My brain was full; I was no idiot, but the world of art that Ben inhabited was new to me. “So Stuart took the picture with the piece, and then left a cheap porcelain fake sitting in The Yellow Room in its place?” Ben nodded, checking the rearview mirror yet again. “The piece is far too valuable for him to…” he trailed off, glancing over at me. He didn’t want to let on how much this piece might be worth; I was starting to wonder if I was a sucker for being so eager to jump at Ben’s initial offer of ten grand. Ben grew silent, his focus on the GPS and navigating through the countryside.
Chapter Fourteen.
At some point I must have dozed off. When I became conscious, we seemed to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The bumpy, unpaved lane we were on was not much wider than the car itself, with hedges towering over us, so close on each side they were nearly scraping the paint. At least the rain had stopped falling. “What happens if a car comes from the other direction?” I asked sleepily. “Ah, then we get creative. There are turnouts every mile or so. Did you enjoy your nap?” he asked, his eyes returning to the challenging terrain. “Uh, yeah, how long was I asleep? I thought we were taking the M something, the highway, to Glasgow?” He looked over at me and smiled, his whitened teeth gleaming beneath his pink lips.
“You were napping for about twenty minutes. Long enough for you to moan my name…yet again.”
“I did not!” I protested, the heat rising to my cheeks.
“If you say so. No reason to keep fighting it, Jane. As far as the motorway we were going to travel, the M9, I had to divert from that. We were being…er…we were being followed, I’m afraid.”
“Followed?” I exclaimed, sitting up straight in my contoured leather seat. I didn’t like the sound of that. I craved adventure, travel…I didn’t crave danger, certainly not real danger. Ben was calm as he pulled into a chink in the hedges to allow a farm truck from the opposite direction to pass. Before he pulled back onto the country road, he put his hand on mine and leaned in close. “Don’t worry, baby. I suspect Sean Devane, my former mentor, is following us, that’s all. He probably arrived at Hopetoun and was disappointed that he missed the piece. He doesn’t have the clues; we do, and only you can interpret Stuart’s stories. A dark car followed us from the parish church, but I lost him by veering onto a small road. He’s older—I doubt he knows how to use GPS or a sat nav. I think I’ve long since lost him, but I’m afraid it’ll take us quite a bit longer to get to Glasgow at this pace. We’re nearly to Linlithgow, we can stop for lunch in the village. Are you hungry?”
“Yes, I’m starving,” I answered honestly, even though my stomach was in butterflies at his calling me baby again. “Did you say Linlithgow? As in Linlithgow Palace, where Mary, Queen of Scots was born?” “Yes, I believe that is correct. You know your history. I’m impressed,” Ben answered as he tackled the narrow, overgrown country lane once again with the low sports car. I didn’t bother to tell him that my knowledge of history came from historical romances rather than textbooks.
“Can we see it? Please? I’ve always dreamed of seeing the places I’ve read about.”
“Jane, did you miss the part about us being in a hurry? Being followed? I’m afraid a stop to see a palace wouldn’t be prudent.”
“Please, Ben. We’re right here. When will I get the chance again? I’ll be fast, we can combine it with lunch…please?” I begged like a spoiled child. “Very well, but we must be quick. We’ll pop in to The Black Bitch for lunch.”
“The what?” I choked out, resisting the urge to laugh at the odd name.
“The Black Bitch Tavern, one of the oldest pubs in this region, West Lothian. It’s named after a legend. A black greyhound dog’s owner was imprisoned on an island in the center of Linlithgow Loch, sentenced to starvation. The story goes that the dog swam out with food every day to save its master.”
At the end of the hedgerow lane, there was finally an opening to a larger road. This one, thankfully, was paved and although narrow, there was room for two cars to pass without one having to pull over. It took a little over fifteen minutes to arrive at the ruins of Linlithgow Palace, royal palace of the Stewarts, birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots and her father, James the Fifth. The rain held out as we climbed the slippery stone ruins of the castle, a roofless shell of its former glory. I was in touring heaven, and Ben simply leaned against a stone wall, a faint smile graced his lips as I gushed out historical facts he already knew. “Jane, we have these kinds of places all over Britain. Let’s find your Cupid, and I’ll take a few days and show you things that you’ll never forget. Can you delay your return to America?”
