The Secrets She Carried

by Davis, Barbara

  He was about to suggest a change to the bar shelves when Belle let out a gleeful yip. Leslie was hovering in the doorway. She looked good, which was surprising since her left cheek was smudged with dirt and the knees of her jeans were filthy.

  He poked his pencil behind his ear and looked her up and down. “I’d ask if you came to get your hands dirty, but it looks like you already have. What have you been doing?”

  Her smile was tight, tentative. “Could you come with me somewhere?”

  Jay felt Young Buck’s eyes slide briefly in his direction before shifting back to his plans. “That depends. Where are we going? And is there food in that bag?”

  Leslie glanced down at the canvas tote she was holding. “Food? No, it’s…Can you just come with me? It’s important.”

  Her smile had completely disappeared. Jay felt a moment of panic. Christ, what if she had decided to back out and hightail it to New York?

  “Buck, I’ll be back in a few. Belle, you stay here and guard the fort.”

  Leslie shifted the bag on her shoulder as they stepped out into the late-afternoon sunshine. “I’m sorry I interrupted you.”

  Jay felt himself relax. Some of the intensity had left her face.

  “No biggie. We were just talking about what to do with the tasting barn. I’m leaning toward the copper top. Pricey, but it’ll look great. The lumber should be here in a few weeks. Which reminds me, Virgil will be delivering a cord of wood next week. I’ll show you how to build a proper fire and how to work the flue. Not much to it, but there’s a right way and a wrong way.”

  “What makes you think I don’t know the difference?”

  “Let’s just say I prefer not to take chances. That house survived the Civil War. I’m not about to let a Yankee burn it down now.”

  Leslie’s eyes shot wide. “How am I a Yankee? I was born in Gavin.”

  “So you say, Big City, so you say. Now, how ’bout telling me where you’re taking me? Or am I being kidnapped? I’m not saying I have a problem with that. I’ll just need to call Buck and make sure he gives Belle her supper.”

  She pointed straight ahead. “We’re going up there.”

  Jay shielded his eyes and scanned the rocky jut of land looming straight ahead. Bloody hell. “Why?”

  “So I can show you something.”

  “Leslie, I’ve been out in the rows all day. Whatever it is, can’t you just tell me about it?”

  “Please?” Something flickered behind her eyes, a secret she wasn’t quite ready to share. “I wasn’t kidding when I said it was important.”

  Jay sighed. It seemed there was only one way he was going to find out what all this was about. “Lead on, then. I’m always up for a mystery.”

  Leslie’s fingers tightened around the canvas tote. “That’s good to know.”

  She said nothing more as she headed for the path. It was all Jay could do to keep up. While he had to grope for every foothold, she covered the trail like a Sherpa, scrambling over rock and root, popping into view now and then among the trees.

  He was sweating and winded when the path finally spit him into a small clearing. For a moment he stood with his hands on his knees.

  “Jesus, Big City, I never knew you were part mountain goat. Now, what is it you dragged me all the way—” He didn’t finish. Instead, he straightened very slowly, stunned to find himself staring at a grave.

  “I found it a week ago,” Leslie told him matter-of-factly. “I take it you didn’t know it was here either?”

  Jay shook his head, eyes fixed on the stone as he moved toward the gate. “I was up here a few years ago. This was definitely not here.”

  “You don’t recognize it?”

  Jay turned to look at her, hands shoved deep in his pockets, his head too full of questions to respond.

  “The shot I showed you,” Leslie prompted. “The one I got from Goddard? My mother took it over thirty years ago, and this is the grave. It was covered with kudzu when I found it, which is probably why you didn’t see it.”

  “What happened to the kudzu?”

  Leslie pointed to a wilting pile of greenery at the edge of the trees. “I yanked it up. I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving it like it was. It was just so sad. She’s been here all this time with no one to look after her.”

  She?

  Jay felt a shiver touch the back of his neck.

  Leslie took a step toward him. “Don’t tell me you’re freaked-out.”

  Damn right he was freaked-out, but not for the reason she thought. “I’m just…surprised; that’s all. It’s not exactly the kind of thing you stumble onto every day. How did you, by the way?”

  “Stumble onto it, you mean? I was up here getting shots of the house. There was a tree in one corner of the photo—that one there.” She paused, pointing to a lightning-ravaged oak. “The minute I saw it, I knew where I was and what I would find.”

  Sweet. Bloody. Jesus.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it sure as hell wasn’t this.

  “There’s no name.” Her voice came to him as if from far away, a peculiar mix of tension and gloom. “No name, no date, nothing but a single line from an old poem.”

  Jay’s thoughts began to churn. Maggie had mentioned a book that, toward the end of his life, Henry had never been without—a book of poems. He tore his eyes from the stone to look at Leslie. She was holding out a sheet of creased white paper. He took it, unfolding the sheet almost warily. It appeared to be a tracing of some sort, scratched out in black crayon.

  “I couldn’t read the inscription,” Leslie explained as he continued to stare at the tracing. “So this morning I made a tracing. I recognized the lines as soon as I saw them.” Producing a small book from her bag, she opened it and placed it in his hands.

