The Art of Inheriting Secrets

by Barbara O'Neal

  “I know. It’s the epitome of star-crossed. Not just different classes. Not just different cultures, but same sex at a time it was completely unacceptable,” I said. “How’s your dad going to feel if he finds out?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Maybe we don’t tell anybody.”

  “Okay,” I said with a little frown. “I mean, I guess it seems prudent to wait for answers, see if we can piece it together first.”

  “What if we never tell anyone?”

  “Ever? That seems so sad, that their story would never see the light of day. It seems at least part of what my mother wanted me to know.”

  “Yes, but why?” His hands were still on the table. One was in a fist. “Why did she want you to know that particular thing?”

  “I don’t know.” I covered the fist with my hand. “Not yet.”

  He turned it over and opened his hand to me. “I just don’t want my father to be hurt. Or any of the people who loved my grandmother and wouldn’t understand.”

  “I promise that we’ll make the decision together. Let’s put all the pieces together before we decide anything.”

  “Not even Pavi,” he said.

  “Okay.” I crossed my heart. “It’s our secret.”

  I stood up to take the plates to the sink, and on my way back, he caught me by the waist and tugged me between his legs. His big hands moved on the back of my thighs, then under the shirt to my naked bottom. “Maybe this should be our secret too,” he said, and I could see by the set of his mouth that he meant it.

  “Why?” I pressed my hands into his shoulders. “Are you embarrassed?”

  “God, no! Why would you say that?”

  “I don’t know. I’m older than you. The detective made a comment yesterday about it.”

  Samir smiled slowly, that sexy, knowing grin. His hands skated upward, following the curve of my waist, then back down again. “He thought we were together?”

  “Yes.” I leaned in closer. “And commented on the age difference, which means I don’t even kind of look close to your age.”

  “You’re the one who is embarrassed, not me. I don’t care in the slightest.” His palms came out and rested on my waist. “When I was a boy, I stole the photo of our grandmothers, a copy of the same one you have now, and hid it in my room.” He swallowed, lifting a hand to twine his fingers through my hair. “She was so beautiful, like something I made up. That day I saw you at Rebecca’s the first time, I thought I was imagining you.”

  I pressed my forehead into his, deeply touched. “I’m not embarrassed.”

  He brushed the tip of his nose over mine. The tenderness nearly buckled my knees. “Good.”

  I closed my eyes, wishing that I could capture this moment in a bottle and revisit it whenever I wanted. I breathed in the scent of his skin and the sex all over us and this new thing we’d created, the fragrance of us.

  “Listen,” he said quietly, hand brushing the side of my neck. “You’ve never lived in a little village like this. The gossip can be murderous.”

  “Why would they care?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You’re not seriously asking that question. You’re a countess, Olivia, heir to a family name that the village has held dear for centuries. I’m a thatcher.”

  “A professor who chooses to be a thatcher. A writer who is waiting for his next book.”

  “No,” he said with more force than I expected. “That’s not who I am. This”—he gestured to the cottage around us—“is who I am.”

  “Okay,” I said, a little wounded. “I don’t care what you do. I really don’t.”

  “Other people do.” He brushed the back of his fingers over my cheek. “They’ll want you to marry a lord, someone who knows all the rules. Someone they can brag about seeing in the market.”

  “I hear you.” But I didn’t like it. “It’s ridiculous, however. It’s the twenty-first century!”

  “Maybe in America.”

  The smell of his skin was making me dizzy, and I worked my fingers under the neckline of his shirt to feel the bare skin. “I might want you naked again,” I said and pressed into him, then bent to kiss him.

  “I like that idea.”

  Somewhere in the middle of the night, I awakened to moonlight pouring in through a window and Samir all around me, arms draped lightly over my waist, his chest against my back. I shifted, very, very slowly, so that I could look at him. The moonlight touched the crown of his head, the sweep of a cheekbone, his bare shoulder.

