“Both,” she says honestly.
“Sounds like a real bastard. Not that most here won’t answer to that description. Still, I’ll keep my eye out. You want to leave your number?” She does not.
At last she concedes defeat. She could look again tonight, when the rougher side of London comes out to play, but she doesn’t think she’ll find him here.
As much as she hates to admit it, she needs help.
She’s out of options, with no idea where to look or what to do next. So she finally does what she always does when she’s in trouble. What she should have done from the beginning.
She calls Barry.
Chapter Twelve
The conversation is not an easy one. Holly doesn’t actually tell him everything (she hasn’t completely lost her mind), just what he needs to know. She says that there are complications keeping her in England. That long ago, when Jack was still recovering and she was in shock at the turn her life had taken, she fell into a short-lived affair with an old family friend. That when she conceived Eden so quickly, she panicked and let everyone assume it was Robert’s baby. That the father made it clear he wasn’t interested in sticking around, or providing any kind of support, and that she hasn’t kept in touch.
“But I need to find him now,” she says. “It’s important. And I don’t know where to start.”
On the other side of the Atlantic, Barry is quiet. She can almost hear his brain whirring. A daughter she’s never mentioned. An affair she never talked about. And now an old lover she urgently needs to find. What’s next? To his credit, he doesn’t ask.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says at last, and that’s all.
Barry has two personas: the shiny, public one he’s constructed where he’s everyone’s favorite guy and a quieter, more authentic one. So far as Holly knows, she and Jack, along with Barry’s wife and children, are the only ones who get to the latter. The price for getting behind the curtain is total trust on both sides, and now he’s realized she’s kept secrets all these years. That even when they first met, when they were at their most intimate, he had no idea who she really was. There’s no easy way past that. But she has no choice. She needs his help, in a way she never has before. She needs him to find Peter.
* * *
She’s pulling into the drive when the door opens and Jane flits down the steps. “Darling!” she cries. It’s an old family joke, but one with an edge. Barrie, unhappy about Wendy’s pending nuptials, added a clause to his will, stating only children with the Darling surname were eligible for future royalties from his works. Wendy kept her name, as have all her descendants. Holly would have chosen to be a Wightwick happily, but Robert—ever the practical one—persuaded her not to be foolish.
“Mother,” Holly says. She steps out of the car and leans into Jane’s embrace. Her mother smells like cold fresh air, clean and crisp. She draws her arm through Holly’s and leads her into the house.
“Whatever are you wearing? Don’t tell me you’ve finally succumbed to that dreadful American style?” Jane asks, eyeing the baseball cap Holly’s forgotten to take off. Jane’s own silver locks are neatly coiled into an elegant bun.
“No, I . . . I’m trying out a new product that makes your skin more sensitive to the sun. I didn’t want to burn,” she says lamely. She takes off the hat as they step into the cool darkness of the front hall. She pulls out the ponytail and runs her fingers through her hair.
“Goodness, much better.” Her mother releases her with a final squeeze. “Let me see you. Still as lovely as ever.”
“How was Surrey?” Holly says self-consciously.
“Beautiful. Bit boring though. We went to see the spring gardens, and the couple I was with had a horrid time keeping up. Quite disappointing, really. I met them through yoga, and I must say, you would think they’d be in better shape. But they did give me a remarkable bottle of whiskey. You must try it—I’ve put it in the library.”
She breezes down the hall ahead of Holly with the easy, carefree grace that marks her as the dancer she once was. The same grace Holly used to have, and misses every single day. She follows behind her tiny mother, trying not to feel ungainly.
“Where’s Jack?”
“I sent him out with the housekeeper. He’s looking so pale—I thought the air would do him good.” She catches Holly’s frown. “Darling, don’t worry—this isn’t your New York. It’s perfectly safe. And there are so many groceries on your list, poor Nan will never manage on her own.”
“Nan?”
“The housekeeper.”
At Holly’s raised eyebrows, Jane nods. “I know. I would have hired her anyhow—she’s really a wonder—but her name was quite the good omen, I thought.”
“Quite the coincidence, rather. Is that her real name?”
Jane lifts an elegant shoulder and lets it fall. “I haven’t the foggiest. Nancy, perhaps? But the original nanny—Wendy’s—was a Mary, you know. A proper Irish nursemaid by all accounts, always popping in and whisking Wendy off for a bath or a walk or some such. Sir Barrie simply loathed her. Making her the dog in the story was his petty revenge. ‘The nose of a bloodhound with the face to match,’ he’d say. ‘Whenever we’d get up to a spot of mischief, in she’d come.’ Anyhow, when I heard her name, I simply had to have her. Besides, she’s a marvelous cook, which turns out to be fortuitous. Do teenage boys truly eat that much?”
“You have no idea.” Holly sinks into the leather armchair across from her mother, suddenly exhausted.
“Well then, we shall have to impose upon poor Nan to stock the refrigerator with casseroles and roasts. It’s the only way he’ll survive. I’m afraid my cooking skills have not improved over the years. Now do try this. It’s not too early for you, is it?” Jane glances at the antique watch that adorns her slender wrist. “No, it’s definitely cocktail time. No excuses.” She hands Holly a cut-crystal glass and raises her own.
“To the Darling women, past, present, and future,” she says, as the portrait of Wendy gazes down on them from its place of honor above the mantel.
Holly clinks her glass against Jane’s and dutifully sips the whiskey. It’s vaguely illicit, sipping spirits in a dim library in the afternoon. Not the type of example she wants to set for Jack. But the whiskey does help to wash the taste of her morning away. Her mother is right—it is remarkable. She takes another sip. It burns on the way down.
Jane watches her for a moment. “Good, isn’t it?” she says, holding her glass up and turning it slowly in the light to admire the liquid’s color.
“Very,” Holly agrees. There’s a pleasant warmth spreading throughout her center. It belatedly occurs to her that she’s had nothing to eat all day. “I should get lunch,” she says, gesturing with her glass in the direction of the kitchen.
“Well,” her mother says, “I could fix some toast, I suppose. Or there might be a package of Hobnobs left in the pantry. But I’m afraid that’s it until Nan returns.”
Neither option appeals to Holly. Her mother pours more whiskey into her own glass, brings the bottle over to Holly.
“No, thank you,” she says, but Jane pours her a splash anyhow.
“Oh, don’t be such a prude,” she says. “Sit back and relax. A little whiskey won’t hurt you.”
It’s hard to argue with that, so Holly takes another sip. The whiskey is making it easier to forget that she’s hungry, easier to not think about everything that’s gone wrong in the last week. Easier not to worry.