The Pearl

by Reisz, Tiffany

  “Just…let me find myself first, can you?”

  “Remember when you said I belong to you?”

  “I remember,” she said.

  “I don’t know if you meant it, but you have to know I believed it. I’m always going to belong to you. No matter where you are, wherever you go, I’m always yours.”

  She smiled. “Mine.”

  “All right. What are you going to do?”

  “What I should have done ten years ago.”

  “Don’t be long,” he said. “I love you.”

  He turned to go and Regan whispered to his back, “I love you, too, Brat.”

  The door closed behind him and she was alone. Alone again. She wanted him back so badly she almost ran after him. But she would only be leaving one gilded cage to put Arthur in another.

  She went out onto the terrace and found Gloom waiting for his lunch. She fed him raw fish by hand and stroked the silky feathers along the back of his elegant head.

  “I have to leave, baby,” she said. “I have to fly away for a while, like you do. Someone will take care of you, I promise, but for now this is goodbye.”

  He raised his head. “Bye-bye, baby.”

  She laughed through tears and when Gloom flew away, she imagined he was taking her with him.

  In a daze she returned to her office and picked up the phone.

  “Yes, Boss,” Zoot said when she answered.

  “Would you mind feeding Gloom for me? I’ll be…I’ll be gone for a bit.”

  “Whatever you want, Boss. Where you going?”

  “Paris.”

  “Paris? What’s in Paris?”

  “Art,” Regan said. “Loads and loads and loads of art.”

  Part III

  14

  Morning Star and Evening Star

  Arthur was in Hell.

  Two weeks had passed since he’d last seen Regan, and she wasn’t answering his calls. He’d even gone by The Pearl twice to see if she was there. Zoot said she wasn’t, and couldn’t—or wouldn’t—say where she’d gone.

  All he could do was wait while Regan did whatever it was she needed to do. Wait and hope and trust that his dead great-grandfather wouldn’t cross planes of existence to put them together just to let them fall apart.

  December came and suddenly Christmas was everywhere Arthur looked. Outside the window of the Piccadilly townhouse, he spied greenery hanging from streetlamps, white lights on Christmas trees glowing through windows. His parents would be home in one week and they’d all convene at Wingthorn, now fully renovated.

  Arthur tried to look forward to it, to his last Christmas with his family before he joined the army and left home for good. But he’d happily skip the whole season and all the gifts and parties if it meant knowing where Regan was, that she was safe and still wanted him. Every time it rained—which was nearly every day now—he was plagued with sightings of Regan on the shining sidewalks, but it never was her under those black umbrellas.

  These were the wistful thoughts in his head as he put the last of the decorations on the Christmas tree he’d bought for the townhouse. Rather than cheering him up, the decorating made him miss Regan more. Would they ever have the chance to do this together as a couple? To choose a tree for their home—just the thought of “their home” made his breath quicken—and decorate together, arguing over the placement of the nutcrackers and the fat little robins and the golden bells?

  He knew her life might be cut short. No matter how many times he told himself that fact should scare him away, it never did. If anything, it only made him love her more, want her more.

  God, if only she’d call or text. He’d take a single note or a message from Zoot delivered to his doorstep along with a few dozen insults. She could call him Lord Dogshit and the Rude Baron all she wanted if she also told him where Regan was hiding herself. Hiding herself to find herself.

  The front door of the townhouse opened and slammed shut. He stood up straight, tiny ceramic robin in hand.

  Nobody slammed the door of the eighteenth-century townhouse except for one person.

  “In here, Charlie,” Arthur called out. “Sitting room.”

  Charlie came in, looking better than the last time Arthur had seen him. Wide awake, not hungover, cloud lifted. He held up a large wrapped rectangle.

  “Got old Thirteen back,” he said.

  In all the madness, Arthur had almost forgotten about Lord Malcolm’s portrait. He set the robin on the coffee table and took the portrait from his brother, uncovered it. There he was, in all his smirking glory.