“After we find the Cupid? I thought all this flirtation was simply so you could get your hands on my sculpture, Mr. Hunt.” I was teasing, but he blanched, his hands flying to his face in a momentary sign of nervousness. “I’m teasing, Ben, it’s fine. I’m not quite that naïve; I know I’m not your type. I’m having fun on this adventure, I don’t expect more.” He gulped audibly, his fists finding their way into his coat pockets. “Jane, I-I…listen, I’m not pretending to be into you, okay? I mean, it started out that way, I confess. But…now…maybe it’s time my type changed.” His eyes were warm, sincere. I didn’t believe for a second he was telling the truth, but it was so much fun pretending, I decided to let him continue his game. And, of course, I was falling hard for him with no hope of rescue.
Just as he reached out for me, his phone vibrated in his pocket. As he swiped the screen to answer the call, he mouthed the words, “It’s Sean.”
“Avoiding you? I’m doing no such thing. I needed to hurry before Stuart’s niece ran off on her own. Besides, you told me you suspected the piece was a fake anyway.”
Ben’s eyes danced anxiously as he spoke of the sculpture. I sensed he was playing a delicate game of not revealing too much information to either of us. He motioned for me to follow him back toward the car as he continued his call.
“Sean, calm down. I’m not trying to pull anything, and yes, she’s here with me. I’m sure we’ll catch up to you soon. You’re correct that the piece we left Hopetoun with was a fake, but it contained a clue. We’re headed to Inverness, if you must know. Come meet up with us, I’ll explain everything and you’ll understand why I had to run off so quickly.” His eyes met mine before he picked up the pace. “What, the clue? Yes, it was some story Stuart told Jane about…er, Mary Queen of Scots and the Siege of 1562.” He was thinking on his feet, and I could tell he was used to doing so.
Once in the car, the rain began to fall as I wrapped my new coat tightly around my shivering torso. “So, you’re sending him to Inverness Castle? Isn’t that way north?” Ben pulled away from the palace, and answered, “Yes, it is. You surprise me constantly Jane. If Sean takes the bait and heads to Inverness, it’ll buy us some time.”
“Isn’t he your friend? And he was a friend of Uncle Stuart’s, right? Why do you think he’s up to no good?”
“He was a mentor, not a friend. Sean Devane was my professor at university, and I’ve continued to go to him for advice through the years. He’s every bit as ruthless as I am when it comes to art, however, and he’d steal the Cupid in a heartbeat. Steal it, Jane. I’m trying to buy it from you—Sean has no money, keep that in mind. As far as your uncle, I wouldn’t say he and Stuart were friends, more like frenemies.” Ben’s eyebrows raised as he used the popular slang term; I could tell he was proud of himself, as if he knew the words to the latest rap song. Ben grew silent as we made our way into the village and parked along the busy street in front of the pub.
The place was busy at lunchtime, but Ben confidently strolled to an open table and handed me a menu. “Decide what you’d like and I’ll place the order at the bar.” He glanced once more at his phone before returning it to his coat pocket. “I want to know more about the Cupid. How do you know it’s valuable?” He leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. “Fair enough, but decide on lunch first.” As I scanned the menu, I realized there were only a few things I recogni
zed, so I settled on a burger and a Coke. “A burger and Coke? Seriously?” I nodded, my mouth salivating at the thought of familiar food. “And fries,” I added as he stood. “Fries…right.” “Chips, sorry, you call them chips?” He walked toward the bar without commenting or glancing back. At the bar, a round-breasted young waitress ignored three men who were there first to take Ben’s order. He paid, and with a smile returned to the table with two glasses of beer.
“I wanted a Coke, I don’t drink beer,” I protested, my face crinkled up.
“You can’t come all the way from America and not have a pint in a pub at least once. This is Old Speckled Hen—give it a try, if you don’t like it I’ll order you a Coke.”
