It Started With A House: Lizzie. Book 1 (The Westport Mysteries) (5 page)

Chapter Five

After
Danny left I was a bit bored. I couldn’t do anything that required getting
dirty, which pretty much ruled out doing anything around here, so I decided to
go and see how Riley was getting on. I had heard him return from the hardware
store but he’d been pretty quiet for the last half hour. I wandered up to the
attic to check out what was happening and
 
found Riley sitting on the floor with a couple of floorboards
lying loose around him.

“What are you
doing?” I asked.

He jumped.

Ha! Good to see
I can sneak up on him as well.

“I was fixing
this loose board and found this,” he said, handing me a small black velvet box.

Sitting on the
floor beside him, I opened the box and was surprised to find the most exquisite
white gold, diamond engagement ring I had ever seen. The diamond must have been
at least a carat but what made it unique was the band - lots of scrollwork and
encrusted with diamonds.

“Wow,” I said,
breathlessly. “Is that all that’s under there?” I asked, hoping it would be
accompanied by a note explaining how it got there. Riley pulled up another
board and started to look through the years of dust and dirt hidden under the
boards. Pulling out a pile of letters tied together with ribbon, he handed it
all to me whilst he took another look.

“Oh, good,” I
sighed. I hated mysteries. I’m one of those people who likes everything to be
written in black and white, in clear uncomplicated instructions. For example, I
was hoping the first of these letters would tell me who they belonged to and
why they were hidden. Of course that’s not how this story goes, though. Nothing
in life is ever that easy.

“That’s it. That’s
all there was,” said Riley, sitting back and looking at me. I already had the
ribbon untied and was carefully extracting the first letter from its envelope. It
was addressed to someone named Avis.

“I think Avis
was the name of the lady who previously owned this house,” I explained. As
Riley leaned over my shoulder to look at the letter, I felt my pulse kick up a
notch.

“Maybe they’re
from her lover,” smiled Riley. I looked up at him and once again felt my brain
cells frying. Riley has the most amazing smile I’ve ever seen. It’s like the sun
- outshining anything in its orbit. I was going to have to work on my immunity
to it or I could see I would be brain dead before the two weeks was up.

Shaking myself
back to the reality in front of me, I thought back to the sale of this house. I
had bought it at auction and from memory the contract was with a solicitor
somewhere in the city.

“Maybe. I’m
pretty sure a trustee sold the house. I was under the impression the previous
owner had no family to leave it too,” I said, ignoring the palpitations I was
getting as Riley reached over and took the rest of the letters from me.

Looking down at
the paper in my hands, I noticed how the pages had yellowed with age and saw
the lovely scrolled handwriting on the envelope.

“This one
contains a photo,” said Riley, handing me an old black and white image of two people
standing outside the front door to this house. The door hadn’t changed in all
these years; the glass panels were still the same but it just had less dry rot
and a better paint job then.

Both people in
the photo were on the small side. The lady, who I assume to be the previous
owner Avis, was wearing a knee-length dark colored skirt and pale, long-sleeved
jacket pulled in around a very small waist. The man was in a dark suit, a tie
and a trilby hat. They looked like the perfect couple.

“They look so happy.”
I smiled, taking the photo as Riley opened the pages wrapped around it. I
forgot all about the pages in my hands as I watched him silently read the
contents of a letter. His eyes moved from side to side as he read, amusement dancing
in his eyes at the words. When he finished, he looked up at me and caught me
staring at him.
Oops
.

Quickly looking
back at the photo in an attempt to hide my glowing cheeks, I thought about the
couple smiling back at me. Something about them made me want to know their story
and, as much as I hated mysteries, I did love a good story. Excitedly, I opened
the pages and started to read.

My Darling Avis,

Why? Why do they not accept us? Why do they hate us
so? These are the questions that keep me awake at night. I live them, I breathe
them, I even dream of them. The only time I’m not thinking of them is when I’m
thinking of you. I pray that the answers will come to me, because if I can
answer these questions, then maybe we can be together. That’s the only time
that I am truly happy.

Have strength
my love, I won’t give up.

Will.

“Wow. I wonder
why they weren’t accepted.” I thought, looking at the photo again.

 
“I wonder how long these have been
hidden under here,” said Riley, wiping the dust off of the rest of the
envelopes. I watched as he counted them. Twelve. There were twelve letters in
total. One by one, we carefully opened the envelopes, pulled the yellowed paper
from its hiding place and read the contents. By the time we’d finished, I sat
back, rested my back against the wall and let out a deep breath. We were still
none the wiser as to how or why this had all been hidden.

“We probably
should try to find out who the ring belonged to and return it to them,” I said,
looking at the ring as it stared back at me from the black velvet bed in the dusty
old box. This ring had a story to tell. One I’m sure didn’t end happily.

“Maybe we could
talk to your neighbors. They probably knew Avis and might be able to give us
some pointers on where to start looking.”

Sitting here
with Riley was really quite fun, and I was starting to get used to the room
feeling much smaller whenever he was in it. We’d sat there for about an hour
now, and even though I had absolutely no make-up on, I didn’t feel
self-conscious at all. Let me tell you, that’s quite unusual for me. Most of
the time I’m around good-looking men, I act like a mute idiot.

However, the
screeching of the doorbell rudely interrupted my afternoon of history and
fantasy. Wondering who the hell it was, I looked at my watch and realized it
was already five o’clock.
Shit
.

