Finders Keepers

PART 2: What echoes of deep passion and sadness cling to the brooch Paige and her grandad have found?

Paige? Are you all right?” Ruth’s voice reached through the haze threatening to overwhelm her. Paige tightened her grip on the table edge; thankfully, the mist and image of the unknown woman receded.

“Fine, just a bit of a head rush. What were we saying?”

“About what to do with the brooch.” When Paige shrugged, Ruth advised, “Sleep on it, love. That’s what Mum always recommends.”

With tea and Sepphie’s scones on the study desk plus a local mystery to solve, Paige worked methodically, checking dates and making notes, until she clapped her hands in delight.

“Letitia!” she announced triumphantly as Sepphie entered. “Or Miss Lettice, as she was more commonly called. Born 1704, third daughter of the lord. She was allowed a love match but died while still betrothed.”

“How sad! How did she die?”

“I can’t tell on these notes, and the diaries are too recent. I’ll need to look at the parish records.”

“Or you could come and see Carey again,” Sepphie suggested hopefully. Paige wrinkled her nose.

“Let’s try the records first, hmm?”

The sun had warmed the study into a dreamy somnolence. A perfect atmosphere for working. Yet Paige found the words for her articles wouldn’t come.

Her thoughts were all focused on

Lady Wood and Miss Lettice. People would say she was chasing shadows. Perhaps; she couldn’t help it. She reached for Charlotte Drake’s diary then recalled she’d lent it to Sepphie.

“Do you remember Charlotte?” she’d asked her grandmother.

“Oh, yes,” Sepphie replied grimly. Inheriting Bury after her brother died in the war, Charlotte and her softer sister Elizabeth had both lived to ripe ages, but Charlotte’s energies were directed towards ordering the lives of those around her – including her grandson.

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Sighing, Paige gave herself up to memories. She’d adored Carey Drake, fought not to pine for him when he left Essenbury, and her, for the wider world.

As for Paige, she was tied to this place in ways she was only now starting to understand. She wondered how Carey felt about returning. She remembered how he’d reacted to the ties his family tried to bind him with; ancestry and running an estate that burned more money than it made.

He wanted to explore other avenues before agreeing to the life of his father and grandfathers. And he’d done it, that confident charm winning him success wherever he went. were round her in a moment, and it didn’t occur to her to mind.

“What’s happened?”

“Lady Wood’s under siege! Treasure seekers, Carey.”

“What would make them go seeking there?”

Paige swallowed.

“I haven’t been exactly straight with you. I found something that day, and Pops was so thrilled, he must have let it slip to fellow prospectors. Now they’re looking to find more…”

Carey let out a curse.

“You’ve always been the bane of my life, Paige Welby!”

“Well, there’s a simple solution to that,” she snapped. “Run away again.”

With a growl, Carey pulled her into his arms for a breath-robbing kiss.

“Stay here. This isn’t finished,” he promised as clicking his fingers at Cassia, he stalked away.

Paige’s shaking fingers strayed to the brooch. When he returned, he’d want answers. Well, so did she. And she was sure this was the place to find them.

Paige had seen the gallery countless times. Until today, the portraits along its length had never been more than watchful eyes to ignore in passing. Now she studied them, searching for signs of Carey in the features frozen on canvas.

It was strangely quiet in the house without its master; the only sound that of a clock ticking down the hall. Paige lost herself in Drake’s complex family tree as she wandered down the generations.

Lettice’s portrait was small, showing a pale young woman seated, an elegant grey whippet in her lap. Her hair was tucked beneath a lace cap, her gown’s bodice heavily beribboned. There was a fragility to her features that hinted at gentleness but to Paige, showed a frailty that would lead to early death.

“Poor thing,” she murmured. “So much to live for.”

Sighing, she continued her journey, pausing before a portrait of Charlotte and Elizabeth as debutantes. How the years had altered these young ladies.

The last time Paige saw Carey’s grandmother, she was holding court from a throne-like wheelchair, youthful looks lost forever within a sour, wizened face. She shivered, turning to look at her own midtwenties image in a mirror opposite. If she didn’t learn to let go of the past, would she one day look the same?

