Authors: Brenda Joyce

The Third Heiress (25 page)

BOOK: The Third Heiress

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“I wish I could come with you,” Lucinda said. “Perhaps you’ll even find the manor where she stayed when she was enceinte. This is so exciting, Jill.”

“It is exciting,” Jill agreed. “And because Kate is connected to the Sheldon family through Anne, I’m going to poke around their estate, as well. God, if only I had carte blanche to search all the Collinsworth properties.” Jill wondered how she could get inside Stainesmore. She’d have to come up with an awfully good story.

“I have an inkling Lord Collinsworth might not want you there, my dear. It is a private home, unlike Uxbridge Hall.”

“I know,” Jill said. “And that’s why I’m not going to ask him for permission. I’m just going to show up.” She hesitated. “Lucinda, there’s something I haven’t told you. In fact, I told only one person.” She was half regretting telling Alex about Hal’s dying words now.

“What could that be?”

Jill hesitated. “Hal mentioned Kate’s name as he died. I did not mistake it. He said ‘Kate’ very clearly. After finding the photograph, I can only assume he was trying to tell me something about Kate Gallagher.”

Lucinda was absolutely silent.

“Lucinda?”

“You gave me chills just now, Jill. I’m uncertain of what to think. You do know he spent a lot of time in Yorkshire. He was always motoring up there for days at a time.”

“I thought it was strictly a summer place.”

“No. That’s not the impression I received. Harold took weekends there even in the winter. I remember quite clearly.”

Jill absorbed that, wondering if Hal had gone alone or if he’d taken Marisa. She shoved that speculation aside, already knowing the answer. Suddenly she felt positive that the sooner she went to Yorkshire, the sooner she would have the answers she was looking for. “Lucinda, will you take care of the cats while I’m gone? I’ll only be a few days.”

“Of course, dear,” Lucinda said.

After Jill hung up, she brooded. Even if she couldn’t trust Alex yet, even if he was KC’s King of Swords, he was clever and resourceful, and she almost felt like calling him and asking his advice. She wondered what he would do next if he were in her position.

“That damn King is probably Thomas,” Jill muttered, eyeing the phone. She wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince herself of that or if she really believed it. Besides, KC could be wrong. She was a dramatist with a capital D. Maybe she had misread her beloved cards.

But KC had upset her. Every time she thought about this man whom she should not trust, she got a sick feeling in her stomach, a feeling of unease, of dreadful expectation.

She decided to forget KC’s warning for now, to put it in the back of her mind. The feeling of dread probably had more to do with how hard she kept telling herself to avoid Alex, even in her thoughts—which was just a super indicator of the fact that her hormones were still acting up and that she feared she would cave in to her need to be held and touched sooner rather than later.

She couldn’t help remembering what it had been like to make love with Hal. It had been heaven. Of course, she had been head over heels in love with him. She wasn’t in love with Alex. Not even remotely so. He was great-looking and super-smart, a total turn-on. Jill had the feeling he would be great in bed.

“Don’t go there,” she ordered herself firmly.

The phone rang, jerking her from her thoughts. It was Alex. Jill gripped the receiver, almost in disbelief.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said. “How are the cats?”

“How are the cats?” she echoed. Maybe they shared telepathy. This was amazing.

“Lady Eleanor and Sir John.”

She bit back a smile. “Lady E.’s warming up so fast she’s melting. Sir John’s hiding in the gardens.”

She imagined him smiling on the other end of the phone. He said, “I’m sorry about last night. I came on like a Mack truck. That wasn’t my intention. What can I do to make it up to you?”

Jill blinked. She became aware of her heart thundering. It was a moment before she spoke. “That was to the point.”

“Life is goddamned short, Jill. I think we’ve both learned that recently.”

Jill sobered. “Yeah.” She hesitated. “You weren’t really a Mack truck. More like a Humvee.”

He laughed. “Thanks.”

“I think you’re a mind reader,” she said, grinning.

He laughed again. “Not at all. Because I don’t know what’s on your mind now, other than your ancestor.”

Jill froze. And breathed, “Is that who you’re thinking about? Is Kate the reason you called?”

“I wanted to apologize, but I’ve been thinking about her. Something isn’t right, something that I haven’t figured out yet, but I have a strong feeling you are connected to her, too.”

Jill felt a thrill rush over her.

“Jill?”

She was smiling at the phone. “It feels good to have someone else who is a lot more objective than myself think what I’m thinking.”

“So what are you going to do?”

