Chapter 27

Twenty-Seven

THE BRANDY ROOM

It was not lost on me, when I slipped into the Brandy Room early the next morning, that Ian’s chosen places were the most expansive in the house, outside the ballroom, gallery and foyer.

The Brandy Room dominated the end of the southeastern wing. Two turrets and the high ceilings had been used to their utmost in storing books and displaying artwork, notions and ornaments.

Including the handsome balustrade, which protected the balcony that wrapped around the room and gave access to the second level of bookshelves, and the vaulted ceilings, it held the studious grandeur of Professor Higgins’s library, except it was better, because it was the real thing.

The varying seating areas and workspaces covering the floor were all fashioned to coax you to want to stay.

It smelled of leather and pipe smoke, the mustiness of old paper and the moss of Ian.

And I had no way of knowing where to begin.

There wasn’t an obvious lockbox I’d need Ian’s thumbprint to open.

And there had to be thousands of books. Everything from leatherbound volumes with gold leaf to contemporary novels by Grisham and Gaiman and Hornby.

I looked anyway, and I tried not to be frantic in doing it.

I’d woken very early, sliding carefully out of Ian’s slumbering embrace, and slunk into his bathroom, which beyond it, did indeed have a walk-in closet, where now, I had a small section. But it was nearly full of Ian’s clothes, something that made packing to go to the country very easy for him. Just load up buckets of work, and off he went.

It also laid testimony to the fact Ian was a clothes whore.

I brushed my teeth, washed my face, moisturized and swept on some powder, a hint of blush and some mascara (because, odds were, I’d eventually see him, and although he’d seen me bare-faced, when one had the power to do so, one must do what one could).

I’d then dressed and crept past his somnolent body, resisting the intense urge to round the bed and watch him sleep. His back was to me. I’d never seen him asleep. I was dying to witness it.

But it had to wait for another day.

I couldn’t waste this opportunity.

And I needed to have it, without him, or anyone else in the house, muddying the works.

I needed coffee, and maybe one of Ian’s cigarettes to calm my nerves after my dream-not-dream of the night before.

And I needed more.

I was meticulous in searching, but the letters weren’t to be found, not in the many drawers in the many tables and desks scattered around.

So now, I was searching for Aunt Louisa’s diaries.

Surely, she’d have long passages about Augustus and Adelaide, and maybe even extracts, or whole recountings of their letters to each other.

Although I’d noticed the books were strictly organized, lots of fiction on the bottom floor, and even that was separated by genre, I found no joy there, not even discovering a history section.

I wondered if maybe Ian had tucked Louisa’s work away, the better to keep it from his father (because, Lord knew, Richard was pompous enough without knowing he had royal blood), and was about to alight one of the two sets of spiral staircases to peruse the upper shelves, when the door opened.

I shot straight, looking as guilty as I felt, as Lady Jane swanned in.

“Why, Daphne, good morning,” she greeted.

She looked fresh as a newly opened rose.

It was cool, and intimidating, and for the first time I was around her, I considered it frightening, all of this at once.

And the fact, in a house with over one hundred and fifty rooms, she wandered into the one I was in, was just plain weird.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, like she knew.

She knew.

Or…

Was I going crazy?

I had slept well, and part of that dream-not-dream that was creepiest was how, until the fullness of it hit me, I woke with an utter contentedness that was unreal. And when I fell back to sleep, that time dreamlessly, not an hour ago I woke up the same.

I studied her and thought, fuck it.

I was tackling this head on.

“Yes. Thank you. But I’m here because Ian told me about Adelaide and Augustus. Do you know of them?”

“Of course.”

“Apparently, there are letters?”

“Oh yes,” she said, unaffected by my question, in fact, seeming to presume it, and glided to a wall that had a recessed area cut into the books that housed a large painting of a woman in a green and ivory dress, a big hat with a dramatic plume angled dashingly atop her wig. A piece that I would not be surprised was a Gainsborough.

And of course, touching the side of the frame, the painting sprung slightly away from the wall for Lady Jane.

I stood watching as she opened it, exposing the large safe behind it.

But of course, they had a safe hidden behind a painting.

Lord God.

This place.

“We have several of these in the house,” she said. “False walls are a thing in Duncroft. Has Ian told you?”

Since, in my current mood, my new knowledge of that felt creepy as fuck, my voice was croaky when I answered, “No.”

“Yes. Along with the safes and other hidey-holes, servants were not seen or heard back in the day. There’s a rabbit’s warren of hidden corridors and stairwells to the belowstairs.”

I’d seen Stevenson and Laura, etc. slip behind hidden panels in the wall, but since I didn’t avail myself of what I considered the staff’s space during my tour, I hadn’t seen the fullness of it, outside the kitchen, so I hadn’t put it together.

