“Oh?” she asked. “And what is that?”
“I like England.” He glanced at her. “It’s wet and cold, and eccentric doesn’t begin to describe the people, but there’s something about this place that appeals to me.”
She was looking at him hard.
“My grandmother has been saying for years that someone should write the history of our family. We go back a long way and there have been some unusual characters in our family. We know all this by word-of-mouth tradition and through some old trunks full of letters and uniforms and family documents. But no one has ever written a complete story about my ancestors.”
She waited for him to continue, but he was silent. “You mean you’re thinking of writing your family history?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“And living in England while you do it.”
“It did go through my mind.”
“And you’d live in Priory House?”
“Heavens no!” he said. “I thought I’d buy a little house somewhere. Something old and nice, but something that could be heated.”
“A Queen Anne former rectory,” she said, her voice dreamy.
“Sounds great to me,” he said. “In fact, it sounds perfect. But it would have to have a garden.”
“And a conservatory. It must have a conservatory. You know something? Writing has been something that I thought I might like to do too.”
“Really? What would you write?”
“About what I’ve seen. And I’d do some ghostwriting.” She gave him a quick glance. “Not that kind of ghost, the other kind. I’ve met some old reporters who had fantastic stories to tell. There was one old guy who’d seen everything since World War Two, and what he could tell wasn’t to be believed.”
“Tell? He didn’t write it down?”
“Not a word. To him, every word he did write was a chore. He could dictate a thousand words over the phone, but he couldn’t sit and write anything. And all the good stories he knew couldn’t be told—at least not then, that is. Now he could tell what he saw during the many wars he’s been through.”
“Does he want to write his memoirs?”
Nigh snorted. “What do you think reporters live on if it isn’t ego?”
“Bourbon?” he asked innocently and she laughed.
They talked all the way to the trailhead, then kept talking while they got their packs and started walking. They talked a great deal about their dream houses and what they had to have, but never once did they speak of the house as belonging to the two of them and of their living in it together. Nor did they speak of the fact that they were thinking of changing their lives in a way so they could live together.
At noon they sat down on a rock by the side of the trail and ate the ham sandwiches Mrs. Browne had prepared and drank their Thermoses of tea. Nigh had peeled off her sweatshirt an hour before and it was tied around her waist. She leaned against a tree as they ate in companionable silence, the sun warm on them.
“The Raider,” she said. “That sounds like my kind of man.” She was referring to the story Jace had told her about one of his ancestors. During the American Revolutionary War a young man had disguised himself and fought for the freedom of his country. It didn’t bother her that he’d fought against the English.
Jace kept looking ahead at the forest. They were surrounded by trees, the birds singing. They were alone. “Besides men wearing masks, what is your kind of man?”
Nigh had to take a drink of tea to keep from saying you. “Big, brawny, rugby player,” she said. “Or polo. I really like polo.”
“I have a cousin who plays polo.”
“What’s his name? Maybe you’ll introduce us.”
“Lillian.”
They laughed together and minutes later they picked up everything and started walking again. They went about a mile when Nigh called a halt. “I don’t know how you stand this,” she said, looking at his heavy shirt as she put her pack on the ground. “I’m about to burn up.”
“This is nothing. You should spend a summer in the American South. How did you stand the Middle East if you don’t like hot weather?”
“Dry heat,” she said, pulling her long-sleeved shirt over her head. “And—” She broke off because Jace was staring at her chest with wide eyes and open mouth. She had worn the tiny T-shirt to get his attention, but this was ridiculous! Hadn’t he ever seen…
She looked down at her shirt and realized he was staring at the logo on her T-shirt. “What is it?”
“That,” he whispered and raised his hand to point at her chest. “Where did you get that?”
“It’s from Queen Jane’s School,” she said. “It’s a posh little public—to you, private—boarding school about two miles from Priory House. It’s astronomically expensive and I don’t know anyone in Margate who has ever gone there. Gladys Arnold works there.”
“Stacy had a shirt like that,” Jace whispered.
“So does everyone who lives within thirty miles of here. The school puts on fund-raisers and sells things with the logo on them. We used to buy things from them until—”
Jace was still looking at her with wide eyes. “You don’t think Stacy went there, do you?” Nigh asked. “She could have bought the shirt in several places. They sell them in a few shops in London.”
“I don’t know,” Jace said, “but it’s a lead. We have to go back. We have to find out if she did go to that school. We have to—” He stopped talking and started going back the way they’d come at double speed.
For a moment Nigh stood where she was. “So much for a romantic day out,” she said, then hitched up her pack and ran after him.
It took them only forty-five minutes to get down the trail and back to the car, then Jace drove back to Margate as quickly as he could.
“Turn here,” Nigh said and Jace took the turn so quickly Nigh grabbed the handle over the window. “I’m assuming you want to see Queen Jane’s School.”
“Yes,” was all Jace said, which was the most he’d said the whole way back.
“Turn up this dirt road,” she directed and he followed her instructions. When they came to a dead end, he stopped the car, got out, and looked down over the house and grounds below.
