Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor (37 page)

MARCH 1992, WILLOW COTTAGE

B
roken bones he could fix, but the doctor said it was too late to stop the internal bleeding in Maggie’s vital organs. Walter had found her in the ditch going down into the village, after their car had slid on the ice, and she’d been conscious enough to tell him that she didn’t want to go to the hospital.

But he hadn’t listened. He borrowed the Westcotts’ estate car and drove her straight into Cirencester. When the doctors said there was nothing they could do to save her life, Walter had brought her home, and in Maggie’s final hours, Daphne labored alongside him to care for her.

Walter sat by Maggie’s bed that last night, holding her hand and wiping the sweat off her brow. “I need to know something,” she said, her breathing labored.

“Ask anything you want.”

“Did you kill Oliver Croft?”

He shook his head.

She struggled to take another breath, the pain almost paralyzing her. “Libby cared about him.”

“I know.” He stroked her hand, hoping to settle her heart.

“And I know you were caring for Libby.”

He dipped the rag back into the cool water and dabbed her forehead.

“I’ve done too many things wrong, Walter.” She stopped again for a breath. “I need to make it right.”

“It’s okay—”

“With you and Libby,” she continued. “And with Heather and Christopher. They belonged together, but I was afraid. I—I would have done anything to keep her heart from being broken.”

“I know you would have.” He carefully brushed her hair. “Heather made her own choices, just like Libby made hers.”

“Do you know where Libby is?”

He shook his head. He couldn’t tell her now that Libby left after his mother passed away and never returned.

“Please find her. Tell her how much I loved her.”

“I will,” he said, though he wasn’t certain how he’d find her.

“You cared for me, even when I wasn’t the woman you needed me to be.”

He kissed her forehead. “Quiet, darling.”

“Thank you for rescuing me . . . and for rescuing our girls.”

This time he gently squeezed her hand, tears welling in his eyes. “I need to thank you, Maggie.”

“I didn’t do anything—”

“Thank you for loving me even when I was hard to love.”

She seemed to search for her breath, and when she found it, she spoke again. “Walter?”

He kissed her cheek.

“You need to find Libby,” she said, “and you need to do something else.”

There was nothing else he wanted to do, but still he listened.

“I want you to start writing again.”

“I don’t have anything to write about.”

She smiled at him one last time. “You should write about butterflies.”

HEATHER HAD BROUGHT ELLA HOME
for Maggie’s memorial service. It was too late for Heather to say good-bye to her mother, and Walter thought it was for the best. She was happily married, living in the state of Oregon with her husband and beautiful daughter. There was no reason to muddle her happiness with the truth about Libby and much too late for Maggie to make amends.

He hadn’t told his wife, even in her last hours, that he knew the storm back in Clevedon hadn’t tried to blow her away. She’d planned to go willingly with the wind. He was glad, so very glad, she’d lived, and that she chose to give Libby life as well.

It was quiet in the house now without Maggie or their girls. Too quiet.

He padded down into the basement and began sorting through the boxes that Maggie piled together after Libby had left, to make room for Heather and her things.

For the first time in years, his desire to write was returning, welling within him. The words swarmed together, all jumbled. Order is what they needed. On paper.

But the words inside him weren’t like the stories he’d written back in Clevedon. He wanted—needed—to tell a different kind of story.

Inside Maggie’s boxes, he found exactly what he was looking for: the many pictures of Libby’s friends.

He sat on the step and pulled out the empty tablet from his front pocket, the notebook he’d been carrying for years in case inspiration struck. Then he picked up the first picture, studying it for a moment before he began to write.

This butterfly likes to explore in the gardens before the sun sets, in the hour when no one can see her dance.

He scratched out his words and tried again.

Autumn Dancer flies in the cool of the evening, in the minutes before the trailing sunlight disappears into darkness.

Better, but that still wasn’t quite right. Underneath he tried one more time.

Autumn Dancer flutters among the flowers, chasing the last rays of sunlight until her haven is swallowed up by the night.

Smiling, he began to scribble more words in the notebook, staying up all night to tell the story of Libby’s friend.

H
eather slid her passport to the attendant across the front desk of Oaken Holt Care Home, and then she signed a form saying she was indeed the daughter of Walter Doyle. The attendant typed her information into Walter’s file before scanning the record on his screen.

“This says we mailed his belongings to you in Oregon. Six boxes that contained all the personal things left in his room.”

Heather fidgeted in her chair. “I received all the boxes, but there was only clothing and books inside.” Dozens of books.

“Were you expecting something else?” the man asked.

She nodded. “His journals.”

He glanced down the list of items they’d mailed. “There’s nothing here about journals.”

“A friend said he kept them on the bookshelf by his bed.”

