Where Treasure Hides

by Johnnie Alexander Donley

  “Give me one reason why this one can’t. Just one.”

  Alison leaned back in her chair, her gaze direct and unwavering. “Geography.”

  “I’ll move.”

  “Leave the family estate? You couldn’t.”

  “You’ll move. You can open your own gallery. Geography problem solved.” He playfully smacked the table.

  Alison longed to get caught up in his pretense, but she understood the impossibility of their dream better than he did. Better than he ever would. “It’s not solved. And it’s not the only reason.”

  His smile faded. “The war.”

  “It hasn’t even begun. Yet look what we witnessed in this very station. Children sent from their homes.” Alison’s voice caught on the words and she took a deep breath to compose herself. “Holland will no doubt stay neutral, as we did in the Great War, but what about England?”

  “Neutrality is not an option.”

  “You’ll be sent overseas.”

  He nodded.

  “You could . . .” No. She dared not speak the ugly word, dared not allow it into her thoughts.

  “Die.” Ian finished the sentence. “All the more reason to grab happiness in the few days we may have.”

  The words ricocheted in her head and crashed to her feet, her thoughts suddenly consumed with her parents’ whirlwind romance and its tragic ending. The same fate, she had no doubt, waited for the one she loved.

  She opened her mouth, but choked by confusion, she couldn’t speak. She stood abruptly and stared at him. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  Ian rose beside her, a chagrined look on his face. He touched her shoulder. “I don’t want to upset you. But you can’t leave without telling me what’s bothering you.”

  The station loudspeaker crackled, and the static-filled announcement invited the Dover passengers to begin boarding. Alison reached for her overnight case and set it on the table beside her bag.

  “That’s my train.”

  “Wait a minute.” He tentatively brushed a stray curl from her face. “I may have to go to war. I may have to fight. But I’ll come back. And when I do, I’m going to find you.”

  Alison struggled to compose herself, to keep the tears that stung her eyes from falling. “You can’t keep that promise.”

  “I will.” He pulled her into an embrace, catching her off guard, but she found herself melting in his arms. She raised her face to his, lost in the moment, and relished the warm tenderness of his lips against hers. Another never-to-be-forgotten moment.

  The loudspeaker crackled again with the last call for the Dover passengers. With a final hug, Alison stepped back from Ian and slid her bag’s strap over her shoulder. She picked up her tickets and rested her hand on her overnight case.

  He put the lighthouse back in its box and slipped it into her bag. “No matter what happens, keep this. Remember what it means. Remember me.”

  “I’ll always remember you, Ian Devlin.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks. “Always.”

  She turned and hurried away, pushing to the front of the passengers getting on the train. Sitting near the window of her compartment, she couldn’t resist the urge to look for him among the crowd on the platform. When she caught his gaze, she waved. He waved back, mouthing a single word: Remember. She nodded.

  As the train pulled out of the station, Alison leaned back in the seat, her heart pounding in rhythm with the clacking wheels. She found the scrunched-up napkin in her bag and smoothed it out on her lap.

  “You’re safe now, Ian Devlin,” she whispered. “I’ve left you, and now you’re safe.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The dreary rain followed Alison to the seaside port of Dover, across the narrow width of the North Sea that separated England from continental Europe, and along the railway to Rotterdam. Her stylish crimson outfit, despite its overnight freshening by the hotel laundry service, felt limp and damp. She pulled a novel out of her bag, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, but the black letters lost their shape, fading to a gray mass against the white page until another image appeared. The image of a determined soldier hovering over a frightened boy. By the time she arrived in the city of her ancestors, the thrill of a solo journey had dissipated and a dull ache resided in her right temple.

  As she expected, Jacobus Brant waited on the platform to welcome her home and gather her errant luggage. No mere chauffeur, Brant oversaw her grandfather’s domestic affairs with the help of his wife, Gerta.

  Alison leaned her head against the soft ivory leather of the Bentley while Brant finished stowing her luggage in the boot. Rain-heavy clouds darkened the afternoon skies, casting an early twilight across the centuries-old city.