She hesitated again. To tell Alex her plans, or not? If she told him, she would be trusting him yet again. Jill closed her eyes. Thomas was obviously the villain here. Thomas was the one she could not trust.

She inhaled. “Your uncle called me over to the house this morning,” she said quickly. Briefly she told him what had happened.

“Ouch,” he said. “It’s my fault. We were two bulls in the damned china shop. Look, I’ve thought about it. We may never find those letters. There are other ways to proceed.”

He had said, “we.” Jill gripped the phone, aware of how clammy her hands were. He sounded sincere. If he was lying, if he had deleted those files, he was a sociopath. Jill didn’t think he was lying. He did not seem like a sociopath. He was upright, sincere. He seemed like a man with integrity. She was going to have to make a decision, and quickly, on whether to trust him or not.

Alex broke into her thoughts. “I could drive you up to Yorkshire. We know the area where Kate stayed when she was pregnant. How many suitable manors would be in close proximity to it? And locals have long
memories. Every village has its ghosts and folklore. God only knows what we’ll unearth.”

Jill heard herself say, hoarsely, “I’m ahead of you. I’ve already asked Lucinda to take care of the cats.”

“Great minds,” he murmured, and there was something so rich and deep in his voice that Jill stopped breathing, the bed issue completely absorbing her thoughts.

Then he said, “When do you want to leave? How about Thursday at noon? It’s a good six hours from here to York. Another four to Stainesmore. The only catch is that we have to head back late Sunday or at the crack of dawn on Monday.”

She felt overwhelmed. “You don’t have to do this. I can rent a car—”

“Another dead Yank? Forget it. I’ll drive you. And that way we can stay at the estate with no problem—I’ll call the housekeeper and let her know we’re coming.”

Jill wet her lips. “Thank you, Alex,” she said.

“No problem. In fact, it’s a pleasure.” He paused. “Jill. A word of advice.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t mention to anyone else where we’re going—or why.”

Jill was speechless.

“See you Thursday at noon,” he said.

After he had hung up, Jill stared at the phone in her hand. Why had he stressed the need for secrecy?

Why did he think there was something they should hide?

And Jill wondered if he knew something that she did not.

TWELVE

J
ill spent most of the next two days at Uxbridge Hall. Lucinda had consented to allow her free run of most of the Georgian mansion—including the attics and the archives. The Sheldons’ private rooms were excluded. Jill didn’t expect to find the letters there, not unless they were in the family’s wing, but she was hoping to find something, anything, connected to Kate and Anne.

She started with the attics. It was the most logical place to begin, after all, that is where everybody stored their junk from the past. To her dismay, the attic was spotless. It had been cleaned out a long time ago. There were no trunks lying around, locked or otherwise, no boxes, no bundled-up papers, nothing but dusty floors and a few mouse droppings.

Anne’s bedroom also contained no clues about the past. Every drawer had been emptied out long ago. Jill had been hoping to find letters, notes, mementos, or even a diary. She was very disappointed.

The rest of the public rooms were the same. Every drawer and closet was startlingly and purposefully empty.

The archives, located in the basement, were not at all what Jill had expected. She had hoped for an extensive treasure chest of documents, but she was able to read through the material in an entire afternoon. Much of it pertained to the comings and goings, births, marriages, and deaths, of previous generations of Sheldons, which Jill skipped over.

The most interesting discovery was that Edward Sheldon, the ninth
viscount, William’s father, had a penchant for sending instructions to his staff and family. There were notes to the foreman of his iron mine ordering new lights to be placed in all shafts. There were notes to the head gardener at Stainesmore. The roses were not thriving, something must be done, the viscount recommended bringing in a horticulturist. There were notes to his valet, his housekeeper, his butler, and there were notes to his sons, Harold and William, and a daughter, Sarah.

Jill hadn’t realized that Edward and Anne had had another son, much less a daughter. But in 1932, Edward wrote a brief and terse note to Sarah, informing her of her engagement, and ordering her back to London in order to prepare for the wedding. He included a list of instructions—who she must call on, where she must go, what she must do and have done by the wedding.

On October 15,1930, Edward wrote William, one of several letters sent to him over a five year period while he was a boy at Eton.

I understand that there are times when duty must break down, when respect fails, when boys behave as mere boys. However, that is no excuse for your behavior. I have agreed with Mr. Dalton that a suspension is in order. Prepare yourself to depart for London in one week’s time.

I am sure, William, that, by the time you return to Eton, you will have reflected upon your priorities, and drawn the proper conclusions.

