“You mean, a public telephone booth? Who on earth—”
He coughs.
There’s a pause. A palpable silence slices the delight.
“Hello.” Helen’s voice is soft, speaking directly to him now. “Won’t you speak to me?”
Panicked, he slams the receiver down, as if she could see through the wires to his cramped telephone booth all the way in Cornwall.
He lets out a breath and runs a hand over the dangling receiver, now silent. What an odd technology the telephone is, bridging the two hundred and twenty-three miles between this minuscule booth and Tewkesbury. So far away, yet he can lift this handle anytime, give the number, and be connected immediately to his wife.
He wallows in that booth until a firm rap sounds on the glass and he jumps, striking his head on the roof of the red tin can. He’s shaking. The man glares from beneath his bowler hat and William hurries out, a hand lifted in apology.
War has shredded human kindness. They’ve come back from the battlefield, these men who fought, but the battles aren’t over. Simply different.
William shoves through the bifold doors and grabs the large, flat package he leaned against the booth before going in and inhales, drawing courage from the memory of Helen’s voice. That’s why he gave in this time, isn’t it? For the courage to take the next step. Because it’s all for her. She is his reason.
Yes, I can do this. He can march into that gallery and unwrap the painting like any respectable gentleman and request cold, hard pound notes in exchange.I’ll do it. I’ll do anything for you.Shoring up his strength, breathing in the scent of saltwater and fish, he makes his way down toward the cluster of shops. Pain shoots up his left hip with each step, aching from his run into town.
His heart thrums when he reaches the fashionable storefront on High Street and forces himself to enter, triggering a brass bell overhead. Paintings in gold frames under well-positioned spotlights line the walls, and easels support many others.
The owner looks up, blinks from under his visor, and raises his eyebrows. William doesn’t belong here. He feels it hotly as he stands in the center of that polished space in his tattered fisherman’s tunic, long, matted beard, and sea-slicked rain boots. He smooths his gnarled hair back, cringing at the wild, greasy feel. And he smells of fish. Suddenly hunched and self-conscious, he forces himself forward and places the painting on the counter. “I’d like…uhmm…I’m s-s-s-selling, that is…it’s—a Rupert Covington piece.”
The man’s shrewd eyes blink behind his spectacles. “Is it, now?”
A jolt in his chest. How much will the man offer? Two hundred pounds? Three? He tugs the paper off, his fingers suddenly in each other’s way, and presses it back to reveal thestarkly beautiful face that has haunted him for months. It moves him again just seeing her uncovered—the long, dark hair curling down a straight back, snapping eyes, and a perfect birthmark highlighting a delicate jaw…and a look as lost as his own. The only label on the piece isMerryn.
“Where did you get this?” Oddly enough, this man doesn’t belong here, either. His smooth dialect and expertly tailored suit label him a London opportunist newly settled in the Cornish holiday town of Penzance.
“I-i-in the cottage. The one—m-m-mine. I found it b-b-between the walls.” Why has his childhood stutter chosen this moment to reappear and tangle him up?
The man’s eyebrows rise. “You’ve a cottage in Newlyn, then? One of the artists’ places?”
“I-I-I no. It was g-g-given to me. By…” A stranger. Along with the house in which he found it. Yet he doesn’t wish to sound even more foolish, so he keeps this detail to himself.
The man’s eyebrows fly up, and William suddenly feels the wrongness of his mysterious inheritance. The oddness. “It’s only a cottage. In St. Ives.”
“St. Ives,” he mumbles. “That place is crawling withartists. Any one of them might have—” He sniffs, wiping his nose with a wrinkled handkerchief then stuffing the linen into his pocket. “It’s not likely a Covington. Why don’t you take it on back, then, and hang it somewhere nice?”
William frowns. Contrary to his gnarled beard and dirty hair, William was a man of substance once. “See here, it was s-s-signed. By him.” His words trip over themselves as badly as his fingers. How did he ever manage to do anything before?
The man places an eyepiece on the corner, leaning over the painting. “It does seem to be his signature,” the man admits. “But this cannot possibly be his work.”
Everything in William’s chest freezes. “What do you mean?” He hadn’t counted on this. For months he’d debated whether or not to part with the mysterious woman in white. But never did he think they wouldn’t believe him.
“Covington never painted portraits, Mr…ehhh.”
“W-W-W-William.”
“Mr. Williams.”
“Just William.” He straightens, his back strong.
Which earns the man’s pitying gaze. “Covington was known for capturing the Cornish coasts and equestrienne scenery. Not people. Andneverwomen.” He shoves it toward William. “I’m afraid it cannot be a Covington.”
“But what if it is?”
“If it were, it’d likely go for upward of twelve hundred—”
