Did it? So many lies, Annie couldn’t even keep how she felt about them straight.
“Well, do you have something there?” Gus asked. “For your thesis?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Most people didn’t believe him, you know,” Gus said. “The author.”
“Believe him about what?”
“About her title. About her love for the duke and their doomed romance. His thesis was never really proved, which was probably the prime reason his book was such a spectacular bomb.”
He said this almost happily, with a notable spark of Schadenfreude. Gus was glad for this man’s failure.
“Do you know him?” Annie pointed to the name on the cover. “Seton?”
“I did. We all did. Alas, the man who wrote that book is long since gone.”
“Oh.” She frowned.
“Chin up! Nothing morbid. Unfortunately for the poor bastard. He simply … moved on.”
“Moved on to where?”
“Not through the pearly gates, if that’s what you’re imagining,” Gus said. “No, the old fellow went to Paris in 1973 and in Paris he remains.”
“So you do know him?”
“That man is unknowable.” Gus glowered. “We were acquainted at one time but he’s now hazy in my mind. He first came here, to Banbury, from London in … let’s see…” He squinched his eyes. “Around Christmas 1972. Have you reached the part where the duchess despises Christmas?”
“I haven’t.”
“Yes. Christmas 1972. Seton wasn’t too well received, by the duchess or anyone else. Can’t fault them for it. He was the exact kind of arsehole you’d expect.” Gus gave a little grunt. “Young. Spoiled. Thinking he had tremendous literary talent. His parents were tired of his unfulfilled ambitions. They wanted him to get a real job. This book was his last attempt at a career. Not sure the poor bastard ever succeeded at a single damned thing he tried.”
“So you guys were the best of pals, I gather.”
Gus scowled.
“No. ‘Pal’ is not the word I’d use.”
“I was only kidding…”
“You have the book,” Gus said. “Which means you have one side of a very multisided tale. I can help, if you want the full story.”
The full story Annie wanted was of her mother, but she felt intrigued. Though Gus was probably nothing more than a blathering drunkard, Annie had an afternoon to kill. To spend it gabbing about duchesses with the so-called Earl of Winton wasn’t too bad of a prospect. Maybe there was a bit of a researcher in her yet.
“You know what, Gus?” she said. “I’d love to hear the whole story. If you have time. I am suddenly awash in it myself.”
“Brilliant!” His face lit up. “Ned!” He signaled to the bartender. “Another cider! What are you having?”
“Just tea.”
“Two pints,” he said. “Well, Annie, the first thing you must know is the author came to town thinking he had the inside track on the missing duchess. Everyone else thought she was dead. But when the fellow arrived at the duchess’s home someone else was already there. Her name was Pru. And wouldn’t you know it? She was an American, like all good interlopers tend to be.”
Six
GRAYCLIFFE
NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND
OCTOBER 1972
Gus began his story in Newport, nearly a decade before Annie was born.
Picture an old woman, he said, sitting in an ornate, drafty home beside the sea. Before her is a young girl. The girl is beautiful, all light and gossamer. Though she is luminous, she is also unsteady, glinting like a candle’s flame.
“So you’ve come for the job,” the old lady said.
“Yes,” answered the young woman, who went by Pru. “I found it in the paper.”
She was nineteen years old, a bookish girl who left university after only one year to get married. In April she learned there would be no marriage and so Pru had spent the prior six months addled, confused, bumping around as if lost in a pinball machine. But in her purse was the newspaper ad that might finally help her land.
WHITE COLLAR GIRL NEEDED. Oxfordshire, England. Personal assistant req’d for cultured older woman living alone. 400 dollars per month and free board. No exp necessary. Only a love of literature and the English countryside.
The girl matched the admittedly slim requirements. She had the right experience, which was none, and did love books. Though she’d never been to England, Pru recognized this post as the answer, the precise action she needed to take. It was time to go away, to travel far. The Atlantic Ocean was the distance she ached for.
“I can give you references,” Pru said when the woman didn’t respond. “I’m a literature fiend and I’m close with the—”
“How old are you? Twenty if you’re a day.”
The woman was the niece of the would-be charge, but seemed far too old to call anyone aunt. Regardless, she’d evidently drawn the short end of the family stick and was responsible for dickering with the old bat in England. Best to foist caretaking duties onto a stranger for some nominal fee. What was money for if not for that?