Rubies Among the Roses

by Vivian Conroy

  Oliver huffed. ‘You had all those in your notebook and you were carrying that with you all of the time.’

  Wadencourt wrung his hands. ‘I was so careful,’ he whispered, ‘and still something went wrong! Somebody got to the goblet before I could. I’ll never forget that.’

  He slunk away, his shoulders drooping.

  Guinevere looked at Oliver. ‘Why do you have to turn him against Max?’

  ‘I was just asking a question to find out about the way they deal with each other. Wadencourt was a tough boss, and Max doesn’t seem to take him very seriously. If two people don’t like each other … who knows what can happen? Will Max be sorry if Wadencourt gets accused of having taken the gemstones and fooling us all?’

  Guinevere shook her head. ‘There’s a big difference between not liking somebody and planting evidence in his room.’ She looked Oliver over. Her heart beat fast as she asked, ‘If you think it possible that Max hid the bottle there, under that loose floorboard, do you also think he used the contents on the goblet?’

  ‘Could be. As a photographer he must know about chemicals.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You’re so old-fashioned. Max uses a digital camera. He doesn’t need to know anything about chemicals.’ Guinevere turned her back on him and made for the kitchens to find Cador. She was determined to find some proof that somebody else than Max had been in Wadencourt’s room.

  Maybe Cador had seen something significant? He walked about the castle all day long.

  Cador was cleaning the stove. A sharp scent drove tears into Guinevere’s eyes. She stayed well away from him and said, ‘Wadencourt mentioned to us you had put flowers in his room. Was this on orders from Lord Bolingbrooke? I can’t imagine he would think of something like that. Especially not as he doesn’t like Wadencourt.’

  Cador turned to her, his sallow face unperturbed. ‘It was my own idea. To improve relations between them.’

  Guinevere could barely hide her surprise. ‘And why would you want to improve relations?’

  ‘If Mr Wadencourt were to find this valuable goblet, it might have been good for the castle. I just wanted to ensure that Cornisea benefited from it.’

  Cador turned to the stove again and rubbed with the cloth in his hand. For him this explanation had solved the matter entirely. But Guinevere had her own thoughts about it.

  Cador knew about chemicals. And he was loyal to a fault. He now pretended he had figured Wadencourt’s find could benefit Cornisea, but he had probably really thought that Wadencourt had no place in the equation, and the find should belong to the Bolingbrooke family, and to them alone.

  She asked slowly, ‘When you were in the room, to put the flowers there, did you happen to see anything relevant to the whereabouts of the goblet? Just by coincidence of course.’

  Cador seemed to think about the question. His rubbing movements became slower and slower as if he was considering the possible consequences of the answers he might give.

  Then he said, ‘Mr Wadencourt has everything written down in a notebook. He carried it all of the time before he showed us the niche with the statuette. It wasn’t in the room when I was in there to put the flowers in place.’

  It was a carefully constructed reply, Guinevere thought. All elements might be true, but still it didn’t answer her question. ‘So you happened to see nothing?’

  ‘I saw nothing.’ Cador turned to her. ‘But I did hear something. An argument in the next room.’

  Guinevere hitched a brow. ‘The next room?’

  ‘Where that young photographer was sleeping. I think it was him and Mr Wadencourt arguing. I couldn’t make out everything that was being said but …’

  Meaning he had gone out into the corridor to listen at the door? It was easier to catch something through wood than through the castle’s thick walls, she supposed.

  ‘You did overhear parts of the argument?’ she pressed.

  ‘I think it was about money. The photographer asking for more than was originally agreed on. Wadencourt refused, of course. He was furious.’

  Guinevere frowned. ‘Did he storm off suddenly and catch you at the door?’

  Cador gave her an innocent look. ‘I just told you I overheard the voices from the room next door. Wadencourt came storming in there and saw me with the flowers. He yelled at me to disappear and I did.’

  Guinevere tilted her head. ‘But if you were in the room next door, how could you even hear what they were arguing about? The walls are very thick, drowning out the voices.’

