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  The house was Georgian, its modernization mid-twentieth century, and the museum it housed was Edwardian. The Horry Museum presented life in those few crazy years after Queen Victoria’s death, when people thought that the twentieth century might hold utopia. How wrong they’d been.

  But it was fun recreating a world where hope had been powerful, where women wore impossibly romantic gowns and men were dashing and debonair in their top hats and spats. Life hadn’t been so wonderful for the lower classes, and perhaps that was why Lanie liked the kitchen so much. It showed that even within the confines of a rigid class structure and lack of an effective welfare system, people had made the best of things and made themselves comfortable.

  She could relate.

  She lit a candle and set it safely on a corner of the sink where it wouldn’t inadvertently set fire to anything, or set off a smoke alarm. It was interesting how much her stage background helped her to set the scene in the museum. As the candlewax melted, it would release the scent of apple and cinnamon, near enough to the aroma of apple pie. A cheat’s answer to making a kitchen feel lived in.

  Satisfied that the stage was set, she returned to the front of the house to switch off the alarm and unbolt the front door.

  People were discovering the romantic image of the Edwardian era, and slowly finding their way to the museum. She promoted it in a low-key way by joining interest groups online, as well as maintaining the website with a weekly blog post. Next week’s would focus on the library.

  Mrs. Smith’s beloved deceased husband Horry had put together the incredible collection of Edwardian objects, even buying the Bloomsbury house especially to display it. In a very rich self-made man, collecting could be indulged in on a grand scale. Unfortunately, Horry Smith hadn’t been interested in books, so although there were handsome leather editions of popular novels and encyclopedias from the time in the library, far more space had been given to shells, which were a nuisance to dust.

  Sea shells and fossils, actually. But after seeing the price of the fossils and some of the shells online, Lanie had locked those away in a glass-fronted cabinet along with the scrimshaw—carved whalebone—leaving the cheaper but still spectacular seashells on the book shelves.

  She opened the library’s green velvet curtains and adjusted their tasseled cords.

  In composing the photos for her blog posts, the important thing was that they tell a story. And the most compelling stories were about people—people or animals. Characters. She saw her job as bringing the museum alive by conjuring phantoms, the people who could have lived in it.

  For instance, the library had to be that of a sea captain; hence, the shelves of collectibles. He’d be retired and living in London, but still dreaming of his adventures. She nudged the big globe on its own pedestal closer to the window. A man could have stood there and studied the world, traced the routes he’d sailed, while outside the hansom cabs with their clip-clopping horses and the new-fangled motor cars competed with cyclists and pedestrians and all the other road traffic of the metropolis.

  London, the beating heart of empire. It wasn’t an image that appealed to her, but it resonated with many of the museum’s visitors and a surprising number of its volunteers. People remade history to fill a present day need. Nostalgia was a powerful force, and it wasn’t necessarily about truth. It was the stories people told each other and themselves.

  Stories fed identity—and changed it.

  Lanie had used stories to shock and survive. She’d used them carefully, crafting her old stage act of mediumship to draw out people’s stories and reflect them, eliciting gasps of awe at her insight. Magic, went the murmur. But it wasn’t magic. They were the same tricks conmen used.

  And she’d used those tricks brutally, as the one weapon left to her. Survival had cost her the joy of performing.

  But that was the past. She forced the memories away. Here was safe harbor, the library that was a sea captain’s final berth. A fantasy, but a comforting one.

  She was searching for a spy glass to add to the photos she’d take when the electronic beep from the front door signaled the entrance of a visitor.

  Showtime.

  A tug at her jacket and a pat to her hair—Good, the chignon doesn’t wobble—and she was ready to perform.

  She mightn’t be a qualified museum curator, but Mrs. Smith had hired for her other qualities. And because of Mrs. Smith’s kindness, Lanie was determined to use them well. If the visitor was harmless, giving all the vibes of a tourist or idle time-waster, then she’d let them wander freely. But if they vibrated with the hidden urgency of a collector or opportunist, then she’d present them with the flyer that said the day’s first tour was held at ten o’clock and keep them under her eye. It was her ability to evaluate people and discern their motives that kept the museum’s eclectic collection safe—and it kept her skills in reading people fresh.

  Confidently, she exited the library, and stopped.

  The visitor was Nick Tawes.

  Her customer-service smile vanished in shock: shock that she recognized him, a stranger met in the shadows; and shock at how compelling he was, standing casually in the hallway.

  He wore a cream Aran sweater over dark brown trousers and well-polished brown shoes. He was stylish without making a fuss about it, and the sweater emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and reminded her that he was a builder, a man who clambered about roofs.

  She was used to men who clambered about a stage, theatre people who used artifice and skill to command attention.

  Not Nick Tawes. Nor had he the careful, gym-sculpted perfection of the business-suited men that filled London’s streets, intent on scaling financial mountains. He was real.

  “Good morning.” He spoke quietly, yet the impressive acoustics of the hall and his own crisp enunciation carried the words to her.

