The Painted Castle

by Kristy Cambron

  Keira hadn’t even realized how she was rambling, talking about fairy tales and snowy French castles, until she looked up and saw him watching her.

  Emory’s gaze had softened in the sunshine that streamed through the windows, studying her as the fire crackled behind them and the chatter of the dining room hummed like a forgotten drumbeat.

  Remembering the coffee saved her.

  Keira lifted the rim to her lips, the sugar and real cream he’d ordered in it exactly the way she preferred, and drank deep. How could she ignore the ease that came with understanding the quirks of someone else’s presence, enough that he listened when you ran off with your words? And knew how you took your coffee? And ordered it without having to ask? And then sat quiet, content, and smiling in your presence—happy only because you were?

  Was that what happy did—made you feel so light it bubbled over without warning? Too fast to stop it, Keira felt her cheeks warm.

  “This news is one of those good things, isn’t it?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. One of the good things you’re always on the hunt for. This is my cottage, I suppose.”

  “Then today has been worth it. And tomorrow, we look again.”

  “What’s next then? We’re in a holding pattern until we find out more about Victoria. Until then, I’m at your disposal, Mr. Scott. What’s this connection you found in the library this morning?”

  “Okay. I said I talked to the owner here and he confirmed a few things I’d been tracking down. The initials A. W. from the tiles? Found out those are the initials of the former viscount who was killed in 1940, an Arthur J. Woods—RAF pilot downed in the war. I tried to match that up by searching through the books—a dead end there, but it wasn’t a half-bad idea for another reason.” Emory reached over to his backpack and grabbed a book from inside. “I sorted through the glass case this morning, did a quick catalog of what’s there.”

  Keira stared back, tipped her head a shade. “Wait a minute. When? I got up when you usually do—sunrise. As usual.”

  “Told you—I don’t sleep much in new places. Doesn’t matter. The point is, the books are definitely vintage. Some first editions. Mostly classics. Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Austen . . . What you’d expect out of a proper English library. And one vintage children’s book—Curious George. Nice choice. And then . . .” He split the journal, spread-eagled his palm over the binding to keep it flat, and slid it across the rustic grooves of the tabletop in front of her. “There was this.”

  The binding was a worn burgundy leather, the paper yellowed and still clinging to the musky-sweet smell of age. Letters were penciled in, some jumbled over the lines, their shape and size consistent with the penmanship of a young child. The historian in her wanted to smack her own hand away from touching it without gloves, but Keira suppressed the urge, somehow needing the touch of running her fingertips over the lines to connect with the past.

  German.

  It seemed to have no connection whatsoever—not to a cabinet of carefully preserved books by some of the most celebrated authors in history. A child’s journal penned over with German and pages of practice in the English alphabet alongside? “This was in the glass cabinet in the library?”

  “On the top shelf.” He spun it back so he could flip through the pages, three-quarters of the way through to the end. “My Deutsch is a little rusty, but you can make out what it is here. Something about planes. And Framlingham Castle.”

  It was easier to sit beside him, or they’d be passing the journal back and forth all day. Keira slipped around to the space on his bench and leaned in, shoulder grazing his. “Why in the world would a child’s German study notebook be kept in the cabinet?” she whispered, scanning the pages.

  He started a bit, curiosity seeming to have captured him. “You read German too?”

  “Add it to my résumé without sounding so surprised, would you?” she countered, running her fingertips over the lines on the page, reading as best as she could translate.

  “I think I’ll be surprised when I find something you actually don’t know, Foley.”

  “Historical records aren’t all in English. A girl has to have more than one trick up her sleeve if she’s going to make it in this business. You know that.”

  “Okay, Professor. We both know I couldn’t read it to save my life. So what does it say?”

  “It’s the oddest thing. It’s not really a journal or a diary. This is more of a list—recordkeeping of air raids or some kind of drills. Must have been from the war. See?” She pointed a manicured fingernail up under the date in the corner. “20 März 1945.”

