Wilderness of Mirrors (8 page)

I miss you, Daniella.

He wanted to snatch the small, gilt-framed painting from the dark wall and stick it outside under the sun, weak though it was. It was his only solace that he’d scattered her ashes in Kenya. He’d been jailed in Russia at the time of her car accident. There’d been no way to spring him without jeopardizing a year of work and the lives of many others.
Which is also why you shot Irina. Your bloody job. More important than anyone or anything. You’re as much of a bastard as Father ever was.

“I still can’t believe your company wouldn’t let you come to her funeral.” Kate sat down on the library’s massive leather sofa without so much as a creak. “They don’t seem to pay well. They treat you like junior staff. Tea?”

Nigel shook his head – maybe to avoid tea, maybe to shake his conscience out. Either way, it remained awash with clutter and fog. He’d given in and swallowed a painkiller at Brad’s. Now it was sloshing around in a stomach filled with harshly brewed Typhoo. “Thank you, though.”

“Suit yourself. Only sit down. You look awful. Where are you coming in from? Asia I expect.”

Nigel took an armchair that faced the massive bank of windows. “I’m sorry I didn’t call, Kate. Wasn’t certain I’d be here until yesterday.”

A trickle of steam fled the teapot’s spout. He’d be surprised if the air around his sister wasn’t at least 10º less than the rest of the room.

She ignored his apology. “Scone?”

“No.”

He watched her long bony fingers as she added milk to her tea. His mother had liked cream. Lots of it. She had brewed those exotic dark leaves herself, refusing to let the staff have their way with them.

“Eight minutes, Nige. Otherwise, it’s about as drinkable as a puddle of muddy rainwater.”

“How long did you let it steep?”

Kate’s dark eyes snapped up. “What?”

“Nothing.” Nigel pushed back the cuffs of his sweater. He was hot despite the day’s chill.

Kate picked up a knife and sawed angrily into a scone. “I hate when you do that.”

Figuring it didn’t matter, Nigel swung his foot over the armchair’s side. His leg was throbbing again and somehow the position gave him a bit of relief.

“
And
that.” She swiped jam and clotted cream over the creviced surface. “It’s no wonder the boys feel so compelled.”

“Will and Dylan wouldn’t copy me. I don’t…”

His sister crossed her arms in triumph. “Go on.”

Nigel watched the bare-branched elms whip in the morning wind trying to ignore the fact Kate looked exactly like their father’s mother. “I don’t spend enough time here to be blamed for their bad habits.” He closed his eyes and tried to imagine away the wrenching ache of his broken ribs.

Mistaking his silence for something else, she said more kindly, “Never mind. I was thinking you could stay for the charity tea.”

Nigel had seen the plethora of workers and lorries on his way in. A lot of money spent raising money. Kate would’ve been better off simply donating the cost of whatever it was she was doing. This time though, he managed to keep his thoughts to himself.

“…even David’s home. I mean, he’s out at the moment, but he will be here. He’s offered a free consultation and procedure.”

“Has he now?” How long had it been since he and his brother-in-law had shared a drink? Nigel liked David – far more than his own sister. “His practice going well?”

Kate nodded with vigor. “He’s hoping William will take an interest. Maybe switch to medicine.” Something in the tone of her voice made Nigel open his eyes.

“From what?”

“Economics.” She had an unpleasant set to her mouth. “He wants to go to LSE. But I don’t think even that’s possible given his grades.”

David and Kate had both gone to Cambridge’s King’s College. Obviously, they expected the same of their sons.

“Probably just slacking because it’s his final year.” He waited a moment while a shard of pain faded. “Economics isn’t a bad major, Kate.”

“No.” Her tone suggested the opposite. “It’s just….well, he’s brighter than that. At least he used to be…loved science, begged for a first-class microscope when he was ten and – ” She flashed him a weak smile. “Not to say maths aren’t important. Lord knows I don’t have a clue what you do as an actuary. But William isn’t like you. I can’t imagine what he plans on doing with a degree in economics…if he even gets one…”

“Have you thought of letting him take a year abroad? Maybe the service?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you abhorred being sent to Sandhurst.”

“No.”
I wanted to go. Wanted to get the hell out of this place.