Your father, Collinsworth

Jill blinked at the cold letter. All of his letters to William were the same—they all embodied cool reprimands. William, Jill realized, had been a little mischief-maker while a child.

There were a number of letters to Harold, during his years at both Eton and Cambridge, a series of constant reminders on how to behave and what to do when. An instant later she found herself reading a letter dated 1941. Apparently Harold had been an RAF pilot.

I am proud of you for doing your duty, for your loyalty to country and countrymen. And I know you will behave with courage and honor in the field and in the skies. Your mother and I send our blessings …

Jill wondered when Harold had died.

There were also brief notes sent to Anne. They were all impersonal directives. Edward requested her to oversee the new masonry at Stainesmore,
the planting of new gardens in town, the arrival of a Thoroughbred stud, the dismissal of his kennel master. He asked her to meet with his banker, in lieu of himself, as he could not return to town, to discuss “the railroad matter.” In fact, there were several dozen such missives, but the earliest was dated 1916. Jill could only assume that he and Anne had been married for some six or seven years by then.

The letters confounded her. There was nothing personal in any of them. Perhaps the most personal one had been that written to Harold during World War Two. But even that had a terribly cold and austere quality to it. Jill wondered if Edward had really been as cold, distant, and autocratic as he seemed.

On Thursday she was ready to be picked up by Alex, well before noon. She had made no progress in her search for the truth about Kate Gallagher, although she had learned some interesting things about the Sheldon family. Harold had died in the war, leaving William the heir to the title. Sarah, according to Lucinda, had passed away in 1985. She’d had two daughters, one of whom lived in London, both married with children.

Jill heard the roar of the Lamborghini’s powerful engine just as her telephone rang. She already had her small duffel bag in hand and she decided to ignore the phone, eagerly peering out of the window. The silver monster had halted at the curb. Jill wanted to get going and she opened the front door, clad in faded Levi’s, a ribbed black tank top, and her black leather jacket. Alex was striding up the walk in tan trousers and a yellow polo shirt. Clearly he had worn a sports jacket to the office that morning. He smiled at her, appearing in quite the good mood.

As Jill was about to close the door she heard, “Miss Gallagher, this is Beth Haroway from the Felding Park Nursing Home. I was hoping to catch you because—”

Jill dropped her bags and flew to the telephone, picking it up. “Beth! It’s me, Jill,” she cried breathlessly.

“I thought you’d like to know that Janet Witcombe is having an extremely good day, Jill. She seems entirely lucid,” the young nurse said. “If I were you, I would motor out and speak with her immediately.”

Jill gripped the phone, then became aware of Alex reaching for her bags in the doorway. “We’ll be right there,” she said. “Thank you.” She hung up and hurried to Alex, who was regarding her with a lazy expression. “We have one stop to make on the way to York. Janet Witcombe is having a very good day, Alex. I have to talk to her while she is fully focused.”

He was smiling; his eyes widened slightly, meeting hers. “This should be interesting.” He picked up her bags and they left the house, Jill locking
the door behind them. When they were settled in the silvery gray car, its engine purring, Alex said, “Try not to get your hopes up, Jill. Thirty years is a helluva long time to recall a conversation.”

“I know. But I’ve been stuck in a rut ever since we last spoke. I’ve come up with nothing new. I need a lead, Alex.”

He steered the car around the corner, a dimple remaining on the left side of his cheek. “What have you been doing since we last spoke?”

“I’ve been poking around Uxbridge Hall,” she said, studying his profile. Not because he had extremely intriguing features that might be arresting, if one were at all inclined to think so, but because she wanted to gauge his reaction.

Not glancing at her, he smiled. “Sounds like fun, actually. I’ve been up to my neck in numbers.” He sighed and shot her a glance. “Haven’t got too much sleep these past few days.”

Suddenly their gazes caught and held. Jill imagined him burning the midnight oil in his office, alone in the building, and she flushed slightly and looked away. Now was not the time to think of him as an interesting man, not when they were taking off for the weekend alone together. The interruption was fortunate; Alex’s cell phone went off.

He also had a car phone. The cell phone lay on the small wooden dash between his thigh and Jill. He picked it up with one hand and flipped it open, glancing at the caller ID number as he did so. “Yeah.”

A moment later he said, “I decided to take some time off. I’m beat. I’ll be back late Sunday or first thing Monday.”

And then, “I don’t know. I’m playing it by ear and heading north. The Lamb needs a good run. If there’s a problem, you’ve got my cell and my mobile phone numbers.”

