“As your counsel, I advise against it.”
Laurel lifted the clothes from her suitcase, then refolded them and placed them into drawers. She lined her toiletries in the washroom, the little bottles standing at attention like soldiers. Annie wished her mom would leave her luggage momentarily unpacked, enjoy the change of scenery for at least a minute or two. But with Laurel there was always something to be done.
“I can’t find the converter,” Laurel said, as Annie leaned back onto her elbows with an extra large sigh. “Did you grab it? I need to charge my phone.”
“Should be in my carry-on.”
“That’s right. I saw you put it in there.”
As Laurel reached toward the bag, Annie remembered what she’d stashed inside. She sprang from the bed.
“Wait!” Annie yelped. It was the fastest she’d moved all week.
“Good grief, Annie, you almost knocked me over.”
“I’ll get it. Here.”
She handed her mom the power converter as Laurel’s battered copy of The Missing Duchess shifted down into the bottom of Annie’s backpack.
“Okay…” Laurel said, one eyebrow raised. “Thanks.”
Would she be mad about the book? It was hard to guess, but on the train from Heathrow, Annie asked about it. Laurel’s response was puzzling, mostly because it wasn’t a response at all.
“What book?” she’d asked.
Their relationship wasn’t perfect but usually Laurel treated Annie with truthfulness and respect, nameless fathers notwithstanding. This was a woman who, when asked by her kindergartner whether storks had to carry twins one at a time, treated the child to a full rundown of the vagaries of procreation. Laurel never shielded her daughter from anything, even when Annie preferred to stay in the dark.
Of course, there was the question of her father so Laurel was known to skim the tough parts of a story.
“What book?” Annie parroted as they bumped through the countryside. “That book. The book book. From … home.”
“I’m pretty sure we have more than one book,” Laurel said. “We could open a used bookstore with what you’ve brought home in the last month.”
“No, this is your book. The blue one. It’s old.”
“I have a lot of old books in my office.”
“You were holding it last night?” Annie tried.
“Hmm.” Laurel shrugged. “Probably picked it up along the way, like most things in that ancient house.”
Annie nodded but wasn’t buying it. There was something about that book.
In twenty years she could scarcely remember Laurel reading anything other than legal briefs, the Wall Street Journal, or guides to management effectiveness passed on by a boss. Laurel had a collection of first editions lining her library walls but she’d never taken one out, as far as Annie knew. Moodily clutching books about duchesses was Annie’s style, not her mom’s.
The book felt familiar though, more so by the hour. Distracted by days and miles and the ache of missing Eric, Annie closed her eyes and tried to pull up the memories. They jammed somewhere behind her eyes.
“I was thinking,” she said as Laurel bustled around their room, bumping into desks and lamps, unaccustomed to the tight Banbury space. “I’ll stay here until you get back. I feel like … reading.”
“Good plan. There’s a fireplace down in the library. Might be just the spot to crack open a book and have some tea.”
“Or be force-fed Banbury cakes,” Annie added with a smirk.
“Nicola is indeed inexplicably jazzed about currants and puff pastries.” Laurel picked up her phone. “Well, that was helpful. Not charged at all. Do you mind if I leave it here? I don’t want to strand you but it’s about to die.”
“If there are any emergencies I can figure out what to do. Nicola seems conscientious. She won’t let me die in a fire or get coerced into any cults.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“So, go! Scat!” Annie said, wiggling her fingers, suddenly itchy to be alone. “Be gone with you!”
Laurel gave her a worried smile, as if she were hesitant to leave her daughter, twenty-two and engaged to a man she hardly knew. They were in a new town and Annie might find herself lost in more ways than one. Alas, Laurel had stuff to do and Taking Care of Business was her greatest skill.
After reapplying a new coat of lipstick, Revlon Tickled Pink, in production since 1983, Laurel grabbed her handbag and scooted out into the hallway. The door had not even clicked when Annie shot across the room and rescued The Missing Duchess from the bottom of her bag.
“What book, my ass,” she mumbled, lifting the cover.
She turned to the first chapter and began to read.
In human relationships she offered nothing but an offensive arbitrariness, pursuing people in a flattering and ensnaring fashion, only so as to be able to break off with them noisily when the fancy struck her.—Art historian Bernard Berenson, on the Duchess of Marlborough
“Sounds delightful.” Annie snorted. She read the first sentence.
I arrived to Banbury on a Tuesday.