The Painted Castle Read online

  “I said you can call me Emory.”

  “And I said I’m not going to call you anything, except a Yank who should think about enjoying his pint . . . and then get on with all possible speed.”

  He set the full pint glass to the side, the thin foam layer on top long ago fizzled out. “I never touch the stuff.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you’ve ordered it every night this week.”

  “Have I? Funny. I hadn’t noticed.” He smiled. Smooth, and a little too chill. Like he was playing a game she didn’t know the rules to and fully expected to win because of it.

  Keira peeked over her shoulder to find Cormac busy tending bar, but she knew better. He was watching them. What was more, they now had an audience. Locals who owned the precious real estate of ancient nail-head stools lining the bar front sat as a row of curious sweater vests and elbow-patch fisherman’s jackets, now drinking in their cozy corner scene like an audience for opening night at the theater.

  She pressed a palm to the tabletop and leaned in, dropping her voice. “Listen—the press has descended upon this place since word leaked about the 1916 Rising photos that were found at Cormac’s Ashford Manor estate last year. And my brother is too private for his own good, so if he thinks for one second you’re in that lot, he’ll escort you right out the front door and send you packing with the number to his publicist. So what should I tell him is the reason you’re still haunting our dining room? Because we both know it’s not for the pints.”

  Emory shrugged and clipped two chair legs back to the hardwood, the threat hollow enough to tempt him with little but to keep the game going. “I’m a paying customer. But to be honest, I’m debating whether to leave a scathing review online. Americans should be wary when they come in here, how tourists are treated and such.”

  Patience tested, Keira stared him down. “I told you on the first night, Mr. Scott, and that’s flat. My answer is no. I’m not accepting employment offers just now.”

  “I’m not the type to give up easily.”

  “Neither am I. So hadn’t you better find another prospective employee who won’t toss your card in the rubbish bin?”

  Emory slid a business card across the table with an index finger, like it had been itching to jump out of his hand. “Lucky I had a few extra printed, just in case.”

  The sleek blue-gray and black embossed card reflected a rectangle of polish to contrast the rustic wood table, but Keira made no move to reach for it.

  “Look, I’m not trying to bother you, Miss Foley. But considering your job ended in New York and you’ve found yourself back under the thumb—forgive me, but an overbearing lot—of egocentric male family members, I would think you may be open to employment offers. At least one with better working conditions.”

  Caution warned Keira to retreat a step.

  This Scott Enterprises chap knew more than could be attained through a simple social media search. No one outside of her family knew she’d just come home after things fell apart in New York, and few in Dublin knew the family history well enough to inquire about why she’d returned home to Ireland after a years-long hiatus from the family’s cozy Irish holidays. If he was wise to all that, then he’d done some digging. And just how deep did the shovel descend?

  No more games.

  “You have about five seconds left before my brother endeavors to escort you out the front door by the seat of your trousers, Mr. Scott. Cormac’s a steady chap, but even he has his limits, and you’re testing them.”

  Emory tapped an index finger to the reclaimed-wood tabletop, calculating something. “Fine. Answer me this and I’ll go—are you the same Keira Foley, doctoral candidate writing a dissertation on the link between painter Franz Xaver Winterhalter and a supposed lost portrait of Queen Victoria?”

  Keira’s throat tightened. That was one chapter she’d hoped was buried for good. Whatever this Mr. Scott was aiming for, she didn’t like that it involved unearthing things she’d have preferred remained underground. “Your point?”

  “I’m in the art business.” He paused and tilted his head to the side. “So was it you?”

  “It got me fired. But yeah. That was me.”

  His brow twitched. “How could a dissertation get you fired?”

  Keira buttoned her lip. Not going there. That story was a closed book on a high shelf, and she wasn’t pulling it down for the likes of him.

  “Okay, don’t answer that. But did you really believe there’s a painting out there—a sister to the infamous 1843 portrait Winterhalter painted of the queen, shall we say, in a more relaxed pose than was acceptable at the time?”

