The Painted Castle

by Kristy Cambron

  “And what happened?”

  “Arthur showed up out of nowhere. Sprinted through traffic. Even forced a taxi to go around us. And instead of scolding me or whisking us off and leaving the wretched books behind, he saw in an instant how important they were to me. So he helped. Without a word, he picked up every one, dusted off the covers,” she said, and ghosted her hand over the cover of A Tale of Two Cities, mimicking the memory.

  “And he carried the stack to the curb with me. Then we laughed when we were safe, I think out of the sheer madness of it all. I could have simply left them and purchased the same titles again. Would have been glad to do it. But somehow he understood me and it didn’t seem nonsensical at all. I tried to repair the damage of what I must have looked like—mad hair and knees scraped like a hapless schoolgirl. I was a mess. But he didn’t seem to notice that.”

  Amelia pictured Arthur’s smart suit and striped mustard tie. So young. And alive. And the way he’d moved quickly to retrieve the books but still peeked at the titles of a few, as if he just couldn’t help himself for wanting to know what made her literary heart tick. He raised his eyebrows once or twice, as if intrigued by her eclectic taste. And handed the books back to her, so that his fingertips just grazed hers when the bindings switched owners.

  “You know? We left the shoe, burgundy leather, dead in the middle of the street. It didn’t matter. I like to think it sat there until a good snow in December and was banished into the sewer thereafter. But the books . . .” Amelia shook her head. Looked down. Patted the spines like they were old friends. “We saved them together, and I walked lopsided all the way to the coffeehouse, where we sat and drank three cups in a row and fell in love over a handful of words. One faulty shoe, one tripped step, and here I am, lady of an estate and keeper of his past long after he’s gone.”

  “And now you’re here, talking to me, inviting me into the story too.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I suppose I am.”

  Amelia searched the room, the piles of books, the charming layer of dust. The scent of sweet English violets perfuming the air from the gardens outside. And then, Victoria. The painting had always been what she’d safeguarded. In a way, keeping his books close and his portrait safe was supposed to keep Arthur with her. But keeping a tight grasp on precious things . . . it was no guarantee of a story’s survival.

  A musty old swiss-cheese sweater hung over a chair in the library. The turtle soup tin and pipe had no owner, and a liquid-satin gown that now felt like a kind of treasure hung in Amelia’s wardrobe. Remembering the dress, she felt a stab of pain at the reason she now wore the black band on her arm—another treasured one was gone from this life.

  “And my story of New York. And flying thirty thousand feet above our heads only to feel more freedom in a library than I do in the boundless sky. What had to happen to bring me here, right now, to this exact spot in a cottage with you?”

  “Life is a tapestry of mischance and fate then, is it? I don’t want to believe that.”

  Wyatt shook his head. “Not mischance, Amelia. And the only fate I know is that God knew my story had to be tied to yours.”

  It was unexpected—a veiled declaration of love. But Amelia wasn’t sure the forbearance she read in him was any less beautiful for the timing. In that moment it was what she needed most: understanding. It spoke of romance and depth of feeling like few things ever could. A simple “I love you” could get tossed around by eager flyboys at a USO dance. But real, abiding empathy? Never. It was too precious.

  “I have a gift for you.” Wyatt pulled a small card-stock envelope from his pocket scrawled with Amelia in his familiar block print on the front. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  She ran her index finger under the envelope seal. Inside was the note she’d left at the hospital, the familiar cursive Yes penned in her own hand, telling him a thousand futures might be possible if she could imagine caring for someone again. If she could leap and do it with him.

  Beneath her word was his invitation to a future that wove them together:

  Me too.

  Yours,

  Wyatt

  They’d not spoken of the note since the first day she’d visited him at the base hospital. Maybe Wyatt didn’t know it was there until he’d looked at the photo of his beloved Abby and Susan once more. Amelia imagined her note falling from the binding of his Bible, fluttering to the concrete floor like a wish, making him think they could move on together, that they could forget this terrible nightmare that was war and build a family from the ground up.

