Page 4 of Seduction Under the Southern Stars

Fraser clears his throat. “We were just discussing our next exhibition.”

“Love Under the Southern Stars,” Hallie says, swiping her hand in front of her the same way Fraser did. “For Valentine’s Day.”

“I’m going to ask to borrow Rasputin’s knob,” Zoe announces, “and Hallie’s going to source Queen Victoria’s steam-powered vibrator.”

Joel snorts. Linc laughs. The gap in his front two teeth where one of them was a little twisted has disappeared, and now they’re beautifully straight. His eyes sparkle when they meet mine. “So what artifact are you going to bring?”

“Fraser’s only just told us about it,” I reply, “so I haven’t had much chance to think yet.”

“Shame you never found the Bell Ring.” Joel steals the last Malteser from Zoe’s packet, prompting her to glare at him.

At Hallie’s curious look, I say, “Our great-great…”

“Two more greats,” Joel says.

“Three more,” Fraser corrects.

“Okay,” I continue, “four or five greats-grandfather—called Atticus, same as my dad—fell in love with a Maori girl during the Gold Rush of the 1860s. The story goes that she told him she’d only marry him if he gave her a ring containing a piece of greenstone from her birthplace in Milford Sound.” Greenstone is also known as jade or, in Maori, pounamu. “He sailed from Christchurch around to Fiordland and took one of the perilous mountain trails, where he personally fished a piece of greenstone out from the river there and he had it set in a ring made from the gold he mined near Arrowtown. Legend says as soon as she laid eyes on the ring, she fell in love with him, because he’d gone to so much trouble to make it. After that the ring was supposed to grant true love to whoever touched it.”

“It went missing though,” Fraser says, “sometime in the mid-twentieth century.”

I look at Linc, wondering if he remembers the story. I told him about it one rainy afternoon in the living room of our house at Greenfield. I was ten at the time, and he was fourteen, and he’d only recently started at the school. I’d constructed a tent from one of my mother’s sheets, and I was lying beneath it, reading a book about the history of my family, when Linc ducked under the flap of the tent, flopped to the ground beside me, and said, “Whatcha reading?”

He’d known practically nothing about history at the time, and, used to spending his time smoking, drinking, or stealing from shops, he’d laughed at my dusty books and atlases. But that day I must have spoken with passion about my family history, because he’d pulled the book toward him and started flicking through the pages. “Where’s Milford Sound?” he’d asked when he read the story. I’d dragged out an old atlas, and we’d scoured the mountains and valleys of the South Island together.

“I remember,” he says now, obviously following my train of thought. “That’s where it all began. I have you to thank for that.”

Our eyes lock, and a shock passes through me like static, so sharp and fast I’m surprised my hair doesn’t stand out from my head. For a moment, it’s as if no time has passed at all, and nothing has changed. He’s still the handsome boy with the startling green eyes that I fell in love with, and I’m still the young girl he kissed.

Then Joel coughs, breaking the spell, and I blink and drop my gaze. What am I thinking? Everything’s changed. My heart was like a priceless Greek urn, and Linc dropped it and fractured it into a hundred pieces and left them lying on the ground. He left, and I never heard a single word from him. I had to pick up the pieces myself, one at a time, and glue them back into some semblance of the shape it once was. But it hasn’t been the same since. Other men have only weakened those cracks, so you can still see the lines where it broke. It remains so fragile that I keep it locked up like the priceless artifact it was. A once-beautiful treasure, now sitting on a plinth in a glass cage with a light shining on it, meant to be viewed, not handled. Never to be touched again.

“I might know where the Bell Ring is,” Linc says.

My gaze snaps back up to his. “What?” Joel and Fraser also stare at him.

“A couple of years ago, I was at a conference in Rome,” Linc says, “and I met an Australian archaeologist called Graham Tucker. We were talking about family heirlooms, and I mentioned the Bell Ring. It turned out that he had a colleague who said a friend of his acquired what he thought was the Bell Ring in the 1990s. He ran an antique shop.”

I blink as I try to sift through the complicated trail of relationships. “Oh my God, Linc! Can you remember the name of the guy or his friend?”

“No, sorry.” He checks his watch again. “Look, I really have to go, but if you like I can come back afterward, and we can talk about it some more.”

Joel and Fraser exchange a glance. They know how I fell apart after Linc left, and I’m sure they’re worried about what effect his being here will have on me. That’s why they didn’t tell me he was coming. But it’s been ten years. I’ve moved on. I’m not the innocent girl I was. I’m not going to fall at his feet at the snap of his fingers again. I’ve learned my lesson.

And anyway, it would be amazing if he was able to track down the Bell Ring. Oh my God, imagine Mum’s face—it would mean so much to her.

“If that’s okay,” I say to Linc, “it would be great to catch up.”

He nods. “All right, I’ll probably be an hour or so, I’d imagine.”

“You’re not going back to the house afterward?” Joel asks.

Linc gives him an amused look. “I might not even make it into the church. I just want to check the old fucker’s really dead.”

That’s a touch of the old Linc rising to the surface, and it makes me smile.

“See ya,” he says, and, with a last glance at me, he walks away, out of the room.

Joel hesitates, then follows him out.

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