  Brant ducked into the driver’s seat, closing the door quickly against the downpour, and caught Alison’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Your grandfather asks you to come to the gallery.”

  “He’s anxious to hear my report.”

  “Yes. But there will not be much time. Company is expected for dinner.”

  She inwardly groaned. “Who?”

  “He didn’t say. But someone of importance from all appearances. I’ve been instructed to open a bottle of the Château d’Yquem.”

  Alison raised an eyebrow at this extravagance. “It must indeed be someone important.”

  “We’ll know soon enough. Dinner will be served at seven.”

  She glanced at her watch. The slender hands on the diamond-encrusted face marked the time as two minutes after five. Two hours to transform from dreary traveler to dazzling hostess for a mysterious guest important enough to interrupt her homecoming. She had expected a much different evening, an informal supper discussing what she had learned in Paris, in Wales. The reason she had taken such a roundabout way from France to Holland.

  “To the gallery, then.”

  Brant nodded and maneuvered the heavy vehicle out of the parking area. Alison stared out the window as they drove past tall, thin buildings with narrow alleyways, along canals swollen with rainwater, and into the maze of slender streets that distinguished this historic district.

  “Front or back?” asked Brant as he turned onto Oude Binnenstraat.

  Alison looked down at her rain-splattered skirt and frowned. She definitely wasn’t presentable enough to meet any potential customers who might be in the gallery’s showroom. “Back, please.”

  While Brant expertly nosed the Bentley into the gap that led to the rear parking area, Alison stared up at the three-story brick building, its various shades of red and brown darkened by the early-evening shadows. The Van Schuyler Fine Arts Gallery. Established in 1662. At this location since 1803. A history she had known nothing about until ten years ago, when her father’s business collapsed and she finally met her grandfather and his only sister.

  Brant parked the car and opened the passenger door. Alison stepped out beneath the brick porte cochere, hurrying inside to escape the damp chill that settled between the tall buildings. A bell tinkled softly with the opening of the door—a familiar three-note chime she found strangely comforting as it welcomed her back to the world she knew and loved. Her heritage. Her legacy.

  Still shivering, she entered the gallery’s fully equipped kitchen. An impeccably dressed man, tall and slightly stooped, entered at the same time from the showroom corridor. His thin lips curled into a smile at odds with his sharp features and hooded eyes. “Welcome home, mademoiselle. I brewed a fresh pot of coffee in anticipation of your arrival. May I pour you a cup?”

  “Thank you, Monsieur Duret. I’d love that.” She removed her hat and tried, without much success, to tame her unruly waves. “Where’s my grandfather?”

  “He is in his office.” Duret’s nose wrinkled. “With a visitor.”

  “Tonight’s mysterious dinner guest?”

  “I believe so. Apparently someone who wishes to renew his acquaintance with you.” He took two cups from a shelf and carried them to the kitchen table.

  Alison’s heart lurched. Could Ian have somehow gott
en here before she did? She dismissed the thought, feeling more disappointment than she liked. No doubt, Ian was relaxing with his parents at the estate that would someday be his. She envisioned a typical English manor, squat and U-shaped with an expansive courtyard and manicured lawns. In a couple of days, Ian would return to his military unit, and only God knew where he might go after that. She shook away the anxiety of that thought. “Does our mysterious guest have a name?”

  Duret poured the coffee. “It’s not my place to reveal a surprise.”

  “A surprise?” Alison added two cubes of sugar and a generous amount of cream to her mug. “A pleasant one, I hope.”

  She caught Duret’s almost-imperceptible shrug. He and her grandfather, Hendrik Van Schuyler, had met at a symposium at the Sorbonne in the summer of 1897 and found they had much in common. Both were heirs to reputable art establishments, specialized in the Old Masters, and possessed shrewd business acumen.

  They shared one other thing: both became widowers at a tragically young age and never remarried.

