Chapter Nine

Present

Tegan knew he was looking at her, so she stared him out. He had changed a bit since those days in Glasgow; his long, dark, horrible hair was shorter now — well, more styled at least. He had a side-parting sort of thing, and his hair flopped over his forehead, and he didn’t look like he’d shaved for a couple of days. His brown eyes stared unblinkingly back at her.

Taking him at face value — if she didn’t know him as she did — he looked like an earnest, intelligent and deep type of young man. The piercings in his ear hinted at a more edgy personality, well hidden, and on another man, that floppy bit of hair might even be classed as “endearing”.

However, this was Ryan Jackson and he had crap taste in music, still apparently wore all-black clothing and preferred wallowing introspection to living real life.

Ugh.

If this was karma having a laugh on her behalf, karma was still a bitch, but no longer her bitch. Tegan thought of Angelo, and his dark hair and dark eyes, of Angelo sitting, cross-legged, plucking at his guitar while the sparks from the campfire danced to the melody.

Oh, how she missed that feeling — that feeling of relaxation and completely giving herself over to the warmth of Sicily and the dark, sultry skies.

Babes , said the latest text on her phone. I miss you so badly. I cannot sleep, I cannot play my guitar, I want you back in my bed.

Why on earth had she left Angelo and come here ? Back, unwittingly, into the world of bloody Ryan Jackson?

But she had to tear her gaze away from Ryan, and her thoughts away from Angelo, as Sybill was talking.

‘So,’ said Sybill. ‘I take it you two know each other? And, no, we don’t want the history. What we want, Coren and I, is to make sure we all work together professionally and Pencradoc and Wheal Mount can continue supporting one another as they always have done.’

Ryan and Tegan murmured consent, even though Ryan turned red — it must have killed him to agree to that. That seemed to satisfy Sybill, who smiled at them brightly. ‘Good. Okay, I’m not sure how much Merryn has told you, but these are the sorts of things we do between the two arts centres . . .’

Sybill talked for a little while about the joint exhibitions the places had run in the past. Even though the exhibitions were not joint in the true sense of the word, each property would usually try to have at least one gallery supporting the other.

Tegan found herself extremely interested in Sybill’s words. Coren didn’t say much, but appeared to hang on every word Sybill uttered, which didn’t surprise Tegan. Merryn had said Sybill was definitely more people-focussed than Coren and gradually Tegan relaxed into the conversation enough to not be totally reliving the Ghosts of Galleries Past with Gothy Ryan over there.

‘Coren told me that the next joint exhibition would be changing,’ Sybill said eventually. ‘Can you explain why you decided that?’ She looked at Tegan.

Tegan nodded, trying to remind herself that this wasn’t an interview, that she had the job, and despite Gothy Ryan, she needed to look and sound professional. ‘Yes. It was felt that the War was just too expansive a topic and we needed to concentrate on something more seasonal and uplifting for people. It seemed too much going from a wonderful midsummer ball to conflict.’

‘Ryan, what do you think?’ asked Coren.

Ryan looked at Coren and nodded. ‘Yes. I completely agree. Something more seasonal would be great — I mean, not only have we got evidence of a midwinter wedding for Lady Elsie, but Tammy said we’ve got some references to Halloween in the archives, and I’ve already seen a letter about it. Maybe we could look at that properly another time. Or as a lead up to the wedding.’ He looked a little startled at what he had said. ‘But yeah. It’s fantastic that Merryn decided to focus on the wedding instead.’

‘Actually,’ said Tegan. ‘That was my idea. The wedding, I mean.’

There was a silence at the table and everyone stared at her.

Strike Four!

Potentially?

Dear God, she hoped not.

‘Well.’ Ryan’s face contorted through a few different expressions as the silence in the room grew uncomfortable. Eventually, he caught Sybill’s eye, then dropped his gaze and raised it again. He fixed his eyes on Tegan and she blinked, suddenly aware of how piercing that gaze was.

Hell, yeah, it’s like he knows your soul and he’s staring . . . Right. Into. It! came that American voice again and Tegan felt a little sick. She took a deep breath and refused to lower her own eyes.

‘It’s . . . a good idea,’ he said, then dropped his gaze again.

It must have killed him to say that.

Inwardly, Tegan wanted to run around and do a celebratory lap of the room. Instead, she nodded — she hoped — graciously, and muttered, ‘Thank you.’

‘Excellent!’ said Sybill. ‘We’re all on board. Ryan — can I ask how much information you have relating to Halloween in the archives? I’m not sure it’s a traditional thing for the family to be celebrating.’

