The Painted Castle

by Kristy Cambron

  “My father faced prison that last Christmas?”

  “Yes. It turns out one of his speculations was with a less-than-reputable character who wanted payment before he was able to render it, and bullets fired from an alley were the price he paid instead.”

  “And why were you not questioned after the events of that night?”

  “Because we both know only you saw me there. And you never spoke of it, did you? Not with the one detail that would have given me away.”

  It felt as if a fist had just been thrust into her midsection. Elizabeth sucked in a deep breath as the toxic mix of disbelief, anger, and fury conflated inside her, swirling so fast she had to grip the side of the desk to prevent herself from losing her balance.

  She looked back to Keaton, feeling the wind of accusation shift within her.

  “And you were there that night. Why?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated? To say the least, Keaton. All this time . . . you knew. And you didn’t tell me?”

  “No matter what may have compelled me to tell you the truth before now, your safety demanded I not. I have wrestled with this for years, Elizabeth. And have always come to the same conclusion. I would injure you more with the truth, and I was not able to do that to you.”

  “Whatever does that mean?”

  Breathing raggedly and feeling as though she were going to boil for the temperature of the blood pumping through her, Elizabeth kept space between them. “What kind of business did you say tied my father to your brother . . . and to you?”

  He exhaled. Long and low. Weighted, like the truth had been a great burden, and it tired him even in breathing.

  “With Fenton James and one Christopher Churchill, Hamilton Meade shared ownership in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.”

  “This theater. This very one we’re standing in? You jest! My father never owned a theater. That would have been my mother’s type of fancy, had she not an ill view of the theater crowd. But you say he willingly entered into this partnership?”

  Keaton nodded, just once. Her father never showed the least interest in the theater, save for the fact that the streets around Drury Lane were clogged and he’d much rather have avoided them altogether than be trapped in among carriages and horses and breathing in soot from the city’s smokestacks any longer than he had to.

  “And Mr. Churchill . . . how does he play into all this?”

  The shift of weight from the hardwood floor and its creak echoing across the room signaled a presence in the doorway. Elizabeth turned, finding the young Mr. Churchill standing there, a curious bent to his brow, as if he questioned not their intrusion in his private office but something altogether different.

  Keaton slowly stepped up next to her, his shoulder brushing hers in a silent show of solidarity.

  “What are you doing here, Huxley?” Churchill shifted his glance to Elizabeth. “With her.”

  “This is Elizabeth Meade, but I suspect you know that already. And you know that she has the right to hear the truth, Christopher. If anyone does, it’s she.”

  What did it mean that the man wouldn’t look at her? Churchill fixed his glare upon Keaton’s face with all the ice and stone he seemed to possess, but he still refused to acknowledge her thereafter. That, coupled with everything else, rendered Elizabeth unable to resist speaking the one thought blasting through her mind.

  “Who are you?”

  Keaton crossed his arms over his chest, waiting as Churchill deliberated from across the room. “Elizabeth wishes to know why her father would financially support this theater—your theater. Would you like to tell her, or should I?”

  It must have been only a series of ticks on a pocket watch—not nearly enough time for it to feel like the eternity it did. But the silence permeating the room was the only preparation Elizabeth had for what was to come. And the sneaking suspicion that invaded her mind and trickled down to her heart . . .

  “Hamilton Meade, Earl of Davies, supported the Theatre Royal out of respect for my late mother,” Mr. Churchill whispered. “He did so because he was my father too.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Present day

  Parham Hill Estate

  Framlingham, England

  “You said you could trust me.” Emory’s plea sliced the air without hesitation.

  The instant Keira had seen the gold shimmer of Klimt’s Empress staring back from the crate on the library floor, she’d begun to shut down and to back away, step by crooked step, toward the hall. “What have you done?”

  “I’m the same person I was five minutes ago out in that entryway. I brought you in here of my own accord, believing that you meant what you said. You can trust me.”

  “Oh no . . . You can’t ask this of me. Not now.” She held out a palm in the growing distance between them. “Why would you ask this of me?”

  “Keira—”

  She blasted him with the first cliché that flooded through her. “Don’t you dare say ‘It’s not what it looks like,’ when it absolutely is! It is exactly what it looks like. That is Empress, every stroke of paint and square inch of gold that’s been missing these four years. A hundred million dollars sitting on the floor . . .”

  Feeling her head swim a touch, Keira backed up even farther, bracing her shoulders against the wainscoting that met the library door frame.

  “I didn’t steal it.”

  “No? Then who did? It just so happens that the prime suspect, who absolutely swore to me that he had nothing to do with it whatsoever, now happens to have said painting hidden at a country manor?”

  “Empress or not, I don’t even know if it’s real. That’s why I need your help!”

  “My help? Emory—I won’t help you. Not with this!”

  He stood in the dim light, breathing heavily over their shouting, rain-dampened tee still clinging to him as he stared at her.

  No overdue snogging needed to snatch her breath now. Keira stood in the library, wet and cold, waterlogged and pain-struck as rain battered the manor, echoing the broken silence between them. Emory stepped forward a pace, like he desperately wanted to reach for her, but Keira shot back and on a whim pulled her phone from her back pocket.

