The Vintage Girl (22 page)

Robert. I’d tell him first. He seemed to be supernaturally rational about “the business” of Kettlesheer, as he saw it—maybe he’d be more forgiving of a relative who seemed to share his business instincts.

First thing tomorrow, before anyone collared me to ask where the lists were, I’d go down to the lodge and share this with Robert. I put the letters and notebooks carefully back into the file box and closed the lid.

Then I’d just have to cross my fingers that nothing else happened to ruin the ball for the McAndrews before my news about the table did.

“You want to talk to me about something so urgent it can’t wait until after breakfast?”

Robert ran a hand through his hair, and it spiked up at the front like a newborn chick. He’d obviously just pulled on the first clothes to hand—his feet were bare, and he seemed hungover and a bit sleepy still, as if he’d just rolled out of bed.

This is not the time, Evie,
I reminded myself, hopping from one foot to another on the icy doorstep. There’d been another light fall of snow overnight, covering up the tracks like a neat housemaid sweeping the ground clean.

“I’ve
had
breakfast,” I pointed out, my breath making puffs of white in the crisp air. “Janet Learmont’s been up at the big house drilling the cloakroom volunteers in hat-and-coat etiquette since cockcrow. But I can make you some coffee, if it helps? And yes, I’d like some too. I
have
just walked half a mile in someone else’s wellies.”

“Is that some kind of romantic metaphor?” Robert pushed the door open and stood back to let me and my bag in.

“Ah, no,” he said at once. “No, I see you’ve brought junk
back
. That wasn’t the point. I was trying to get
rid
of some clutter.”

“We need to talk about it.” I hesitated as I entered the kitchen, unsure if we were alone, but it was empty and tidy as ever. Just Robert’s laptop on the table next to a bowl of green apples. The same apples that had been there all week. I wondered if they were wax.

He put the kettle on and started to get cups out. “Not more talking. What is it now? Dad’s actually Winston Churchill’s bastard son?” He frowned, looking for coffee.

“Let me,” I said, reaching for the cafetière sitting next to the modern range. No Aga here. “You’re going to need a strong one to get your brain in gear for this. Sit down.”

Trudging across the park, safely out of range of human ears, I’d rehearsed various approaches of breaking the news of Violet’s double-dealings. My imagination had revved into overdrive with the benefit of a night’s broken sleep, and I’d had to brush away visions of a shell-shocked Duncan, a weeping Ingrid, Robert nobly agreeing to marry some bug-eyed heiress to save the castle, etc., etc.

But now, in front of him—and in Violet’s old house—they all seemed a bit … well, melodramatic. For once, I tried to stamp on my more creative tendencies and present the facts just as they were.

I took a deep breath.

“I think Violet sold the family furniture to keep the house going after Ranald died,” I said. “Either that, or she had it copied and sold fakes to half the society families on America’s Eastern Seaboard.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Robert did a double take.

“Say that again?” He turned round in his chair to look at me properly. His forehead was creased in confusion. “I thought you were going to tell me you’d found a will in a sideboard leaving everything to the Battersea Dogs Home.”

I grimaced. “Sorry. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But here, it’s all in these books. The one you found was a record of what was in the house. But I found this other one, with details of how she had it copied and sold.”

“Where did you find that?”

“In a secret compartment in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.”

He did another incredulous double take. “Get out of here. Where was it?”

“Seriously.”

“Well, then I owe you an imperial pound of doubloons.”

The kettle boiled as I showed him the bookkeeping and the tabs Violet had kept on her old social circle, homing in on their need for upmarket wedding gifts, and the super-discreet operation she’d run from her sewing room.

Robert flicked through the pages while I talked.

“Right,” he said eventually, his face giving nothing away. “So, what does this mean? There’s nothing for Dad to sell after all?” And the penny dropped. “Mum said you’d hinted that there was something really valuable in the house—I’m guessing it’s that big dining table. Don’t tell me that’s a knockoff too?”

“Well, that’s the thing … I don’t know,” I confessed. “I’d need to get a second opinion. Third, too. There’s a big difference between a real Chippendale and a fake one.”

Robert raised an eyebrow. “How much difference?”