Nigh stood beside him. The school was in an enormous old Victorian house, rather pretty, with manicured, treeless lawns that were divided into various playing fields. There were girls of high school age running about with balls or hockey sticks, all wearing the school colors of green and white.
“So how do I find out if Stacy went there?” Jace asked.
“I guess we could go and ask them. I’m sure they have records. But…”
He looked at her. “But they must have heard that a Stacy Evans died in a pub not ten miles from their school and if they didn’t say anything then, they aren’t going to want to get involved now.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she said.
“Maybe we could try the Internet. They may have an alumni association.”
“They do, but it’s sealed. You have to be an alumni to get into the thing.”
Jace looked at her as though to ask how she knew that.
Nigh shrugged. “Sometimes the girls deign to come into Margate to see how villagers live. The locals always want to know which one is the daughter of a duke, or an earl, so we used to look them up. The school found out about it and sealed the records from outsiders. And now the girls are rarely allowed into Margate, so that’s why you didn’t see the logo around town. It’s become very much a separation of them and us.”
“So how do we find out?” Jace asked. “You’re the journalist. How do we see if Stacy went to this school?”
“Short of breaking into the records office, I have no idea.” When she saw Jace’s face, she took a step backward. “I was joking. You can’t break into the school. Maybe if it weren’t in session you could do it, but there are three hundred girls living there now.”
Jace stared at her a moment, then started back to the car, Nigh right
behind him. When they were inside, she asked him what he was going to do.
“Contact some people, namely Clive and Gladys.”
Nigh’s mouth fell open. “You’re going to ask Clive to help you? He’s a policeman!” When Jace’s look didn’t change, she started getting upset. “You can’t do this! You absolutely cannot do this! And you especially can’t get a policeman to help you do this.”
“Do you know anything about Clive Sefton’s background?”
Nigh knew all about the young man’s troubled past. He had been arrested so many times it was a joke. Drugs. Gambling.
“You can’t do this,” Nigh said again, but this time her voice was weaker.
Jace backed the car up, turned around, and headed back to Priory House. Twenty minutes after they arrived, he called Clive and Gladys and invited them to dinner, along with Mick. Jace had ordered Mrs. Browne to prepare a feast, then he’d headed for the shower.
Nigh went to her bedroom and debated whether or not to get in her Mini and go home. In her profession she’d seen the consequences of illegal behavior too many times. On the other hand, she’d seen the consequences of legal behavior. All in all, she didn’t know which was worse.
She took a bath, then dressed in plain black trousers and a pink cashmere sweater. Dinner was in an hour.
“I can’t so much as see the yearbooks without a search warrant,” Clive was saying, his mouth full.
“Why in the world is this school so secretive?” Jace asked, spearing another slab of rare roast beef. “The public has more access to prisoners than to these girls. You’d think that Margate was a den of sin and that the virtue of the girls had to be protected from us.”
As he spoke, the heads of Nigh, Clive, Gladys, and Mick got lower and lower. By the time Jace finished, their noses were almost touching their plates.
“Okay,” Jace said, “out with it. What happened to make the school hate Margate?”
“Mutual fascination,” Nigh said.
“That’s a good one,” Clive said. “Mutual fascination. I’ll have to remember that one.”
Gladys looked at Jace. “About four years ago a local boy impregnated a duke’s daughter. There was a bit of a row, but the story was hushed up. The duke threatened to call the parents of every student if what he called ‘the Margate scum’ weren’t banned forever from the school.”
Jace nodded. “So I take it that the daughter wasn’t allowed to marry the kid from Margate.”
That made the others laugh.
“All I want to know is if a Stacy Evans went to school there or not.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Gladys said, “but I think you also want to know the names of all her classmates. If your young lady did attend the school, you’ll want to call them and ask who she knew.”
Jace smiled at her, then looked at Mick. “You’d better keep her,” he said.
Mick put his hand over Gladys’s and said, “I intend to.”
An hour before, Jace had dismissed Mrs. Browne, watched as she left the kitchen to go back to her own apartment, then he’d briefly told Gladys and Mick about Stacy having been his fiancée and that he believed she’d been murdered. He told them she’d met someone at Priory House the night before her murder and he wanted to find out who it was.
“Gladys?” Jace asked. “Do you have keys to the school?”
“Not to the records office,” she said quickly and firmly.
“But you do have keys to get into the buildings?”
Both Nigh and Clive shouted “no!” at the same time.
“I can’t help on this if it’s to be a break and enter,” Clive said. “Sorry, Mr. Montgomery, but I can’t risk my whole future for this. If some other bloke on the force was caught, they’d forgive him, but not me. Not with my past record.”
Jace leaned back in his chair. “I’m open to ideas.”
“All right,” Clive said, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I think I have a plan.”
“Mr. Montgomery,” the headmistress of Queen Jane’s School purred. “I do believe we can accommodate your niece.”
