Rome stood in the middle of the drawing room and soaked it in. The air fairly pulsed with history. Portraits of eighteenth-century women and men in their white wigs, wearing clothes that looked vastly uncomfortable, a great-great this and a great-great that, and there was the sixth Earl of Camden and would you look at those side whiskers, he could sweep the floor with them. It made him wonder what his great-greats had looked like.
When they stepped out of the dark and silent library and its three walls of built-in bookshelves stuffed with books, she said, “My father knows I love this house, but when he dies Tommy will become the eleventh Earl of Camden, and it will no longer be my house, unless Tommy allows it. He’ll also inherit Darlington Hall, its grounds, and whatever income it brings.”
“But if Tommy falls off the drug wagon and your father doesn’t bring him back into the fold, won’t you inherit everything, including Darlington Hall?”
“Nope, that’s not how it works in England. It’s called primogeniture. The eldest son or male relative usually gets everything and any child unfortunate enough to be female gets only whathe allows her. Don’t scoff, there’s a pretty good reason for it. It’s meant to keep property in one family until there are no more sons or male relatives. If my father doesn’t reinstate Tommy, he’ll still inherit all the entailed property—Darlington Hall and Palmer House—but unless my father changes his mind, he won’t get my father’s bank or his investments. It would probably come to me. I could, however, sign over a lot of it to Tommy, but I’d have to break my father’s will to do it.”
“But Tommy would still be the new earl and live in luxury at Darlington Hall?”
She shook her head. “Consider the amount of money it requires for the upkeep and maintenance of Darlington Hall. It’s a constant drain. There’s always something breaking down, and the repairs are daunting. And paying staff and tradesmen? Another huge ongoing expense. Tommy would have to sell the paintings and furnishings, fire people who’ve been with the family for decades.” She paused a moment. “Well, maybe he could try to find an heiress, but they’re not thick on the ground.” She drew a breath. “I pray with all my heart he’s really changed this time and my father reinstates him, takes him in at the bank, trains him so he could eventually take it over.” She sighed. “As for me, I have no worries. My financial future is secure in either case because I can support myself quite nicely, and I don’t need all that money. The amount of money we’re talking here? Rome, it’s more than I could spend in three lifetimes. I know I’ve been putting off going to see Tommy. I’m so afraid I’ll know he’s lying to Mother.”
Rome said matter-of-factly, “If he isn’t lying, he’s one of the precious few.”
Elizabeth drew herself up. “That’s what I have to believe—he’s one of the precious few.”
She took him upstairs, passed by three closed doors, and stopped in front of the last, slowly opening the door. “My workroom.”
Rome walked into a large square room and felt the instant warmth of the bright sunlight that poured in through its floor-to-ceiling windows. It felt like a peaceful sanctuary, a place to feel nourished and safe and creative. A dozen paintings leaned against the pale yellow walls, covered with white cloths. Elizabeth stood silently in the center of the room, watching him. He nodded toward one. “Show me?”
She said nothing, removed the cloth, stepped back.
He knew her paintings were displayed in a gallery in Belgravia, knew she painted what she called neo-impressionism. He supposed he’d expected a blurry scene of boats on a lake or people in a park. What he saw was a drowsy meadow filled with yellow wildflowers, a single chestnut horse grazing, ancient oak trees crowding in around it, all under a cloud-strewn sky. The colors were soft and blurred just the right amount to emphasize the beauty, the wonder. He wanted to step into the painting and lie down amid the flowers, stare up at the sky and dream the afternoon away. He turned slowly and stared at her. “Show me more.”
She pulled the white covers from more nature scenes, each of them evocative, drawing you in. Then she uncovered her portraits, again softly blurred, and yet so real you wanted to meet the old man picking a cucumber from a village market stand, or laugh with the young boy splashing in the village pond, chasing ducks.
She drew a deep breath and pulled the soft cloth from the painting on her easel.
Rome stared at a starkly sharp painting of a laughing young woman, her blond hair loose and long, dancing in an unseen breeze, wildly happy. It was Elizabeth’s mother.
He stared at what she’d captured in her mother’s face. “You can feel her nearly bursting with joy. You want to know her. Her happiness flows over you. It’s incredible, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth said quickly, “It’s not quite finished; the backgroundneeds more work.” She paused, added, “I’m going to give it to my father on his birthday so perhaps he’ll remember all the feelings he had for my mother then, and stop—” Her voice fell off a cliff.
“His philandering?”
“A very civilized way to say it. It’s something I could never understand. My mother is loving and beautiful.” She paused, frowned. “But you know, he was different with her yesterday, maybe because he nearly lost her. He sat close to her with his arm around her, careful of her, loving.”
Rome said, “I like your mom. I saw you in her twenty-five years from now. I agree with you, your father was clearly afraid for her, focused on protecting her.”
Elizabeth nodded. “It was like he didn’t want to let her out of his sight, Rome. He—he touched her hair.” She covered the painting again, turned on her heel, and walked to the door. “Come,” she said over her shoulder, and gently closed the door behind them.
She showed him the master suite last, a mix of antiques from Italy and France covered with ancient crocheted throws, and a touch of the modern, a TV on a dresser table facing the big sleigh bed.
“This is where you were attacked?”
He could see she didn’t want to remember that night, much less talk out loud about what happened there. He took her arms in his hands, stared down at her a moment. “Your grandfather thought Roosevelt was valiant. I think you are too, Elizabeth.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You survived three attacks here in London through your own wits. You found Hurley and stuck with him, made yourself into a force. When you and I were attacked, you fought them with me. And now you’ve shown me another part of you—your art, and you’ve made me see you differently once again.”
He cupped her face in his hands, leaned down, not very far at all, and kissed her, only a light touch of his mouth. He straightened, sifted his fingers through her hair. “You’ve made me see how very fine my life could be with you in it.”
She swallowed, breathed in his scent, male and soap and a girlie shampoo. For the first time, she saw herself through his eyes. He knew her now,andhe thought she was valiant? She said, “But I slept with Samir Basara, an assassin, believed in by jihadists willing to do whatever he told them to do. And why? The truth is I found him fascinating, and like I told you, perhaps just as important, I wanted to stick my father’s nose in it because I was so angry at how he was treating my mother. Samir was Algerian, a Muslim, anathema to my father as my lover. But for John Eiserly, I along with hundreds more would have died in St. Paul’s last year. Basara knew he was sentencing me to death and he didn’t care. He felt as much contempt for me as my father did for him.
“I was careless, Rome, shallow, selfish.” She gave him a crooked smile. “I’m not valiant. Rome, I’m not special at all.”
He cocked his head at her. “Well, okay, if you insist, but I have to tell you, I think you’re an excellent artist.”