  Jay glanced down at the page, then up again. “Where did you find this?”

  “Hidden in the bottom of Henry’s desk. There was a picture, too, of a woman holding a baby. I think…I’m almost sure…that woman was Henry’s mistress.”

  Jay let his breath out slowly as he closed the book and handed it back, like a balloon leaking air. He could feel Leslie’s eyes between his shoulders as he pulled back the iron gate and stepped through. Bending down on one knee, he smoothed a palm over what remained of the inscription.

  “Her name was Adele,” he said quietly. “Adele Laveau.”

  Leslie took a jerky step forward, her expression incredulous. “You knew?”

  “I knew her name. I didn’t know she was buried up here.”

  “Maggie told you?”

  Jay stood and brushed off his hands. “It was after she got sick. She told me about the affair and about the child—Jemmy, I think his name was. She was Susanne Gavin’s maid.”

  For a time Leslie said nothing, her eyes downcast, still clutching the small leather book. “Why here?” she said at last. “Why is she buried up here?”

  “I have no idea. I told you, I didn’t know this was here. But if I were guessing, I’d say Henry wanted to keep her close. Maggie said he spent a lot of time up here.”

  “How did she…die?”

  Jay stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked away. “An accident of some kind. I’m not sure what. Every time Maggie tried to talk about it, she would break down.”

  A crease appeared between Leslie’s brows. “That doesn’t sound like Maggie.”

  “At the end, when she knew she was…dying…your grandmother started to talk about the past, good things mostly, about you and your mother and Peak’s glory days. I think it helped take her mind off the pain. Then one day the conversation changed.”

  “Changed how?”

  Jay turned toward the west face, scanning the shiny slick of lake below, the blue-gold horizon beyond. He didn’t want to have this discussion, didn’t want to resurrect those last days of Maggie’s life, didn’t want to remember the anguish still lurking in her eyes when they closed for the last time. Yet here he was, standing beside a grave he never knew e
xisted, trying once again to keep nagging suspicions at bay.

  So someone will finally know.

  Even now, Maggie’s papery whisper was never far away. They had been in her room, just back from another doctor’s appointment, when she had closed her fingers over his, squeezing so tightly the web of blue veins stood out across the back of her gnarled hand. He pretended not to notice that her eyes were dimmer than they’d been the day before, dulled by pain and a new cocktail of prescriptions, but anyone who knew Maggie would have seen how tired she was, worn down by what she called the tedious business of dying. She was running out of fight, and in that moment they had both known it.

  I must…tell you a story, she had rasped. A secret I’ve lived with for too many years. Her eyes had filled with tears then. She’d closed them, turning her head away on the pillow….About her.

  The hairs on the back of his neck had actually prickled. Still, he had mustered a smile, given her hand a squeeze. Not now, Old Broad. The doctor told you to rest.

  No! The word had erupted from her pale, dry lips with an energy he hadn’t known she still possessed. Then she had sagged back against her pillows. I need…to tell it now. Please, I have to tell it.

  Why now, Mags? Why does it have to be now?

  To this day he still couldn’t say if he’d been asking Maggie or himself. He only knew he had dreaded her answer even as he had asked the question. Something in her moist, pleading eyes had warned him he might not like what he was about to hear. And he had been right.

  So someone will finally know.

  Overhead, the high, thin wail of a redtail pulled Jay back to the present. Tipping his head back, he watched it circle, lazily riding an updraft, its outstretched wings creamy and still against the stark blue sky.

  By the time he turned back, Leslie had returned the book of poems to her bag and was stooping to gather a fistful of small yellow flowers from a nearby patch of ground. When the gate squealed open, then shut again behind him, she straightened with her makeshift bouquet, her face all business, despite the wildflowers.

  “I asked you how the conversation changed. You never answered.”

  Jay kicked at a rock with the toe of his boot, sending it skittering toward the trees. “There was something she wanted to tell me, a secret she said she needed to tell before she died.”

  “Something to do with Adele?”

  Jay shrugged. “I think so, but she never did tell it. She tried more than once, but every time she brought it up, she’d start to cry like her heart was breaking. I’ll never know what caused her such anguish, and it will always bother me that she never made her peace with whatever it was, but I can’t say I’m sorry she didn’t share it with me.”

  Leslie looked genuinely stunned. “I don’t understand. How could you not want to know?”

  “Because sometimes when you care about someone there are things you just don’t want to know. And because it was…difficult to watch.”

  Leslie let the wildflowers slip from her hands. “I should have been here,” she said, her voice suddenly thick with emotion. “At the end, it should have been me with her.”

  Jay took a step closer but stopped himself before laying a hand on her arm. “I didn’t tell you that to make you feel guilty.”

  “I know, but it did. I’ve been walking around for weeks now, asking myself all these questions, simple things, like why my mother would have taken an interest in a bunch of dead artists, or why my great-grandfather chose to hang five paintings of the same half-dressed woman in his study. Now there’s this dead woman—Adele. And it keeps hitting me…there’s no one to answer them, no one left who knows. I never thought I’d care, but I do, and it’s too late. I came back too late.” She paused, waving an arm to indicate the rolling green acres stretching beyond the ridge. “I’ve inherited all this, and I don’t know a damn thing about the people who built it, how they lived, who they loved…what they regretted.”