“And there was a time when you couldn’t trust banks,” she said, turning the huge dial on the big safe. “But jewels have always been jewels and money has always been money, and everyone needs a safe place for them both. Ah,” she uttered as the lock clicked, and she swung the heavy safe door open. “Here we are.”

She reached in but withdrew a pair of pristine white gloves. She put them on, and came out with another pair, as well as two tall stacks of letters. One tied in a fading blue ribbon. One tied in faded pink.

She came to me and set the letters down on the narrow writing desk I was standing beside.

“Is it Adelaide’s letters you’re interested in, or Augustus’s?” she queried.

Both.

But I said, “Augustus’s. His last.”

“That would be this one,” she told me, pulling an end of the blue ribbon. It came untied and fell away. She removed it entirely and then offered me the second set of gloves. “If you don’t mind,” she murmured.

I said nothing. I simply took them from her and put them on.

She handed me the letter that was on top of the stack.

“Is that all?” she asked.

I took her in.

It was like she’d come in here to do just this for me.

It was a strange feeling, and I didn’t like it in the slightest.

“Since I got here, every night, I’ve had dreams,” I shared.

“Yes. I told you. This house can be overwhelming.”

“I don’t think it’s the house.”

“What would it be?”

“An overactive imagination. Ian telling me stories. Portrait galleries and carnation bouquets. Subliminal messages.”

She tilted her head to the side much like she did to Lou that first night at her dining table.

“Do you think the people who lived in a place didn’t leave anything in it, even after they were gone?” she inquired.

“Do you mean ghosts?”

“Oh no, there are no such things as ghosts. Do you think you’ve seen a ghost?”

Was she trying to make me feel like I was as crazy as all this seemed?

“No. I think someone, or someones plural, are making me want to believe there are ghosts.”

“Brittany?”

“Whoever,” I said vaguely.

“The house likes you, Daphne,” she stated decisively.

What.

The.

Fuck?

That certainly defined my “whoever.”

I mean, I felt the house had something to say to me, but not in reality. Doing it by invading my dreams.

How creepy would that be?

No, it was about experiencing it.

Like Ian said, this was our idyll.

I’d never have this first time here again. And if this whackadoodle, rollercoaster of a visit meant down the line Ian and I somehow worked, that this was the start of something, something lasting, this would be my home.

That was what I meant.

Not that I needed to give the house the chance to decide if it liked me or not.

So again…

The fuck?

“I know,” she said softly. “I know how odd that sounded. You must think I’m mad. But have you never been someplace, like the Tower of London, in the spot where Anne lost her head, and not felt it?”

“Anne’s ghost?” I scoffed.

“The residual essence of her, and many others, who were pawns of powerful men? It’s particularly powerful, I find, in places where the heights of emotion are reached. Great sadness. Great tragedy. Great injustice. Even great happiness. In fact, walk into any church, which will have seen as many weddings and christenings as its seen funerals, and it gives a certain feel.”

I’d been to the Tower of London, and other places, and felt that same thing, so I couldn’t deny it.

“Maybe it’s fanciful,” she continued. “Maybe it’s the selfish need of a mortal for some sense of immortality. But I think every creature on this earth has left something lasting. Not their spirit. Not their ghost. Not their bones. Just…something. And this house has stood long, and before it a castle, so it’s bound to have it too.”

“So you think this house is giving me dreams?” I asked disbelievingly, or I was hopeful in my disbelief.

She watched me closely for a moment before she said, “No. I think Ian loves this house and its history, even more than he knows, or will admit to, and I think he’s telling you stories. Between that, and other occurrences, which I wish you had not had, you’re manifesting these dreams. Doesn’t it tally to you that you had a lovely evening with Ian, and then you dreamt of Adelaide and Augustus?”

Finally, she was making me feel better.

Because that totally made sense.

I’d dreamed of the moors and a picnic and the children, all of which Ian told me about, and the last of which I’d seen a portrait of my owned damned self. It was my subconscious, no matter how real it seemed, how it felt I was hearing her thoughts, like I was in her head, in her, was her.

It was just a very real-seeming dream, a sexy one, after I had a date with a handsome, sexy man, who, it was important to add, often talked about the sex he wanted to have with me.

So it wasn’t real.

(Was it?)

“Yes,” I confirmed resolutely. “That makes sense. But it was very real. And then you showed up in here.”

“I was having my coffee in the Sherry Room. You passed by. You didn’t look in to see me. You also didn’t return so I found you. There’s no mystery to that.”

I let out a breath.

No, there was no mystery to that.