  But in the weeks since, she hadn’t the bravery to tell him what it was—that the impulsive whim to pen a note was one she wished she could take back. Amelia stared at the penned words, tears stinging like exposed skin in the bitter cold of winter.

  “As you can see, there’s a reason why I stick to reading and publish books other people write,” he whispered, and how heartbreaking that she could hear the genuine smile and the hope alive in his voice. “But if I ask a question I can’t keep in any longer, will you give me an answer?”

  “Wyatt . . . I won’t do this to you.”

  “Do what? Imagine some healing can come from this blasted war?” The note fell from Amelia’s hands when he reached for her, slipped his palms to the sides of her face in a soft bid for her eyes to meet his. “I don’t care what happens up there as long as I know you’ll be waiting on the ground when I touch wheels to the runway for the last time. This isn’t about a library or a painting, or even a story we’re keeping alive in this place . . . It’s about daring to believe there’s something left in this busted-up world. Isn’t it worth it to try?”

  “I can never give you what you’ve lost.”

  “I’m not asking you to replace anyone.” His gaze clouded and his hands softened, drifting to her jaw like one more word might have them drop to his sides. “What do you mean, you can never give me what I’ve lost?”

  Amelia clamped her eyes shut, shame flooding her insides.

  Never had she said the words out loud. Never heard them spoken, save for when the doctor had pulled a chair to the side of her bed in the aftermath of a library wall in pieces, and their world crumbled too. Arthur stared on from the metal footer, a supportive smile on his lips though his eyes were tearing and his fists were balled like he wanted to punch them through the nearest wall.

  She’d listened, drinking in the horrible words . . .

  “Do you understand what I’ve said, milady? You can have no children. There was too much damage . . .”

  “What we’ve both lost,” Amelia whispered, peeling Wyatt’s hands from her. Taking a step back, thinking he wouldn’t dare touch her now. “Wyatt, I can never have children.”

  “Amelia . . .”

  “There was a bombing here in ’39. It hit the library. It hit me.”

  That truth seemed to find a target in Wyatt’s core because he shifted, hands looking lost somehow, like they wanted to be buried back in his trouser pockets but she would pick up on the move as too telling. Had it devastated him? Surely he would wish to have more children. A family. A future, only it couldn’t be with her.

  Truth, Amelia. Spill it, and then let him go.

  “Arthur pulled me out of the rubble in the library. It was only after we knew I would live but that we’d never have children that a flame ignited within him. His family line had been snuffed out and he was driven by a rage I’d never seen before. It drove him to the skies. He signed on with the RAF the next day, and within four months, I was not only childless but a widow with a grand estate, and beehives, and a library I hadn’t the first clue how to manage without him. And I’ve been lost from that day until this.”

  Tears shouldn’t have been so free to fall, not five years later. She should have been stronger than that, to crumble again and again for what might have been.

  Amelia stood before Wyatt, the truth let, expecting him to . . . She didn’t know.

  Birdsong continued then, spring alive and awake in the o
pen-air parlor. She stood before him, watching what looked like shades of indecision melt over his features. He didn’t cry; not like she. But he did feel. That was clear. Wyatt nodded, so softly she might have missed it had she blinked. And then he stooped, reaching for the note that had fluttered to the floor, and offered it back.

  “You are not childless, my dear, beautiful Amelia.” He pressed the paper into her palm with both hands, back side up. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  She obeyed the silent bid, hands trembling as she read the words penciled on the back:

  Jürgen and Lea Schäfer: transferred to Hartheim, Linz, Austria. Died 18 June 1942.

  “Westminster came through. Thompson gave me the news at the funeral. He asked me to tell you. To help you tell Liesel and Luca what’s happened to their family. And I thought if you knew I wasn’t leaving—that I’m in this as long as you want me to be . . .”