Running down
the stairs, I opened the door to a very confused Scott. In his defense, he’d
been expecting to find me completely made up and wearing a red dress. Instead,
here I stood in my old flannel shirt and jeans, hair perfectly styled in a half-up-do
and completely devoid of make-up.

“You’re
not
ready?” he asked incredulously.

“Um…not quite,”
I answered, moving aside as he stepped in. “But it won’t take me long.” I gave
him my biggest smile hoping that would put him in a better mood. I should have
known better.

“But I told
them I’d meet them at the restaurant at six. It’s already quarter past five!”
he said, sounding quite panicky.

Judging by the
storm brewing in his eyes I may just be in a bit of trouble.
Crap
. This was not the start to the
evening I had hoped for.

Leaving Scott
in the lounge with a bottle of scotch, I headed back up to the bathroom and
applied the required amount of make-up in record time.

I had the dress
Scott had given me hanging in my temporary wardrobe—aka a packing box—and
pulling it out, the first thing I noticed was the price tag. He’d given me this
dress a few weeks ago but, with everything going on, I hadn’t even looked at
it. I knew it was red and strapless, and that was about it.

I will admit to
being a bit shocked by the price. I guess it proves how important tonight is to
Scott that he would spend almost a month’s wage on a dress for me. He wasn’t
usually big on gifts.

I really hope
it looks good on me. Red isn’t a color I would normally wear and strapless was
a risk when you have a bust the size of mine. But, I guess I’ll just trust his
judgment and enjoy the gift for what it is.

Slipping out of
my clothes, I pulled the dress on and will admit to feeling a little bit
breathless. It was absolutely stunning…until I tried to do the zipper up.

Did I mention
my breasts are a D cup? This dress was made for a skinny ass, B cup.

What was Scott
thinking? The last time I was a B cup I was twelve and wearing a training bra!

Not one to give
up too easily though, I managed to breathe in and flatten my boobs as much as humanly
possible. With the help of a very amused Riley, I even got the zipper up.

I can’t say the
reflection I saw in the mirror was a good one though. I had flesh popping out
under my arms and over the top of the very tight bodice and the split up the
thigh was a little bit higher than I would have liked. Actually, it was a
lot
higher than I would have liked. Breathing
would be a luxury.

Riley didn’t
seem to mind it though. “I guarantee if you go to a business meeting in that
dress, Scott will get anything he wants,” he laughed.

He really was
enjoying this. “
Oh my God
. What am I
going to do?” I asked, completely bewildered by the predicament I found myself
in. There was no way I could go to a very important meeting looking like this.

“You’d better
go and show him,” Riley said, his grin still firmly in place.

I thought about
this for a second. Looking down at my breasts, I weighed up my options. They
were limited. Oh well…time to face the music.

I felt slightly
light-headed as I walked down the stairs—probably from the lack of
oxygen. Breathing was not something I had room to do. Scott stood in the
hallway watching me walk down towards him. I could see his face get paler the
closer I got.

“Well, what do
you think?” I asked holding my arms out and forcing a smile on my face. I
really didn’t need to ask the question. What he thought was written all over
his face.

“My God, you
look like a high priced call girl!” he growled through gritted teeth. “You do
know how important tonight is for me, don’t you?” I could see the color
returning to his cheeks, which were now starting to match the dress. I thought he
might be a tad angry.

“Of course I
do. But I didn’t buy the dress, Scott. I mean since when have I
ever
been small breasted?” I asked
haughtily.

“If you’d tried
it on when I gave it to you, you might have bothered to lose some weight!” he
snapped.

“It wouldn’t
matter how much weight I lost, I would never fit this dress!” I yelled, feeling
a need to defend myself. His comment actually hurt. Even though I’m not fat in
any way, I’ve always been curvy. That didn’t prevent Scott from constantly
trying to change me, though. I turned and walked into the bedroom.

I mean, I know
on the right woman this dress would be stunning. I just wasn’t that woman. But
the right woman was the one Scott really deserved, wasn’t it? All he’d asked me
to do today was wear a beautiful dress and look my best. Any normal woman could
do that, couldn’t she?

I could feel
the tears prick the back of my eyes and my heartbeat become heavy. Once again I’d
failed him.
Shit
.

Determined not
to mess tonight up completely, I opened my boxes and quickly ran through my
options. I knew somewhere I had a lovely jacket I could put on over the dress
and maybe cover up some of this cleavage. As it was, I would probably give the
poor businessmen a heart attack before dinner was over.

After ripping
into box after box, I decided I needed to clear out some of my clothes. Eventually
I came up with the jacket I was looking for. Molly had passed it to me in one
of her closet clean-outs. Along with quite a few other items, this one was too
good to throw away but too
last year
for Molly. The label read Zac Posen and it was black with lots of feathers
stuck to the bottom edge of it. It probably wasn’t the best accessory to wear
with this dress but it would have to be good enough.

Slipping it on,
I realized I still couldn’t quite do up all the buttons and had a moment of
thinking Scott was right. I should go on a diet. I’ll start that tomorrow.

Grabbing my
purse, I held my head high and walked downstairs to meet Scott, quickly checking
the clock as I did so. Hmm…five forty-five...well if Scott drove fast we would
only be about fifteen minutes late.

Riley was
leaving as I walked into the kitchen but he turned and looked as I entered the
room. I thought I saw a look of approval in his eyes, but then again I didn’t
know him very well, so who knew. Scott on the other hand looked like he had
gas. He had a pinched look around his mouth and a very deep frown between his
eyes.

“I’m sorry,
it’s the best I could do,” I said apologetically.

“Fine.”

This was the
only conversation we had all the way to the restaurant.