  ‘Yes, but when central heating was put in, in the twentieth century, the pipes were put through the walls from one room to another. When you kneel down and listen close to the pipes …’

  Guinevere exhaled in a huff. ‘You could hear them pretty clearly. More than just a snippet of a sentence.’

  Cador shrugged. ‘I heard enough to know that Wadencourt blamed his photographer for being busy with everything but their assignment. He thought that DeBurgh was taking too many photographs for his social media accounts instead of focusing on what they were here for. He yelled at him that it was not a pleasure trip and he expected better of him or he’d send him off.’

  Guinevere nodded. ‘I see. Thank you for sharing that with me.’

  Cador studied her with his light blue eyes. ‘I assume you’re taking DeBurgh’s side in this conflict?’

  Guinevere flushed at the sudden suggestion. Had everybody been watching her, sensing her attraction to Max? Maybe liking somebody who was easy to like wasn’t that terrible, but it did hurt her that people – Oliver, now Cador – seemed to assume that liking Max meant the same as covering for him or accepting anything he said or did without thinking twice about it. They had no idea how Max’s actions could sometimes bother her, just because she didn’t understand them and she was afraid to lose the tenderness she felt inside for him.

  She said softly, ‘I’m not taking anyone’s side. I want to know a thing or two that can help the investigation. Into the missing jewels and Jago’s death.’

  Cador’s face set. ‘Jago’s death …’ he repeated slowly.

  Guinevere studied him closely. ‘Do you know any more about that?’ she asked.

  Cador looked up at her again. She couldn’t quite read the expression in his eyes.He said, ‘I know that the door wasn’t bolted that night.’

  ‘But it was,’ Guinevere protested. ‘Wadencourt unbolted it and left, but after he had gone, Lord Bolingbrooke bolted it again to lock him out. A sort of joke, I understood. He thought it funny that Wadencourt had to spend the night roaming in the cold wind.’

  Cador shook his head. ‘His lordship may have bolted it. But the door wasn’t bolted any more when I saw it. Early in the morning.’

  ‘And what were you doing up and about early in the morning?’ Oliver had come in. He looked at the butler with a probing stare.

  Cador clenched the cloth he had used to clean the stove. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I was going about my business, watering the plants in the yard. I happened to see that the bolt was not in place. I thought that you …’ he nodded at Oliver ‘… had gone out to exercise as you often do, so I left the door and the bolt as they were. I went back inside.’

  Oliver tilted his head. ‘And what time was this?’

  ‘Around sunrise?’ Cador shrugged. ‘I didn’t look at my watch.’

  Guinevere retreated to the door where Oliver was standing. ‘Thank you.’ She gestured to him to get out and away.

  Oliver said to her as they walked through the corridor, ‘I wasn’t out exercising. So who was? Who unbolted the door after my father bolted it to lock out Wadencourt?’

  He thought a moment. ‘If Wadencourt was still outside the walls, and my father was in bed, you were in yours and I was in mine, and Cador was going about his business, that leaves only one person.’

  Guinevere looked at him. ‘I wish you’d stop hounding Max.’

  ‘Well, there might have been an innocent re
ason for him unbolting the door. Maybe he wanted to go out and photograph the sunrise? I’m not saying he had anything to do with Jago’s death or the missing stones.’

  ‘But you would like him to. Come on, admit it.’

  Oliver stopped so abruptly Guinevere collided with him. ‘What would you prefer?’ he asked. ‘That the police conclude it was my father? Or me? DeBurgh is an outsider. He arrived here the other day. We need not protect him.’

  ‘We need not randomly accuse him either. I thought we were looking for the truth, not for a way to keep suspicion away from ourselves.’ Guinevere clenched her hands into fists. ‘I’ll go find Max and ask him what he was doing outside the castle. Maybe he even has timed photographs to prove where he was, right?’

  ‘Like the time on a photograph can’t be manipulated.’ Oliver scoffed.

