Chapter 10
THE DISCOVERY
I swam out of sleep on Saturday morning to what appeared to be a misty day in England and the understanding my slumbering self was the entertainment of a green-eyed Persian, a round-faced ginger, and a blue-eyed ragdoll.
Snowball was making her status clear by resting curled up on the pillows I wasn’t using, those green eyes gazing at me through wisps of her fur.
Gingerface advanced immediately upon me regaining consciousness and cuddled.
Baby Blue just sat there and stared at me.
“Does Battle let you hog the bed like you did last night?” I asked Baby Blue.
She blinked.
I took that as a yes, but I sensed she was lying.
I fell to my back and turned my head to see the smart screen told me it was seven oh seven.
I then looked up at the canopy above me.
When I did this, Baby Blue made her approach, laid on my chest and added her purr to Gingerface’s.
I stroked them both.
Thankfully, yesterday had been an uneventful day.
I did not faint, trip, or get tripped.
I did not experience any paranormal activity.
I did not have to engage in trading verbal barbs with anybody.
In fact, both Prue and Chassie came out to the studio with me, and with their help, I was able to finish organizing and cataloging everything before noon.
We ate a spot of lunch there, then I looked it up and talked them into going with me to a town not that far away where we could buy crates and separators so I could tidy things away and get cracking.
Prue was all in for this, and shockingly, so was Chassie.
So off we went.
We came back and they helped me tidy.
Then they left and I finally got started reading.
With papers dated 1887.
1887!
Again, I was in my personal Nirvana.
I also began work on the Talyn family tree.
I’d programmed an alarm on my phone (smartening up), so I had plenty of time to get back to the house, go to my room, fluff my hair and refresh my makeup and perfume, and I was down in the plum parlor by six forty.
Dinner went off without a hitch.
There was no tablecloth or candelabra, and we were back to a three-course meal. Chelsea was subdued. Courtney brought seaside souvenirs she lugged into the dining room and passed around (mine was a famous motto ware puzzle jug, it was very cool, and I was touched).
We ended the night in the billiards room with Battle flirting brazenly as he tried (and failed, not his fault, I was hopeless) to teach me snooker with Prue giggling, Chastity almost laughing, Chelsea fuming, and Tempie finally getting up and wiping the floor in a set against Rally.
When the night was over, Battle walked me to my room again, but without Chelsea trailing.
Whether it was for that reason or not that he left me at my door with a chaste kiss on my cheek, I didn’t know.
But that was what he did.
My first kiss from Battle Talyn.
On my cheek.
Ugh.
Suffice it to say, yesterday, he was working, I was working, and as such, I had not had the time to corner him to find out what was happening between him and me.
I wasn’t sure that day would be the day either, because I intended to work, Battle shared he had some morning meetings, but after that, they were “taking the horses out,” and being a gal who didn’t grow up with horses in stables, I wasn’t sure if that was an all-afternoon activity or not.
I also didn’t know they had horses because I hadn’t had a complete tour of the grounds. Thus, I had to carve time out to ask Prue if she’d take me, and more time just to do that.
But for the now, I had to eat breakfast then I had crates of history awaiting me.
“Can I get up?” I asked Baby Blue.
She purred and didn’t bother opening her eyes.
I gave her time.
Then I gave her more time.
Then she got done with me and jumped off.
So I was free to get up.
* * *
I’d jumped ahead because I couldn’t wait.
I was reading Marie’s journals.
And yes, as Prue said, they were dry as a bone.
If there was ever a more boring woman in history, I did not know.
Discussions with the housekeeper. Lists of invitees to dinner parties. Complaints of rain ending picnics. An endless recitation of the meals she ate.
Ho-hum.
Though it finally got juicier when Harmony started pushing for the duchy to do its part in the war effort.
But this engendered not much more than things like, Harmony is being troublesome again about that whole war business, and the like.
I kept reading while sipping the tea Mary brought out for me, and the fire in the stove that Harry started making the studio downright balmy and seriously cozy, especially with the gray outside and the fine mist that had been hanging around all day.
God’s honest truth?
I could work in this studio happily on this book and any book I wrote in the future.
That was how much I loved it.
On misty days, gray days, sunny days, I didn’t care.
This place was everything.