‘Oh — yes. The only thing I’ve seen so far is a letter, really. Between Elsie and is it Petra? Patricia? Someone — a “P” name.’

‘Pearl?’ said Sybill.

‘Yes! That’s the one.’ Ryan nodded. He still looked a bit confused, though. Great. He was still useless and couldn’t carry a plan through then, spoke before he thought and all that jazz.

Like other guys we know.

Tegan wanted to tell her conscience or whatever it was to shut the hell up — and to stop talking to her in a New York accent.

‘Pearl and Ernie, yes, that makes sense,’ Coren was saying. ‘Pearl was American and I suspect she brought some traditions over with her.’ He looked at Sybill, then at Ryan. ‘We’re already arranging a pumpkin trail here for the kids, so if you’ve got a letter, we could display it somewhere to complement the trail.’

‘Let me have a look for the letter,’ said Ryan. ‘Just to be sure. And I’ll check for photos or pictures in the archives. And run it by you all.’

‘It does link really well into the wedding,’ said Tegan suddenly. Hang on — where the heck had that come from? But she knew it — she absolutely knew it. There was some sort of link between the events, just nudging at her consciousness. ‘It leads up to it well,’ she said again, almost disbelieving what was coming out of her mouth. How? How did Halloween and Christmas weddings go together at all ?

‘Really?’ Sybill was curious. ‘In what way?’

‘Let me pull the information together.’ Tegan felt her cheeks heat up. ‘I’m — I’m sure Merryn mentioned it.’

‘Great.’ Sybill smiled around the table. ‘Now, Coren and I need to have a discussion about some other things.’

Tegan knew it was more than likely to be private matters that concerned nobody but Sybill and Coren — like antenatal appointments, or how they were going to co-parent this child if they lived an hour away from each other — and she didn’t really want to intrude on that. ‘Great.’ She picked up her notebook and smiled blankly around at everyone. ‘Well, I have research to do. Wedding traditions of 1911 and all that. Exciting stuff!’ She couldn’t wait to escape from this room and from Ryan. She wasn’t actually sure where she wanted to work though . . . her office across the hallway just seemed too close to this whole situation for comfort, and anyway—

‘Why don’t you take Ryan for a tour around Pencradoc?’ said Sybill breezily. ‘He’s never been before — it’ll be good for him to see what it’s like.’

‘Oh, no, it’s fine,’ said Ryan quickly.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Tegan at the same time.

‘Yeah, it’s fine,’ they both said together.

Sybill looked at Coren and raised her eyebrows in amusement. ‘Maybe another time, then,’ she said.

Tegan nodded quickly and hurried out of the room clutching her book. She absolutely desperately needed to be away from the house and from Ryan. It was all a bit much, bumping into him today! She wondered if the Tower Tearoom might be a good choice.

But what if he decided to go there too?

It was simply too difficult!

Whatever, she needed to go and she needed to go now .

* * *

Ryan watched Tegan run out of the office. Thank goodness for that. The last thing he wanted to do was have some enforced time in Tegan Burton’s company.

‘I’ll have a look around like you say,’ he said to Sybill. ‘Text me when you’re ready to leave.’

‘Will do.’ Sybill smiled at him and he nodded farewell to Coren, and slipped outside.

Once he was in the hallway, he exhaled slowly. That was close. He thought he’d acted professionally, anyway. But he had no idea why he’d felt the need to throw Halloween in there.

Tammy had directed him to the letter after their conversation about it, and he had definitely seen it. Elsie had been corresponding with her friend — he now knew it was Pearl, thanks to Sybill — and had said that they were all looking forward to getting together for Halloween and the little ones would be excited about it. He needed to look at it properly.

It would be back at Wheal Mount, filed under . . . well, he didn’t quite know what it would be filed under. H for Halloween was unlikely. Maybe he’d filed it under the year it had been written? And then a sub-folder of that called . . . Correspondence.

Tammy should never have let him loose in those archives.

He shook his head. Unimaginative. Someone would have to redo them all again and finetune it all. With any luck, he’d be in Glasgow looking at Rennie Mackintosh’s correspondence to his wife or his friends before the you-know-what hit the fan . . .

By now, he was out the front door of Pencradoc, clutching his document case and looking around him as he stood on the top step . . .

Clutching the document case .

Shit.

That was full of stuff he should have shown to Coren — but Tegan’s presence had thrown him and he’d totally forgotten to open it.

In his defence, nobody had reminded him though . . .

He hovered uncertainly for a moment, wondering whether to go back in and interrupt them, but then the view from the top of the steps caught his attention again.

