She bent her head and read the faded inscription. “Theatrum Pompeii—Campus Martius.”
The words chilled him, reducing him, briefly, to the boy who had crept from his bed to watch a play. Not in a theatre but in the ballroom at Studland Park, where the lighting was low, and the dancers moved like shadows. Shadows that wore no clothes.
He coughed, his throat tight.
His parents had entertained with satire and spectacle,rewriting classical plays for their own pleasure. Lace, ribbons, painted lips and sin masquerading as art.
He had not thought of it in years.
He had no wish to now.
“We were never meant to watchJulius Caesar.” He touched the gilt edge, lifted the print from its hook, and turned it over, pulse ticking at his temple. “Perhaps we were meant to find this instead.”
A small square of folded paper was fixed to the wood with a single dab of sealing wax.
Olivia inhaled sharply. “It wasn’t placed here recently. The paper is foxed with age. Have you always rented this box?”
“My grandfather helped pay for the restoration after the last fire, over forty years ago. This box was his recompense, secured under a contract that would span a hundred years.”
“When was the room last refurbished?”
“Three years ago, maybe four. But the prints were my father’s. They’ve always been here.”
They both stared at the rough-edged scrap, the silence thickening between them, before he tugged it free of the wax.
It wasn’t a letter.
Not a note.
Not co-ordinates to buried treasure.
Just a torn scrap, creased and dulled with age, bearing a faint wash of pale blue ink. Wings. The outline of swallows in flight.
No words.
Not one.
She leaned closer. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.” Yet he suspected he did. It was familiar,and he wasn’t sure why. “The image is like the one on the disc found in the compass. Though I can’t help but think I’ve seen it before.”
She held out her hand. “May I see?”
“Of course.”
She smoothed her fingers over the worn surface, her brows drawn. “It feels like wallpaper. A pretty wallpaper, were it not so faded. Swallows instead of peacocks.” She paused. “Since the prints belonged to your father, might there be a similar design at Studland Park?”
He shook his head. “I’ll have to ask Mrs Boswell.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
He might have said the past was behind him, covered in dust sheets like everything else in that house. But it wasn’t. It lingered in every room, a quiet ghost. Just like it clung to his heart.
“There’s a reason my father carried a button bearing your crest,” she said quietly. “And why he left the white heather as a sign I could trust you. He knew it would lead me to you. Somehow there’s a link.”
The thought brought no comfort.
