Page 82 of Seduction Under the Southern Stars

“You work in the field too?” Isabel asks, placing my cup in front of me.

“Yes, in the National Museum in Wellington. My brother’s the director there. I do some conservation work and help with the exhibitions. I’m doing a Masters, specializing in Osteology.” I don’t want to monopolize the conversation, but I know that Linc needs a few moments to gather himself.

“She’s being modest,” he says, having apparently found his tongue. “She’s the smartest person I know.” He smiles at me. “Elora was the one who first got me interested in archaeology.”

“Oh yes, Edmund said that you told him you grew up together. At Greenfield, right?”

Linc nods. “Yeah. I was sent there when I was fourteen.”

“Why so?” she asks.

“Isabel,” Edmund scolds. He gives us an apologetic look. “She’s very direct. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“That’s okay,” Linc says. “I don’t mind. It’s not a pretty story, that’s all.”

And so, as we all sip our coffee, he tells them the tale of how he ended up at Greenfield. At first he keeps it brief, without going into much detail, but Isabel asks a lot of questions and I encourage him to answer, and eventually he reveals it all—Don’s continual abuse, his mother’s refusal to intervene, and eventually the moment it all came to a head, when he was taken to hospital.

Isabel covers her mouth, and Edmund leans back, an elbow on the arm of his chair, and massages his forehead.

“When I first saw him, sitting outside my father’s office,” I say, “his face was covered in scars.”

Linc’s eyes meet mine, his brow furrowing, as if he’s only realizing now how much it pains me to remember that moment.

“That’s awful,” Isabel says. “I’m so sorry you went through all that. So Don knew you weren’t his son?”

“Apparently,” Linc says. “I don’t know why he stayed with my mother, or why she stayed with him. None of it makes any sense to me now. He punished me to punish her, I guess. Anyway. It’s all in the past now. If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have met Elora and her family, so… silver lining and all that.”

Edmund and Isabel exchange glances; I can only imagine what they’re thinking.

“So, anyway,” I say cheerfully, “my father has always been interested in archaeology, and he brought me and my brothers up the same way. We’re all into it—Fraser, he’s the oldest, runs the museum, and Joel is an underwater archaeologist. Back then, we all used to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and pretend we were Indiana Jones.”

“We used to tease Lora that she couldn’t be Indi,” Linc says, covering up his emotion. “She had to be Lara Croft.”

“That wasn’t a hardship. Lara Croft is cooler than Indi.”

“Is not,” he says, and all four of us laugh.

“So eventually you left Greenfield,” Isabel says. “What made you leave New Zealand?”

“I wanted to travel,” Linc says, not looking at me, “and Atticus—Lora’s father—got me a place with TAG18—The Archaeology Group. They place students in excavations across the world. I went to Cairo, and Israel, and Germany, and Scandinavia, and eventually England.”

He lifts a hand and scratches the back of his neck, right over his wings. I don’t know if he realizes he’s doing it, but it makes me soften as I think of him getting that tattoo because he missed me.

“This is the first time you’ve been back to New Zealand?” Edmund asks.

Linc nods. “I’d been asked to speak at the annual Australia and New Zealand Archaeology Society conference—this year they’re combining it with a cruise around the two countries. It was a long way to come, but then I found out that my father—I mean Don—had died, and I thought I’d combine the funeral with the cruise.”

“I’m surprised you wanted to go to the funeral,” Isabel says.

“I wanted to make sure he was really dead,” Linc says flatly.

There’s an awkward silence.

“Well,” I say, “they cremated him, so we can only hope.”

Linc looks at me for a moment, then bursts out laughing, and Edmund and Isabel start smiling, too.

“We were wondering…” Edmund glances at Isabel, who gives a small nod. “You don’t have to, of course, but we wondered whether you would both like to stay for dinner this evening. I was going to throw some sausages on the barbie, and Isabel does these really nice seafood kebabs. And Marie is going to call in around six thirty. She’d like to meet you. But of course, we understand if that’s a bit much for now. It’s entirely up to you.”

---