She stared into her tea. “Well, I don’t want him to go. He’s not like you. He’s – softer. Easily influenced.” Her shoulders collapsed and, for a moment, Nigel thought she might cry. He stayed very still until she composed herself. “Oh, I don’t know what it is. He’s hostile of late and says we’re too hard on him. He won’t even come down here unless Dylan does. And you know Dylan, always playing every sport under the sun.” She perked with unnatural abruptness. “He’s got field games competition this weekend, Dylan that is. Maybe you’ll come? He does so adore you.”

Nigel tried moving his leg to alleviate some of the strain. “That’s a bit strong, isn’t it? A couple presents a year doesn’t really encourage a boy to ‘adore’ someone.”

Her look turned frosty. “It shouldn’t. But for some reason – ” Her eyes swung inadvertently to their father’s enormous painted bulk. “He craves your attention even if you don’t deserve it.”

Heat flared beneath his already hot skin. “You’re comparing my relationship with your son to the – ” Nigel couldn’t even think of the proper way to say it. “To the way that man handled me?”

“Nigel, please.” Her face had gone white. “I didn’t mean it. I know you’re not Dylan’s father. It’s just, you’re important to him. Important to us. Father might not have shown it, but he ca–”

“Don’t say it,” Nigel interrupted. “Not aloud. Think what you’d like, but that man cared nothing for my mother or for me. I don’t know why he bothered.” He dropped his leg and stood, pain swimming up to the back of his eyeballs. The room tilted and he tried to pop his ears to stop the buzzing.

Kate was up too. “Don’t go. I’m sorry…I don’t know why I said it. I’m just upset about Will. Where are you going?”

Nigel lurched across the room and grabbed the handle leading toward the back stairwell. “For a walk.”

He let the door close behind him, knowing full well it was akin to a slam.
Fuck.
What the hell had he been thinking coming here? It brought out the absolute worst in him.

He swung down the long corridor, one hand brushing the oak paneling. How many times had he done the very same thing, hoping the blisters would distract him from his father’s tirades. There were seventy-eight bumps between here and the stairs. He counted them down as he went, aware that if he didn’t find a plaster soon, he’d be bleeding from his thigh and chest along with his knuckles.

The smell of furniture polish on old wood and slightly damp oriental carpets pervaded his senses.
How can you live here, Kate? It’s like being stuck inside a too-big coffin.
A dog barked and he wondered if David was back from wherever he’d gone. Perhaps he could find him and cop some gauze and tape.

But the barking ceased and only the dim surge of workers’ voices slipped under the miserable layers of cold air. He put his hand on the newel post and began a slow trudge. Halfway to the top, he paused to catch his breath. There was a curved niche in the wall’s plaster. Inside it sat a red Chinese vase.

A tinge of recognition touched his mouth.

Jesus, it had probably been here – hiding along the back stairwell – since the day he finished putting it back together. What would that be? Nearly thirty years ago?

He had scaled Barkley’s slate roof to see if the library’s Ming would mark the patio the instant his wretched grandmother poured tea. When it did, with Rolex precision, Lady Emily had succumbed to a shriek ill fitting a woman of her position. The vase had detonated with a suitably sharp sigh of history gone to ruin, and that, at least, had given him pause to unearth a grin.

A ghost of that rare childhood indulgence flitted over his mouth. So he rubbed it away, as if it might take with it the pain in his leg.

After the death of the vase, he had been forced to listen to Lady Emily’s lecture on the rarity of copper-red underglaze vases made between 1368-1644 A.D. Then he’d picked through the manicured lawn with tweezers, sprawled upon the study’s carpet mesmerized by the porcelain carnage, and decided to repair it piece-by-piece, bit-by-bit, until the vase was reborn.

His mother had wanted the repaired treasure returned to the library. His grandmother was for the kitchen bin. After a fiercely civilized battle of tongues, the niche on the upstairs landing became their Israel. Perhaps because his grandmother had interpreted Nigel’s yearlong reconstruction endeavor as repentance.

The fact his mother had known better, and still argued for the original place of honor, was not lost on Nigel.

A loyal woman, his mother.

He summoned her image. Imagined the hint of a smile regarding his current predicament. Three decades hence, she would have been unsurprised.