  “Good morning.” She walked forward slowly, taking small steps, giving herself time to adjust to the unexpectedness of him. The black, white and maroon floor tiles laid in a geometric pattern gave her footsteps a crisp assertiveness.

  He watched her approach and she watched his withdrawn, assessing expression. This was a man who stood alone. He gave an arrogant, powerful impression, despite his quiet stillness. Perhaps because of it. Few people could stand without minor restless movements, weight adjustments and fidgeting.

  Most people would have been outclassed by the grandeur of the hall. But he dominated it. The graceful Georgian staircase, mahogany paneling two thirds of the way up the walls, and the array of framed prints became mere background. It was as if he didn’t notice his surroundings, and so, they became commonplace. He was the lead actor on stage, waiting for her to say her lines.

  And with that final thought, she realized that she was wrong, and there was tension in him. Not nervousness or uncertainty, but something that kept his shoulders a millimeter too high, his pose a little too determinedly relaxed.

  In the same way that her counted breaths steadied her.

  As she approached, passing the narrow hall table that held pamphlets for other tourist attractions and a guest book that took pride of place, inviting people to record their thoughts, she locked eyes with him. Eye contact demonstrated control.

  His eyes were a dark toffee brown, set in a fiercely masculine face, the bones of which were too strong for him to be called handsome. He was unforgettable.

  He tilted his head down a fraction as she halted in front of him.

  She could do this. She would demonstrate her control. She held out her hand. “Welcome to the Horry Museum.”

  Chapter 2

  The woman in front of him had soft hands but a sure, firm handshake. Nick liked the combination and the self-confidence it indicated. But it was her eyes that fascinated him. Her light brown eyes were clear as peat water, as if light glinted on a stream running through woodland, and yet, they were totally unreadable. She gave no clues as to her mood or character.

  Last night, he’d caught her unawares.


  Today, she was mistress of the house.

  She looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine shoot. From smooth glossy hair, over a discreetly powerful red suit, down to high heels, she was a picture. But the picture was wrong.

  The setting was an Edwardian house, and what she wore was from decades later. The 1940s, maybe the 1950s. He had to admit, she rocked the glamourous retro look.

  “Are your clothes clean?” she asked.

  He glanced down at himself. He hadn’t been asked that since he was nine. “I think so,” he responded, amused.

  “As long as you didn’t come here via a building site or something, we can sit in the drawing room. This is a museum, but a living one. We can sit on the chairs if you’re clean, and we’ll be closer to the front door if visitors arrive than if we went back to the kitchen. We have wooden chairs in there,” she added in oblique explanation.

  “Wherever’s fine.” He followed her.

  The heels she wore gave a subtle sway to her hips, distracting him till the stuffy elegance of the drawing room burst upon him.

  The high ceiling and lush furnishings of the main reception room were both unfamiliar and too damn reminiscent of his past. The perfect proportions were typical of Georgian buildings and ought to have provided a sense of space. For Nick, they brought his past rushing in on him.

  He halted just inside the door, while Lanie Briers swayed across the room and opened the yellow and blue curtains at both windows. The walls were papered in a cloisonné print that continued the yellow and blue theme, and the polished floorboards were covered in a blue, tan and cream Persian rug. Furniture filled the room, but he could detect its careful arrangement, allowing space for visitors to weave through it.

  “Come in.” She sat on a loveseat by the fireplace, knees together, elegant legs on display.

  Reluctantly, he crossed the room and took the armchair opposite, leaving a low table between them. The blue chair was as uncomfortable as it looked, hideously overstuffed, probably with horsehair. He ignored his discomfort and the room, and focused on the woman. “I’d like to apologize for frightening you last night. I had no idea anyone lived on the roof.”

  “Mr. Jenx, the solicitor, didn’t mention it?”

  “I dealt with one of his younger members of staff. A junior clerk, I think. He checked my passport and had me sign for the key, and that was it. I suspect I caught them at the end of a busy day.” There’d been a frazzled air to the office; something he’d ignored in his own tiredness and preoccupation. He’d pressured the clerk to hand over the key. He grimaced, and not just because he couldn’t get comfortable in the damn chair. “I wasn’t at my best either. I’d just flown in from Tokyo.” And he’d worked long hours to wrap up his last project there. “Anyway, about the roof…”

  She nodded. “How long do you think the repairs will take?”

  “Repairs?”

  “You’ll want to see the roof first, of course. But if it’s just a bit of guttering, one day or two—”

  He interrupted because she was so wildly off-track. “I’m not a builder.”

  Her straight spine seemed to stiffen.

  “I thought I said last night. I’m a landscape architect. I’m here to design and install a roof garden.” And if she didn’t know that…he swore silently, condemning the absent Nelson to the hellfire of television re-runs that he deserved. “It’ll be more than a few days’ work, and we’ll be filming it.”

  “What?” She stood, displaying shock and something more. Fear? Horror? Bone-deep resistance?

  He stood, too. He didn’t need her permission to go ahead with the roof garden. Nelson had gotten the owner Mrs. Smith’s signature on the contract. But nor did he want unpleasantness. “Will you let me explain?”

