Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Isat stunned in Mason’s armchair while he explained that the land on which White Willow Cottages stood had belonged at the time to Amelia Dunmore, a successful milliner.
‘Georgina had confided in her journal that Amelia detested Augustus Lapley with a passion and knew how unhappy Georgina was in her marriage.’
Mason’s enthusiasm ramped up. ‘Amelia allowed her friend and her lover to have their secret trysts in the hat shop late of an evening and to spend precious time together in the small, manicured gardens at the rear of the shop.’
He smiled, looking animated. ‘I took photos on my phone of a couple of the maps for you to see, and also of a couple of the adverts Amelia placed in the local paper at the time. I thought you’d want to see the slice of history you own.
’ He gave me a knowing smile. ‘That little shop kept so many secrets for such a long time.’
A wave of emotion crashed over me as I looked at him. He wasn’t concerned about his book proposal or his TV show. All he cared about was helping me save my cottages and find out the truth about a man who had been branded a common criminal. What he’d done – all this – he’d done for me.
‘I asked the local library to do a bit of legwork for me too. I didn’t want to ask you in case my initial investigations were wrong, and the last thing I wanted was for you to get your hopes up, only for them to be dashed.’
A longing for this caring, gorgeous and thoughtful man stole over me.
All this time, he’d been trying to help his brother and me.
What was I going to do? Was I going to live in fear for the rest of my life, frightened to take a chance on someone else, in case they let me down?
Was I going to allow Nick to control me, even now? Could I do this? Could I move on?
‘Mason,’ I said in a small whisper, my eyes refusing to leave his handsome face.
He got to his feet, as did I. ‘What is it, Poppy?’
I stood still for a moment, drinking him in. I was facing him, his shoulders and height swallowing me. Life wasn’t a trial run. We were here once and that was it.
Refusing to overthink, I reached up and kissed him. His lips tasted of momentary surprise, before realisation flooded through him.
He gazed down at me, before his hands possessively drew me into him, his kisses becoming hungry.
I arched my back as a sigh escaped from my chest. This only seemed to excite Mason further. He murmured my name, his tongue teasing my lips. His fingers reached for my hair. ‘I like it loose,’ he whispered. ‘Can I?’
I nodded while his fevered fingers freed my hair from its band and raked their way through, making my plait dissolve in waves. Then he took my mouth with his again.
I eased back a little, lifting one hand to stroke his face and marvel at his arrogant cheekbones.
‘If that’s your way of saying thank you, I’ll have to be a good boy more often.’
I grinned against his smiling lips. ‘What did you mean when you said Garrett helped you realise a few things about yourself as well?’
Mason stared down at me. ‘My baby brother is very perceptive. That first day he was here and we met you down on the beach, he knew straightaway how I felt about you.’ He lifted his hand and caressed my hair. ‘If I’m being honest, I fell for you the first time I saw you.’
I gawped up at him. ‘You have got to be kidding me? Well, you must have taken acting lessons!’
Mason gave me a withering look that made me laugh.
‘I was stunned that I felt that way so quickly about you, but I did. Then when I realised how hard and fast I’d fallen, I didn’t know how to act around you.
’ He gave a shy smile. ‘You were all prickly with that Rapunzel hair of yours and I was smitten, but I thought I couldn’t risk being let down by anyone again after Geri. ’
‘Prickly?’
Mason broke into his megawatt grin. ‘Prickly in a sexy, I-know-my-own-mind sort of way.’
I flicked him a look from under my lashes. ‘And let me guess. I upset your well-ordered plans.’
‘Oh, you certainly did that. I thought coming to Port Starr to investigate the Scarlet Highwayman would bolster my career, as well as be a change of scene.’
‘And then?’
Mason’s eyes twinkled under his dark brows. ‘And then I met a beautiful artist who believes the ghosts of young lovers haunt McKerron Castle and has a crush on a dead highwayman.’
‘You make me sound a bit kooky.’
An appreciative smile hovered at the corners of his mouth.
‘I like kooky.’ He encouraged me to sit down beside him on the sofa.
Then he shrugged. ‘I was wary of my feelings for you and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, especially after all the mess with Geri.
Then when we started working together to research the highwayman, I began to realise how I felt about you – and yet I still tried to fight it. ’
He flashed me a hot look that made my stomach somersault. ‘I know I’ve acted like a right dick, but do you think there’s any way you could make room in your heart for a man who has a pulse?’
I lifted a finger and tapped him playfully on the tip of his hawkish nose. ‘Oh, there’s definitely a new rival for my affections.’
‘Oh, is there now? And who might that be?’ Mason feigned shock. ‘It’s not old Sydney from the Sea Shanty? You know, the elderly bloke who always sings “Waltzing Matilda” whenever he sees me?’
