“Oh, never mind,” she said.
“Okay!” Laurel shrugged cheerfully. “Well, let’s get a move on! That wine can’t be poured too quickly!”
Annie shook her head and silently trailed after her mom, staring at Laurel’s birdlike back in confusion. All this time she wanted more information about her dad but it seemed Laurel wasn’t so thoroughly known herself. Some safety net. Damned thing was full of holes.
Forty-two
THE GEORGE & DRAGON
BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND
NOVEMBER 2001
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite half-storyteller,” Annie said, taking a stool beside Gus at the bar. “Hiya, Ned, what’s cooking?”
“Hello, Annie. Fine day, isn’t it?”
Lord help her, she was a regular. Annie tossed her backpack to the ground.
“It’s fair,” she said. “Though I expect the weather to turn to shit at any moment. So, Gustavo, what’s going on?”
“Gustavo?” The man scowled. “Have we met? Because you look exactly like an amiable young lady with whom I’m acquainted. But you are lacking in her good graces.”
“Been hanging out with you too much, I s’pect,” Ned said.
He pushed a beer toward her and went to help a patron at the far end of the bar.
“So I have a question,” Annie said and sipped her beer.
Ned had given her a new kind to try, something with a dark amber hue. Four years of college and it took hanging out with some geezer in a pub to make her enjoy the taste of beer.
“Actually I have several questions,” she said. “But let me start with one. Can you think of any possible reason a person might lie about the Grange?”
“In what way did they lie?”
“This person said it was gone, razed, when obviously it’s not.”
Gus swiveled to face her.
“Someone claimed it was gone?” he said. “Who?”
“Oh. This random person I bumped into at the inn. A stranger, apparently.”
“Apparently?” Gus took a sip of his own beer, though the glass was mostly drained. “Can’t say, really, without knowing the context. Razing is the ultimate plan, though. Maybe this ‘random’ got his or her wires crossed. Or is anxious to buy a miniestate when they go for sale.”
“Is that a definite?” Annie asked. “That they’ll bulldoze the property? I thought you were only speculating about the developers.”
“No, they’re trying to get their grubby paws in there as soon as practicable. Sadly for them, there’s been a holdup with the permit, a local fussbudget is trying to have it designated as a historical site.”
Annie thought of the first thing she’d stolen, the note tacked onto the front gate. “Application for Grade II building: House. Early 18th century. Coursed limestone and ironstone rubble…”
“Alas, the Grange is changing hands as we speak,” Gus added.
“What do you mean changing hands?” Annie asked, looking at him cross-eyed. “Like, it’s on the market? Up for sale?”
“Not in the traditional sense, with estate agents and whatnot. Could you imagine an open house? Straight from any homebuyer’s nightmare. Anyway, yes, it’s being sold—in a private transaction.”
“Private transaction?” Annie said, heart thwacking in her chest. “What kind of private transaction?”
“The money kind? I’ll sell you my land and you give me a few quid? Is that not how it works stateside?”
“The permit,” she said. “It delayed the sale?”
Had it also impeded American ex-lawyers? Ones who sat in meetings all day while ignoring aimless daughters? Because when Annie heard the words “delayed” and “transaction” she could only think of Laurel.
“Yes, it’s held up the sale for some weeks now,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“The woman I met. I think she is part of the transaction. Maybe a seller.”
“Did she say that?”
“In a way.”
“Who was it?” Gus asked, voice coming out like bullets. “Did she give a name? What did she look like?”
“Blond,” Annie said. “Petite. American, like me.”
Was it possible?
Was Laurel’s property the Grange itself? It was family land, she’d claimed. Could Laurel be related to the duchess? Or to Edith Junior? Or to Tom or Win?
“Who inherited the property when the duchess died?” Annie asked.
“I mentioned before, Mrs. Spencer didn’t bequeath it to any one person. It’s held in a blind trust by a variety of parties. Did you get this woman’s name? The petite American?”
“What about Win?”
Annie thought of the address from the transcripts, the same address etched into the luggage tag perpetually tucked in her pocket. She carried it around now, like a talisman, a piece of good luck.
“Does Win own the Grange?” she pressed.
“No,” Gus said. “Win Seton does not own the Grange.”
“Is there a way I could get in contact with him?”
“Why would you want to do that? I told you—”