  She walked to the window.

  For a silent minute he watched her glamorous figure outlined by the morning light.

  This was more than resentment at not being informed, or dislike of having her privacy invaded—something he could reluctantly empathize with.

  “Roof gardens are increasingly popular,” he said into the silence. “People are beginning to accept that if the future for most of us is city living, then for food security, mental health benefits and air quality control, we need to green our cities. I specialize in designing and installing green spaces, generally rooftop gardens, but also green walls and reclamation projects.” He sought for a concrete example, one where she might be interested. “Do you know some people are even growing mushrooms in old tunnels below London?”

  “Mushrooms. Kept in the dark and fed poo.” Challenge sharpened her voice, giving it a bitter edge beneath the attractive modulation.

  Her observation surprised a wry smile from him. “I hope that’s not how you feel. The producer of the television show we’re shooting is a school friend of mine, Nelson Horatio. Nelson told me he’d cleared everything for this project. He says it will be a good balance, something old along with the new.” And look at me, repeating the same arguments Nelson bludgeoned me with.

  She turned from the window and now her mascaraed lashes hid her eyes and her thoughts. “And do you agree?”

  Silently, he cursed his voice for revealing his resentment and unwilling acceptance of Nelson’s plan. Then he stuffed his emotions further down. This was business, not a heart-to-heart. “The museum is newly open?”

  “A year ago.”

  He walked to the fireplace. Its surround was composed of blue and white Delft design tiles. Beautiful. A mirror hung above it, reflecting the crowded room and his own forbidding face. He looked away. “My brief is to create a roof garden that expresses the Edwardian ideal of a garden as a space for both play and practicality.”

  “It’s impossible.” Her outburst made her more human, less a graceful figure of resentment and rejection.

  He moved towards her and cracked his shin on the low table. He controlled the urge to bend and rub it. “Why?”

  If she noticed his accident, she didn’t show it. “Access to the roof is difficult. The elevator is old and can’t comfortably hold more than two people and you’ve seen the outside staircase. Visitors can’t climb that.”

  Now that he had concrete issues to deal with, he relaxed. He sat down, and by her narrowing eyes, knew that she’d caught the subtext: he wasn’t going anywhere.

  In the far corner, a grandfather clock sounded the half hour. Its tone was mellow and assured.

  He tried for the same note. “Most visitors won’t want to climb all the stairs, but the rooftop garden will provide unique advertising for the museum, raising its profile, and you could work out insurance and run special tours that promote climbing that ridiculous staircase as an extreme adventure.”

  She didn’t return his smile.

  He leaned forward. “The garden is going to happen.”

  She pulled at a curtain cord, avoiding his gaze. “You said you’re filming it?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t know my flat was up there.”

  He awarded her a point. A significant one. He hadn’t done his research. Nelson had promised him the entire rooftop of a Georgian house to work with. Just how big was the flat and how would it change his first, very rough plans?

  “The flat explains why the roof was converted to a level concrete space. I was curious about that point,” he conceded, spinning the negative into a positive. “An elevator shaft through the building will have strengthened the structure and increased its weight-bearing load capacity, which is great for the roof garden.” Being a landscape architect and working on commission, he’d learned to “sell” his ideas.

  But Ms. Briers wasn’t buying. “You’d better see the roof.”

  She walked out.

  He sat a moment, rocked off balance by her abruptness. Then the stuffy drawing room furniture seemed to sidle closer, to creep up on him as in nightmares. He eyed a walnut bureau that hunkered down between the two front windows. It was dark and hideous.

  He sprinted for the ha
ll, and found her bolting the front door and punching a code into the security panel by it. “What if you have visitors?”

  “Then they’ll be disappointed.” She swiveled sharply on one heel. “The elevator is this way.”

  Lanie felt quivers of panic deep inside, but she refused to acknowledge them. Control had become very important to her in the last eight months, and Nick Tawes was threatening it.

  Perhaps she could handle him turning the roof into a garden. A small part of her was even curious at what could be achieved. But his casual mention of filming the project filled her with apprehension.

  She was safe, here. Hidden. She needed this retreat. What she didn’t need was a sharp-eyed film crew wandering through the museum and her world.

  Her brain whirred, calculating. It might still be possible to put him off. The flat took up a third of the roof space, and was far from picturesque.

  If only she hadn’t assumed that he was a builder—although it was the obvious assumption. Had he introduced himself as a landscape architect last night? She didn’t know. She’d been too busy listening to her own fears to register his words.

  That was the problem with fear: it halted thought. If only she’d listened, she could have looked him up on the internet last night. She wouldn’t be going into this quite so blind. He wasn’t easy to read—apart from that moment when she’d picked up resentment at working on the museum’s roof.

  Interesting. He was determined to do the project, but not happily. So if she gave him a reason to back out, would he?

  “I see what you mean about the elevator.” He peered into its tiny cage. “After you.”

  Claustrophobia wasn’t her thing. She entered and pressed to one side.

  He entered, ducking his head a fraction. “Airplane seats and now this elevator. Times I wish I was shorter.”