  “Thank goodness I can read numbers. The entries are from ’43—those are hard to make sense of. I’d say this kid was really young. Then they go to March of ’45. That’s the last entry.”

  “Really?” She flipped a few pages ahead, but they were empty. Only paper yellowed and curled at the corners. No more logs or carefully penciled alphabet lines. No outlets of prose for a child dealing with the gruesome realities of war.

  Just . . . lost space.

  Her heart squeezed, daring to consider the worst might have happened and there was a reason the child didn’t finish.

  “So what do Arthur Woods, who died in 1940, and this journal, which ends five years later, have in common?”

  “That’s the question, Foley. There are remnants of WWII all around this town. There’s a plaque at the Church of St. Michaels commemorating the servicemen from the village who lost their lives. The old control tower at the airfield has been turned into a museum. And you can’t go anywhere without the shadow of castle spires behind you. Even in this pub the people seem to know most of the tourists are here because the 390th Bomb Group was stationed at Framlingham Castle. We can dig into that.”

  Keira released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding back, for the journal felt like gold in her hands. “So now we have another chapter in this story—one of war.”

  “This chapter was always out there; we just had to know to turn to it.”

  The journal wasn’t a classic or the musings of a famous author, yet it had been carefully preserved in the highest place of honor at Parham Hill. Tucked away in a library that had been sealed off from the world brick by brick. The only things she could think were that the little book was dear to someone and that someone very likely held it in as high esteem as a portrait of a queen.

  But why?

  She closed the journal and pressed its cover beneath her palms, almost brought to tears by the beauty of it all. “Emory. This book . . . It’s a treasure.”

  “I agree with you. But why would a record of air-raid drills be saved at all? Why would a kid even care? That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “There’s no name in it?”

  “No. No names.”

  “And nothing in the library to indicate a child lived there other than the Curious George storybook?”

  He shook his head, his eyes registering something had sparked them back to life. Gathering his things in a flash, he pulled euros from his jeans pocket and dropped them on the table. “You ready to go?”

  Keira popped up from the bench, the journal hugged to her side as she followed. “Go where?”

  “I hate to be the grim reaper of this operation, but I think we might have an answer that’s been staring us in the face. It may not give us everything, but at least it’s one idea I can tick off as mine.” He smiled and slung the backpack over his shoulder, then held the door so she could walk under his arm. “If we need names, there’s an easy place to find them. And one more piece of the puzzle to slip into place while we wait for Victoria to spill her secrets.”

  Spill her secrets indeed.

  If only Victoria could talk, Keira wasn’t sure it would be with the most supportive words.

  She imagined Her Royal Highness had an Austen-esque wit that matched her letters and enough moxie—even at barely five feet tall—to tell the truth to any parliamentary gentleman who dared opp
ose her. Certainly she had enough confidence to commission the Winterhalter portrait that during the Victorian era was an outright scandalous undertaking in the end.

  No doubt Victoria would have said it was painfully obvious Keira was falling, and falling hard, not for the playboy viscount but, heaven help her, for the soft-spoken Yank who jogged them across Bridge Street, oblivious to the deliberations trailing behind him.

  What are you doing?

  With each step, Keira demanded an answer of herself.

  It was too easy to picture Cormac rolling his eyes. Quinn slapping a palm to his forehead. And Da taking a cricket bat to the unsuspecting art thief. Problem was, the tiny flutter that had sprung up in her midsection when Emory looked at her was growing into a nag—and one with growing strength at that. It was Alton Montgomery all over again, just with a prettier smile and less in the bank account.

  It would not end well. And she could find her heart broken. Again.

  Emory led them down the sidewalk, its cracks growing the last of the season’s flowers, a red phone box standing bright on the corner. They whisked through an iron gate with a hinge that creaked its welcome to the Church of St. Michaels.

