother and grandmother, and he might well have been a contemporary of my grandmother, so late eighties? Early nineties? “Hello, my dear,” he said. His voice was strong, not at all wavery. “Please, come sit with me a moment before we go out into the madness.”

“I’d be delighted.” Sunlight poured through the long windows to spill over elegantly worn Persian rugs. Thousands of books lined the walls. The contrast with tattered, neglected Rosemere made my heart ache. This is how it would have looked, once upon a time.

The earl waited by his chair, leaning on a magnificent walking stick carved of dark wood into a loose weave of tree branches. I admired it openly. “That’s beautiful.”

“Oh, yes. My nephew brought it to me from his travels. Can’t remember where he was. Ecuador, Argentina. Somewhere like that.” He tapped it on the floor, then looked at me. His eyes were a startlingly bright blue, not at all rheumy but direct and clear. “Makes me look dashing rather than old.”

I laughed. “Absolutely.”

He held out his hand, and I took it. “You are Caroline’s daughter, then. Olivia, is that right? May I call you Olivia?”

“Of course.”

“And you may call me George.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Oh, I’m pretty sure that would not be polite.”

“All right. Marswick, then. How’s that?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s sit down, my dear. We haven’t much time before they come after us, but I wanted a moment to have you to myself. Welcome you to the neighborhood.”

“Thank you.”

A woman appeared at the door with a tray, and he waved her over. “Tea? Or a ginger splash?”

“Ginger, please,” I replied, intrigued.

He accepted a cloudy ginger, too, served in a tall, narrow glass with a slice of lime floating on top. I sipped it delicately, and the flavor sang through my mouth, sharp and bright. I forced myself not to make a sound over it and politely took just one more sip.

“How are you finding us?” Marswick asked.

“Everyone has been very helpful.” I sipped again, trying to trace the flavor profile. Ginger, lime, sparkling water, or maybe tonic?

“Oh, I’m sure, Lady Rosemere, I’m quite sure. They’ll all want a piece of that pie that’s landed so neatly in your lap.”

I thought of Rebecca and the solicitor. “Yes, some of them. Not all, I don’t think.”

“Humph. In my experience, a woman of your rank will have to watch her back. You’ve not had much experience, I warrant.”

“None at all. My mother never said a thing. I thought she grew up in some forgotten industrial town somewhere.”

“But her accent!”

“We don’t hear accents the same way in the US as you do here. They all just sound English.”

“My word.” He sat back, large hands on his thighs. “You must be reeling.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you frankly that there are a good number of social climbers who’ve had their eye on that property for years, and they were just about to snap it up when you arrived out of the blue.”

“I’ve gathered that. They want the land for developments, I’m guessing.”

“Perhaps. I suspect others might wish to buy a title.”

“Can they do that?”

His mouth turned down at the corners. “They can. I gather it isn’t easy, but it has been done often enough in recent years.” He folded his hands over his bony knee, and I realized he must have been a very big man, once upon a time. His hands were nearly the length of my forearm. “And a title without responsibility is an abomination, so I’m hoping to convince you to give it a try.”