  The threat of dialing she braced like a shield between them.

  “How long have I been the fool in this story? From that first day here, or does this plot go all the way back to Dublin? Find a pathetic female with a backstory of heartbreak, lure her from home with the promise of a handful of euros and a few artfully placed promises, then she’ll do anything, right?”

  “Never, Keira. You’re no fool. Not to me. You never could be that to me.”

  “But why, after all this time—after you dared turn into a completely incredible human being—have I been thrust into another nightmare I absolutely cannot see my way out of? Have you any idea what choice you put before me?” She raised the phone level with her shoulder, holding it out. “You make me fall for you and then this? You leave me no option.”

  Emory stopped. Exhaled, like he’d held the same desperate thought that she’d just spoken.

  “It’s not like that. Please, Keira. Just listen? I found the painting in the attic. Looking for the ones to fit the fade marks on the wallpaper in this library. It took some time with the sheer size of this place, but Ben and Eli and I have been going over every space with a fine-tooth comb. And this morning I found it. I was going to tell you. Then all that happened at the church and we came back here and . . .”

  Don’t you say it . . .

  He rubbed the heel of his palm against his forehead, swiping wet hair back from his brow. “There are eight more crates up there, but older than this one. I believe they’re what we’ve been searching for.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I would never lie to you. Keira—I care too much to do that to you.”

  His voice shook, trembling behind the words in a way she’d never expected. Not from the assured non–art thief he’d sworn he was not. And a
ll the while, she’d dared dream of something beautiful—an idiotic farce about breathing life back into a broken-down cottage.

  Why had it all seemed so perfect?

  “I could go to jail for this, Emory. We all could. Ben. Eli. Carter and M. J. How could you do this to them? Don’t you care about that at all?” She cried, the tears refusing to be put off an instant longer, and the shouts feeling so good to pummel him with. “I don’t do this. I actually called my family—my sister-in-law, the one I trust, and told her I’d met someone special this time. He was different . . . Why did you have to make me love you? Why couldn’t you just leave me be? You manipulated this whole thing, concocted a story about the cottage, about Victoria and this library, all to draw me in. How dare you—”

  The sound of the front doors slamming shut and the echo of footsteps trailing in the entry shocked them both. They were no longer alone.

  “Boss?” The Irish lilt called down the hall. “Ye there?”

  M. J.

  Keira’s bottom lip trembled as her footsteps drew closer. She wrinkled her forehead, the searing pain in her chest triggering her decision to click the screen and dial the phone.

  “Em?”

  And Carter too.

  They were back—their famous viscount reappearing, just in time for the grand show.

  Keira had dropped the number to the Suffolk Constabulary into her phone some time back. It was in a professional’s arsenal of tricks when working with high-priced art to connect with the local authorities at the start of a commission. Who knew what could happen, after all?

  “Yes. I need to report a crime.” She nearly choked over the words when the Woodbridge dispatch answered the line.

  Please don’t do this, Emory mouthed as M. J. and Carter swept into the room.

  Their viscount stopped in his tracks, feet iced to the hardwood. Had he and M. J. any smiles before that instant, they’d faded to dumbfounded glances by the time they caught up with Keira on her phone and Emory standing guard over the stolen painting, hands braced at his hips, eyes closed as he hung his head.

  “Yes. This is Keira Foley and I’m a historian contracted at Parham Hill Estate. I need to report a theft and possible receipt of stolen goods,” she said, then, turning to a curiously despondent Carter, added, “Yes. The estate owner is here. Carter Wilmont, Viscount of Huxley. He can corroborate what’s happened.”

  M. J.’s eyes were about to pop from her face. Carter wore a shade of green that said his insides were churning turbulent as ever. And Emory, in what should have been anger or vehemence against her righteous indignation, instead looked at Keira with eyes that were open and unashamed, almost as if he were proud of her somehow for doing the right thing but ever so sorry it had to impact him.

  The buzz of the dispatcher’s voice stirred in Keira’s ear, drawing her back to the moment.

  “Yes. The nature of the crime? Uh . . .” She stared back at Emory, her heart breaking at the fact he wasn’t even angry. “It seems a painting stolen from a Viennese gallery four years ago has turned up here in East Suffolk. I need someone to come and take receipt of it immediately.”

  How a morning of coffee and good news at the pub could implode so, Keira couldn’t comprehend. Nor could she have imagined the Suffolk Constabulary would be so on point in their response to her call.

  The day ended late—with questions of the entire team and paintings being carried off in the backs of police vans. Dear Evelyn Addams must have been having a field day with the tabloid-worthy exploits of the viscount now. But Keira couldn’t worry about it. Couldn’t do anything, really, but toss clothes in a suitcase in between tears and book the next flight for Dublin.

  The last memory she’d have of Parham Hill was not another glorious painted sky from a Framlingham sunrise. Instead, she was forced to watch the man she loved be led away in handcuffs, shockingly, with their employer in tow. The back of a police car swallowed Emory Scott into the English countryside, and with his absence, her life fell apart all over again.