He touched the vase, brows suddenly knitting. He’d done a damn fine job putting it back together, but there wasn’t a single crack along the piece’s surface. Tilting the ceramic upside down, he noted the maker’s mark. He’d need a magnifying glass to be sure, but he didn’t think it was authentic. An expensive reproduction?

Which was when he noticed the blood seeping through the wound on his chest. He replaced the vase and headed shakily up the remaining stairs. What a stupid mistake. Anyone would think he’d just finished OPAL at Oxford and set a squeaky new shoe into Vauxhall HQ for an interview.

He sucked a deep breath on the second story’s landing, his eyes wandering the dismal winterscape. Flowers and summer heat made the estate tolerable, but he preferred the chokehold of blistering sun and shimmering lizards.

Africa was excruciatingly far from London today.

The past tiptoed up behind him.

What an odd lad you are, Nigel.

“And nothing has changed, Lady Emily.” His whisper died as his eyes wandered the purple hills, and with trepidation, the foreground of manicured nothingness. Silken rhododendrons still gathered below whispering like hat-wearing matrons.

Nigel flinched, his eyes snagging on a flash of black. Ghosts. Dogs he’d once cherished. Tails and tongues with which he had found solitude and peace.

He rubbed his burning eyes.

Did Kate even keep plasters in the upstairs loo? The dread of asking her for one overwhelmed him.

Maybe he could leave unnoticed, call a cab and head for Heathrow via a chemist. There were enough workers buzzing around Barkley.
What had she said…a charity tea?

Her words had come and gone. Irrelevant. She’d actually invited him to stay. Him, with a muster of Prada peacocks. It hadn’t been worth a response.

Releasing his eyes, Nigel rounded up his fugitive thoughts. A visit to the washroom, a trip down the back stairwell. A call to the car service. And then Africa.

It would upset Kate.

It would scare Brad.

He didn’t care about the first.

The second?
Well, he’d deal with his friend another time.

His sister’s voice, strident and sugary, cracked his concentration. “Nigel?”

Her dark head marred the Venetian tiled foyer. “There you are. I hope you won’t feel underdressed today. If I’d known you’d be able to come, I would have changed the theme.”

Two hits.

“Don’t bother. As you said, I’ve jetlag. I should probably head back to Brad’s and sleep it off.”

From here her wrinkled nose became his grandmother’s aged face. “This constant travel is destroying you. David wants you to give him your CV. He treats a fellow who’s high up at
Chettinham and Farrow
. It’s London based and you’d be able to see the boys more often. Please say you’ll go to Eton Saturday. I could order a hamper from Fortmans. It’ll be cold, but that’s what wool’s for.” The lines were gone, replaced by the joy of decisions regarding foie gras and Pimms.

Nigel struggled to quell his unreasonable panic. Even his tongue felt awkward forming the words. “You and David are kind to think of me. I’m sorry though, I really do like my work.” He tried on a smile. “Besides, I’m certain Dylan and William would rather picnic with their girlfriends.”

Her gaze retained little warmth. Her fingers found the pearls at her neck. “Fine. Just don’t expect anything to change if you don’t at least try.” With that, she turned and left him with a crash of silence.

And a vision.

On the lawn, the very portion from which he’d picked shattered bits of Ming, stood the blonde. He grabbed the banister, the heaving of his stomach terribly real.

The goddamn painkillers. He’d taken them on an empty stomach and was obviously having an adverse reaction. There was little other means of explaining such an anomaly.

He fought irrational thoughts and focused on the woman below. The wind blew across the patio, pulling her hair in the same direction as wayward leaves. Her dark jeans, heeled riding boots, and close-fitted down jacket were weather appropriate. A damn realistic vision. Trust his mind to be dead on with the details.

She faced away, her gaze fixed on the fields below Barkley.

Nigel swallowed and took three steps in the direction of the palladium window’s upper curve. He balled his fist and rapped sharply against the leaded pane. A dog barked somewhere.

“Nigel? Is that you banging about?”

He ignored Kate’s question and stared at the greasy marks his knuckles had left upon the pristine glass.

The blonde remained motionless. Only his head was spinning. Bloody hell.

Nigel drifted through the upper hallway, a ghost himself, until he made the washroom. The vomit was real. The blood on his shirt as well. And blackness closed in on him like a fucking sandstorm.

“C
hrist almighty. Look at the floor. Is that blood? What in God’s name is the matter with him?”