“Several hundred thousand pounds’ difference. But if we get an expert up here, and it
is
a fake, then … it’s going to be quite embarrassing. And, as you say, there’s nothing to sell.”

He whistled. “Blimey.” A pause stretched between us. “But what’s your gut feeling?”

I wanted to be cool and professional, but he was gazing at me so intensely that the words came spilling out of their own accord.

“I can’t feel anything on it. A table that old, of that quality, should feel … I don’t know,
alive
with something. Age, experience, something. My fingers tingle when I touch something old. Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not.” Robert’s eyes were serious, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t laughing at me. “And there’s no tingle on our table?”

“No.” I twirled a teaspoon round in my fingers to break the unsettling eye contact long enough to get my brain under control. “Maybe it’s just a bit out of my league.”

“Your tingle detector only works on tables?”

I risked a glance upward. He was still looking at me with that half-amused glint. I squashed the butterflies in my stomach:
not
the time.

“Tables, evening bags, porcelain,” I said. “Inanimate antique objects only. It’s a knack.”

“Useful skill to have, clairvoyant fingers.”

“Not when you work in London,” I said. “You don’t want to know where half that stuff’s been.”

Robert laughed, once, and poured the coffee, pushing one cup across the table to me. He stirred sugar into his own, and flipped over a few more pages of the notebook, saying nothing.

“Say something,” I said, unable to bear it any longer.

“Not sure what to say,” he replied. “You think they’re going to want their money back?”

“Who?”

“The people she diddled. Or didn’t.” He pointed to the books. “I mean, at least we know where all our stuff is. If we ever had the money to get it back. She left a paper trail of our family valuables, at least.”

“It wasn’t for her—she didn’t have a choice!” I protested. The more letters I read, the more I could see Violet blinking back her furious tears as she packaged up the last consignment of Ranald’s childhood. “How else was she supposed to pay the bills? You saw that postcard—Ranald more or less made her promise she’d never leave!”

“I’m not criticizing her,” he replied evenly. “How can I? She sold what was hers. I mean, we were planning to do much the same.”

“Maybe the table is real! Maybe she didn’t bring herself to sell it in the end! There’s no final copy of the letter.”

Robert’s expression softened. “You really want it to be the genuine article, don’t you?”

I nodded. “I do.”

“Why?”

“Because … I like Violet. Whether she was a hustler or not. I don’t want people to think less of her. I can understand exactly why she fell in love with this house. It has a character. Your dad’s in love with it. You would be too, if you let yourself …” I trailed off. I was letting it get too personal again. This wasn’t doing my professional appearance any favors.

“But surely,” said Robert, “it’s better if it is fake, and out of respect for my dead great-granny’s cottage industriousness, I decide we do have something in common? Isn’t that what you’re secretly hoping too?”

I felt something buzzing in my pocket: my phone was ringing.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Might be Alice.”

Robert pulled an
I’m saying nothing
face as I checked to see who it was—Max. Quickly I sent the call to voicemail.

“Oh dear,” he said, spotting my stricken expression. “That bad?”

“Sorry?”

“Let me guess—the date you’re blowing off to come to the ball tomorrow night?”

“No date,” I said. Hadn’t I made that perfectly clear the other night? Maybe he was just being kind. “My boss. I sent him some photos before I found the second notebook, and he’s got a buyer. They’ll be gagging to get the table before someone tells you to offer it to a museum. It wouldn’t be that hard to”—I hooked my fingers in the air—“
have a change of heart
about letting it go, but you’ve got to do that before they get a look and work out why you suddenly don’t want to sell.”

“And you don’t want to look like an idiot.”

“No,” I said. “But I have a feeling this will be the excuse my boss has been looking for to downsize his staff.”

“Sorry.” Robert sounded as if he meant it.

“It’s okay,” I sighed. “Do you need an office assistant at ParkIt? I’m not very tidy, but I can do great invoices.”

“I’ll put your résumé on file.” Robert sipped his coffee and regarded me over the top of the mug.

I smiled wanly.

“I assume you haven’t told Dad any of this?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I wanted to sleep on it first. I didn’t eat a thing at dinner last night. Thank God Sheila was there, talking about clan tartans all night, and whether you should be forcibly put into a kilt.”

Robert’s face contorted.