  See? He was really prejudiced and refused to admit it! Guinevere pushed past him. ‘I’m going to ask him anyway.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Oliver called after her in a cynical voice.

  Guinevere’s eyes stung. This was such a hard time for all of them so why couldn’t they stand together? Why did Oliver have to treat her like she was an enemy?

  She walked out, Dolly hard on her heels, and asked a passing policeman if he knew where Max DeBurgh, the photographer, was.

  ‘I think he went out to snap some shots of a bird he spotted flying overhead.’ The policeman waved up in the air. ‘A rare predator. I’ve forgotten its name. Not a bird person, you know. You should be able to catch him. I told him not to leave the island so …’ He added with a smile, ‘He has nice equipment. I can understand he guards it wherever he goes. If that lens took a tumble …’

  He shook his head. ‘Must have cost him.’

  ‘He’s a professional so he needs it for his work.’ Guinevere smiled. ‘Thanks.’

  She walked out of the entry gate that was open to give the policemen freedom to walk about. She turned her head left and right, trying to determine where Max might be. If he had seen a bird in the air, he might have followed it to where it would land. On the beach?

  She turned in that direction, snapping her fingers for Dolly to follow her. The dachshund was glad to be out and ran ahead of her, stopping every now and then to sniff.

  In the distance she could see Max’s athletic figure in a red shirt. He was sitting on his haunches snapping something on the sand. When she was close to him, she saw that it was a message he had scrawled into the sand with a stick. FREEDOM.

  Max looked up and smiled. ‘Making some shots my followers like to see. Inspirational messages, whatever gives them a holiday feel. I’ve got the life they all want: travelling, seeing the world, sipping a cocktail on the beach as the sun goes down.’

  His expression sobered as he studied her. ‘It won’t be cocktails today, huh? I wish you weren’t so sad, princess.’

  Guinevere shrugged. ‘I don’t like the dissension, people turning against each other.’

  Max lowered the camera and frowned at her. ‘Why would you care about these people? Haven’t you only lived here for a few weeks? And won’t you be going back to London when the theatre you work at is done? Those are your real friends. Your theatre family. The people here are just … acquaintances. You’re good to them, I know that, because you’re a kind person, but … you don’t owe them.’

  Guinevere was surprised he had used the words theatre family. It was the exact way she felt about her London friends. But how did Max know that? ‘Have you been involved in the theatre world? Maybe followed a company for some time for an assignment?’

  Max nodded. ‘Exactly. I got to understand how they live. No, maybe I already understood that before I joined them for my assignment.’

  He looked at the word FREEDOM on the sand. ‘The man I told you about earlier, who always drank and died in the accident, wasn’t my real father. I never knew my biological father. My mother said he had died when I was just a baby. But later I found out it wasn’t true.’

  Guinevere winced. She herself didn’t know who her father was, whether he was still alive or not. On her birth certificate only the name of her mother was registered. No father.

  She had never asked Gran why. She had not dared to. After all, Gran was her mother’s mother. She might not want to say anything negative about her daughter.

  And what had it mattered as long as they had each other and a good life?

  But whenever she thought about it now, it felt like it did matter, that it was important to find answers. But she couldn’t ask Gran any more. Gran was gone and had taken the secret of Guinevere’s birth with her to the grave.

  Max said, ‘My real father abandoned my mother when he found out she was pregnant.’

  Guinevere studied his tight expression. ‘Was it too soon? Were they young, still studying maybe? Did he feel like … the responsibility was too much?’

  ‘I’d understand that. If you hardly know each other, why marry just because there’s going to be a baby? But no. It was for another reason. He couldn’t marry her, because he was already engaged to be married to somebody else.’

  ‘Had he lied to your mother that he was free?’

  Max nodded. ‘She found out about the fiancée when she was already pregnant with me. She believed my father loved her and would break it off with his fiancée. But my father would never have done that. He wasn’t with this fiancée because he loved her. Just because she was somebody who could promote his career. That was the only important thing to him. Nothing else mattered.’

