ChapterFifty-Three
Fern stirred first, leaning across to switch off the alarm blaring from her phone. She stretched lazily, one leg tangled around Daniel’s, her cheek resting against the soft cotton of his T-shirt. His arm was still tucked around her, heavy and warm, holding her close. She saw that his eyes were still shut, and smiled.
‘You’re awake,’ she teased, prodding him a little.
‘I am now,’ he whispered, snuggling in tighter. ‘But I don’t want to move just yet.’
She kissed the top of his head. ‘You stay there. I’ll go and make you a coffee. You’ve made me one pretty much every single morning since I arrived here. It’s time I returned the favour.’
‘Wonders will never cease.’
She grinned, kissed his cheek and wriggled free from the duvet. Padding downstairs in one of his oversized T-shirts and her socks, she clicked on the kettle and, yawning, scooped generous spoons of instant coffee into their mismatched mugs. As she reached for the milk, there was a soft thud at the front door. When she went to check, she found the morning newspaper lying on the mat. She scooped it up and carried it upstairs along with the coffees.
Daniel sat up in bed, hair all tousled and wild. With a grateful grunt he reached for the mug she handed him, and she climbed back into the warm cocoon of the duvet beside him.
‘Paper’s here,’ she said, tossing it onto his lap. ‘I can’t believe you still read the news the old-fashioned way.’
‘My dad had a newspaper delivered every morning. Some things should never change.’
He unfolded it lazily, then stared. ‘Look,’ he murmured, nudging Fern.
‘Mind the coffee!’
He nodded towards the headline that screamed back at them both in bold black letters.
Music Genius Nathaniel Loring Dies at 85
A glossy photo of Loring in his prime sat beneath it, the familiar one where he was all slick hair and smug charm, fingers splayed dramatically across piano keys.
‘Well,’ she said quietly, ‘he’s gone.’
Daniel let out a slow breath and set the paper on the bed beside him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Fern looked at him, her voice soft but sure. ‘What do you want to do with all the information we’ve discovered?’
Daniel turned to face her, still very quiet. She tucked her legs beneath her and held the coffee between her hands.
‘We can’t do anything about Nathaniel’s life now,’ she said gently. ‘But Alistair… he played a huge part in it all. He helped cover it all up.’ She reached for the newspaper again, tapping Nathaniel’s photo.
‘He’s your grandfather, and Matilda was your grandmother. She wrote those songs, so that inheritance, all of it, should have been your father’s, and by rights it should now be yours.’
Daniel ran a hand through his hair, then let it drop, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘God. It’s so much. A week ago I was just a singing antique salesman with a weird obsession for moose heads and stuffed gorillas.’
Fern laughed. ‘And now?’
‘Now I’m apparently the grandson of one of the greatest songwriters the world never got to know, and the grandson of one of the most famous musicians, who is about to be exposed as a fraud.’
He leaned back against the headboard, warming his hands on the coffee mug. ‘I don’t want the money,’ he said. ‘That’s not what this is about. It’s not about some inheritance.’
‘I know,’ Fern said softly. ‘It’s about the truth.’
‘Exactly.’ He looked over at her. ‘Matilda deserves her name back. Her music. Her story.’
They sat for a long moment, just letting it all sink in.
Fern finally said, ‘Whatever you decide, I’m with you. We’ll do this together.’
He reached for her hand, tangled their fingers. ‘Then maybe it’s time the world found out who Matilda Hartley really was, and the lie that was Nathaniel Loring.’