I took a cautious sip, then a few more. This was nothing like the bitter beer from a can I’d tried in the past. This was creamy, smooth, and delicious. Ben’s long fingers circled the rim of his glass as he watched me down my pint, as he called it. “The Cupid—I want to know what’s going on. No bullshit this time. If I think you’re lying to me, I may need to talk to Sean myself.”
He didn’t seem concerned with my bluff, but after a deep exhale, he told me a plausible version of events. “Your uncle has been running his mouth for decades that he has a Renaissance-era Sleeping Cupid—he insisted that it was a famous one, one that was believed to have been destroyed during a fire at the Palace of Whitehall—” Ben was interrupted by the busty waitress, chirping something about the weather to him as she set our food down on the table. “More ale, love?” she asked him, completely ignoring me, despite the fact that my glass was empty while Ben’s was nearly full. “She’ll have a half of a pint, thank you,” he answered without asking me what I’d like. As my plate landed in front of me, I looked up in confusion. There was some pie in front of me, covered with mashed potatoes. The browned mashed potatoes were flattened on top of the pie, not on the side. On the side sat a large portion of pale green peas. I despise peas; they are the devil. The waitress had already left to presumably bring me another delicious glass of Old Speckled Hen, so I glared at Ben. “I ordered a burger and fries!” He began to eat his lunch, the exact same meal as he’d ordered for me. “You can have a burger and fries at home. This is shepherd’s pie, a British classic and a proper lunch. Peas are good for you. Eat up, we need to get on the road. As it is, I doubt we’ll get to Govan before the museum closes. We’ll need to spend the night in Glasgow, I suspect.”
Chapter Fifteen.
When we left the pub, I was stuffed and slightly tipsy. Since he’d lost Sean, Ben felt it safe to use the motorway, as he called the highway. Traffic was insane, and the driving even crazier, but I was getting used to it. Just as I was getting into some pop song on the radio, Ben suddenly exited, barely slowing the car down as we swerved onto a side road. “That same car is back, the one from Hopetoun, a few car lengths behind us,” he explained without slowing the car. “Sean?” I asked, sitting up straight in alarm. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think so,” he answered as he hit the brakes hard, reversed, and turned down a country lane—another narrow hedgerow-lined, one car-width wide lane of terror. Driving here was terrifying; I would never complain about road conditions at home in Ohio again.
About a mile down the way, Ben spun the car around at a turnout, so fast I screamed as my seatbelt tightened suddenly around my chest. He stared down the lane. “I’m tired of running, let’s see who the fuck is chasing us, shall we?” he flippantly offered. As we sat, he drummed his fingertips nervously on the steering wheel. No other traffic came down the road, and as the rain began to fall, he once again spun around and continued down the tiny road. “Jane, can you pull up the GPS on my phone and figure out an alternate route to Glasgow?” As the tires spun in a deep rut of mud, Ben rocking the low sports car back and forth to free it, I finally gave up on getting a signal on his phone. “I’m sorry, no signal at all.” After a moment of frustrated swearing under his breath, he picked up speed and said, “Right, then. We will see where this takes us, I suppose?”
The rain began to beat against the windshield in an angry staccato, the wipers swiping across hypnotically in an attempt to keep up. “I can barely see the bloody road,” Ben moaned, the car slowing to a crawl. “I’m going to pull over at the next turnout until the storm passes,” he decided. Minutes later, he was able to pull the car to the side of the road. He turned off the engine, and chuckled, “The DB9 was probably not the best choice of rental for the Scottish countryside.” I smiled back at him, “It looks pretty, though.” “That it does,” he agreed.
We waited the storm out in the small car, mostly talking. We talked about our pasts, families, literature, art, Ben’s travel adventures, and the surprising number of things we had in common, including a shared love of cheesy B-movies. It got chilly in the car, and chatting turned into cuddling, the windows long since fogged over. I was disappointed when the rain suddenly stopped, a tiny sliver of golden sunlight fighting its way from the angry clouds.
