Chapter 2 #2
He shakes off the sense of wrongness and settles the portrait back on the mantel, meeting Merryn’s eyes. “Well, now. It seems we’re to be companions a while longer.” He doffs his cap. “I rather like having you here. Would have liked to have pound notes in my pocket, though.”
Maybe it’s a sign. He isn’t meant to return to his Helen after all. That ache in his middle hardens.
But he was so certain. “Covington did paint you, didn’t he?
” The ethereal folds of the dress with bright white highlights were painted with a fan brush and oils, just like the foamy waves portrayed in Covington’s gallery collection.
Her face, though—it shows every detail of her personality, hints at the secret story she was likely too reserved to share with anyone.
What’s odd is that he can hear her voice—low and rich like mahogany, direct like her gaze, but weighted with heartache and troubles. Have they met before? How clearly he can hear her as he studies her porcelain face, wishing she might speak with him now.
So many questions he has for this Merryn—such as, why did Covington paint you? Whatever became of you?
And why do you look so lost?
He shifts his weight, arguing with himself, then goes to fetch the box he’d promised himself he’d never open.
He found it walled up with the painting, thick with dust and cobwebs, and dared not intrude upon the box’s private stories.
Yet he cannot be haunted by that woman’s watching eyes without knowing who she is.
And why he, of all people, now owns her cottage.
The stone walls morph from solid refuge…to an oddly sinister trap closing around him.
His hands aren’t trembling anymore as he grabs the rusted pry bar and jams it between the box and lid.
He’s forgotten how strong he used to be.
With a quick snap, the lid pops open and half-folded papers spill out onto the floor, along with a bound journal.
He gathers up everything like pound notes in a treasure chest and sifts through brittle papers that feel too sacred for his worn hands.
He washes up in the basin, pats his hands dry, and then sits cross-legged before the box and begins to read.
Sabine’s men have found me, although I’ve managed to give them the slip—for now, at least. She is ruthless, but she has underestimated me and my love for that boy.
He skims through the other entries, eager for any trace of Covington’s name, for his own name, but there are none. The entries are numbered, so he locates the latest one—thirty-seven. This will be the ending of her story. Dried flower petals are plastered to the top of the page.
Honeysuckle.
They lined a window box of a flat in the city, where I was both happy and restless.
I hear dishes rattling in the kitchen. A man whistling as he comes closer, his stubble against the back of my shoulder when he kisses the place my dress does not cover.
There’s bread rising on the sill and children laughing on the walk outside.
I feel something soft and silky against my arm, and I can’t tell what it is.
And there’s something important, but it’s just out of my vision…
William closes the note without finishing it. Nothing about Covington. He thought the most recent memory would be the most helpful, but it only confuses him. One never begins by reading a story’s final chapter, though.
He digs deeper until he reaches the one with the earliest date, and it’s in the notebook.
Small white petals, dried and crumbly, float onto his boots, the impression of them remaining on the paper.
The inside cover bears a simple handwritten inscription that sends a shiver up his back: Merryn’s book of found memories.
Then he leans back and prepares to read her story.
Orange Blossoms
They have haunted my wedding day, casting a dark pall over St. Peter’s Cathedral. I wore a gown of French lace and satin slippers, and had 347 guests in attendance. I’ve no wish to dwell on the other particulars, but I’m noting here, for the record, that it occurred.
Also, the orange blossoms must mean something.
The mere scent of those wretched flowers produced such a clear picture in my head, a flash of something once lived, that I cannot deny what I’ve tried to ignore—the memories are returning.
A lost part of my past, surfacing at last. Perhaps it’s mere fancy, but I fear it isn’t. I shall soon find out…
William blinks at the faded writing. Flashes of memory? What was in them? He flips the page over, but his connection to this Merryn begins to waver as he reads what’s there.
I’m not certain whether I’m still in love or not, it begins, and William’s brain stumbles to a full stop. One cannot undo falling in love, any more than a man can un-dive from a cliff. And if it doesn’t happen like that, it isn’t a true fall.
He skims ahead—where do I come in? And…did you marry him?
Then his eyes skip back to the first line he read: Sabine’s men have found me…and he meets the gaze beaming down from that portrait—what became of Merryn?