  “You’re out of the doghouse,” Arthur said. “Congratulations. How did you get it?”

  “Some weirdly hostile blonde who called me ‘Lord Dogshit’s brother’ brought it by the flat where I was staying. She brought this one, too.”

  He passed Arthur another wrapped rectangle, about the same size.

  Zoot knew where Arthur lived. She’d been by enough with Regan’s notes to have her own room here. Was she taking the easy route by giving something to Charlie to give to him? Or was this Regan’s doing, forcing Charlie and Arthur into the same room?

  Arthur carefully removed the packing paper to reveal an original oil painting. An Evelyn de Morgan. He read the brass badge on the frame. Phosphorus and Hesperus (Morning Star and Evening Star).

  “What is it?” Charlie asked, peering past Arthur’s shoulder.

  “The two sons of Venus,” Arthur explained, setting the painting on the mantel. “The Morning Star and the Evening Star. Brothers.”

  “That’s what Mummy used to call us. Didn’t have the heart to tell her the Morning Star and the Evening Star are just the same star.”

  “I think she knew,” Arthur said.

  “Can’t remember the last time she called me her Evening Star,” Charlie said almost wistfully. “I get nothing but Charles now.”

  “That’s because it’s a term of endearment, and you haven’t been very endearing lately.”

  Charlie rolled his eyes. “God, not again. I’m leaving if you’re going to start this up.”

  Arthur stared at him. Unbelievable.

  “Didn’t we used to be best mates? Or did I make all that up in my mind?”

  “Yeah, and we used to be virgins, too. Then we grew up, all right. So grow up.” Charlie turned to leave.

  Arthur said his name, sharply, and Charlie spun on his heel to face him. “What now?” he demanded.

  Arthur socked his brother in the face.

  Good punch. All knuckle straight to the chin. Charlie fell back onto the sofa, dazed and gasping.

  He cradled his face in his hands. “What the… Bastard, what was that for—”

  “You fucked my girlfriend the day I broke up with her,” Arthur said, shocked by how much cold rage came out in his voice.

  “That’s why you hit me? That was over two years ago!”

  “Yes, and I’m still waiting for an apology.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “No, I’m furious. You know she called you just to wind me up,” Arthur said. “You know that, yes? Or do I need to show you the screenshots of her text messages to me mocking you? She sent me a pic of you two in bed together, you sleeping like a baby next to her while she was texting me about how easy you were.”

  Charlie moved his mouth, adjusted his jaw. It wasn’t broken. Not that Arthur would have felt too badly if it had been.

  “No,” Charlie said. “You don’t have to tell me or show me. I knew.”

  “You knew? Then why did you sleep with her?”

  His brother gave a sad self-deprecating laugh. “Why? Because of you. Because you get absolutely everything all the time and forever and ever. You get the title and the houses and the respect, and I get sod all and jack nothing.”

  Arthur sat down hard on the coffee table, across from Charlie. He tried to meet his brother’s eyes, but Charlie wouldn’t look at him.

  “I know I’m a fuck-up,” Charlie said. “Why not? No one expects me to be a
nything else. Dear Mummy and Daddy already have their perfect daughter and their perfect son. I might as well not even exist. Why should I bother?”

  Charlie touched his jaw and winced again. It was starting to swell.

  “Stay,” Arthur said. “If you’re not here when I come back from the kitchen, I will find you and break your nose.”

  “I’ll be here.” Charlie’s voice was small and defeated. Arthur wanted to hug the stupid boy but knew Charlie wouldn’t allow that. With a sigh he left the sitting room and went into the kitchen to put ice in a tea towel. Regan had been right. Charlie had slept with Wendy on purpose, out of spite, hurt pride, and self-pity. As much as Arthur wanted to punch his brother again—how many people would kill to be in his shoes with his family’s money and power and the Godwick surname?—he also wanted to shake him until he realized that none of the titles and inheritances meant anything. Arthur would have traded his titles to the first person he saw walking down the street if it meant Regan would call him and tell him where she was.

