Secrets of Nanreath Hall (32 page)

October 1941

A
few days later Tony and Anna sat side by side on the grass in the shadow of the ruins. It was almost nine at night, but double summertime meant light still lingered in the west, throwing a satin sheen across the sea.

“Now that you know the truth, will you seek out your father's family?”

“Even if they had any idea I existed, do you think his wife would care to make the acquaintance of her husband's bastard child?”

“What of his parents? He might have brothers and sisters. You could have a whole basket of relations you never knew.”

She plucked a stem of heather, twirling it between her fingers before crushing the small purple petals to release the woodsy aroma. “I don't know. I've spent my whole life never even knowing his name. He was always just a shadowy idea, never real. Not in the sense of family and houses and a place you can go on a train to
visit. And now that I know what he did, the hurt he caused”—Anna tossed away the broken stem—“I just don't know.”

Wind moved over the grass, and she pulled her cardigan onto her shoulders. The temperature had dropped with the setting of the sun, the night growing cool with the changing of the season.

Tony sipped from the beer they shared between them. “Hard to believe it was Hugh that kept you from tossing away the locket.”

“Don't sound so surprised. He hides more behind that devil-may-care smile than you'd think.”

“I've known that for years. Smartest chap in school without cracking a book. We'd have hated him if he wasn't so damnably pleasant. I just didn't know he'd finally decided to stop playing the jester. It's past time.”

“Perhaps events have forced him to sober up.”

“What sort of events?”

Anna shrugged, her gaze drawn to the first glimmer of stars showing through a haze of clouds.

“You've been awfully quiet,” Tony commented. “Penny for your thoughts?”

She let out a breath as she made her decision. “Right. I didn't know whether to show you, but I need to speak to someone. Maybe you can help me decide what to do.” She pulled the photos from her pocket and handed them to Tony. “I found these in Lady Boxley's room.”

“This was taken here.” Tony studied the first photo in the fading light. “Who is he? He looks familiar.”

“His name is Eddie. I don't know his last name.”

“So Lady Boxley holds a tendre for a long-lost love, so what?” He handed Anna back the photos, casting her a doubtful look. “I thought you were here to find out about your past, not Hugh's.”

“I am, but the longer I'm here, the more things don't make sense.”
Anna sat up, tucking her legs beneath her. For some reason, the space between them seemed to yawn wider than the inches would indicate. “Why was Lady Boxley so afraid of me coming here in the first place? She practically warned me away from Nanreath Hall and Hugh in particular. And then there's the portrait in the gallery of Lord Boxley.”

“What of it?”

“It doesn't look a bit like Hugh. He's auburn-haired, Hugh's blond.”

“Lady Boxley is blond.”

“So is the mysterious Eddie. And maybe he looks familiar because he looks like Hugh. Then there's this.” She handed him the folder.

“What am I looking at?” Tony asked.

“It's Lord Boxley's wartime medical report. I had Ginny Willits retrieve it at the same time she searched for my father's.”

“So you already had your suspicions.”

“But this proves them.”

“Does it?”

She felt his sharp response like a slap to the cheek. Not that she hadn't expected him to play devil's advocate, but his forcefulness caught her off guard.

“Look,” she hammered, pointing out the bits she'd underlined in black pen. “Lord Boxley was wounded at Neuve Chappelle. He was treated at a battalion aid station and returned to his unit, but while he was there his blood was tested for possible transfusion use. He was Type O.”

“So?”

“Lady Boxley is Type O, as well. But Hugh is Type A. That can't happen—unless Lord Boxley is
not
Hugh's father.”

“I suppose you think this chap Eddie is?”

For some reason, his defense of Hugh felt like an attack on her. She carried on, but her earlier enjoyment of the evening had evaporated, the atmosphere between them now as chill as the weather.

“It all makes sense. Lady Boxley has a fling and finds herself pregnant. Easy enough to pass off the child as her husband's. Then he's gassed in the war and dies soon after. She's a widow with no ties to Nanreath Hall or the title but for Hugh, the supposed heir. It fits. You have to see that.” Her voice rose. She took a breath and tried to relax.