  No, she wasn’t a besotted schoolgirl. This was research. This was for Victoria, after all.

  Keira shook off her thoughts, instead focusing on the lofty stone-and-stained-glass masterpiece of a cathedral before them. But before they headed up the path to the stone steps and arched front doors, she slowed. Then stopped. And a lightbulb flicked on in her mind.

  Names.

  They were everywhere.

  Engraved in chipped limestone markers. Nearly worn down by time on others in rows of crosses and monuments, taking up the grassy space between the brick wall lining Bridge Street and the scattering of trees that had lost nearly all their autumn color to the ground beneath their shoes.

  Keira leaned in to read the stone marker in front of her, for a wife and mother laid to rest in the late nineteenth century. It was one of hundreds of names in the cemetery. All stories. All tied to Framlingham, just like Victoria and her library. A web of names and generations intertwined, they were always there. Right in front of them.

  “Ever thought you’d spend a morning smiling in a cemetery?” Emory walked up beside her, that laid-back stroll of his becoming unnerving.

  “Did you?” She straightened and turned to face him. Emory didn’t need to explain what they were doing. Though it was a brilliant idea—enough to win the smile she sent in his direction. “I’ll take this side.”

  “Right.” He nodded and dropped his backpack in the leaves so he could fly through the aisles without being weighed down.

  Keira moved between the stones, clutching the journal with a protective squeeze over her core, as her riding boots collected dew and leaves on chocolate-brown leather. She rubbed her fingertips over moss to reveal names, stooped to read every set of dates on the headstones low to the ground. For all the history represented by each stone, none clicked with their story.

  She looked far across the cemetery—Emory seemed to be as out of luck as she by how quickly he moved from stone to stone. Until she parted ways with the rows and stepped over to a path that led to a tiny grove of willows, it seemed a fruitless task.

  One marker stood out alone, tucked against the brick wall border with iron-spindled benches standing in a semicircle and knobby trees growing in a gangly cover over the top of its ledge. She knelt with her jeans pressed to the ground. Reading. Breath escaping on a fog when she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  “Emory?” Keira called out over her shoulder. “I think I found one.”

  “Me too,” he shouted from behind, his footsteps crunching fallen leaves closer as he came to meet her. He tipped his head toward the far corner of the cemetery. “There’s an Arthur Woods over there by the side entrance. Died April 14, 1940. Has to be him. We should ask questions inside. Why—what have you got?”

  “More questions, that’s for sure.” She pointed to the marker. “Look.”

  What she had was a stone with a faded apple blossom branch and honeybees carved along the border—a memorial to commemorate those who’d perished in a rogue German attack that bombed the Framlingham countryside on March 20, 1945.

  They knew the exact time the sirens began their cries—that much was penciled in the child’s journal.

  All they needed were the names of those who’d died.

  Twenty-Three

  January 18, 1945

  Parham Hill Estate

  Framlingham, England

  The note arrived at Parham Hill just before breakfast.

  It was easy to match the address on the envelope to Thompson’s scrawled print from Darly’s many soup receipts. As postmaster and official roof climber for the night watch, the old innkeeper would know more wartime headlines than just about any newspaper or radio broadcast on their eastern shore. As unofficial sleuth helping Amelia search for the fate of the Schäfers, he might have provided another piece in the puzzle to find Luca and Liesel’s parents.

  Amelia dragged her nail under the envelope seal only to wish she hadn’t.

  It wasn’t headlines or names found on a transport list but a few words overheard from loose-lipped Yanks down at the pub.

  Planes were down.

  Men were dead.

  And . . . Wyatt’s cot had lain empty for days.

  The wind punished Amelia for wearing her one coat that wouldn’t present her as a field hand at the gate—an opera coat of delicate powder blue, thin wool lined in ivory satin and a smart bow at each cuff. She must have looked foolhardy, primped as if she went on jaunts to a London play every other night. But it was the last of the lovely things she owned, besides the dress from Darly, and she hoped presenting herself as put together with a poppy-red tam and hair that coiled in a soft chignon against the curve of her neck would be enough polish to convince her way through the gate.