  And with that thought, he knew what he could do to help Charlie.

  He returned to the sitting room and gave Charlie the ice. The swelling wasn’t bad, but the bruise would be nasty.

  “I need to tell you something very important,” Arthur said, standing in front of Charlie. “So pay attention.”

  Charlie met his eyes.

  “I’m going to marry Regan Ferry,” Arthur said.

  Charlie laughed. When Arthur didn’t smile, he stopped laughing. “You’re joking.”

  “No.”

  “She’s richer than we are. What’s she want with you?”

  “You’ll have to ask her that. But it doesn’t matter. I’m marrying her as soon as I can.”

  “This is fast, Art. Like…you’ve known her a month.”

  “Our own mother and father were married one day after meeting. One. Twenty-five years later, and they still can’t keep their hands off each other.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Sorry. Anyway, for reasons you don’t need to know or understand, we won’t be having children,” Arthur said. “Therefore, I’ll be naming you my heir. The Godwick line will continue through you and your children whether I die tomorrow or sixty years from now.”

  The silence in the room was so deep and long Arthur could hear Christmas music being played by the Hyde Park buskers.

  “God, you’re serious,” Charlie said. He sat up straight, the first time Arthur had seen him sitting in anything other than an angry slouch in two years.

  “I couldn’t be more serious.”

  “What if, you know, you two change your mind?”

  “We won’t. And as my heir you can’t go on like this. You’ll either be the seventeenth Earl of Godwick or the father of the seventeenth Earl of Godwick. Your gap year is officially over, starting today. I don’t care where you go to university but you’re going. If not university, then Sandhurst. I’ll let you decide, but you are not going to spend another day wasting your life when you’re the heir to a massive estate and a title that will need protecting and managing. The drinking has to stop. Spending money that’s not yours has to stop. And your friends are not friends, they’re hangers-on who will drop you the second they realize they can’t squeeze another penny out of you. Do you understand me?”

  Shockingly, Charlie nodded. He even looked almost contrite and even…possibly…maybe…a little bit proud.

  “Have you told Dad any of this?” Charlie said.

  “No, but I will at Christmas.”

  “But what if…” Charlie sat up even straighter. “What if you two don’t end up getting married after all?”

  “Then we’re still in the same boat. Because it’s her or no one, and I’ll still need an heir.” Arthur smiled at him. “Someone’s got to be Lord Dogshit the Seventeenth.”

  “Right,” Charlie said. “I’ll talk to Dad about what he thinks I should do—university or Sandhurst. Although I’d thought about maybe…LSE?”

  “LSE” was the London School of Economics. This was the first Arthur had heard of his brother having any interest in business or the economy. What else did he not know about Charlie?

  “LSE would be brilliant,” Arthur said. “The family’s basically run as a business, after all. While I’m away with my unit, I’ll want you at the board meetings of the Godwick trust, too. One of us needs to be there, taking notes and learning the ins and outs. Will you do that?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Yes, absolutely.” There was life in Charlie’s eyes again, a determination to live up to the enormous responsibility he’d been given.

  Arthur felt a lump in his throat. He wanted Regan with him more than ever, so he could tell her about Charlie, that he was already a changed man, growing up before his very eyes.

  “Good,” Arthur said. “Now, do you want to help me with the tree?”

  “I thought I might take old Thirteen’s portrait back to the house before anyone notices it’s gone.”

  His chin was turning blue already. Arthur said, “You stay here and keep the ice on your face. I’ll take it home. We’ll have supper when I get back. You can get Indian takeaway if you like.”

  “Only if I can have it Indian-spicy.”

  “You’ve been my heir for three minutes, and you’re already trying to bump me off?”

  “Just payback for the busted face.”

  “You were prettier than me anyway,” Arthur said. “Now we’re equal.”