  A course of anger surged through her, and Amelia crumpled the paper in her palm, then pounded her fist to the desk as tears began their tumble. Wyatt reached for her then, enveloping her, letting her cry with her forehead pressed in the crook of his neck. And she felt sure he cried too because he kept his lips pressed up against her temple for the longest time. Whispering soft words. Prayers, maybe. Nothing and everything.

  They’d been her children for nearly seven years.

  Seven years.

  Never had Amelia wanted to earn a family—not like this. Not with the realization that Luca’s little journal would have no one to read his entries. Liesel would keep her little brother in line, mannered and disciplined as their mother wished, but she’d never see the impact it would have as her son grew to become a man.

  It was the worst kind of precious tomorrows that would never be.

  “How do I tell them? How can I possibly tell them something like this?”

  “We’ll do it together.”

  “Together . . .” She breathed out the single word, its promise steadfast and anchored like so few things could be. The cottage stood silently, somehow stilled of birdsong, and Victoria looked on as two broken souls clung to each other for rescue.

  “Amelia, I already knew. Darly told me you couldn’t have children when I asked him if I could . . . ,” Wyatt whispered against her temple. Paused. Breathed deep, his heart thundering beneath the palm she’d pressed to his chest. “I asked for his permission to marry you. He told me you couldn’t have a family, not in that way. And I told him I didn’t care. That you were my family and I was prepared to do whatever it took to show you that.”

  She saw no question in his eyes as they searched hers.

  “I meant what I said. ‘Me too.’ Us. Them. All four of us. I’ll stay here or we can go to New York. Whatever you choose. But I’m not afraid to dream this war will end soon. When it does, I’ll be here with you. And I always keep my promises.”

  Thirty

  July 13, 1843

  Buckingham Palace

  London, England

  “You are quiet on our last day, little bee. Perhaps too many thoughts buzzing about that head of yours?”

  Franz examined his canvas at Elizabeth’s side, as if the work in progress could stare back and produce the final image he desired without any effort at all.

  Sunshine bled through airy gauze curtains, brightening the sapphire walls of the palace’s petite salon and the crimson settee where the queen would sit in the center of the room. Elizabeth thumbed through her pochade box, removing paint tubes one by one to set aside, focusing only on shades of rouge and deep azure and bright ivory instead of being drawn into another of Franz’s witty banter sessions.

  He was prying and knew it full well.

  No secret as to why.

  They’d arrived at Buckingham Palace for the series of sittings with neither her ma-ma nor her fiancé in tow, and Elizabeth hadn’t a word to relay about any of it. The palace was breathtakingly elegant and refined, with chandeliers dripping crystal. Royal red carpets spread as far as the eye could see. Gold-encrusted walls, mirrors, ceilings—it was every palace fairy tale she’d ever read about as a young girl. Even so, Elizabeth endeavored to remain all business on their last morning with the queen.

  Though it was still her first ever commission—which just happened to be for royalty—Elizabeth meant to take the experience fully within her grasp. She opted to inspect her canvas, with the extra step of adding a sketch behind what would be the crimson cushion above the curve of the queen’s right shoulder.

  “You have no answer?” He refused to be put off.

  Sketching, dusting charcoal pencil to canvas, and forming the outlines of a honeybee, Elizabeth ignored the bait. “No, I do not. I prefer to work.”

  “And what are you sketching before our queen even arrives? The wall?” Franz leaned in, enough that his profile invaded her side vision. Elizabeth noted his tip of the brow when he saw what she was putting to canvas.

  “You said all artists have a signature. Well, this can be mine.”

  “The signature of a bee that no one will ever lay eyes upon? Curiously, we have been admitted to the palace on several occasions now, yet I must assume from your lack of conversation that this is all rather intimidating to you.”

  “You grievously misjudge me, Mr. Winterhalter. I am not intimidated.”