“Let me talk to his nurse.”

The attendant stood and stepped back into a room behind the desk. When he returned, he typed something else on his keyboard before facing her.

“The nurse said the journals were gone before he passed away. Apparently, he asked her to mail them to a relative here in Oxford.”

Heather’s heart pumped faster. “Do you have the address?”

He scanned his computer screen again. Then he wrote something onto a piece of paper and slipped it back across the desk. She glanced down at the street address in Oxford along with an apartment number.

“There’s no name of the recipient in our records,” he said.

She picked up the paper. “This is perfect.”

Christopher said his meeting would be finished by one o’clock, but she didn’t wait for him. This was something she needed to do alone.

Instead of driving, Heather walked two miles to what she hoped was Libby’s flat, tucked away from the busy shopping and academic districts. Tilting her head back, she looked up at the closed curtains on the second floor.

Was it possible that the woman who’d birthed her lived here in Oxford? If so, what was Heather going to say to her? And what if Libby, like Lord Croft’s grandson, turned her away? She’d learned with Jeffery that there was nothing—at least nothing healthy—she could do to control those around her, but she hoped Libby would at least talk with her.

She knocked twice on the door of #16. When no one answered the knock, she turned, disappointed, to descend the steps until she saw a woman emerge from a taxi, onto the sidewalk below the landing. It was the woman she’d seen at the memorial service.

Libby had long, auburn hair that flowed over her shoulders. Instead of blue, she wore an orange sundress today with a floppy straw hat and sandals that laced high up her ankles.

Heather drummed her fingers together as she waited for her birth mother to climb the stairs.

When she finally stepped onto the landing, Libby pressed her lips together, quietly studying Heather’s face. “You have Oliver’s eyes,” she said simply.

“You know who I am?”

Libby took her keys out of the beaded purse looped over her shoulder. “You’re my sister.”

Heather nodded.

“We used to play together in the gardens, when you were little.”

“I remember,” Heather said.

“You loved the butterflies.” Libby unlocked the door and waved her inside.

Heather followed her through a narrow hallway, to an area meant to be a living space except there were no couches or even a chair on the wooden floor. Instead there was a carpet of splattered paint, a dozen milk crates stuffed with art supplies, a cardboard box topped with paintbrushes, and three easels near the window, each one displaying a painting in various stages of production.

Libby opened up the curtain along the window and natural light poured into the room. Then she picked up a paintbrush and turned toward one of the canvases, staring at the cloth as she spoke. “How did you find me?”

“Dad’s retirement home gave me your address.”

“Because of his books?” Libby asked.

She nodded. “The nurse said she sent them here.”

Libby mixed several colors together on her palette. “Do you want to read them?”

“Yes—but I’d like to know more about Oliver first.”

“I loved Oliver,” Libby said as she began to dab navy-blue specks of paint at the top of her canvas. “With all my heart.”

As if there was nothing else Heather needed to know.

“Can you tell me what happened to him?”

Libby didn’t answer her question. “Walter wanted you and I to meet.”

“He never told me—” Heather hesitated, not wanting to explain that she’d thought Libby had passed away. “He never told me you lived in Oxford.”

She rinsed off her brush and began adding a pale-red color to her picture. “I asked him not to.”

“Why didn’t you want to meet me?”

When Libby turned toward her, her gaze didn’t quite meet Heather’s, traveling instead over her shoulder. “Do you still like butterflies?”

Heather blinked. “I suppose.”

She unclipped one of the paintings from an easel and replaced it with an empty canvas. Then she handed Heather a brush.

Heather stared at the brush for a moment before dipping it into the paint.

LIBBY CHANGED FROM HER DRESS
into a turquoise satin robe with a thin cord belted around her waist, and the two women spent the afternoon painting. The hours reminded Heather of the times she and Ella used to spend together, immersed in their own schoolwork.

Heather quickly realized that painting was Libby’s way of keeping herself present in one sense. With her hands busy, Libby’s mind seemed to find clarity, slipping back and forth between fantasy and reality, present and the past.

Whenever she stopped, Libby struggled to find herself again.

As they worked together, Heather understood even more why her parents chose to harbor the secret of her birth mother and also why they didn’t encourage her own love of art. They were probably terrified she would lose herself as well.

When she finished her painting, Heather inched back to look at the gray stone of the manor house before her, overlooking a bed of flowers. Libby stepped up behind her, her brush in hand, and Heather moved away as Libby painted the backs of two girls, hand-in-hand, exploring the flower beds together.

“Thank you,” she said softly before turning to look at Libby’s canvas. She’d painted a young man, standing beside what looked like the ruins of a castle, his brown hair blowing in the wind. His green eyes seemed to pierce through her.