Page 12 of One Last Smile

She smiles, and again her lower lip briefly trembles. She regains her composure quickly, though. “We were. I was older than her, but… well, there aren’t many girls my age in this part of the Cotswolds. She and I grew close because we could talk to each other about things girls talk about. It was refreshing to have someone to chat with.” She looks wryly at me. “I think you can tell how important good conversation is to me.”

“Good conversation is important to everyone,” I reply, slowly gaining my composure. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She scoffs. “Don’t be sorry for me. Her parents were so devastated they moved to South Africa.”

An image crosses my mind of Annie laughing and pulling me along with her on one of our many childhood adventures. A lump forms in my throat, and I take another sip of tea to loosen it before saying, “It’s a terrible thing to lose a loved one.”

She shrugs. “I wouldn’t know.”

The bitterness in her voice tells me she does know and very well. I should be respectful of her grief and mindful of my commitment to stay out of the drama this family suffers. I should do a great many things, but as always, my curiosity gets the best of me, and I ask the question I should leave unasked.

“Why does Lucas feel that she went missing on the grounds?”

She meets my eyes, and there’s a coldness in her gaze that chills me. I’m about to apologize for going too far when she says, “I forget sometimes that you’re not from around here, so you can’t be aware of the news.”

“The news?”

“Yes. She was last seen alive here, in the Carlton estate.”

The temperature in the house drops precipitously, and the sip of tea I take does little to dispel the chill. The drama surrounding this family instantly takes on a far darker and more sinister turn.

“Not here in the house,” Eliza clarifies, “but here, on the estate. Depending on who you ask, I was the last person to see her alive. Or it was Oliver. Or my parents. More likely than not, it was Lucas creeping around with his camera and trying to see if he could get an angle down her shirt.”

I really should scold her for saying that about her brother, but my curiosity still has me in a tight grip. “What happened?”

Eliza sighs. “She left for home and never arrived. The police never found her. They tried to get a warrant for the estate so they could have dogs sniff for her, but my father fought that and eventually they backed off. Said there was no reason for them to hunt for a body when everyone agrees they saw her leave the estate.”

“Did you all see her leave?”

Eliza looks down at her tea and doesn’t answer. After a moment, she stands.

“I feel like baking,” she says. “Mother says it’s unbecoming for a lady of class to work in a kitchen, but I feel like ignoring my mother’s wishes today. Thank you for the tea.”

She heads for the kitchen but pauses at the entry to the parlor and turns to me. “You seem like a good woman, Mary, but not everyone is worth saving.”

She leaves without another word. I remain where I am for several minutes, trying to process everything I’ve heard.

So Minnie was last seen on the Carlton estate. She was friends with Eliza, and her portrait at one point was hung in this house before being buried in the attic and then disposed of. There’s a picture of her in Lucas’s collection, and a mysterious gardener whom Lucas caught gazing at her with what appears to be a mixture of lust and hate.

I try to convince myself—again—that it’s not my business, and I should just let it go, but Annie’s face flashes across my mind, and I know I can’t walk away from this mystery. Perhaps not everyone is worth saving, but everyone deserves justice.

And I will find justice for Minerva.

CHAPTER SIX

Eliza joins Lucas and me for a lunch of cheese pudding. Eliza informs me that the muffins will have to wait until dinner but promises me they will be worth it.

“I’m sure they will be. What do you say, Lucas? Muffins for dessert?”

Lucas shrugs and tinkers with his camera. With his elder sister present, he has shut down once again.

If she is his older sister. I hate holding that suspicion, but both he and Eliza have referred to Veronica as though she is Lucas’s mother, but not Eliza’s or Oliver’s. Then again, Eliza has also referred to Veronica as her own mother. And neither of them seem to care much for her.

Layers upon layers upon layers. Deceit upon deceit upon deceit.

“Make sure Mother doesn’t see you eat them,” Eliza says. “She’ll give you trouble about your digestion.”

She smiles tauntingly at Lucas, and I see the relationship between her and Oliver in that sneering glance. Lucas surprises me by meeting Eliza’s eyes and saying, “I’ll have one if she wants me to or not.”

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