It really was fantastic. The warmth of the day washed over him, the sun shining desultorily, the clouds casting slow-moving shadows across the gently undulating greenery of Bodmin Moor, the moorland melting into blues and purples in the far distance. The edge of the moor was just over there, straight across the formal gardens, and it was exactly the sort of place a person could ride a horse across as fast as they could. He peered into the distance and sure enough saw a small figure doing just that. He smiled and closed his eyes briefly, imagining it, putting himself in the place of the rider, feeling the power of the horse galloping across the moor . . . not something he’d do in his day-to-day life, but he could imagine someone of that era, of Lady Elsie Pencradoc’s era, loving it. Her brother, perhaps — Laurie, wasn’t it? — the one who had fought in the War. When he’d done that, ridden his horse like he’d had no cares in the world, had he realised what was coming?

Ryan opened his eyes and shuddered, a cold chill suddenly creeping across his shoulders despite the warmth of the September day. Unable to resist finding out Laurie’s fate after Tammy had mentioned him, he’d discovered from some military records that Laurie had come back from the War all in one piece, which was good — apart from the bullet wound in his leg, which had seen him invalided out and given a job at the War Office.

But at least the guy had survived.

He wasn’t going to think about it any more, though, because they’d decided not to do the War, and were going to do a wedding instead.

Well — Tegan had. He preferred the topic, but really, really hated it that she had been the one to suggest it! Never mind.

Ryan looked back across the gardens towards the moor and blinked. Hang on — he couldn’t actually see the moor clearly enough to identify lone riders galloping across it, or see shadows from the clouds drifting over the vast expanse — the trees looked much denser in that direction, almost as if they had grown in the few seconds he’d imagined Laurie riding his horse.

Was that who he’d been imagining then? It made sense, he supposed. He knew Elsie had written to her brother about the wedding, he’d been thinking about the wedding and about Laurie — so, yes. That made perfect sense.

He abandoned the idea of taking the documents back into the office and began to walk down the steps, still a little curious about the image he’d seen, but not worried. He’d head this way — towards the gothic rose garden that he knew the beautiful Rose, Duchess of Trecarrow, had created before her early death. It was just along here — if he followed the signs towards the Tower Tearoom, he feared he’d be walking straight into Tegan’s territory, because what if she was the sort of person who would grab a table in a full café — probably for four people — and set up their laptop and strew their paperwork around themselves. Perhaps she’d have no more than a bottle of water she’d actually brought in herself — along with a snack in a teeny tiny Tupperware box — and eventually get a small, black coffee, just to prove a point when it started getting busier . . .

He reflected briefly that he had absolutely no basis for that supposition, and she hadn’t flounced out of their meeting with a laptop, but she could possibly go and get a laptop, because there wasn’t much research she could do quickly about Edwardian weddings without an internet connection, and he didn’t think she’d want to take the time to look through the library at Pencradoc . . .

It was hard to find things on the shelves anyway — the little ones moved books around all the time — and all of his notebooks had to be well hidden or they’d go through them and read out his poetry and laugh about it, and then he’d lose his temper and the girls would look at him in horror and say, ‘Why did you get cross with us? It’s good for us to read—’

What on earth?

Ryan’s heart was pounding crazily and he honestly wondered why he’d just plucked that thought out of nowhere. Sybill was right — this place got a hold of you and it was clear that a little knowledge was dangerous, because your imagination apparently made up the rest.

He’d spent too long in those archives reading Elsie’s letters. That was the problem.

Ryan followed the pathway around to the gothic rose garden and went through the archway of Old English roses that formed a sort of secret tunnel into the garden. There were still big, blowsy flowers on the branches, along with one or two buds that promised to bloom before the frosts came. He sniffed appreciatively and thought that in the height of summer, this place would be magical. Even now, it was like a suntrap.

As he rounded the corner, he saw someone’s legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles as they, too, made the most of the weather. They were wearing smartly heeled, black shoes, and a long, pale pink skirt that was apparently hitched up to their knees and trailing on the ground. In fact, the hem was muddy and so were the shoes — which was odd as there was no mud on the ground.

But as he headed towards them and the path took a gentle sweep to the right, he pulled up short suddenly as the sitter came into view.

It was Tegan Burton — only she was wearing wedge-heeled sandals and black trousers, and there wasn’t a trace of a muddy pale-pink skirt anywhere. And far from being on a laptop, with paperwork spread out all over a cafe table, she was scrolling through her mobile, and writing notes down as she did so.