  Twenty-Nine

  March 22, 1945

  Parham Hill Estate

  Framlingham, England

  A lost kingfisher darted through the cottage study and landed upon the fireplace mantel, fluffing its bright blue and orange plumage indoors instead of where it should have been, chirping about the seashore.

  Breezes flowed through the willows that had survived the fire, and tiny dickey birds boldly flitted through the bombed-out parlor like they hadn’t a fear to play where they chose. Amelia sat in a wingback by the small study fireplace, watching imaginary embers burn against the fireplace tiles embossed with Arthur’s A. W. initials—a custom add in both the study and the Parham Hill library, a Christmas gift in their first year. She sat quietly in the melding of the outside world with the inside, absently running her fingertips over the black band affixed to her left arm.

  All that was left untouched was the study. Arthur’s study, in a cottage that had been built more than a century before—the then viscount building a space for the young artist he’d hoped to take as a bride. Arthur had always talked of the legacy at Parham Hill. He was quite proud of the little beekeeper’s cottage and the painting that had brought a man and a woman together—the painting that they’d moved after the bombing of the grand library in 1939 to this small, secluded place in the world.

  Secluded so the image would be safe. And secure. And untouched by war.

  Amelia stared at the painting, hanging so regal above the mantel, the beautiful image of a queen having no idea she’d been spared in the same space that a flesh-and-blood man had not. Victoria sat in repose against a chaise of crimson, hair unbound in a rich chocolate coil over her pale shoulder, with a look of longing so intense it swept over the entire room. Walls of an ink gray and wooden shelves painted a slightly lighter hue made Victoria’s colors pop and her eyes the focal point of seemingly every angle.

  Footsteps approached. Amelia must have stayed too long again. The children would wonder, no doubt.

  “I’m in here,” Amelia called out, and stood as if to hide the fact that she’d fallen into a chair and allowed herself to fall deeper into memories at the same time. She began stacking the books she planned to move back to the manor library.

  Wyatt followed her voice, meeting her from an anchored lean against the doorjamb. With no hat. Hair combed tight. In the same tie tucked into the placket of the dress uniform shirt he’d worn that morning. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers and waited. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. Just picking through. Deciding what to take back to the manor.” She puttered, stacking and restacking books on the desk with no real purpose other than to keep her hands busy. Then a thought struck. “The children . . . are they alright?”

  He nodded. “You don’t have to do this today, you know.”

  Today. Of course she didn’t. Who went straight from a funeral to tidying shelves?

  Amelia looked down at her dress, a sad navy wool weave with covered buttons down the front and cuffs that spread in a gentle ruffle at the wrists—the hopelessly mournful frock she’d worn to Arthur’s funeral, to Florence Bertram’s funeral two days prior, and to their beloved uncle’s funeral just that morning as well.

  “I know. But we have to at some point, don’t we?”

  In her side vision she saw Wyatt glance around the study, scanning the layout of shelves and books, the fireplace that remained cold, and finally settling on the regal image of the queen staring out at them from above it.

  Amelia turned, not wishing to meet Victoria’s longing again. She lined book spines in a happy little meaningless row upon the desk instead.

  “That’s the painting you told me about?”

  “Yes. Arthur’s favorite,” she whispered without turning back to him.

  “And you said the nineteenth-century viscount who built this cottage and brought honey making to your estate did it for a woman he’d fallen in love with. That she was a gifted portrait
maker and he’d hung this painting in his private study not because it was the image of a queen but because his love had painted it. Did I remember it all?”

  It was true but felt foreign to have the story Arthur had always had such pride in be told back to her in Wyatt’s voice. “Is love as simple as all that?” she wondered aloud.

  “Not simple at all.” He moved from his spot leaning against the doorjamb, the floor creaking its protest as he took slow steps into the room. “Tell me about Arthur. How he brought you to the cottage.”

  Amelia looked up, the books unable to hold her attention, even if it was manufactured. He’d crossed the space between them, birds still chirping in the background as he walked up to her side and stopped, placing a hand over the one she’d left on the books.

  “You want to know how I came to be here?”

  “I want to know your story. I want to know why you’re here in a bombed-out cottage after you just buried your husband’s uncle—a man who was as much a father to you as any could have been. I want to know how I can help,” he whispered, offering a gentle squeeze of his palm against hers. “Most of all, Amelia Woods, I want to know you.”

  Amelia nodded, and though tears threatened to make an appearance, she was still able to smile.

  “How I came to Parham Hill? It was an accident, really. A complete folly that I’m even standing here. It was the books for me too,” she said, still smiling, liking the feeling of a fond memory able to sweep away the cobwebs of pain. “Can you believe that? This paper and ink and beautiful words all wrapped in a binding . . . I never would have come here if not for the magic of that library. I worked in a bookshop in Westminster in ’37. It was an ordinary day. Rumors of war swirled everywhere, but I like to believe it was an inconsequential autumn morning that I broke my heel just as I was hurrying across Victoria Street. Down I went, and the books I’d been balancing spilled over the pavement. I thought I would get flattened by an oncoming auto, but it seemed the worst kind of death, leaving those stories to a sad fate in the gutter.”