  When the Germans looted and burned the Duret family’s Paris gallery during the Great War, Hendrik had offered his friend employment. Etienne Duret accepted and, twenty years later, knew as much about the Van Schuyler enterprise as Hendrik himself. The Duret family’s looted inventory was never recovered.

  “Should I join them,” Alison said, “or wait till this evening?”

  This time, Duret’s shrug was slightly more pronounced. “Your grandfather is understandably anxious to know what kept you in London.”

  “Been wondering that myself,” said Brant as he entered the room, a teasing glint in his eyes. “I was just buttoning up my driving jacket yesterday when I got the word of your delay.”

  “Did you find the London art scene that intriguing?” Duret sniffed. “I can’t think how.”

  “Perhaps it was the British cuisine,” suggested Brant. “I’m rather partial to a good shepherd’s pie myself.”

  Duret actually shuddered and Alison rolled her eyes.

  “If you must know, gentlemen, I was detained by a young man.”

  The men exchanged glances. “Who, exactly, is this . . . young man?” asked Duret, his French accent more pronounced than usual.

  Alison smiled to herself, knowing that both of them burned with curiosity. She blew gently on her coffee, cradling the mug in her chilled hands, her expression blank. “His name is Josef Talbert. A handsome fellow. Perhaps seven or eight years old; I’m not sure.”

  The sighs of relief were almost audible. Alison lifted her cup in a so there gesture and took a careful sip of the steaming coffee, savoring its heat. More than anything she wanted a hot bath and a change of clothes. But Duret’s deliberate evasion had sparked her own curiosity. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll have a peek upstairs.”

  She climbed the back staircase and stopped at the landing to the second floor. Muted voices came from her grandfather’s office, but his closed door kept her from hearing what was being said. Quietly entering a tiny square of a room that had been renovated into a lavatory late in the last century, she frowned at her reflection in the opulent full-length mirror behind the door. There wasn’t much she could do about her wrinkled outfit, but fortunately she kept a few toiletries here for just such emergencies. She brushed out her hair and pinned the length into a bun at the nape of her neck. A splash of cold water lessened the tired lines of her pale face.

  As she stared in the mirror to apply vibrant pink lipstick, her thoughts strayed once more to Ian. Reliving the magic of his unexpected kiss sent a shiver through her body. His face replaced her reflection in the mirror, the longing look in his eyes piercing her heart. The dull pain in her head shifted, and she grabbed the vanity to stop herself from reeling.

  The moment passed, and Ian disappeared.

  Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile. But she couldn’t completely diminish the forlorn ache in her weary eyes. She could only hope her grandfather wouldn’t notice.

  Outside his office door, she smoothed her skirt one last time before knocking and entering. Two men sat in the luxurious leather chairs within the bay window that overlooked the cobbled street below. Both stood as Alison entered, but she had eyes only for her grandfather, her opa. He came to her, enveloping her in a warm and welcoming hug. She buried her face in the soft cloth of his tailored suit and inhaled deeply of his pipe tobacco. Though he knew nothing of her heartache, his thick arms comforted her. The sting of loss lessened, and there was nothing forced in her smile when she looked into his face.

  “Finally, you are home,” he whispered, loosening his grip enough to search her face. “And tired from your travels.”

  “It’s been a long day.”

  “Travel from Paris is always grueling.” His emphasis when he said Paris was so slight, Alison wondered if she had imagined it. But his steady gaze also held a warning.

  “But worth it.” She injected a gaiety she didn’t feel into her reply. “Though I may have spent all my wardrobe allowance for next year.”

  Hendrik laughed heartily, then gestured toward his visitor while keeping one arm around Alison’s shoulders. “We have a guest.”

  The man came forward, even white teeth brightening his dimpled smile. Blond hair, several shades lighter than Alison’s, contrasted with his tan except where a pale scar crossed his lower cheek and jawline. A well-tailored charcoal suit perfectly fit his tall, athletic frame.

  Recognizing him, Alison gasped. “Theodor?” At her grandfather’s nudge, she held out her hand. “What a surprise, after all this time.”