  Max looked at her with hard, angry eyes. ‘You understand now what I just said? You don’t need the family you were born with. That’s just genes. It means nothing. You need the family who choose to be with you. Who like you for the person you are, not asking you to change. You need the people that you connect with, naturally.’

  He held her gaze. ‘I think you know what I mean.’

  Guinevere felt a warm sensation spread through her stomach. She knew exactly what he meant in relation to her theatre family in London, and to tell the truth, she also felt that connection with him. Like she had known him longer than a day. They seemed to have so much in common. The unknown and absent father, the search for a place to belong …

  She had found it, but Max still seemed to be looking. Maybe he never settled because he was afraid of it? Afraid to get close to someone and feel something.Afraid to get hurt again?

  Max used his trainer to erase the letters in the sand. ‘I’m done working. How about that beach walk we talked about earlier?’ He smiled at her. ‘Let the wind blow all the cobwebs from our heads.’

  Guinevere fell into step beside him. She studied the long lens that he cradled in his arm as he walked. ‘The policeman I asked where you were said that he liked your camera. Good equipment.’

  Max clenched the rubber grip of the camera’s body. ‘Really? I guess I don’t notice any more. I have had this camera for years now and it’s like an extension of me. I take it with me wherever I go, thinking there might be a chance for a shot. I feel empty without it.’

  His expression set. ‘If Wadencourt had turned up that goblet, intact I mean, my name would have been made. Photos of it would have appeared in every newspaper and on every website with my name in the credits. Now I have absolutely nothing, except for a part in a criminal investigation.’

  He scoffed. ‘If word of that gets round, I can forget about getting new assignments. People don’t like the idea you might be a thief.’

  ‘Nobody will conclude that you were the thief. What reason did you have to steal the stones? Besides, the police will have to turn them up before they can accuse anyone.’

  Guinevere looked at Dolly frolicking in the surf. ‘Did Wadencourt mention to you where he believed the goblet was hidden? The niche behind the clematis, the statue of Ganoc and all?’

  ‘Are you crazy? Of course not. He didn’t breathe a word of it to anyone. He was paranoid that Vex would beat him to it and find i
t first.’

  Max looked at her. ‘It must have been Vex, right? He only pretended to know a little bit about it. He knew much more. The article in the magazine is his alibi. His proof that he didn’t know the real place it was hidden. Ingenious – I have to give him that.’

  Guinevere said, ‘Did you see Vex around the island yesterday? You’ve been taking so many shots, maybe you happened to notice something significant.’

  Max scrunched up his face. ‘I can’t say I have. I saw people everywhere. I wouldn’t have noticed Vex in particular. I didn’t even know what he looked like.’

  ‘I don’t mean in the harbour when it was crowded. Much later that evening. Or in the night. Someone skulking about, behaving suspiciously?’

  ‘During the night I was in my bed.’ Max frowned at her. ‘What are you thinking of me?’

  ‘Someone unbolted the door and went out.’

  ‘And that has to be me?’ Max halted, pressing the heels of his shoes into the sand. ‘Are you really here because you wanted to spend time with me or to question me? Under orders from big brother Oliver?’

  Guinevere felt the blood shoot into her cheeks. ‘Oliver is not my big brother. And he doesn’t give me orders. I wanted to know for myself.’

  Max held her gaze, his deep brown eyes sparkling. ‘Why? Are you afraid I have something to do with the goblet’s defacement? The missing gems?’

  ‘No, of course not. I mean … I … I don’t know.’ She was so confused about everything. About the police asking questions and finding things and …

  Nothing fitting together.

  Max said, ‘Guinevere …’ He took a deep breath. ‘You will never understand this unless I explain. Tell you something nobody else knows.’

  He held her gaze. ‘I want you to understand.’

  Guinevere waited with bated breath. Sweat formed in her palms at what he might be about to say.

  Max said slowly, ‘I can’t tell the police. Then it will all come out. In a way that… can only break things.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I should have told him last night. I shouldn’t have chickened out.’