Chapter 3
Chapter Three
She was up early the following morning. There was a determination fueling her. Defiance. For the first time in her life, she had something to fight for.
She put the kettle on and started a fire to take the chill out of the air.
Rowan knocked at half past eight and came in with a paper bag from the bakery and two coffees in a cardboard carrier. The smell of all of it hit her at once. The aroma of freshly baked goods and rich coffee filled the air.
"You didn't have to do that," she said.
"I did. We're going to need it." He set everything on the kitchen table and looked at her. "How did you sleep?"
"Better. You?"
"Good." He handed her a coffee. "Scones are still warm."
They ate standing up at the counter because neither of them wanted to waste the time sitting down. Then he carried the space heater into the library, set it in the middle of the room, and turned it on. It ticked to life while they both stood and surveyed the monumental task ahead of them.
"We need a system, or we'll lose our minds by lunch."
He waited.
"We start on this side, at the wall,” she said, pointing to the shelves left of the door. "Top to bottom, left to right. Take every book off, fan the pages, check the spine and covers, and look behind the row for anything hidden. Then put it in a pile."
“Let’s do it,” he said, clapping his hands together.
They started at the top shelf.
It took twenty minutes to establish a rhythm.
He worked the high shelves because he could reach them without the stepladder.
She worked the middle. They left the bottom for later.
Every book came off. Every book got fanned.
The dust was ridiculous, and they were both left sneezing and constantly sniffling.
The number of receipts and newspaper clippings they found was impressive. Articles from Reader's Digest were a theme.
“I think those were probably from your grandmother,” Rowan said.
“He inherited his filing system from his parents,” she smirked.
“Picture,” Rowan said.
He held out a photograph with names written on the back. “Planning committee,” Leah read aloud.
She turned it back over and spotted Madeline Hargrove second from the left. Even back then, Leah could see the woman’s pride and ego. And there, at the far edge, half-turned away from the camera as if he'd rather be anywhere else, was her father.
Her father was thinner in the photo than in the Vegas picture, and he wasn't smiling, but he was there. Young. Present. Standing three feet from the woman who would spend the next forty years trying to erase his family from the village.
"He looks miserable," she said.
"He hated having his picture taken."
There was a whole person her father had been, and Rowan had known him, and every so often, she felt a twinge of jealousy about that.
They worked through the morning. The finds accumulated slowly.
Mostly useless. A train ticket from the early eighties.
A shopping list. Several pressed flowers that made Leah wonder why they were significant.
Who gave them to whom? A bookmark woven from ribbons.
The entire library was one big memory chest that required a full-blown scavenger hunt to find.
“I’ll make lunch,” she offered just after one.
It was simple fare, a can of tomato soup and grilled cheese.
They ate at the kitchen table in dusty clothes, lost in their thoughts.
Neither of them discussed what might happen if they didn’t find the smoking gun needed to retain her inheritance.
They didn’t talk about what would happen if she lost the estate and Rowan found himself homeless as well.
They finished their lunch and went back to work.
Her back ached from reaching and bending. Book after book. They cleared one shelf after another. Leah had a paper cut on her right index finger that burned with every turn of a page. She'd sneezed so many times she'd lost count.
“I’m losing hope, Rowan,” she murmured.
Leah sat on the floor with piles of books all around her. She refused to think of the mess and the tedious work that would happen when it came time to put them all back.
And then she realized that might not be necessary because she might have to pack up all of her father’s precious books and give them away.
There was one wall left—the last hope for proof that she was the legitimate heir.
"That's enough," Rowan said. He was sitting on the floor, too, his back against the desk, long legs stretched out between the stacks, dust in his hair. "We've been at it nine hours."
"There's a whole wall left."
"It'll still be there tomorrow."
She looked at the remaining shelves and then down at the book in her hands. Nothing in it. She closed it and set it on the pile.
"We found receipts, a newspaper article, recipes, and a grocery list," she said. "Nine hours."
He nodded.
She leaned her head back against the chair behind her and looked at the ceiling.
Somewhere in this village, Madeline Hargrove was sitting in her handsome house behind her iron gate, waiting.
"He kept everything, Rowan. A man like that does not leave the question of his marriage undocumented.
It's here. It has to be here. He knew he was leaving me this estate. He had to know there could be questions about my paternity. Wouldn’t he prepare for that? "
"Maybe it is."
"Maybe it's not. Maybe he never registered it because he didn't know he had to. Maybe there's nothing to find, and Whitfield calls next week and tells me I've been living in someone else's house for the last month."
He didn't argue with her, which she appreciated more than she could say. He just sat there, quiet, while she stared at the ceiling and let herself feel the full weight of the day.
She looked at him.
He was already looking at her. She knew that expression. He was deciding whether to say something.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"Rowan."
He rubbed a hand over his jaw, and she could hear the rasp of stubble under his palm. "It's not a thing I know. It's a thing I heard. Once. A long time ago."
She sat up straighter. "We had a deal. Complete, brutal honesty."
"I remember the deal."
"Then whatever you're sitting on, get off it."
He looked at her for a long moment. "I've never personally seen it. But my father once told me there was a secret room in this house."
She stared at him.
"What?"
"He mentioned it once. I was maybe twelve. There are plenty of secrets around this place. Some true, some not.”
"And you never thought to mention this?”
"Leah, I said I’ve never seen it with my own two eyes.
I don’t know if my father ever saw it. We didn't snoop.
That was the whole of the job, in the end.
The Ellsworths trusted us with everything because they knew we wouldn't touch anything that wasn't ours.
I wasn't going to be the Harrington who broke that. I never looked. I never even asked."
She got up off the floor, unfolding slowly, her knees cracking. “Where?”
“I don’t know, Leah. Houses this age had them. Smugglers' hides, some of them, this close to—well. It doesn't matter what it was for. My father said there was a room."
She turned in a slow circle, looking at the library with entirely new eyes. She thought of the house and where a secret room could be hidden. She wasn’t an architect. She didn’t know how to spot a room that was smaller than it looked.
“Where?” she asked. “Where would it be?”
He sighed and got to his feet as well. “I don’t know.”
“Rowan.”
“If I had to guess, I would say it might be off the main entrance or possibly here.”
Leah glanced around. Shelves covered the walls, except for one with a single window. Nothing stood out, which made sense, she thought. Still, how was she supposed to find it?
She walked out of the library and stared at the entranceway—the front door. One side opened to a small sitting room. But the other was a long wall with pictures of her ancestors. She stepped forward and ran her hand along the wall.
Rowan joined her, knocking here and there.
“Solid,” he said with disappointment when they moved the full length.
“Then it has to be in the library.”
“Or it doesn’t exist,” he said softly.
She refused to believe that. Something told her there had to be more. She had to find it.