  “Alison.” Theodor drew out each syllable of her name in his rich Prussian accent. He lifted her fingers to his lips while keeping his eyes on her face and switched to his native German. “You are even lovelier than I remembered.”

  “Danke,” she murmured, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. She continued in German, her accent nearly flawless. “What brings you to Rotterdam?”

  “Art.” His tone suggested there could be no other reason for his visit, but his eyes swept over Alison with a proprietary air.

  “Count Scheidemann is restoring an old family chalet in Bavaria,” said Hendrik. “He wishes something special for the main room.”

  “‘Count’?”

  Theodor bent his head in a mournful pose. “My father died last winter.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “As am I. His shoes are not easy to fill, but I do my best.”

  Alison glanced at her grandfather, who smiled indulgently at her. “The count is joining us for dinner.”

  Again, a cautious undercurrent appeared in Hendrik’s expression—a veiled warning to stay on her guard. She favored Theodor with an engaging smile. “How lovely. I should go home and oversee the preparations.”

  Theodor made a deliberate show of checking the time on his substantial gold watch. “I also have a matter or two requiring my attention. I shall say my good-byes. Albeit temporarily.”

  “I’ll see you out,” said Hendrik.

  “No need. I’m sure you are anxious to visit with your granddaughter after her absence.”

  “I insist.” Hendrik turned to Alison. “Please ask Brant to wait for me and we’ll go home together.”

  “Of course.”

  “Till this evening, then,” said Theodor with a slight bow.

  Alison squeezed her grandfather’s arm and left the office. She descended the back stairs and tiptoed to the door leading to the gallery showroom. Hendrik and Theodor appeared from the front staircase and crossed the polished parquet floor to the foyer. Theodor walked with his hands clasped behind his ramrod-straight back, his confident stride that of a man used to getting what he wanted. And what he wanted was always expensive and fine.

  Despite herself, Alison’s pulse raced as the memory of the first time they met appeared before her. How flattered she had been at the attentions of this incredibly handsome man with money to burn and an impressive lineage. His knowledge of art was l
ike an extra coat of varnish, making him even shinier in her eyes. The glisten had worn away, though for no reason she could remember. They had exchanged letters a few times; then he had faded away, no more than a schoolgirl’s crush.

  Theodor’s sudden appearance may have been more welcome if not for Ian. But the handsome and charming count couldn’t topple the mischievous British lieutenant from his pedestal. Not in her thoughts and not in her heart.

  She came out of hiding as Hendrik locked the front doors after Theodor’s departure. “Why did you invite him to dinner?”

  “He gave me little choice.”

  “And the Château d’Yquem?”

  “A minor sacrifice.”

  “He’s buying something,” she teased. “What?”

  Hendrik veered toward a display wall and gestured to one of the paintings hanging on it. “He showed interest in A Young Lady Reading.”

  Alison tilted her head, studying Jean Raoux’s shadowed portrait of an auburn-haired woman, eyes downcast as she read a letter by the meager light of a window partially hidden by the folds of a luxurious rose drape. “I hate to see her go.”

  “She has been with us a long time. But if we do not sell—” Hendrik shrugged—“we do not eat. Or buy pretty dresses from Paris.”

  “I bought only one.” Alison faced her grandfather. “And only because Tante Meg insisted.”

  Hendrik tapped her nose with his finger. “You are truly a Van Schuyler. More interested in Paris’s museums then in her haute couture.”

  “To Tante Meg’s dismay. Have you heard from her?”

  “A telegram, yes. My dear sister is well, but set no date for her return.”

  Alison gazed again at the portrait and wondered, not for the first time, who had written the letter that so captivated the attractive woman. When she spoke, she kept her voice as nonchalant as possible. “What about Papa? Any news from him?”

  “Not even a postcard.”

  He failed to completely hide his anger, but she loved him for trying.

  She brushed the ornate metallic frame with her fingertips, eager to change the subject. “It’s the Rembrandt-like quality that appeals to Theodor. The mastery of the lighting.”