Page 9 of One Last Smile

Perhaps my relief arrived too soon. Once more, there’s a layer of intrigue. God, is nothing done in the open anymore? Must everything involve deception?

It’s not your business, I remind myself.

The two of them leave, and I heave a sigh of relief that is maybe just a touch too obvious and turn to Lucas. “Well, Lucas. I am excited to finally have a chance to get to know you.”

He lifts his eyes to mine. Today, his gaze is inquisitive but without the staring quality of the previous two days. Perhaps when separated from his mother, he is able to relax more. “Why did you take this job?” he asks.

“It seemed a good opportunity,” I reply. “My last position didn’t work out well, and I’ve always meant to return to England for a visit. This just lined up at the right time.”

He nods and turns his attention back to his camera. I sit across from him and say, “Tomorrow, Lucas, we must focus on your studies. Your performance this year will be critical when it comes to determining your future. It quite literally could mean the difference between a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge and a fight to get into a third-tier university. However, today, I’d like for us to simply get to know each other. I feel we haven’t really had a chance to do that yet. How does that sound?”

He shrugs. “All right. Have you seen the bird’s nest yet?”

I blink. “Bird’s nest?”

He grins, and the expression is so honest and pure that my heart warms instantly. “Come on,” he says, “I’ll show you.”

He jumps up, grabs his camera, and runs toward the stairs. I hurry to keep up, but when he bounds up the stairs two at a time, showing the usual exuberance of youth, I have to call and remind him that I’m not young anymore.

“Sorry, Mary,” he says sheepishly. “I get excited sometimes.”

“That’s all right,” I say, huffing as I catch up to him. “Excitement is good for any age. I just can’t quite make my legs move as fast as yours.”

He laughs and says, “Well, I’ll slow down so you can keep pace. It’s not far now, anyway.”

He heads up the next flight of stairs to the attic, and I somehow manage to keep up without dying of a heart attack. He leads me into the attic and then to the north end of the floor. When we arrive, he reaches up and pulls a drawstring hanging from the ceiling.

A stepladder falls down, and he heads up, disappearing into the ceiling. I stare dubiously at the rickety-looking structure, but when he lowers his hand and beckons for me, I screw up my courage and climb.

Miraculously, the ladder holds, and I soon find myself in a small, circular room surrounded on all sides by windows. The ceiling slopes steeply upward, and I realize we’re inside one of the narrow gables that decorate the roof of the house.

He grins at me and asks, “How do you like it?”

“This is wonderful!” I say, not exaggerating in the slightest. I really do like hidden places. “You can see the whole estate from here!”

He nods eagerly. “And the village beyond. In clear weather, anyway. Eliza works in the village.” A shadow crosses his face at the mention of his sister. He quickly brightens, though, and says, “This is one of my favorite places to take pictures. There’s also an old hunting blind in the north woods where the old Carlton lords used to hunt foxes. The rest of the family doesn’t know it exists.”

He says that last part proudly. I get the sense that he values his privacy. Considering what I’ve seen of his mother, I’m not surprised. “You really enjoy taking pictures, don’t you?”

He nods. “It’s a snapshot of a moment that will never occur again. With this”—he holds his camera up—“I get to preserve a piece of that moment for all time.”

“That’s beautiful!” I exclaim.

He grins again. He is so charming right now that I feel bad for my earlier fear of him. I wonder if his mother ever sees this side of him. I wonder how she’d react if she did.

“I’ll show you some pictures in a minute,” he says, sitting down cross-legged on the floor.

“I’d like that,” I say. “I don’t believe I can join you on the floor, though.”

He laughs and says, “That’s all right. I only sit like this when no one’s looking anyway. Oliver says it makes me look like a cupcake when I sit like this.”

“Well, that’s not very kind of him, is it?”

His smile becomes bitter. “Well, he’s not very kind.”

I am treading dangerous ground here. I want him to feel comfortable with me, but I don’t want to be involved in the tension going on between the family. I offer a noncommittal, “Brothers can be a lot to deal with sometimes,” then try to change the subject. “When did you take an interest in photography?”

“Dad bought me a camera when I was seven. An old Polaroid. I remember watching the pictures develop and being fascinated as they showed up on the paper. And there everything was! And everyone! Like I had just captured a moment of real life. I knew then that’s what I wanted to do.”

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