  “As clever and unplain as you are then, I wonder if you fear wolves might spring out of the woodwork and devour us at our easels?”

  “There is no fear of that,” Elizabeth whispered back, then set about moving her easel a touch to absorb a better angle of the natural light. “I am already devoured—inside and out. Shouldn’t we now leave it alone?”

  The mention of wolves took her back to the library and the remembrance of a conversation from the first night Elizabeth had stepped into Keaton’s world. Conversation about marriage. And fortune hunting. And the very world in which she’d been reared now upended in the course of a single day—with a brother she never knew living and working but streets away from where their father had died . . . With her own mother having known all along yet never revealing an ounce of the truth. And with Keaton having retreated to Parham Hill, allowing Elizabeth and her mother the courtesy to stay on in London as long as they wished but with the understanding that she could no longer imagine a marriage between them.

  She would not become a viscountess, and her dear ma-ma had gone to bed with smelling salts and a broken heart as her lone companions. And after Elizabeth should paint a queen, what in the world was she to do with the rest of her life?

  “That is quite unacceptable.” Franz clucked a tsk-tsk under his tongue, the notion rejected as he reorganized his brushes around jars of water and turpentine. “The queen shall be here momentarily. But until she is, you work and I will think out loud.”

  “But I really don’t wish to—”

  “You sketch. I’ll talk.” He paused, the one soft rebuke enough to halt her protest. He turned to her, eyes as serious as she’d ever seen them. “Do you know where I met Viscount Huxley?”

  I can’t do this. Don’t want to do this . . .

  Elizabeth drank in a deep breath and determined to go on, rounded her pencil along the curve of the bee’s wing. “No. I do not, sir.”

  “It was here, at this very palace.” He spread his arms wide, rolled shirtsleeves coming unfurled about his forearms as he laughed in Her Majesty’s prim and proper royal salon.

  “Here? But how can that be? Keaton never said he’d taken audience with the queen.” Her hand drifted from the canvas until her pencil floated on air.

  “Bitte. Sketch.” Franz motioned for her to continue with a finger point to canvas. “Perhaps we should have asked him. Of all the odd places in the world to discover a friend. I expected Huxley to be one of those pompous wolves I am so gratified to disesteem. It is an odd war, this taste for opulence. I have become accustomed to battling the righteous pretentions of nobility. But Huxley stood out as honorable in a way few men can boast when they enter these gilded halls.”
<
br />   “What do you mean?”

  “He was here with other noblemen—a Lord Shaftsbury among them—when a dinner conversation degraded into politics on the plight of the working class. But it was not the men from the House of Commons who earned attention from both Her Majesty and the prince on that night. Huxley spoke of the poorest of London, how the children are set upon in hovels of the filthiest sanitation, water, and housing one can imagine. Huxley believed improvements of industry, economy, and education could benefit them, and he spoke with such eloquence and passion that his voice overpowered his peers in the House of Lords as well.

  “It is indeed why our viscount makes regular visits to London, to honor a vow he made to an old business acquaintance of his late brother’s—an earl, says he—that he would give back to the poor in any way he could in reparations for a grave mistake the man had once made.”

  The tirade of revelation rendered Elizabeth dumbfounded and quite unable to sketch at all. She’d turned away from the canvas, listening with every heartbeat in her chest.

  “You mean my father, the Earl of Davies.”

  “Your father, ja. And the brother you now know you possess, because Keaton James supported Christopher Churchill these ten years . . . and from afar, he watched over you.”

  “Me? How could he watch over me?”

  “Wolves are wolves all the time, but only great men are compassionate to those who can do absolutely nothing for them in return.” As if Franz knew exactly what he was about, his eyes twinkled. “I wonder whether you and I both misjudged the viscount at our first meetings with him, hmm? I think if we were to look deeper than the surface of a man’s portrait, we would find the truth we seek has been there all along, layered beneath the paint.”