When I told Jack I wouldn’t be taking his name, early in our engagement, he’d been so stricken I walked it back immediately. “I’m open to discussing it, of course,” I said, but he’d shaken his head. “You don’t understand. If you aren’t a Compton, legally, I can’t protect you. I’m afraid you won’t have a choice in this, darling. I’ll make it up to you though, I swear it.”
“We could hyphenate our children’s names.”
“Out of the question. My children will be Comptons. It’s how our lives are set up. It’s a legal thing, darling. You know how it is with these big ancestral estates. Draconian rules.”
The Hunter name isn’t without its own melodrama. Perhaps leaving it behind in service of marriage and children would clear my karmic debt and I’d be a whole new woman.
I eventually realized that by claiming the title and becoming the new Mrs. Compton, I would not only make Jack happy, which, at the time, was paramount, I could also banish the ghost of his first wife.
And he is happy right now, watching me closely as I initial each section and sign my name with a flourish, page after page after page. One last signature, one last initial, and it’s done. I hand the papers back to Maggie.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” she says, signing her own name as witness, embossing the page with a notary’s seal, adding the date, then tapping the papers together smartly so their pale blue edges are perfectly aligned. Amazing to think of the power in her hands. The money these family lawyers control.
I start to rise, but Jack puts a hand on my arm. “Hold on, darling.”
Now what?
Maggie sends a quick text on her phone and moments later a hidden door to our right opens. I jump. It’s as if the wall itself stretched and yawned, and people walked through its mouth. I shouldn’t be surprised, a house this large must have access corridors, but I am.
Jack’s parents step into the library, alongside a younger version of Brice with a deep tan and cold sable eyes. Poor Elliot looks tired. There is a man with them that I don’t recognize. He stays unobtrusively by the door.
“Elliot.” Jack jumps to his feet and shakes his little brother’s hand. “Good to see you.”
“You too, you too. Hey, Claire. How goes the great painting?”
There is always something so louche in Elliot’s tone when he speaks to me. It annoys Jack to no end; I can feel the tension running through him when Elliot drawls at me. I haven’t bothered to tell him Elliot hit on me at his wedding. He was drunk off his ass, and it was relatively harmless, but I’ve been on my guard with him since. He’s never acknowledged the event. Maybe he was so drunk he doesn’t remember. Maybe he’s not stupid enough to risk Jack’s wrath. I vote for the former.
“Hey, yourself. It goes, on and on and on.” Appreciative laughs, the piece I’m working on is another monstrosity. “Where’s Amelia?”
Ana Compton answers before Elliot has a chance. “She’s resting.”
Jack looks at Elliot curiously, but simply nods and smiles. It’s how the family dynamic goes, lots of nods and smiles and inside looks that are impenetrable to outsiders.
“We’ll see her later, I hope,” I say. I like Amelia. She’s the best part of Elliot, in my opinion.
Elliot coughs out a little laugh that sounds like “Yeah, right.” Uh-oh. Something has happened.
Ana though, glides over this with equanimity. She is dressed in a flowing Ted Baker silk dress and soft leather sandals, expensive gladiators in saddle and gold. Her sable hair is tied back, styled in an incongruously bouncy ponytail. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ana without a French twist screwed into place. The ponytail looks good on her. Takes five years off. Okay, ten.
Beside her, I feel disheveled, but Ana takes us in with nothing but delight on her beautiful, austere face.
She draws me in, smelling of Chanel No. 5 and Camel Lights. Ana’s thick hair swings around her neck and tickles my nose.
“Claire. My dear. Welcome to Villa la Scogliera.”
17
The Biometrics
Ana’s voice is a warm contralto, with the hint of an indefinable accent from her Continental upbringing. She looks and sounds like a young Sofia Loren. “Your trip in, it was good?”
“Very much so. The island, the Villa, they’re quite stunning. Thank you for letting us use The Hebrides, too. You’ve done too much, as always.”
“Oh, of course. They’ll be yours, too, soon enough.” Brice shoots Ana a look, somewhere between amusement and exasperation. She runs him a merry race, that’s for sure.
Jack is now enfolded into his mother’s arms, and Brice Compton holds out his arms for me. I step into them dutifully. It’s not that I don’t like Brice, I do. He’s just very intense. He has a new beard, the pale edges of it still stiff and tipped in palest strawberry blond, and the same strange scent he wears clings to him like a shroud.
“Money,” Katie said, when I told her about it. “He reeks of eau de money.”
As amusing as that quip was at the time, it’s not money Brice smells of. The scent is more earthy, as if he’s just stepped in from digging in the garden. Not entirely unpleasant, but strange. It strikes me, the earthy scent could very well be something organic in nature, though I’ve never smelled weed that reminds me of an open grave before.
“Welcome to the Villa, Claire,” Brice says. He squeezes my shoulders. “We are delighted to have you. You’re sure the trip over was okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good Lord, none of that. It’s high time you start calling me Brice. Or Dad.”
He doesn’t notice me wince. I can’t call anyone but my father Dad.
“Brice. Thank you. The Hebrides is gorgeous. And the Villa... I have no words.”
Elliot gives me a subtle thumbs-up. Brice appreciates understatement.
“Speaking of, Claire saw someone up on the cliff as we came in.” Jack says this casually, but there is a note in his voice that makes my spine straighten.
“You did?” Ana crosses her arms on her chest, her face suddenly strained. She peers at me, an eyebrow raised. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, I saw a white scarf fluttering in the breeze. I figured it was someone from the house, looking out for us to arrive. I’d forgotten—I was distracted by the bones.”
Ana looks at Brice, the glance so quick I almost miss it. What’s that about?
Jack doesn’t seem to notice. He massages my shoulder. “What an introduction to the island, right? I told Claire that we do come across remains from time to time—it’s the nature of the beast with an island that’s been populated for so long, especially one under a historical restoration.”