I moved swiftly on. “I can stall Max until Monday. He’ll be run off his feet selling photograph frames for Valentine’s Day. But please don’t tell Duncan before the ball. I don’t want to ruin it for him.” I paused. “I feel bad enough already about, you know, gate-crashing your party.”

“You’re not gate-crashing, you’re invited. How is Alice? Any news on the … ankle, was it?” His eyebrow hooked up in a sardonic nonquestion.

“To be perfectly honest, she hasn’t called me recently,” I said. I didn’t want to cover for Alice too much, but I could see what she meant about Robert’s high standards when it came to Fraser. He looked annoyed. I crossed my fingers under the table. “She must be in a fair amount of pain.”

“To be perfectly honest
myself
, she’s gone down in my estimation for this. Fraser’s the best guy I know. And your sister …” He trailed off. “Well, sometimes there’s nothing wrong with a bit of romance. Anyway, are you all set for tonight? Did any of Cat’s dresses fit?”

“Yes, I’m going to wear her blue stretchy one,” I replied politely. In fact, only one of them had done up—a long navy sleeveless dress, so plain it looked like something Mother Teresa would have rejected as being a touch frumpy. But it fitted, nothing was going to fall out, and the last thing I wanted to do was to draw attention to myself. I’d do that enough with my dancing. “It had a note on the hanger—Caledonian Ball, 2007.”

Robert nodded, as if he knew which one I meant. “She catalogues them, so she doesn’t repeat.”

“She can’t
remember
?” I blurted out. I’d have it all imprinted on my brain for the rest of my life. “It was really nice of her to lend me something,” I added, in case my face was giving away my shock.

“Very nice,” agreed Robert. “She’s a very nice girl.”

The
nice
hung in the air.
Nice
wasn’t really how I’d like my boyfriend to describe me.

“And her notes were helpful. I’ve been doing the Eightsome in my head all night,” I went on, talking quickly as the atmosphere between us thickened with the parallel conversation we
weren’t
having, the one about what would happen after the ball, with him and Catriona, “but it’s all very well seeing it in theory—in practice, it’s so much harder.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Robert. “We’ll look after you. You just have to relax.”

I nearly laughed out loud. “How can I relax when I’m constantly braced to land in the fireplace and concuss myself?” I demanded.

“You’ve got to trust us!” He grinned at my nervous boggle, and his eyes crinkled sweetly at the edges, turning his earlier briskness back into something more boyish. “We’ll catch you if you start heading toward anything lethal.”

“What? Like Janet Learmont?” I joked.

The glint left Robert’s eyes, and I bit my tongue. The two conversations had crossed over. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t let that spoil your evening,” he said quietly.

“Don’t let it spoil yours.”

We looked at each other—not romantically, but rather grimly. There were so many things I wanted to say to him, things Alice would have said, knowing she’d be long gone tomorrow, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t Alice. I could imagine this conversation in thirty different swooning permutations, plus strings, but I couldn’t actually set it in motion in real life.

“I’ll see you later, will I?” I pushed my chair away from the table, unable to bear it. My voice sounded too bright. “What is it? Drinks at seven, dinner at seven-thirty?”

Robert nodded. “Dad’s doing cocktails in the drawing room.” His voice sounded kind of forced too. “The Winemakers Club’s invented two new ones especially for the evening. And you should know that both involve the Mark I version of his Kettlesheer Gold.”

“Oh, my God,” I said, thinking of the dancing to come. “Is that safe?”

“If it’s not, at least we won’t remember a thing about it,” said Robert.

He was walking me to the door, and yet again I felt as if time were moving too quickly, sweeping me along while I was still trying to savor each dusty, eccentric moment of this week in someone else’s life. Tonight was going to pass just as quickly, I realized; it was already eleven, soon it would be the afternoon, and then dinner and then the ball, and then my time here would have gone, and—

“Thank you,” said Robert, jerking me back to attention.

I stopped at the door, half-buttoned into Alice’s cocoon coat. “What for?”

“For telling me first,” he said. “You’re right—I don’t think Mum and Dad would react well. This is something I can do. Maybe make it less painful for them.”

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. “Er, good?”

Robert smiled back, his large brown eyes full of complicated emotion—regret? amusement? weariness?

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, and those simple words sent a skin-shivering thrill through me.