Tony looked out on the ocean for a moment, as if pulling his thoughts together before speaking. He made a small dismissive gesture with his shoulders before turning back to her. “All right, say this is all true and Hugh's illegitimate. There's nothing anyone can do about it now. Hugh's been Lord Melcombe since he was thirteen. No going back even if he wanted to hand the whole thing over and become a hermit in Tahiti. He's stuck with the whole bally lot.”

“That's just the point. Hugh's trapped. Trapped by this house, by his mother's expectations, by history and family. If I tell him . . .”

“If you tell him? You mean you want to show him this? And then what? Have you even thought that far ahead?”

“I'm sorry I asked your advice.”

“You didn't ask my advice. You sought my approval.”

Stung, Anna got to her feet. The shadow of the ruined tower stairs cut across the grass, and wind purred through the crumbled mortar. She had allowed Tony to bring her to the cliff ruins, but it wasn't the same. She wasn't the same. With Russia's slow capitulation, the war drew dangerously close again. How long before Tony's luck ran out? Perhaps their quarrel was a sign that she needed to end it before she fell too hard and lost too much.

“I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish, Anna,” Tony said quietly. “I wonder if you do.”

“You can't possibly understand. You have a big family, women hanging after you, wealth and position.” Questions ate away at her composure. She could feel her voice rising with her temper. “You've never felt trapped or alone or wondered where you fit. You've never had a care in the world.”

“Is that what you think?” He rose and dusted himself off, his own voice growing tight. “That I'm just some ruddy playboy looking for the next notch in my belt?”

Anna couldn't face the hurt in his eyes. She turned away. “That's what happens, isn't it? War changes everything. It makes us behave as if there's no repercussions, no tomorrows. We never stop to think how our careless flings will impact those who follow after us.”

“I thought we were talking about Hugh.”

“We are.”

“I don't think so. I think this all comes back to you and your fear of reliving Lady Katherine's mistakes.”

“That's unfair.”

“Your mother followed her heart. So it didn't work out. That doesn't mean it won't for you.” He stepped toward her. Paused when she stepped back. He stood, hands in his pockets, the wind teasing his black hair, his face lost in the ruins' shadow. “You can't let fear rule your life, Anna.”

She looked up at the stark tumbled stones jutting against the darkening sky. “You don't know what I fear, Tony. No one does.”

“I think you've spent the past year afraid of everything.” He didn't say it, but the word rose like a specter in the dark—Dunkirk. “I know what you're feeling, Anna. I was there.”

Her breath iced in her lungs. She froze, unable to breathe or move. Then ice was replaced by fire, and she felt a rage boiling up from a churning pit in her stomach. Unexpected and uncontrollable. It was no longer about holding Tony at arm's length. It was
about making him hurt as she had been hurt. “Were you? Really? Funny, because I never saw you. I never saw any of the RAF flyboys who were supposed to be protecting our retreat. The only planes I saw belonged to the Jerries as they strafed our ambulance convoys, shot up refugees, and dropped bombs on the boats sent to bring us home.”

By now the memories strangled her thoughts. Even as some small part of her knew she was being irrational, she hurled her fury at him, enjoying the look of wounded confusion in his eyes. “Damn you all, you left us to die.”

She fled the cliffs as she had not been able to flee the disaster at Dunkirk, praying she might leave the horrors behind. She glanced back only once. Tony stood in the graying twilight, a black silhouette against the crumbling tower brooding above him.

He had it all wrong. She didn't fear she would make her mother's mistakes.

She feared she already had.

C
aptain Matthews was right. The wireless and newspapers were full of the worsening news from the Russian front. Every update seemed to bring new casualty numbers and reports of more ground lost to the panzer divisions racing for Moscow—Odessa, Kharkov, Sevastopol. The hospital was alive with speculation over how soon Stalin would capitulate to Hitler and what that might mean for the beleaguered British.

