Page 155 of The Scandal You Started
“Uh, no,” her dad answered. “Rayna has it.”
She reared her head back. “What key?”
“Remember that teddy bear I told you never to throw away?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Chapter 45
Rayna
There was a key buried in the stuffing of the teddy bear her dad had given her when she’d moved in with Victor. The one he’d told her to keep safe no matter what.
The small, dark brown plushie sat on her chest of drawers in the bedroom of the house she shared with George. Unfortunately, Rayna had to slit him down the back enough todig two fingers in and pull out the silver key attached to a round, leather keyring.
It was stamped with the number 229.
“It’s a safe deposit locker key,” Victor said. “Carlos knows the locker’s location.”
Her dad messaged her the address. It was in another city, right at the edge of the region, about a two-hour drive from Redworth. But it was Sunday. The place was closed. They had no choice but to wait to find out what was in the locker.
“Go back to the farmhouse and rest for today,” Victor insisted afterwards. “We’ll head to the locker when you come back from the museum tomorrow.”
“We only have ten days, V,” she reminded him. “There’s no time to rest.”
“There is. I promise there is.” He kissed her hair. “Go home with Dominic. Please.”
Dominic seemed just as reluctant as Rayna, but they went back to the farmhouse. Except after a light lunch, she jumped on the computer in the office-library with Dominic sitting close and restless next to her.
She searched up his title, and right off the bat, they ran straight into their first hurdle.
The Tanbridge City Hall, where the Norland family’s births, deaths, transfers of title, and marriages were registered, had nearly completely burned down in an arson attack in the middle of the eighth century. Their main family estate hadn’t fared much better. It’d suffered a terrible collapse while renovations had been underway two decades after the city hall fire.
Meaning a lot of Dominic and his family’s history had been destroyed.
It might have frustrated Rayna more had the devastated slant of Dominic’s expression not broken her heart. She couldn’timagine how difficult it was for him to suddenly learn that so much of his family’s legacy had been lost.
She immediately, with an ache of sadness and guilt gripping her chest, turned the computer off.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as he gazed emptily at her.
His lips lifted in a ghost of a smile. “There is no reason for you to apologise, sweetheart. It is not your fault.”
Without hesitating, Rayna slid onto his lap and cradled him. He buried his face in her neck with a shuddering breath, his arms locking around her.
Victor had been right, and she should’ve just listened.
Rest today. Begin tomorrow.Especially now that they knew knowledge about Dominic wasn’t going to easily be found in public domains. They’d have to submit a request to Khaas’s National Archives to see what other sources they could find.
The building itself was in the Royal Capital of Tanbridge, in the Region of Vindal, where Dominic was originally from. But each regional central library had an online platform of the archives that could be accessed. Still, they wouldn’t be granted a slot until a few days’ time, so what was one day of rest then when they had to wait anyway?
She trusted Victor, and if he said ten days was enough, then it had to be enough.
But sitting idle brewed fear in the back of her mind, and even as she tried not to think about it, there was a dull question lingering there.
Is this really going to work?
Rayna and Dominic spent Monday morning at the museum to begin wrapping up their work within the project. The lingering excitement amongst the team from Saturday night’s gala was a nice distraction, but it was hard to emulate fully.
