Page 1 of The Forgotten Boy

CHAPTER ONE

JULIET

NOVEMBER 2018

The house is a miniature St. Pancras …

Juliet thought miniature was hardly the word to describe Havencross. Mammoth, maybe. Gargantuan. Titanic. The rambling house might not take up as much literal space as London’s iconic railway station/hotel, but then St. Pancras was surrounded by buildings and people and the thrum of city life that kept the eye moving every moment to look at something new. Here in Northumberland there was nothing to see except Havencross, a flamboyant Gothic Revival structure thrusting its redbrick turrets, spires, and exuberant outlines against the gray sky.

And windows. Windows with sharp points and decorative tracery. Leaded glass and gable windows. Clover-shaped windows tucked beneath turrets. A hundred people could be watching her from as many windows. For the next five months, the only person looking out the windows would be her, in a house refurbished nearly two hundred years ago for a family of fifteen, not to count the servants and staff. When Juliet had undertaken this position, she’d never imagined such a daunting wealth of style and space.

Then her thoughts flitted to how it would look after dark. Hastily, she pulled back from that. She was an expert at ignoring the unpleasant until it grew impossible.

“Cowardice,” some said. Not borrowing trouble had been her grandmother’s term, one Juliet preferred.

Nell Somersby-Sims, the solicitor who had engaged Juliet, hovered outside the grand double doors. When Juliet pulled up and lowered the car window, Nell said, “Drive on round the far left. You’ll find a spot to leave the car.”

“Do you want to get in?” Juliet asked.

“I’ll go through the house and meet you at the scullery door.”

Just as well, since Juliet was not yet entirely comfortable with driving on the left side of the road. Not that she was likely to encounter another car between here and the back of the house, but still. It was important to her these days to appear competent. At anything.

Around the back of Havencross, the Gothic flourishes gave way to the bones of the original fifteenth-century house that had been nearly swallowed up by renovations. Fewer windows, Juliet noted, but centuries more history. If she believed in ghosts, this would be the place for them.

Nell Somersby-Sims (distant cousin or not, it was impossible not to think of her by that full upper-class name) hovered at the solid oak door leading into the scullery while Juliet grabbed her bags. Nell wore four-inch spiked-heel boots that were meant for cities, not overgrown farmyards.

Juliet dumped her suitcase and messenger bag on the tiled floor of the scullery and looked around at the copper tubs and the creaky drying racks meant to be cranked up to the ceiling with heavy armfuls of wet linen.

Hastily, Nell said, “You won’t be responsible for the heavy things, of course, or anything attached to the walls or floor. We’ll have a removal company come in and take away all of that once you leave. You’ll be sorting through old chests, wardrobes, shelves, that sort of thing.”

“Yes, you were very clear on the nature of the job.”

It wasn’t a job, exactly. For one thing, Juliet wasn’t being paid. It was a convenient trade-off. After three years as an adjunct Victorian history professor in Maine, she’d needed to escape—both Maine and her imploded marriage. Thirty years old, living once more with her parents, her savings account just a distant memory. Not a pretty picture.

Desperate for something to do but without the energy to actually do it, Juliet had ended up in England hardly knowing how she got here. It started when her mother had been contacted three weeks ago by a British lawyer—solicitor?—about the sale of an old and abandoned family property.

Havencross.

Juliet had been hired partly because of her impressive Skype interview and partly because of her mother’s offer for Juliet’s salary to come out of her own profits from the sale. But mostly she’d been hired because she was willing to live all alone in a fourteen-thousand-square-foot house in the middle of Northumberland National Park, next to a fast-flowing river and ten miles from the nearest village. For five months. Five winter months.

Havencross was on its way to being transformed into an exclusive country hotel, the kind that offered shooting parties in autumn, snowshoes and roaring fires in winter, fishing and walking in spring and summer, with a foreign chef and four-star luxury bedding. But before any of the costly renovations could begin, the house had to be cleared of generations of debris.

Nell took her on a brief overview of the ground floor, but Juliet waved off the offer to take her around the rest of it. She could see that the younger woman was eager to get away. And she was eager to be rid of Nell, no matter their relationship. Which, considering she’d never heard the name until three weeks ago, might as well not exist.

Not that Juliet had anything against her personally. No doubt Nell Somersby-Sims—with her glossy, shoulder-length bob and gel-manicured nails and size 2 pencil skirt—was a perfectly nice woman. But Juliet could practically hear Nell’s doubts: Surely it will be all right; we haven’t hired this woman to do anything crucial. She’s little more than an early alarm system. And it’s not as though anyone will miss an unhappy academic for a few months.

Juliet had always felt defensive around beautiful, professionally accomplished women. Three years of careening hormones, indifferent husband, and grief had convinced her that she was basically invisible.

“It’s in your head,” Duncan had said impatiently. “If you don’t like how you look or how you feel, if you don’t like feeling invisible, then do something about it!”

Right now, invisibility was what she craved. So yes, Miss Somersby-Sims, I’ll be quite all right. There’s a house plan—very helpful—and all the necessary keys. And how kind of you to have laid in a week’s worth of groceries. I can hardly wait to get to work.

Her lawyer-cousin lingered at the scullery door on her way out. “Rachel Bennett will come in every Thursday to clean the living areas. Theirs is the nearest house, almost three miles by road but closer on foot if you cross the fields this side of the river. Her family’s been here forever—she’s your best bet for local knowledge and history.”

“Lovely, thank you.”

At last Nell lowered her expensive sunglasses. “You can reach me on my mobile at any time if you have questions or find anything unexpected. Best of luck.”

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