Then she froze. In the portrait’s reflection, she noticed something pinned to Charlotte’s shoulder. The Lady Wood brooch! There was no mistaking that filigree edge, that burning bloodstone heart.

How could this be? How could Charlotte Drake be wearing a brooch buried two hundred years earlier? Her head began to spin, her pulse to race. The ticking of the clock roared in her ears. Now that unsettling image she’d had in the Nook came swimming back. She pressed closer to the mirror as her vision misted over and again she felt herself slipping, only this time there was nothing to grab onto…

Paige? Paige!” She opened her eyes. Carey was leaning over her. When he saw she was awake, he muttered, “Thank God!” “What happened?”

Scooping her into his arms, Carey marched downstairs to deposit her on the library sofa.

“You fainted,” he said, handing her a mug of steaming tea. “And I want to know why. Don’t bother trying to lie,” he added. “You’re hopeless at it.”

She took a sip of tea, as mercifully her head began to clear. It was worryingly comforting to be in Bury’s library for the second time in a week, after so long an absence. She eyed Carey over her mug’s rim as he rubbed Cassia’s tummy with his foot. She knew him so well, yet not at all. She realised that some of the resentment she’d felt since seeing him again was because she’d missed him. He’d always been one of the most interesting people she’d ever met; that, aside from his looks, was why she was so drawn to him. But what was it Sepphie always said? Thingshappenforareason. So, Carey and Paige weren’t meant to be. Time to focus on other things – anything – to get the feel of being cradled against his chest out of her mind. “What happened to the vandals?” “I told them Michael had exclusive prospecting rights on my lands. Now stop trying to change the subject. Why did you faint?”

Resigned, Paige eased the brooch from her pocket and held it up. The light caught the central heart, making it sparkle.

“Very pretty. Why show me this?” “Don’t you recognise it?” He shook his head. “Pops and I found it buried in Lady Wood. I had it cleaned; apparently, it dates from Georgian times. We believed it may belong to your ancestor.”

“What’ve you found in the family tree – a notorious highwayman?”

“A wandering spirit, actually. The phantom lady in your wood.”

His brows hiked.

“You’re in the wrong line, Welby. You should be writing books, not articles.”

“Do you want to hear this, or not?” There was a ghost of a smile in his eyes as he nodded. Paige related their investigations into the brooch’s origins, leading to the discovery of a possible woodland lady in Miss Lettice.

Carey frowned.

“The Lettice of the 1720s? If memory serves she died of an inflammation of the lung, a childhood ailment. I’d be surprised if she were your lovelorn spirit.”

“I agree. But I had the oddest feeling when the polished brooch was in my hands. Romantic or crazy, perhaps, but I felt it spoke to me.” “Definitely crazy.”

Paige passed him the brooch. He ran his thumb across the heart.

“You really don’t recognise it? Only your grandmother’s wearing this exact piece in a portrait upstairs.”

Carey stared at her. Paige’s smile was wry.

“Makes your head spin, doesn’t it? I was knocked sideways when I saw the brooch on Charlotte’s dress and realised it couldn’t have been Lettice who buried it.”

“Well, well. And I always thought Elizabeth was the sentimental one.” Paige gave a soft laugh.

“Me, too. Who’d have guessed a sour puss like your grandmother possessed the kind of feelings that would make her bury an expensive brooch when the love it represented was lost?”

“Mum always said there was a skeleton in Charlotte’s cupboard, though I never imagined anything like this. She and Grandpa weren’t what you’d call ‘mad for each other’, but their marriage seemed to work, and she never remarried when he died.” Carey’s gaze returned to the trinket. “Maybe this is the reason why.”

“You don’t know who the skeleton might be?”

“They were turbulent times around the war, and Charlotte was always headstrong. She could have taken one of her rare fancies to just about anyone.” Paige sighed.

“I was convinced the Lady Chatterley whispers had their foundation in truth.” “You’re too romantic, love.”

Paige decided to pretend she hadn’t heard the endearment.

“Do you think we’ll ever discover what happened?”

“If the information’s anywhere, it’ll be in her diaries.”

“The diaries! Of course!”

Sepphie could barely conceal her delight at seeing Paige and Carey together, coming across the lawn to where she was weeding a flowerbed.

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