The Art of Inheriting Secrets(61)

What was I thinking with this place? How could a woman who had never even owned an ordinary house even consider taking on the renovation of a six-hundred-year-old manor house with thirty-seven bloody rooms? Standing in the rain, staring up at the house my mother had fled, I felt like a fool. I’d let myself be seduced by a vision of myself as lady of the manor, lady savior. Vanquisher of darkness.

Ridiculous. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to be back in my office at the Egg and Hen, going over copy and photos; planning a big, beautiful issue; or drinking handcrafted cocktails in some self-consciously hip bar where the gay server had a man bun or a beard or both.

What the hell was I doing here on this quixotic journey? What did I think I would find?

The gnawing hollowness in my lungs expanded and expanded until I wanted to scream, expanding until—finally—I recognized what it was.

In taking on this quest, I was somehow expecting to get my mother back. Not the idea of her, but the actual her—a flesh-and-blood being who would walk through some portal in the perfectly restored house wearing her favorite wool slacks and say, “I had every faith in you, my dear.”

What a fool I was!

“Madam?”

I turned toward the polite voice to find a policeman in a black uniform. He was middle-aged, with a heavy jowl born of too many pints on late nights at the pub. “Yes?”

“I’m going to have to ask you to run along. We’ve a police investigation going. I know there ain’t much excitement round these parts, but you’ll have to wait on official word like everyone else.”

“I’m Olivia Shaw,” I said, and when his face remained blank, I added—hating myself for it—“the Countess of Rosemere.”

“Ah.” He covered his surprise, took a step back. “Well, then. I expect you’ll want to follow me. We’ve found something.”

I considered asking questions, but better to wait until we weren’t huffing and puffing all the way across the muddy fields. He didn’t seem to feel the need to make small talk, and I was relieved. My boots splatted and sank and made sucking sounds as I yanked them out. “Cold, wet, miserable England,” my mother had often said, but I hadn’t understood how San Francisco with its fogs and rainy seasons could be much different.

This was different.

Even in the rain, a crowd gathered at the abbey ruins, their array of umbrellas blooming against the deluge. I saw police and some of the construction workers and even a couple of faces from the garden club. The rest were tenants and villagers drawn by the commotion.

The policeman led me to a man in a suit who stood beneath the shelter of one of the large pines surrounding the abbey. A crew had erected a tarp over a portion of the interior of the abbey, and I could see the scar of fresh dirt around it.

“Sir, I’ve found the countess.”

“Ah. Hello, Lady Shaw,” the man said in a blurry northern accent. “Inspector Greg. Quite a day for you.”

“You found a skeleton, I hear. Do you think it’s the girl who disappeared in the seventies?”

“Hard to say just now. We’ve not found all the remains just yet, and it’ll all have to be dated and photographed and examined before anyone will say anything.” He had very sharp features, as if they’d been carved from a tree and never sanded into kinder angles. “Given the location, the probability is that it’s much older.”

“How long will all of this take? You might not have heard that part of the roof came down. I’m anxious to get the crew on it, cover it up.”

“The local historical council will have my head if I don’t follow archeological protocols.”

I nodded.

In the pocket of my coat, my phone buzzed with a text. “Sorry,” I said and pulled it out, hoping for a ride home.

It was Samir. Where are you?

Up by the abbey, I typed. “Someone has come to give me a ride,” I said to the detective. “I was planning to go inside the house and collect some things before the crews start the next rounds of gutting. Is that all right?”

“I’d wait if I were you. Too much chaos, and if the body is more recent, the house will be part of the investigation.”

For one moment, I looked at him in disbelief. “Of course,” I finally said. “Because it’s that kind of a day.”

Unexpectedly, he smiled. “You’ve taken on quite the Herculean task, Lady Shaw. Surely the gods will smile.”

“Or smite me,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the abbey, wondering if such things as curses really held any truth. And if this was the girl who had cursed the place, did her discovery nullify it, or would she rise like a zombie to punish the new generation?

Samir pulled up in his small blue car. “There’s my ride. Let me know what you discover.”

“Isn’t that Tony Willow’s apprentice?” He rolled a mint around in his mouth. “He your boyfriend?”

“A, yes, and B, none of your business.”

“Bit young is all.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said with a sigh. “He’s my friend. Of which I have very few around these parts.”

“Fair enough.” He gave me a tip of an imaginary hat. “You ever want a grown-up”—the r rolled elegantly—“friend, I’d be delighted to buy you a scotch.”