Jill pretended not to listen. Who was he talking to? Suddenly she wondered if he had a girlfriend and was trying to avoid telling her where he was going. She had never asked; she would not ask now. It was not her business.

“I haven’t decided where I’m staying. All right. Bye.” He hung up, laying the phone back down.

In the end she could not help herself. “Who was that?”

He smiled at her, as if he guessed her suspicions. “That was Thomas. I canceled a meeting for this afternoon and he wanted to know why.”

She stared. “You didn’t tell him very much.”

“No.”

“You didn’t tell him anything.”

“That’s right.”

Jill looked back at the road. They were on Oxford Street, heading west. Why was he being so secretive? He had been secretive the other day, advising her not to tell anyone where they were off to. He wasn’t even telling Thomas. Was that because he knew Thomas was guilty of deleting the files?

Was Thomas the person she shouldn’t trust?

Who would want to protect the family more from the skeleton that was Kate Gallagher? Jill glanced at Alex, who was, in a way, an outsider just as she was. Except he had fought hard to earn his place inside the family. Might that not make him even more of a fervent guardian of the family’s reputation?

Jill could not decide. Thomas was obvious, Alex was not. But Alex was the one who had accused Thomas of having a hidden agenda. If Alex was as up-front as he seemed, then Thomas was the offender. But what if he was not up-front at all? What if he had purposefully been misleading her? What if his agenda was the hidden one?

“Where are you, Jill?” he asked softly as they entered the A41 motorway.

She started. “Alex,” she said carefully, “what do you think would happen if we discover that something terrible happened to Kate while she was at Bensonhurst? And that Anne was somehow involved?”

He did glance at her—and then in his rearview window. Jill studied his hands, trying to see if they gripped the leather-bound steering wheel more tightly. “You could sell the story to the tabloids for some decent dough,” he said.

Jill sat up straighter. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not. There’d be a brief sensation in the press. People would talk for a week or so at parties and in the clubs. And then it would all die down.”

“An event that happened ninety odd years ago?”

“If it was something terrible, yeah.” He glanced at her. “Imagine finding out that Joe Kennedy had a mistress whom he sent away to have his illegitimate baby—and the woman and child mysteriously disappeared. Imagine he reinvented identities for them—and their descendants are uncovered and named. Wouldn’t that make the tabloids at home?”

“It might make
Time
magazine,” Jill said tensely, “if the story was awful enough.”

“Point made,” Alex said, shooting her a longer glance this time.

“Why are you helping me?” Jill asked bluntly.

He was silent. Then, eyes on the road, “Do you really need to ask?”

She hesitated. She didn’t need to ask, she only had to recall the other night. Swiftly, Jill changed the subject. “There’s a hospital we should stop by in York. In 1908 it was the Yorke Infants’ Hospital; women delivered their children there.”

Alex looked at her and laughed. “That was a tell.”

Jill didn’t want to ask. “What’s a tell?”

“When you’re playing poker, it’s something your opponent does that gives him away.”

Jill settled back in her seat, folding her arms across her chest, staring out of her side window. Okay. So she’d revealed her hand. But she still had her resolve. “Let’s focus on Kate.”

He smiled again, to himself.

“M
rs. Witcombe, dear, you have visitors.” Beth Haroway was a plump blond in her thirties, and she had just led Alex and Jill over to the little old lady sitting on a bench in the park surrounding the nursing home, a large stone building that clearly dated back a century or more. Beth Haroway was smiling and cheerful. The sky was blue, fat cumulous clouds floated by, and the sun was shining. Other nursing home patients were seated on other park benches or in their wheelchairs, others were strolling the grounds. It seemed to be a very pleasant place, but Jill only had eyes for the tiny, white-haired lady sitting on the green bench, wrapped up in a camel-colored wool shawl.

“This is Jill Gallagher from America, and her friend, Alex Preston,” Beth continued cheerfully, touching Janet’s shoulder. “I’m going to leave you for a moment, dear. Is there anything you need?”

Janet Witcombe shook her head, regarding Jill and Alex out of blue eyes that were far more alert than they had been the previous time Jill had met her. There was no mistaking her curiosity and interest. “Why, hullo,” she said softly. “It’s not often that I have visitors I do not know, much less from America.” She smiled.

“I know this might seem odd,” Jill said, “and I hope you do not mind. Are we intruding?” She was holding a bouquet of flowers in her hand.

“Not at all,” the little old lady cried. “What a glorious day—how could anyone intrude on such a day?”

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