  “Right,” he said. “Equal.”

  Arthur picked up the paintings. Charlie was already on his phone, but Arthur was relieved to see he was pulling up the webpage for the London School of Economics.

  He loaded the paintings into his Landy. The drive home was about an hour, and he spent every minute of it dreaming of a future with Regan that might or might not happen. It had to happen, though. Didn’t it? Lord Malcolm had brought them together once. Maybe he could do it again?

  The sun was setting as he drove through the imposing gates of Wingthorn, their ancestral home. He carried the paintings to the front door, put in the house code. The doors popped open for him. He stepped into the entryway, which smelled of fresh paint and plaster. New stair bannister. The ancient ceilings didn’t look quite so ancient anymore. A fine face-lift all around.

  As he passed his mother’s morning room, Arthur noticed one thing had changed quite dramatically. The room which had been rose-red for a century or more was now white. He stepped inside and switched on the lights. The old red damask wallpaper was gone, replaced now with white wallpaper covered in scrolling green rose vines.

  The wallpaper Regan had seen in her dream. It had to be.

  He walked to the white fireplace mantel and gazed up at his mother’s portrait. His mother’s name was Mona Lisa, and so in her portrait she was dressed as the Mona Lisa—same hair, same outfit. A quirky portrait for a countess. Then again, his parents were rather notoriously eccentric.

  The very first Countess of Godwick had hung her own portrait in this room, and this is where all the countesses’ portraits would hang until the end of the line. In the dream Regan had described, the one with Lord Malcolm, she had seen her future. One day she would be the next Countess of Godwick.

  And even if she hadn’t seen that future, Arthur could see it, and it was more beautiful than any work of art in Heaven or on Earth.

  15

  Portrait of an Artist

  The feeling came on softly, like the way the morning warms slowly in late May. First she’d been almost chilly as the night air lingered, comfortable, then warm, warmer, finally almost hot as the sun climbed into the sky. Happiness. Regan was happy. Happy with her work today. Happy with the soft northern light permeating her Montmartre studio. Happy to be alive.

  She wiped sweat from her brow and took a long drink of mineral water and ate a handful of blueberries. After ten years without painting, she’d nearly forgotten how physically taxing the work could be. Standing for hours lifting a brush heav
y with paint. Her back ached and so did her feet. Not even sore feet and a little back pain, however, could dent her happiness. Not now that she was painting again and free.

  And she saw the proof of her freedom every day in the mirror. She’d cut her hair off into a chin-length bob. It was Sir Jack who’d wanted her hair long, more “feminine” supposedly—but in her mind, simply impractical for a painter. Now she just tucked her hair behind her ears every morning, pulled on jeans and a paint-stained t-shirt and went straight to work. And no more contact lenses, only glasses, which she pushed up on her head when doing fine detail work, put on her face again when she was making her broad strokes. Short hair. Glasses. A wrist tattoo, no watch, and torn jeans. Regan felt seventeen again with her whole life ahead of her, even if it wasn’t a long life, she thought, maybe…it might be a happy one.

  She made a few final touches to her painting and stood back, arms crossed, brush dangling from her right hand, heedlessly dripping paint on the floor.

  She tilted her head left, then right, then took another step back. Was it done, really? Finally? Should she deepen the shading? Should she change the background color from grey to blue?

  “It’s perfect.”

  Regan jumped and spun around.

  Arthur stood in the doorway of her studio.

  She could only stare at him a moment, standing before her like an apparition. He’d changed, too, since she’d last seen him in early December. Almost six months had passed, and he already looked years older. Shorter hair, too. Taller? No, but he had on his army boots, which gave him more height. His camo fatigues were rolled up to his elbows, showing off his tanned and muscular forearms. He looked bigger, older, more powerful. He looked like a man who could protect her from any and everything.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I’m on leave,” he said. “One week.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “You had Zoot send you your things.”

  “She wouldn’t give you my address.”