  If not, a red-lipped smile and a stack of books just might do the trick.

  The guard post was small—buildings no bigger than a butler’s pantry staked on either side of the road—with iced-over roof tiles and open windows and a gate that stretched wide in between. The wind penetrated her coat, blistering as she stood before a young serviceman, doing her best to resist tapping her toe as he read over a clipboard in his hand. He shivered but gritted his jaw and kept reading as another layer of icy breeze blew over them.

  Amelia pitied him and the rest of the poor devils who were not acquainted with their Framlingham winters, even if he was doing his job thoroughly by delaying her way through.

  She pulled her coat tighter around the neck and waited.

  “Sorry, miss. You’re not on the list.”

  “Amelia Woods. I’m a supplier at the base and owner of Parham Hill—where we’re housing officers from the 390th. I’ve brought books from the library, so I should be on the approved list.”

  Light eyes said he found humor in her presence rather than a threat, an almost-smile emerging on clean-shaven cheeks that had turned pink in the cold. A smirk and a tipped brow later, he chortled. “You’re a librarian? I never seen a one with gams like that . . .”

  Amelia raised her chin a notch higher, as matter-of-fact as she could make herself appear. “It is my understanding that you receive regular shipments of books for the troops. Well, I’m here to sort through them. Kindly check again, or I’m happy to wait while you telephone your superior—a Lieutenant Colonel McHenry, I believe? Of course, if he’s otherwise occupied in battling Hitler at present, I’m certain Captain Stevens can come and sort this out.”

  The young soldier halted and looked up, meeting her with a blank stare as his clipboard paper flapped in the breeze. “Captain . . . Wyatt Stevens, you say?”

  “That’s right.”

  “From the 571st?”

  Amelia stood tall before him, trying not to show trepidation as she nodded.

  Was that his unit? Why couldn’t she remember anything but the conto
urs of Wyatt’s smile or the depth of hazel in his eyes? All of a sudden she could see every detail of his face. The way he walked. And held her when they danced. The way he talked of books or furrowed his brow when he was worried. Why could she summon all the inconsequential whispers her heart murmured, but not what mattered in that instant?

  “I believe that’s his unit, yes.”

  He nodded. “You just wait here, miss,” was all he said before he disappeared around the corner and into the shack.

  Maybe she’d miscalculated and gone too far by dropping names.

  They were the highest ranks she knew, and in the US Army, wasn’t that how things were done—by issuing orders with brash, knowing they’d be followed as long as they had big names attached at the end?

  Amelia watched through the guard post window, keen to settle the heart beating a wild dance in her chest as he picked up a telephone and whispered unintelligible words into the receiver. He paused. Shook his head as he looked down at the clipboard, then tipped his hat back and brought his gaze up to rest on her. There was nothing to do but endure the wind, jut out her chin, and stand confident as ever under his inspection.

  This time Amelia could read his lips as he spoke into the phone: “Yes, sir. That’s her.”

  The base had a long, barren stretch of road snaking behind the gate. Beyond that, the cold metal of round-top buildings that seemed like dollhouse miniatures dotted the horizon. Jeeps wheeled on a road between them, coughing exhaust like tiny puffs from the end of a cigar. She couldn’t see the airfield or control towers or the rows of great birds that made up the B-17 fleet, but they were out there somewhere. Their roar never seemed to cease overhead, even with the wicked cadence of wind cutting across the moor.

  “Very good, sir.” The guard snapped back to attention, replacing the phone in its cradle.

  He paused to glance through the window, snow and salt residue creating a film on the glass between them. It wasn’t enough to mask the softness that had come over him. What was all duty mixed with bravado moments before had switched to concern, and heaven help her . . . he was not very clever at masking sorrow.