  It seemed both impossible and fated that he was lying here next to me, and the feeling that rose in me was as vast and deep as anything I’d ever felt. Not a crush. Not something that would be easy to overcome if something came between us.

  And yet what could I do?

  Quietly, I slipped out of bed and padded down the hall to the bathroom. Moonlight poured in through the back windows of a small second bedroom, one I hadn’t paid attention to because it had been dark. Now the light showed a desk and more bookcases and unruly sheaves of loose paper on a window seat. A laptop sat closed on the desk, and next to it was a sheaf of paper in a tidy stack.

  A manuscript of some kind, I would swear.

  For a moment, I only stood there, desperately curious, deeply tempted to tiptoe into the room and take a peek.

  But no. If he was to trust me, he had to reveal things in his own time.

  I took care of business in the tiny bathroom and washed my face and hands, looking into my eyes in the mirror. Alongside my eyes, my grandmother’s eyes, were the faint beginnings of crow’s-feet. My lips were full and swollen with all the kissing, and there was a mark on my shoulder, a little bite mark that made me smile. I backed up a little to look at my breasts, and they looked prettier than they ever had, and my chubby thighs were shaky with so much sex.

  I didn’t know what gods might be listening or who might be in charge of all this, but I let go of a whisper. “Thank you.”

  When I awoke, Samir had already showered. He sat on the edge of the bed, wearing only dark-blue boxer briefs, and his hand was in my hair. His expression was unbearably tender, and I pressed my cheek into his palm.

  “I am so glad you’re here,” he said, and his low voice rumbled into my ear.

  “Me too.”

  “But now real life arrives—I’m afraid I have to go to work this morning. The rain has stopped.”

  “All right.” I stirred, stretched, and he made a sound, pulling the sheet off my chest and pressing a kiss to my throat, my breasts.

  “I don’t want to go,” he said.

  “Me either.” I swung my legs off the bed. “But I have a million things to do today too. I’m meeting Pavi to touch base on layout for the picnic, and I need to figure out what to do with Violet’s things.”

  “That room should be cleared now that the window is broken.”

  “I’m going to call Jocasta. She’ll send someone.” I tugged on my underwear, then my tank top and sweater. “I guess I need to take a look at the paintings we took to my flat as well.”

  “I cannot wait to see them.” He stood. “I’m sorry to have to rush. I’ll drop you at your flat if you like. I’ve got to be in Woolhope by eight.”

  “You have to eat!”

  He grinned. “Oh, yes. I will.” He climbed into his jeans, buttoned his shirt. “You too.”

  “Maybe I can cook for you tonight.”

  His eyes shimmered. “Yes, please.”

  In the car, he said, “Are we going to keep this to ourselves for now?”

  “Us?”

  “Yeah. I think it would be better.”

  I wrapped my hand around his forearm, very lightly. “But what if I’m . . .” It was hard to think of the right way to say it—proud, pleased? “Chuffed? Maybe I want everyone to be a little envious.”

  “Thank you for that.” He had to shift gears. “We just don’t want the gossips to go mad just yet.”

  A little of the sheen fell away from my mood. “Not eve
n Pavi? I might feel bad about that.”

  “She’ll know the minute she sees us.”

  I shrugged. “All right. If it makes you more comfortable.”

  “It isn’t for me. But thank you.” He pulled up in front of the fish-and-chips shop and looked back at the street. No one was around, and he smiled, then bent in and kissed me, lingering and deep and sincere. “I’ll text you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I let myself into the flat, startled by how much space the paintings took up. Another big job, but it would have to wait. I started a pot of coffee brewing and climbed in the shower.

  And there, my body remembered. Everything. I touched my throat and arms and belly, remembering a kiss, a cry, a moment of laughter, his hands on my body, his low laughter in my ear. Happiness.

  Adrift in my postsex delirium, I wandered back into the kitchen, trying to find my phone, which I’d not touched since sometime yesterday. It was buried at the bottom of my purse, and when I swiped the screen to bring it to life, there were a dozen missed calls and a handful of voice messages. As I poured a cup of coffee, pleased at the heady scent of it, I listened to the first one, from Jocasta. “Give me a call, love,” she said. “I’ve found something.”