  “A portrait of a woman with hair unbound, showing off a little shoulder action—meant as a private gift for her husband, mind you—isn’t the least bit scandalous.”

  “It is if you’re a queen.”

  Keira rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake. You make it sound dirty. There are any number of paintings you might mention to accomplish that without tarnishing Queen Victoria’s legacy.”

  “Legacy, is it?” He sat back in his chair, the wood creaking as he pressed his shoulders in a casual lean against the wall. “And what, Miss Foley, do you know of legacy?”

  “I don’t have time for this.”

  “Come now. You’re a researcher. I’m sure the temptation of a name on a business card would be too much to ignore—especially for you. Tell me what you know.”

  “You flatter yourself.”

  “And yet you know you want to . . . Go ahead.” He folded his arms across his chest with a smile. “Zing me back.”

  She took a deep breath.

  Zing away.

  “Fine. You were the curator at the Farbton in Vienna when a Klimt went missing four years ago—an irreplaceable portrait dubbed Empress. Investigators suspected the theft was an inside job but didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute any gallery staff for the crime. So Empress vanished into thin air, the file remains open, and your name is tainted in the art world as a result. You have no home. A family who’s all but disowned you. You’re not received in any art circles in Vienna, Paris, London, or New York. And it seems the only establishment in the world that would put up with your cheek is a Dublin pub where your exploits at thievery are presently unknown—save for the barmaid who isn’t the least bit impressed with a winning smile.”

  Keira eyed him, watching for a flinch of the brow that never happened. She crossed her arms over her chest to mirror his posture and lifted her chin. Well? Good as you gave, Mr. Scott. Better, actually.

  “A winning smile? Is that your opinion or the internet’s?”

  “That’s all you took from that speech?”

  He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Why? What do you want me to take from it?”

  “I’d suggest you find another girl to listen to your fairy tales, Mr. Scott. I’m afraid I’m completely booked at the moment.”

  Emory nodded. And grinned. Enough that she could almost feel Cormac’s frown intensify from across the room.

  “That’s why it has to be you.”

  “Why what has to be me?”

  He pulled an envelope from his inside jacket pocket and slid it across the table next to the business card.

  “Framlingham, England. Next Saturday. Five thousand euros just for showing at this address. Another five after the work is done. You decide not to take the job and we part ways then and there—no questions asked. But I can promise you, this is one fairy tale you won’t want to miss.”

  Emory stood, straightening his height against her lack of it. He took a sip of the deep amber liquid, grimaced, and set the pint glass back on the table. “That stuff is terrible, by the way.”

  “You’re asking for a clip on the jaw if you say that in here. Or anywhere in Dublin, mind.”

  He nodded, accepting her quip without an ounce of wounded pride. He took a handful of euros from his jeans pocket and tossed the pile of paper leaves on the table. “Tell your brother he can keep the change for t
he trouble,” he whispered, then stared down at her in the firelight. “And I expect, Miss Foley, a fight will find me no matter what I do.”

  Two

  September 23, 1944

  Parham Hill Estate

  Framlingham, England

  “Milady?” Darly tapped Amelia Woods’s elbow, attempting to draw her attention from the hive she was inspecting.

  “I thought I requested you please stop calling me milady? It’s ridiculous.” Amelia spotted the queen bee, keeping an eye trained on the activity of workers marching over the frame. They bustled around, tiny legs and wings glistening in the rays of early morning sun.

  “Ridiculous or not, they’re here.” The old beekeeper tipped his chin in the direction of military-green trucks dusting up the road. He slipped a mahogany pipe between his teeth and turned his wrist over, inspecting the face of his watch. “And just shy of eight o’clock it is.”

  Amelia nodded. If trucks were headed for the front gate, then they must hurry.

  No time for this now.

  She placed the wedge top bar frame back in its pine box home. Pulling the veil over her head, Amelia drew in a deep breath of the crisp air—so different from the coal-dusted air of London—loving how the bliss of it lingered in a mist over East Suffolk a bit longer in the mornings at that time of year.