Ben glanced at his watch as I slid myself from his arms. “Time to go?” I lazily asked. “To Glasgow we go,” he said cheerily and started the car. The engine purred, then revved, then ground, but the car didn’t move. He tried rocking it again, but it was stuck. We climbed out, our boots sinking into the quicksand of black mud. “I’ll push, you drive,” he said, helping me through the mud to the driver’s door. “Um, just push the middle thingy there, and the gas is on the right? I’ve never driven a stick.” His lips pursed as his eyes narrowed. “Shit,” he muttered.
After a crash course in how to operate a manual transmission, I tried to get the expensive car to move as he pushed it from behind, terrified that I’d forget my lesson and run over him. The car, set low into the paste-like mud, wasn’t moving no matter how hard we tried. Finally, he walked over and signaled for me to turn off the engine. After reminding me to set the brake, I climbed out, my boots sinking into the swamp of mud. He dug his phone out of his coat, but there was still no signal. The peek of sunlight we had was low in the sky—it would be dark soon.
“There was a farmhouse not far back—that one with all the goats? Should we walk back and see if they can help?”
“I guess it’s worth a try,” he conceded, “at the very least they may call a recovery van for us.” I had no idea what a recovery van was, but after a minute of brainwork, I was able to translate that into tow truck.
He locked the car and we walked down the muddy lane until we came to the farmhouse, set back from the road and surrounded by goats. It looked ancient, made of a heavy white plaster with a low sloping dark slate roof. Several barns and buildings surrounded the house itself. Ben knocked on the heavy wooden door until it crept open. Standing in the doorway was a woman, middle-aged but exhausted looking. Her salt and pepper hair was held up by several large pins, with long wisps escaping their grasp to cascade across her face. She was dressed in jeans, a large man’s button up shirt, and heavy rubber boots that went up to her knees. Most alarming to me, she had a rifle in her hands. The weapon wasn’t pointed at us directly, but it was a clear warning for us to behave.
“I thought the British didn’t have guns!” I gasped to Ben, forgetting my manners.
“I’m not fucking British, missy, I’m Scottish. What do you two want?”
Ben fired up his warmest smile, his hands in the air. “Our car is stuck in the mud about a quarter of a mile up the lane. My iPhone doesn’t have a signal…would you be so kind as to possibly phone the AA for me? We need to be towed from the mud.”
She sized him up, and relaxed slightly. “No mobile service out here, mister. You’re not in London anymore.” She gave a slight chuckle. “The nearest village with a garage is thirty minutes away, and they won’t come out here this close to dark. I’ll call for you in the morning.” We both stood there at a loss as to what to do—sleep in the car? The woman pointed toward a building to the side of the property. “I have a holiday accommodation over there. If you’d like to let it for the night, it’s available. It goes for six
ty pounds, there’s a small lounge and kitchen with a double bedroom and bathroom ensuite.”
“We’ll take it,” I spoke up, shivering from the wet cold as the sun set in the distance. Of course, I could barely scrape together sixty pounds, so I was counting on my benefactor, Ben, to have cash. He looked up at the stern woman, and nodded, pulling bills from his wallet. As he counted, she said, “Eighty pounds then. I’ll bring over a hamper with provisions for the night.”
“You said sixty pounds…” I interjected. I was used to watching my money.
“Sixty for locals…Eighty for the English. Argue further and the price will go up.”
Ben handed her two large bills with Queen Elizabeth in pink. She shoved the money into her bra and nodded. “Get your things from the car, and I’ll open the cottage,” she commanded, closing the heavy door in our faces.
We walked hand in hand back to the car to get the things we’d need for the night. “Holy crap, she does not like you at all,” I said as we opened the trunk of the car. “It’s not me, it’s just a Scottish versus English thing. You know your history—we’re certainly not all one big happy family as Americans might assume. She’s being very generous, and we’re lucky to have a place to sleep for the night. Be as polite as you can, no matter how she treats me, okay? We’re uninvited guests on her land tonight.”
The Hunt for Eros Page 7