  The next was from the detective, who informed me that the skeleton they’d found was over six hundred years old if they were to judge, so the house work could continue.

  A relief. Stirring sugar into my coffee, flashing back on Samir’s long-fingered hands chopping chicken last night, tracing the shape of my body, whispering over my lips, I punched the next one. The accountant. Then:

  “Did you think I would never find out, Countess?” said Grant’s voice.

  My gut dropped. I swore aloud, forcefully. Somehow, he’d found out about my status here, and now things would be even harder to negotiate. Carrying the cup of coffee to the table, I opened my laptop to read my email—

  And sighed. A forwarded email from my publisher held the subject line, “American Heiress Inherits Ghosts along with Estate.”

  The story had originally run on some website but had gone viral, and now a search on the story showed over a thousand links, most to small newspapers in the US. Of course—it was a sweet little lifestyle filler. The photo that ran with the story was me at a cocktail party six or seven years ago, my hair in a tousled updo, the dress cut way low in the back. The flash had caught my eyes wrong, so I looked drunk.

  And maybe I had been. Who knew. The booze and wine flowed freely at the foodie parties we attended.

  The actual text was sensational and short:

  Poor Olivia Shaw, Countess of Rosemere, has her hands full enough with the extensive renovations on her newly inherited manor house in Hertfordshire. This week, she had to grapple with a skeleton, which gave rise to the mysteries haunting the ancient estate. Is the skeleton the body of teenager Sanvi Malakar, who disappeared over forty years ago?

  The Countess of Rosemere, until lately the celebrated editor of Egg and Hen, a food magazine in the US, landed a hefty inheritance when her mother died three months ago. Rumors say she had no idea. We say, give us a secret inheritance, no matter how devastated the estate or how many skeletons are buried there.

  At any rate, the countess has been seen often in the company of the Earl of Marswick, who is mentoring her in the ways of the gentry, along with his very eligible nephew and heir to the Marswick estate, Alexander Barber. Could the two families be planning a dynasty?

  David had added,

  Thought you’d want to see this. You sound quite glamorous, my dear. I suspect we won’t be getting you back, will we?

  PS: The strawberry Ingredients column was one of your best.

  I hit reply. Hesitated, fingers over the keys. Across the center of my palms moved the ghost of Samir’s side, his ribs. I closed my eyes.

  It was one night. One night.

  But in the deepest part of my gut, I knew better. This wasn’t a flirtation. I didn’t know what it was yet. I didn’t know anything about anything, except that maybe I was in love.

  Which scared the hell out of me. What if I was only leaping toward him because I was lonely and sad and grieving? What if we woke up six months from now and—

  Stop.

  I touched the keyboard. Gave it a moment’s thought and typed,

  I have no answers at the moment, boss. That’s the honest truth. I love writing about this place, but there is so much happening, so fast, that I can’t make any decisions right now. Just sent Lindsey an article on carrot cake, and I’m going to ask a local to write an Ingredients guest column on coriander, if that’s all right. If you want to make more formal arrangements on the editorial side, we can talk whenever you like.

  xoxo

  When I hit send, it felt like taking another step away from my old life, which honestly felt far, far away now. It surprised me, but I’d begun to feel very much at home in this little village. Perhaps it was the pleasure of carrying unearned status or the sense of my ancestors walking the churchyard, but it was undeniable.

  A wisp of Samir wove through my memory, his hands on my spine. I blinked, letting it fill me. My body was tired and a little sore. The very best feeling. It chased away the dismay of the article.

  Against the wall near the bed was the box of photos we’d found, all those shots of my grandmother and Nandini and the old plantation. Impulsively, I picked up the phone and punched a number.

  It wasn’t until her voice mail answered, crisp and aloof, that I realized I’d called my mother. “This is Caroline Shaw. Leave a message.”