At least the rumors kept Anna from dwelling on her row with Tony. She shouldn't have spoken to him like that. Harriet's death wasn't his fault. She rang him to apologize, but the clerk who answered the phone was singularly unhelpful and she'd been too ashamed to leave a message. She would find him at the pub one eve
ning or cycle to the airfield at St. Eval on her next afternoon off and grovel in person. Hopefully, it would be enough to make amends. She might not agree with him, but she'd come to rely on his being there when she needed him.

Her shift over at seven, Anna went in search of Hugh. He'd not been on the wards at all today and no one she asked knew where he might be. She climbed the stairs and turned onto the corridor leading to the gallery and the family's private quarters. By now she felt easy strolling the long, pillared room with its walls of Trenowyth ancestors, and no one from the hospital questioned her right to be there.

Rain washed the long windows, blurring the grounds and sending a cold draft over the creaking floorboards. With no lamps lit, the space was dim and she shivered in the cardigan she'd thrown over her uniform. Another long, dreary winter lay on the horizon. Would the New Year show a turn in the tide for the Allies, or would the war drag on endlessly?

She pushed her dismal thoughts aside as unhelpful. Instead, she began comparing faces as she passed beneath the rows of portraits; noses and eyes, the tilt of a head, the strength in a jaw. She touched her own cheek and chin, smoothed a hand over her curling red hair pinned viciously into a neat victory roll beneath her veil.

As always, she paused before the portrait of Lady Katherine, as if seeking a connection between this silent, staring young woman and herself. Was she the only one to notice the way her mother's lips curved in a smile of flirtatious excitement, the sparkle of secrets in her eyes? Or the way her body looked to escape the prison of her frame, as if she couldn't wait to be caught up in her lover's arms?

Forgive my love.

Had Lady Katherine forgiven Simon's betrayal?

She had left her home and family for him, though they could not wed. She had borne him a child. She had worn his locket until her death and passed it to her daughter to carry forward.

Was that Anna's answer?

She tucked her locket beneath her blouse and over her heart.

“Back to lurking about the gallery like a skeleton at the feast, Miss Trenowyth? I'd hoped we'd turned you from that habit. It's disconcerting. I feel as if you're sizing us up and finding us lacking.”

Lady Boxley stood in the far doorway. In a stylish aubergine suit with a jaunty ribboned hat perched on her blond hair, and handbag clasped in her gloved hands, she appeared to be just arriving home.

“I'm sorry. I know it's against the rules.”

Her Ladyship waved off Anna's apology. “You've earned the right to a few concessions on our part. Freedom to wander the gallery is hardly an onerous request.”

“Thank you, ma'am. I don't remember much about my mother, but here I feel . . . close to her in a way I never have before.”

Lady Boxley's heels tapped across the floorboards as she joined Anna in front of the painting. She gave it a quick, disparaging glance and sniffed. “A nice sentiment, but proximity doesn't always bring happiness.” She paused, her gaze uneasy. “You discover things best left buried.”

Anna sucked in a quick breath of realization. “You knew all along.”

Lady Boxley's face took on a pinched, shuttered expression as she ran an agitated hand up and down her strand of pearls.

“You knew Simon Halliday was married,” Anna badgered. “That's why you didn't want me to go to London.”

“Of course I knew,” Lady Boxley finally snapped. “Simon Halliday was a cad of the first order. Kitty only found out about the
wife after it was too late. Then he died, and Kitty was left with you. Life moved on.”

“That's when she came back to Nanreath, isn't it? She needed help, and all of you turned her away.”

“William was unwell. Frankly, he was dying, though no one would admit it.”

Generations of Trenowyths watched from every corner of the gallery in seeming curiosity as Anna left her post beneath Lady Katherine's portrait to pause in front of the nearby painting of the late Lord Boxley. “Was that the reason, or was it because you were afraid my mother knew the truth about Hugh's paternity and would tell your husband?”

For a moment Lady Boxley's face was wiped clean of all expression, the color draining away to leave her ghostly white. She swayed, laying a hand on the back of a chair to steady herself, and her hand touched her chest. But the weakness lasted only moments. As if a metal rod was inserted into her spine, she straightened, her chin lifting in defiance, her eyes crackling with—amusement?