  “Well, I’d say we’ll have our autumn blossom honey by week’s end. But we’ll have to harvest the propolis first—think it’s ready?”

  Darly inspected the uniformity of caps on the frame and nodded. “I’ll tell the children to be ready for harvesting maybe by tomorrow or Monday next. As soon as you’ve settled the new arrivals in the manor, I’d wager Liesel will wish to begin lining up our honey crocks in the kitchen. But tell them we’ll have honey cakes by then, and you’ll have every child ready to harvest before sunup.”

  “Honey cakes? You talk as though it’s still 1938. Honestly.” Amelia picked up their tools, wiping off the brush and capping knife on her coveralls. “I can’t make much out of what we are allowed, let alone cakes that won’t last the week. Why, I’m surprised you can still smoke a pipe these days. You seem to live in a dream world that isn’t rationed at all.”

  “Smoke keeps them bees calm.”

  “Henry Darlington—the pipe is more about keeping you calm and you know it. But I still haven’t a clue where you manage to find an endless supply of tobacco after more than four years of war. If rationing rules are that easy to skirt past, I’d much prefer the children to be able to see some benefit from it. Extra flour. Butter. Heavens, even bacon rashers more than a pound if we’re dreaming. Anything you can procure to put a little weight on Luca.”

  Luca. Among the littlest of the children. The one wounded inside with memories he might never forget . . . If only a good meal could fix all things.

  Darly seemed to read her thoughts and smiled. “I shall do me best then.”

  Amelia eyed him in return, speculation winning. “If that’s confirmation of some sort of East Suffolk black market . . . then I don’t want to know a thing about it.”

  “Squire Darly at your service. Always at your service, your ladyship.”

  The old gent bowed to her. And used the title Amelia had so often asked him to forgo. It was silly to be putting on airs of grandeur when she hadn’t worn a title more than a blink. But he presented it as if he were a duke in the king’s throne room instead of standing in a pasture in the frayed, moss-green elbow-patch sweater he always wore and Wellingtons liberally caked with field mud.

  “One day, Uncle, I shall convince you to wear a veil and protect that priceless hide of yours. And perhaps a sweater that doesn’t give such a convincing impression of a moldy swiss? If you have ration coupons left, why don’t you use them to purchase one of those lovely tweed jackets you’re always going on about?” She pushed back a smile.

  It was a tease, of course. Darly’s endearing combination of selflessness and eccentricity was unmatched, and the ratty scrap of a sweater he wore as they inspected the hives each morning only made him a rarer character.

  And she adored him for it.

  “Tweed will have its day again soon. Just wait. And wearing a veil would only toss a wrench in cogs that already turn in quite splendid fashion, milady. I propose we go on as we ought.”

  Amelia laughed and turned back to the manor. “Come along then, Your Grace,” she said with notable cheek. “Let us see to our new arrivals.”

  Rays of light scarcely had time to climb behind the willows, but when they did and the sun was high over the pastures at midday, their Parham Hill landscape would come alive. The earthy smell of alfalfa . . . the perfume of sweet astilbe and English violets and white hawthorn hidden in the hedgerow along the tree line . . . the spicy backdrop of autumn clove. The sun would burn off the thick morning mist while the bees took over the orchards, searching for the ripe sweetness of apples that had tumbled from the trees and lay in latent piles on the ground.

  And maybe another autumn in wartime wouldn’t seem so grim because of it.

  East Suffolk whispered of old English romance.

  Amelia had been smacked with it the first time she stepped from her husband’s auto to the front gate of his family estate. And how a humble coal miner’s daughter and bookshop clerk living in London found herself a viscountess and mistress of a grand estate? She could scarcely understand that step up herself.

