The coins are gone. The artist who might authenticate the portrait, hiding.
But perhaps he shouldn’t have bothered looking for Rupert Covington at all. One other person can authenticate that painting—the subject herself. And they are, in some way, connected. He just isn’t certain how.
He should return to Newlyn. This time with different questions. Artists are a talkative lot, especially when it comes to local lore. With any luck he will find out where this woman with the lost look—is she drowning in memories too?—has gone.
Is she still lost?
Chapter 12
Merryn, 1913
Wearelost.
We stand before twisting roads with rows of sloping thatched roofs casting long shadows. Chilly nights give me that eerie, oddly hollow and vulnerable feeling. I grip AJ’s arm, probably too hard.
“Let’s make a list,” he says amiably, “of all the things wedohave.”
“Such as?”
He points to my sandy carpet bag. “Dry clothes. A few, at least.”
We changed out of our wet things in a cave, one at a time, and my heart thumped at the scandal of it until the simple frock covered my undergarments completely.
“Your turn.”
I clench my teeth. “A view that is unrestricted by troublesome things like walls and roofs.”
“That’s the spirit! An entire wedding trip yet before us. Adventures, new memories…and hopefully old ones too. What else do we have?”
“Questions. I have questions, AJ. Such as…where willwe sleep tonight?”
“I’ve secured a lovely tower room in ye castle yonder.” He waves toward a modest stone inn crouched high up on the hill above.
“Paid, I hope?”
“Credit is a marvel of the age. It isn’t as if we’ll be poor forever—just until the inheritance comes in.”
“AJ, we can’t put off our notes that long. They’ll never allow it.”
But he seems not to hear me. We make our way up the steep walk to the cozy rooming house, whose “tower room” turns out to be a shared attic space, which is wonderfully prudent of him. But we’re turned away the moment AJ admits we cannot pay yet.
“I need charity meself!” huffs the woman. “I can’t be goin’ and givin’ it out now, can I?”
So AJ hustles me on to the next option where we haven’t a reservation, and we’re met with the same answer. Back out in the spreading darkness, AJ brightens with a brilliant idea. Itmustbe brilliant, since it’ll take a miracle to find us a roof for the night.
“I’d give you the moon if I could, and the stars for diamonds in your hair.”
I bite my lip.
“What’s the grandest place in all the town?” He inhales deeply and leads me through the streets, past several respectable rooming houses, toward a great white pillared affair called the Hotel Montpellier, perched alone on a great cliff overlooking a steep drop down to the water…then right past it.
“Where are you taking me?”
He takes my hand and we feel our way down the rocky cliffside, natural stone steps that wind right down to the beach, then turns toward the cliff. “I give you…a night beneath the stars.” His smile glows, even in the dimness. Rocks sitting at a severe angle part to show a pitch-black hole between them.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “A cave. Acave?”
“And you thought you’d be the one supplying all the excitement in this marriage.”