The cottage I’d rented was quaint, but small and cramped. It had an amazing view of the sea (if the pictures could be believed), but right now I had a view to a beautiful garden.
And tea on demand.
It sucked, but I was going to miss the studio when I left.
And The Downs.
I turned a page after reading how offended Marie was that,
that captain has requested we turn over the pink salon for some planning they need to do for some important operation or other.
Operation planning! In my pink salon! I don’t even know what that means.
Bother! It’s good he’s pleasing to look at, but now I’ve lost yet another room!
Dreadfully tough beef and boiled potatoes and cabbage for dinner.
Will there be no end to this rationing?!
I was dying to know what WWII “operations” were planned at The Downs. I’d thought it just a convalescent hospital, but from the number of military staff cordoned there (that Marie bitched about), it stood to reason that it was more.
Though, since Marie didn’t care, I doubted I’d ever find out.
But I would forget all about it when I read,
It is as feared. Bishop warned me it was more than harmless flirting.
Harmony has actual feelings for that American!
She stated this directly to me and her father!
I was appalled. The duke is incensed! Oh, what a headstrong girl!
We had chicken for dinner, and again, no pudding. Will I never eat a pudding again?
I devoured the next passages, which didn’t have much to say about Harmony and “that American” until,
She’s gone and done it. Harmony says she intends to marry that young man.
An American, of all things. American! Obviously, that means no title, and certainly no money.
He told the duke that they take “real good” care of the boys returning home and they should be on their feet “in no time.” Balderdash!
My daughter will not struggle to ever be on her feet.
The nerve. The duke refused his suit, obviously.
Harmony refused to come to dinner and sobbed very loudly for all to hear.
Humiliating, for all involved. I would sell my soul for a well-seared duck, but alas, it was chicken and potatoes again.
I’m not certain whether I hate Hitler or whoever runs the Ministry of Food more.
And then more reading, where things seemed to get worse and worse for Harmony and Charlie, however, in the journal prose of Marie’s hand, this was reduced to a few irritable sentences.
Until,
That American boy is finally gone. Good riddance. Harmony is in tatters. She’ll soon see. Lamb for dinner tonight, and miracle of miracles, it was actually tasty.
Of course, if Charlie hadn’t left without Harmony, I wouldn’t be sitting where I was.
I still stared daggers at Marie’s throwaway comments about their love affair.
What an empty-headed, pretentious, thoughtless woman, and an unconscionably terrible mom.
Annoyed, I kept going, and although there were hints of Harmony’s heartbreak, clearly Marie didn’t give much thought to it. At least, not nearly as much as she gave to cataloging the food she put in her mouth.
I was about to give up, especially since I’d gotten to a good six months after the war was over.
But then I read,
It doesn’t bear… I cannot even… The deeds that were done in this house. My husband’s house. Oh, our beautiful girl! Oh, my beloved Harmony! The only good of it is that it is done. It is well and truly buried. No one will speak of it again. And no one will ever know.
“No one will know?” I whispered to the journal. “Know what?”
I reread the passage, noting it had to have great meaning, because Marie didn’t even mention food, something she almost always did.
I then tried to recall Harmony’s letters, which I’d read at least four times.
Charlie was begging her to come to America.
He offered her the money for the passage.
And she planned to go. She was nipping away her allowance.
She teased she was doing it to buy her trousseau.
From her responses to him, it was obvious he did not tease that he didn’t give a crap about her trousseau, he only wanted her.
And then…
“Shit,” I mumbled, pushing aside papers to get to the big stack of letters tied in faded yellow ribbon.
I was going through dates to try to match a letter somewhat near Marie’s entry when something out the windows caught my eye.
Christian, who I hadn’t seen since that first day, wearing a slicker and jeans, mist in his thick blond hair, was walking through the garden in front of the studio.
His eyes were pinned to something.
I turned my head to look out the side window.
Chastity was on her knees in the mist with a bucket of mulch, a trowel, her frizzed hair, frizzier in the weather, pulled back in a huge poof of a ponytail.
I looked back to Christian who had stopped walking, but he hadn’t taken his gaze from Chastity.
“Okay,” I whispered like he was right there, and I was giving him a peptalk, “I want you to go for it, but I’m terrified you’re gonna go for it, so just do it, but you gotta take this real slow and be real gentle.”