  The land stretched out as far as the eye could see, yawning with rock walls and waves of green pastures spanning the landscape. Thatched-roof cottages dotted the hills. Arthur said the expansive manor house had seen better days, of course, when the windows gleamed and the gardens were tended with expert care. But at the time, there had been whispers. Too many of them, that war was coming soon . . . Who thought to repair a manor house in need when the world threatened to fall apart? They’d had each other, and that’s what mattered.

  Now an Allied air base was a stone’s throw over the rise. Amelia could almost imagine it wasn’t there at all. She chose to remember the seasons would change in Framlingham as they always had, but she’d pretend there was no war in the middle of it. No rows of bullet-riddled B-17s. No monstrous sounds penetrating the sky at night. No reason for rationing or blackout fabric pulled tight over bedchamber windows. Just the buzz of bees and crisp morning walks through the pasture, accompanied by an old uncle-in-law who’d become a dear friend.

  Amelia had to sigh. Arthur’s prediction had finally come true; his estate had grown on her—and blossomed in her heart. After all they’d been through in a war that was wearing everyone thin, Amelia found in the midst of it roots had grown in a place that once had felt so far above her, and now it was just home.

  Pity the understanding of it came years too late.

  The first waves of Yanks changed everything when they arrived in January 1942.

  Their “flying fortresses” invaded the skies like great winged beasts, and Amelia had to remind herself that it was but a good thing to look up and see them flying in formation over the estate. With the planes the flyboys brought decks of playing cards, pinup photos, stomachs that hadn’t seen hunger like the average Englishman had for nigh onto three years, and enough bravado to think they could triumph over Hitler just by staring him down flat.

  They brought all that and . . . noise.

  Amelia rounded the hill with Darly but quickly lost him to his arthritic knees as she sped up, after having spotted a remarkable scene unfolding at the front gate.

  Truck engines had been cut flat, but that did nothing to detract from the riotous hooting and hollering of their occupants. A steady stream of GIs hopped down from open truck beds, unloading military-issue bags and bedrolls like they were moving in . . . to her home.

  “Pardon me?” Amelia approached the first in the line of trucks, waving her arms to gain someone’s attention. “What are these trucks about? And all these men?”

  A driver spotted her, winked, and went about looking over a few sheets of paper on a c
lipboard in his lap, as if she were no more than a passing wind.

  “You there—” She countered with hands on her hips and bounced up on tiptoe to look into the driver’s side window. “What is all this?”

  The redheaded driver opened the door and swung his legs over as he leaned out. He was a young chap, freckle-nosed and wide-eyed, and couldn’t have been much more than twenty. He took an unconcerned drag from the hand-rolled cig hanging off his lower lip like an old pro. “Orders, ma’am.”

  Amelia bristled inside. He couldn’t be but a few years younger than she but was treating her as if she were an old country madam who couldn’t possibly understand or even question an operation unfolding on her land, even if it was handed down by the United States military.

  Such nonchalance about her home. Her life. And what remains of Arthur’s world.

  “Orders? What orders?”

  “The 390th has an overflow,” he said, his southern drawl a shade more pronounced, and tugged one of the papers from the clipboard to offer it to her.

  Amelia scanned the typeset words.

  Indeed, the telegram’s explanation appeared final:

  The United States Army has an overflow at the Framlingham Castle base . . .

  Sending officers from the 570th and 571st squadrons of the 390th Bombardment Group to board at the Parham Hill Estate through the winter campaigns. List follows . . .

  Rations will be increased to account for the demand . . .

  She shook her head. This wouldn’t do. They were packed to the gills as it was. How were they going to accommodate—she looked up, tried to count a tangle of fatigues unloading crates from trucks and muscling supplies to her front door—some two dozen flyboys? Where was she to procure rooms, beds, and provisions on top of the scrimp-and-save lifestyle they employed to care for the children during wartime?

  “I’m expecting children to arrive from the Brockhurst Academy in Lakenheath any day now, and we’re struggling to accommodate even six more mouths to feed. No one said anything to me about the United States Army requesting to bunk squadrons of grown men at a country school.”