  Her voice rocketed through every cell of my body. I hurt everywhere, all at once. But instead of hanging up, as I’d done the other two times I’d made this mistake, I waited for the beep and said, “Hey, Mom. I just had to tell you about all this stuff I found in Violet’s room. Did you know about her and Nandini? Crazy and so sad that they had to hide all those years. Decades, I guess.” I paused, bending my head more intimately. “I think I met someone, Mom. Wish you could meet him too.”

  I held the phone in my hand, wondering how long it would take to understand that she was actually dead, how long it would be until my heart wasn’t broken anew twenty times a day.

  It would help to get all this business with the house settled, and I had no time for grief today. Not that grief ever seemed to care.

  I called the accountant back first and left my name and number. Next, I called Jocasta. She answered on the second ring. “Hullo, Olivia! I heard there’ve been all sorts of things happening. Skeletons, the roof! And I have news from my contacts abroad.”

  “I have news for you too. I found some paintings in my grandmother’s room, all wrapped up very neatly. I think my mother might have left them there.”

  “Remarkable! Anything interesting? Shall we get them appraised, see what’s there?”

  “Yes. I brought them to my apartment for safety’s sake—there’s a window broken in that room. I’ll take a look later today, and you can have your person appraise them whenever. She’s free in June?”

  “We’re going to have to move a bit faster than that. I’ve sent out feelers for someone else.”

  “All right. I also want to get that room cleared, get it all into storage so that I can go through it. Some of the paintings probably are valuable, but it’s the only place in the house that I’ve found much in the way of personal memorabilia, and I’d like to take my time sorting through it.”

  “And so you should. Can I send Ian over to film you in the room this afternoon, before we clear it out?”

  “Sure. I’ll be there doing some other things. He can text me. And I also heard that the skeleton is hundreds of years old, so we’re free to continue working. A local archeologist wants to examine the site, but that won’t interfere with the renovation.” I sipped more coffee, feeling the caffeine start to kick in. My stomach growled. Maybe I had time to get a pastry or two from Helen’s bakery before Pavi arrived. “What’s your news?”

  “A couple of
things, actually. We’ve tracked down your caretakers, who are not nursing a sick mother but enjoying a holiday home on the Black Sea.”

  “What?”

  “I suspect they had no intention of returning. Whatever little gig they were running was over the minute you arrived.” Someone murmured to her in the background. “It might be worth following that paper trail.”

  “Right.” I’d talk to the accountant I’d hired about this too. “Thanks.”

  “The other bit of news is more mystery than answers. My research team has been digging into your uncle’s history, and it appears that your uncle never went to India, or he did not return to any of the places he would have been known. He seems to have disappeared the summer of 1977.”

  A sudden, intense shiver of apprehension zapped the back of my neck. “He must have gone somewhere.”

  “Or he’s dead, which would be more likely.”

  “Dead where, though?”

  “That’s a very good question.” She paused. “I wonder . . . the girl who disappeared. Is it possible they were a love match, and they ran away together?”

  I frowned. “It seems unlikely. She was only fifteen.”

  “Just a thought. We’ll keep turning stones over. Maybe he went to America after your mother did.”

  “If he did, I never met him.” The whole thing felt tawdry and depressing.

  She must have heard something in my voice, because she said, “Chin up. It’ll all be right in the end.”

  “I hope so. It just feels like one damned thing after another.”

  Jocasta laughed. “Oh, my dear. It is.”

  Pavi and I mapped out the major placement of the picnic by pacing the lawn, and we made sketches of where the three food trucks would set up. I’d hired a pony for children to ride. Picnic tables would be scattered in the shade of the chestnut trees. There would be booths for face painting and baked goods supplied by the local women’s guild. The garden club’s plant sale would close the rectangular space. “Looks good,” I said. “I’m starting to get excited.”

  “Me too.” She planted her hands on her hips. “You should be proud of yourself, Lady Shaw, for reestablishing an old tradition.”