  Jay had no idea how to respond. A month ago he would have blithely reminded her that she had no one to blame but herself for those unanswered questions. But not now. She had her reasons for staying away. He didn’t know what they were and probably never would, but they were enough for him.

  He was silent on the trek back down. Seeing Adele Laveau’s grave had rattled him more than he realized, though he supposed he could explain away its presence on the ridge if he tried. Henry would have wanted her close, to feel her nearby in the only way he could after she was gone. Even the absence of a name and date made sense. Should anyone have stumbled onto the stone, the last thing he would have wanted were questions about why his wife’s maid had been buried on the ridge instead of in a proper grave in a proper cemetery. Better to be safe with one’s reputation than sorry.

  But what if it was something else? What if it wasn’t only his reputation Henry had been trying to protect? What if the suspicions that had taken root in his brain more than a year ago were actually true?

  Chapter 21

  Leslie

  Leslie came awake with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. She’d had the dream again: Henry sitting behind his desk, Barrett Browning’s poems open on his lap, a half glass of bourbon at his elbow, eyes blank and cold, fixed unseeing on the paintings over the mantel—just as Maggie had found him. She should be used to it by now, after four straight nights. But the truth was, she found the recurring dream both disturbing and baffling.

  It was possible that she was romanticizing the affair between Henry and Adele, creating a grand and tragic passion from nothing but a posy of dead flowers and a few lines of poetry, but she didn’t think so. Nor could she shake the niggling suspicion that the paintings were somehow part of the story, though how and where they might fit, she had no idea.

  After the first night, she had been convinced the woman in the painting was Adele. It would explain Henry’s fascination and his desire to spend his last days in his study. But the more she studied the face of the Rebecca, the more she knew her theory was wrong. She was no expert, but the painting’s style suggested an earlier era, and there was something else that didn’t fit, a brazen quality she couldn’t reconcile with the primly dressed young mother in the photograph.

  By the time she finished her first cup of coffee, Leslie had added another item to her to-do list. She was already heading downtown to take care of some errands. One more shouldn’t throw her schedule off too much and might finally provide some answers. Forgoing her usual—and much needed—second cup, she went to the study, where she dragged a chair to the fireplace and wrestled the Rebecca from its place of honor above the mantel.

  When the painting was wrapped in a sheet and carefully stowed in her car, she headed to the barn to find Jay. She would have to share her plans with him sooner or later, and if he was going to push back on her idea, she might as well know it now, before she waded in too deep.

  Belle romped out of the barn to greet her, snuffling her palm like a horse after a sugar cube. Leslie bent to say hello, giggling helplessly as she tried—and failed—to fend off an assault of enthusiastic canine kisses. She didn’t realize Jay was nearby until he stepped from behind one of the stainless steel holding tanks.

  Wiping doggie slobber from her cheek, she stood, pretending not to notice the sinewy expanse of shoulders and chest beneath Jay’s close-fitting shirt.

  “So how goes it?” she asked, more brightly than intended.

  Jay dragged a sleeve across his forehead. “So far, so good. Everything right on schedule.”

  “Schedule for what?”

  “For harvest. Did you forget? The pickers will be here to harvest a week from today.”

  “Oh,” was all she could think to say. She’d been so preoccupied with her marketing plans that she’d forgotten someone had to pick the grapes and make the wine. “Speaking of the opening—”

  “Were we?”

  Leslie ignored the jibe. “I have an idea I wanted to run by you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “The brochure a
nd label designs are almost finished. I’ll have the last shots tomorrow. As soon as I put them together, I’ll bring you the galleys. Once you approve it, we’re set to print.”

  “Leslie, I appreciate you wanting my input, but there’s no need. I’ve seen enough to know I’m going to green-light whatever you say.”

  The casual comment brought a warm rush of pleasure. They had come a long way since those first rocky days. There was trust now, and respect, a division of labor that after only a few short weeks felt strangely seamless. And something else that made her belly go warm, and made her a little afraid too.

  “Good, then, because I want us to throw a party, a kind of soft opening. We could tie it to the Harvest Festival and call it the Splash.”

  Jay stared at her blankly. “The Splash?”

  “As in…a splash of wine. As in…making a splash. You know, a kind of, ‘Here we come.’”

  “And how do you propose we stretch the budget to cover that?”

  Leslie stole a glance at her watch. “I, um…I’ve got a few ideas about that. Speaking of which, I need to get going. I’ve got a couple of appointments, but if you want to cook me dinner, I’ll fill you in on the details later.”

  If Jay was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Any requests?”

  “My dinners all cook in five and a half minutes on full power. I’m in no position to be picky. Should I bring anything?”

  “A bottle of wine is customary, I believe. I don’t suppose you know where to get your hands on a really good Chardonnay?”

  Leslie laughed, a soft, breezy sound that felt like flirting. “I’ll see what I can do about the wine. See you around seven.” The invitation—could you still call it an invitation if you invited yourself?—had popped out without a second thought, and now that it had she was glad.