I recalled Sydney, a stalwart of Port Starr’s oldest drinking establishment, with his penchant for tight-fitting tartan waistcoats. ‘If you keep teasing me, I’ll make sure he is.’
Mason’s lupine grin was back. ‘Lucky old Sydney.’ He became more thoughtful. ‘Poppy, I’m so sorry. I’ve behaved like a complete idiot.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say you’ve been a complete idiot.’
‘Gee. Thanks.’
Darwin sat almost between us now on the carpet, a confused look in his button-blue eyes. His furry head swivelled between the two of us, as if he were spectating at a tennis match.
‘Now it’s time for me to be sorry,’ I insisted.
‘I’m sorry that I doubted you and that I was so offhand.
’ I stared into his thick-lashed eyes. ‘I was so busy trying to prove to myself, to my dad and to everyone else that I could strike out on my own that I was frightened of letting you in.’ Embarrassment nipped at me.
‘You and Katie were right. It was easier for me to admire a man who died two hundred years ago than to love someone again who was standing right in front of me.’
Mason studied me for a few moments. ‘Love?’ he repeated, edging closer on the sofa.
I nodded and explained about Nick and the collapse of my marriage.
‘I suppose he shattered my belief in other people by the way he lied and deceived me.’ I brushed a stray dark wave from Mason’s forehead.
I knew I could do this. I knew that Mason wasn’t Nick.
I so wanted to capture his face in a pastel portrait.
‘Garrett’s very lucky to have you as his brother. ’
An irresistible blush coloured his cheeks.
‘I think I’m the lucky one to have him.’ I noticed his eyes sweep down my face and rest on my mouth.
‘I know what it’s like to go through a failed marriage.
I had to deal with Geri. I found it difficult to trust again and to open up. That was until you came along.’
An excited charge bolted through my chest.
‘There’s something else I need to show you,’ he said after a pause. ‘It wasn’t just Garrett I wanted to talk to you about.’
Mason disappeared out into the hallway and fetched something from the glass table. He re-entered the sitting room and handed me the brown envelope. ‘Take a look at these.’
I pulled out several leaves of paper in varying states of decay. They were yellow and rustling in my hands. ‘These look like receipts of some kind.’ I puzzled over them. ‘Is that what they are? Where did you get them?’
‘Ryan delivered them to me last night. He dropped by the cottages, but you weren’t there and then he said a scary cleaner chased him off.’
I smiled. ‘I bet it was Jenny. She’s really a pussycat.’
His eyes flashed. ‘It seems Georgina, with help from her trusted butler, Harris, bribed some henchmen employed by Augustus Lapley to hand them over.’ Mason’s mouth twisted into a hopeful smile. ‘Some of the writing is indecipherable, but others… They’re payments, Poppy. For services rendered.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Mason pointed to a smudgy letter in the top right-hand corner. ‘Can you make that out? It’s the letter L.’ He gestured at the paper again in my hand. ‘And I checked the dates – well, the ones I could decipher – against the dates of the crimes the Scarlet Highwayman was supposed to have committed.’
A bubble of hope hit the back of my throat. ‘And they coincide?’
‘Yes. We’re talking the same day or twenty-four hours either side.’
I shot out my other hand and squeezed Mason’s arm. ‘So, you’re saying the Lapley family paid someone else to do all those terrible things and they tried to frame the Scarlet Highwayman for them?’
‘It would seem so.’
A squeal erupted from my chest. I gazed up at Mason again, expecting happiness to be mirrored in his face too.
Only it wasn’t.
‘So,’ he exclaimed in an odd tone, ‘your faith in the Scarlet Highwayman wasn’t misplaced after all. He was framed for those crimes. I suspect the reason is Georgina Lapley, but we’re so close now.’ A faint smile hovered on his lips. ‘Your hero is still your hero.’
‘Yes, he is,’ I admitted. ‘But like I just told you, there’s room in my heart now for someone else.’
Mason’s thick brows twitched. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think we should stop talking,’ he suggested, moving even closer on his sofa.
‘And do what?’ I asked innocently.
‘Well, I was thinking I could take you to the quarterly meeting of The Historians Society … or we could stay here and I could seduce you?’
I pretended to consider his question until Mason pulled me tighter into his arms.
I kissed him back, our bodies moulding against one another.
I’d done it. I’d thrown off the shackles of Nick and embraced a new chapter in my life with Mason.
I was still a little scared of making myself vulnerable again, but at least Mason and I were taking those first steps together.
‘I wonder if you’ll still feel as enthusiastic when I ask you this? ’ I whispered against his neck.
He smiled against my lips. ‘Ask me what?’
‘How do you feel about doing some gardening right now?’
Mason waggled his eyebrows. ‘Is that a euphemism, Ms Summers?’
‘No, it bloody well isn’t! When I say gardening, I mean gardening.’