“Our family doesn’t usually send children to boarding school, but Charlotte wants to go, so who are we to deny her? The child wants to play field hockey.”
“Oh, good, then she’s an athlete.”
“Yes, she’s a real jock.”
The woman kept her smile even through Jace’s slang. She handed him a fat sheaf of papers. “Our brochure is in there and an application to the school.”
“Thank you so much,” he said, taking the papers.
In the next second, a screaming alarm filled the room and their ears.
“What in the world?” the woman said. “I don’t think this is a real emergency,” she shouted above the din, “but I must go and see about my students.” She quickly moved to the door and waited impatiently for him to leave her office.
Jace caught his sleeve on the chair, then had trouble extricating it, then he tripped over his shoelace.
The woman was looking anxiously at the girls who were beginning to gather in the central hall. Her keys dangled impatiently in her hand.
“So sorry,” Jace shouted as he stood up and started toward her. But he dropped his papers, then went on one knee to pick them up.
“Mr. Montgomery!” she shouted. “I must see to my girls!” She gave him a look of disgust, then ran from the room.
In one quick motion, Jace took the yearbook for the year 1994 from the bookshelves by the door and slipped it under his jacket. Last night he’d done some hard thinking and he realized that the only year Stacy could have gone to the school was in 1993-94. Her mother died the summer of 1993, and her father had just married a woman only a few years older than his daughter. It was Jace’s guess that her stepmother would have shipped her off to an English boarding school to get rid of her. Jace knew that Stacy had graduated from a school in California, so if she had gone to Queen Jane’s, she hadn’t stayed all year.
The alarm was still screeching as he left the office with the papers the headmistress had given him in his hands. She was standing but a few feet from the office door, directing her students as they filed out of the building. Jace made a show of turning the knob on the door so it would lock behind him, and she gave a nod as though to tell him she approved.
Jace left the building smiling—while the girls around him hooted and yelled.
“Are you what’s in Margate?”
“I can see why we’re not allowed to go to the village if you’re what’s there.”
“My room’s on the southeast corner. I’ll throw you down a bed sheet.”
“Ha! You’ll throw down the mattress and jump on it.”
By the time Jace got back to his car, his face was red. He handed the yearbook to Nigh, then pulled out of the parking lot. “Girls weren’t like that when I was young.”
“Of course they were. Girls have always been like that,” she said, flipping through the book. “Bingo! Stacy Elizabeth Evans.”
Jace paused a second to glance at the photo in the yearbook, then drove back to Priory House with a smile on his face.
“Now all we have to do is find out who she met in this area,” Nigh said, “then we’ll know who sent her the invitation.” She leaned back against the headrest. “Jace?”
“I know,” he said. “You’re going to ask me if I’m prepared for what I might find out. I’ve heard it all before from my uncle Frank. You should meet him. You two think alike.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should. He’s a self-made billionaire.”
“Ooooh, that Frank Montgomery.”
Jace laughed as he pulled into the driveway of Priory House. It was Sunday, Mrs. Browne’s day off, and she’d gone wherever she went on Sundays, leaving them alone in the house. Clive’s plan to get the yearbook had been so simple that Jace wasn’t sure it would work. Gladys often went to the school on Sundays to catch up on her cleaning, so it was easy for her to
pull the alarm at an agreed-upon time. The rest had been up to Jace.
Once they were in the house, Jace and Nigh bent over the yearbook, their heads nearly touching. He was determined to not let her or anyone else see his shock and hurt that the woman he’d loved so much hadn’t told him that she’d attended a boarding school in England. Maybe it had been for only a few months, but Stacy had been there long enough to fall for someone. All he’d had to do, years later, was to send her a postcard with a date and Stacy had shown up. To see him again, she’d begged the man she was planning to marry to accompany him to England, and she’d picked a fight so she’d have an excuse to run away.
“See anyone you know?” Jace asked Nigh.
“Several, but only from the society columns. Let’s get on the ’Net.”
An hour later, they had done a great deal of research, but how did they contact these young women and ask them questions?
“You can’t just call Chatsworth and ask about a school chum of one of the daughters of the house,” Nigh said.
“Why not?” Jace asked. “You have to remember that I’m an American and we fought a war to do away with your class system.”
“Give me a break!” Nigh said. “Can just anyone call your sister and ask her questions?”
“First of all, they’d never get through to her. She has three kids and not a moment to—”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
He laughed. “Okay, I get your point, but I have an idea. There is one woman I know who can get put through to the Queen if she wants to.”
“Ha! Only a horse person could get through to the Queen.”
“But we don’t need the Queen, do we?” Jace asked. “We just need someone who can get through to these rich English girls, and there is one woman I trust more than any other in the world.”
“Who is that?”
“My mother.”
Nigh laughed. “You’ll turn it all over to her?”
“Every bit of it. You think Gladys bought a color copier?”
“From what Mrs. Parsons said, Gladys bought every machine known, and Mrs. P. didn’t buy any of it for her. Which means that Gladys got it all for half the price Mrs. Parsons charges.”