“I don’t say it to scare you,” she went on. “I say it because it’s true. This house is overwhelming. It’s large. It’s filled with beautiful things. It’s filled with history. It’s also filled with flawed people. It has seen birth and death. You are existing in history, doing it leaving your own mark. I write in diaries too, which will be entombed in this room or elsewhere in the house for someone to unearth along the way. And they’ll read my entries of when the lovely Daphne Ryan, daughter of the great retail magnate Robert Ryan, came to visit. At least.”

She leaned slightly toward me and finished.

“It helps, especially when you reach my age, to know your story will live on, Daphne. I want you to learn that, especially now.”

“Why ‘especially now?’”

She leaned back. “Because Louella will be fine. I’m certain of it. But until you know that, until you and she are both living it, you need to understand, she lived, she’ll live on, she’ll be remembered, long after, quite some time from now, when she’s gone.”

And now she was being sweet.

“I’ll leave you with the letters, dear,” she bid.

And then she wafted out of the room.

I sat down and, nervous, folded open the first letter that had an elaborate “A” written on the outside.

My darling,

Right now, you lay above me, after slipping into eternal sleep.

What do I do, my dearest, without your warmth at my side? Without the promise of your laughter but a quip away?

The children are inconsolable, but I gave you my vow I’d see to their sorrow, even while hiding my own when this dreaded day arrived.

But what impossibility! What hopelessness!

Thus, I’ve secluded myself in Brandy, barred the door against their intrusion.

You must forgive me. I must have time.

Time to remember your gentle touch. The beauty of your eyes. The first time I saw you, your gown was blue, your eyes were bluer. The last time I saw you, that blue unfaded.

Just memory?

No.

You faded naught for me. Your hair may have grown silken with white. The creases may have formed on your hands. The lines may have burrowed around your eyes. But is this fading? It is not. You were a beauty to me from the moment my eyes lighted on you and your beauty isn’t extinguished even now, when your eyes are forever closed.

You will hate me, you will be most cross when we meet again, but oh, how I wish for that time to come quickly.

Yes, please know to your soul I will see to the children. To their children. Mama and Grandmama will live on for them through me.

But when the hour is upon me, know, my bride, my beauty, my beloved, I will not fear it.

For I know it will bring me back to you.

Forever, my Addie,

Your August

The force of the sob that tore up my throat after finishing that letter was painful.

He’d written it here, in this room, secluded myself in Brandy.

While she was upstairs, in Cherry.

Gone.

I felt her love on that moor in my dream-not-dream. I felt his love when he was watching her while reclining on the blanket.

At least I thought I did.

What I knew was what I felt, and for the first time understanding the purity of it, I wanted it for me.

After I pulled myself together, carefully, I folded a beautiful letter that tragically was never read by its intended recipient and reached for another one.

I was on my third when my phone rang.

I gently set the letter aside, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and saw it was Ian.

I took the call.

“Hey. You’re awake.”

“Where the fuck are you?”

He sounded ticked, the level of it tweaking me.

“Downstairs in the Brandy Room.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Because it was early.”

I heard his big breath.

Then, “Daphne, I don’t wish to cast aspersions on how much I like your lovely body beside mine in bed, but the primary goal of you staying in Hawthorn with me is so I can have you close and know you’re safe. Waking up with you vanished defeats that goal.”

Shit.

Guilt was heavy in my tone when I said, “I’m so sorry, honey. It’s morning. I didn’t think you’d worry.”

“Obviously,” he replied tersely.

“I’m fine. Your mum got Augustus and Adelaide’s letters for me.”

“You’re not allowed to read them.”

What?

“Why?” I asked.

“Because, trust me, it’s flowery, but it’s dirty as fuck, and a total turn on, and I’d like to be waiting in the wings when you’re done.”

That made me laugh, and the release of it after the tenseness of the morning was awesome.

“I haven’t read many. I think they’re later and they’d slowed down by then. I’ll leave the spicy ones for when you can do something about them.”

“Excellent,” he muttered.

“Come down and have breakfast with me. I want you to show me where Aunt Louisa’s diaries are.”

“I don’t keep them in the Brandy Room. Dad might find them. They’re stacked in the Conservatory. He never goes in there.”

“Ah. Well played, milord. You’re the true progeny of Cuthbert and Joan, wily with well-guarded secrets.”

More muttering with, “Pain in my ass. You do remember they were murdered while engaging in one of their secrets?” Then, before I could answer, “I’ll be down in a few.”

“I’ll pull the cord.”

“See you soon, darling.”

“Okay, honey.”

We rang off, and I was about to finish the note I was reading before tying them up again when the safe caught my attention.

It was still wide open.

There was an internal light, which must have been activated when the door was opened.

And right now it shone on the framed photograph resting upright against the back of the safe.

The same photograph that began the picture section in Steve Clifton’s book.

The photograph of the guests of David and Virginia’s house party the weekend Dorothy Clifton died.