Page 2 of The Dead Come to Stay
She emptied the whole box onto the tea tray, and by the timeshe reached the living room, the man was standing in front of her. Clean and tidy and now in proper lighting, he offered her the chance for a better look.
Face: full, square at the jaw. Hair: dark and wet, combed back behind the ears. Mud-flecked black trousers had been changed to another pair, also black. Rather baggy. The blue button-down shirt was damp at the collar.
“How long were you standing in the rain?” Jo asked. “You were very wet.”
“Sorry? “Oh. Yes. It’s—I didn’t have an umbrella.” He touched the curl at his temple with a wandering fingertip.
Had she been rude? She held out the plate of biscuits to offer him one. He gave her the smile again. Salesman smile, she thought, but his eyes settled on the Dodgers with evident pleasure.
“You’re out of the way, living up here.”
“Sort of. We’re close to the trails, though, and you can’t get any nearer the Jekyll Gardens.” Jo flapped a hand toward the window. “You’ll practically be on the doorstep for tomorrow’s opening ceremony.”
That had been the entire point of finishing preparations for renting the cottage by May: the Jekyll Gardens Opening Celebration. Jo may have lost her ancestral home to a fire, but finding out that it was built on a garden designed by the renowned Gertrude Jekyll... Well, it was one for the books. The falling-down house at the edge of town had suddenly become a site of national historical significance. The whole National Trust seemed to have checked into the Red Lion inn.
“You’re lucky,” Jo added, hugging her knees in the rocking chair. “I barely got the weblink up before you booked in—otherwise there’d be stiff competition for a room, I’d bet.”
He hadn’t answered either comment, or her attempt at a joke, just chewed a sticky biscuit and drank tea. Jo felt a prickle rundown her spine; was she not supposed to make chitchat? Wasn’t that part of hosting duties? He’d looked at the clock twice, but after swallowing, he refocused on her.
“I’m afraid I didn’t know about it. Just traveling through on business.”
“Oh! But you’re here at just the right time! The National Trust is opening the garden tomorrow—it’s where the manor house used to be. Big party!”
“Sorry, a manor? I didn’t see anything nearby...”
Jo jumped up and joined him by the window, pointing to the dark distance. “Well, you can’t really see it from here. But just beyond the trees is Ardemore House. What was once Ardemore House, at least.”
“So, it’s a ruin?” her guest asked, and gulped his tea.
“Well, it isnow. It was deserted for almost a century. The property wassupposedto be in the care of my uncle Aiden in the nineties, but he never really tended to it. Didn’t even live here, in fact.” Jo looked up to see her guest gaping at her and stopped short.
“So you are a newcomer to Yorkshire, then?” he asked. Jo almost laughed. He wasn’t exactly hanging on every word, was he?
“A yearling, I guess,” she admitted. “I came here to start over after my divorce and the death of my mom last year. I didn’t realize inheriting the estate would be so... complicated.”
She felt herself at risk of rambling again, so she pulled out her phone and flipped to her photo library. “Here’s the Ardemore Housebefore. Here it is after the fire last year, still smoking. I was inside it when it burned down.”
“You—What?”
Jo’s finger kept swiping through the pictures.“That’s the garden workmen over summer, and here is the original Gertrude Jekyll plan, andthis—” Jo stopped at last on the National Trust page “—this is the announcement of its opening tomorrow! I’m sort of, em—part of the—committee.”
Mr. Ronan Foley looked down dutifully at a bright summer green event ad: open time at 10:00 a.m., official ceremony at noon, under pavilion, rain or shine. He didn’t say anything. Again. And Jo felt her heart hammering. Uncertain about chitchat, she’d instead launched into full-blown special interest lecture.Nice, Jo.
Or was it her reference to the fire? She’d got used to everyone knowing about all of that; it had caused quite a commotion in Abington. There’d even been interviews for the paper.
“Very interesting.” His eyes roved about the room in a full circuit. Then he smiled, genuinely and wide. A surprised smile. “Well, it would be my pleasure to come.”
Crap, Jo thought. She’d got a hapless rain-soaked businessman who booked the cottageonlybecause he couldn’t get into a hotel... and now she’d accidentally invited him to the gardens.
“You know, you really don’t have to—” she began.
“No, I do. It’s a wonderful idea. So many locals will be there, new people to meet. You can expect me...” His eyes strayed to the enormous painting over the fireplace even as he spoke. “My goodness. Beautiful painting.”
Evelyn’s portrait. It would be hard to miss. The near-life-size painting took up most of the chimney. The gilt frame glinted, offering the perfect contrast to the moody scene within: a woman with strange, distant eyes, a face simultaneously demure and retiring, fierce and resistant. She sat against a backdrop of flowers—yet the sky was a haze of storm.
“Yes. Evelyn Davies,” Jo said. “An ancenstor.”
Do not recite your family history. Do not mention that she was buried under the house.
