Old Secrets Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the author:

  Home To Stay

  Chapter One

  Old Secrets

  Shirley Wine

  Old Secrets

  Shirley Wine

  A Katherine Bay Romance – Book 8

  For more information on this author visit

  http://www.shirleywine.com

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  Copyright © 2020 by Shirley Wine

  Publisher: Shirley Wine 2020

  Cover Design by Annie Seaton © 2020

  ISBN:

  All rights reserved: No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning to a computer disc, or by any other informational storage and retrieval system without express permission in writing from the author and publisher. This work is protected under the statutes of the copyright act and registered with the National Library of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand.

  Disclaimer: The characters and events in this book are the creation of the author, and resemblance to persons, whether living or dead, is strictly coincidental. Towns and places are used as settings and have no relation to any event or actual happening outside the author’s imagination.

  Author note: I live in New Zealand and I write in British English using Standard English spelling and grammar cognisant with New Zealand usage.

  Here in New Zealand we have footpaths not sidewalks and water comes out of taps not faucets. We talk about the flavour of ice cream and the colour of the sky. An ass is a donkey and an arse is a human behind, and these terms are not interchangeable.

  We eat biscuits with our tea, not cookies. Here tea – the drink – is served piping hot in delicate china cups and when we dress up we wear jewellery.

  I apologise in advance if you find any of our idiosyncrasies confusing and I hope you enjoy your visit to my homeland. Feel free to email me if there’s something you need me to explain – I’ll do my best and be happy to oblige.

  Acknowledgements:

  I would like to thank Susanne Bellamy, critique partner extraordinaire; her insightful comments make my work shine.

  I would also like to thank my FaceBook Peeps who come up with information and suggestions whenever my writing well is in danger of going dry.

  Dedication

  For Martin - forever and for always.

  Our love has no boundaries.

  Chapter One

  Luce

  This is Drumullen?

  Luce stared through the windscreen of her city-friendly rental car, and shook her head in disbelief. Unsure how this mission to fulfil an old lady’s dying wish would end, she had never pictured her destination as a derelict mansion.

  She blinked hard, but nothing changed.

  This was not some weird dream.

  The white stone mansion stood there, deserted and forlorn, amid a sea of neglect. Several upper storey windows were broken and stared at her like so many blind eyes.

  Shredded curtains hung limply in the blank openings.

  Carriageway pavers were twisted at odd angles and choked with weeds. Near the front steps a sturdy privet grew and was now taller than the upper storey. In an overgrown garden border to one side of the house, a crimson rose towered above the detritus to bloom in brilliant defiance.

  A blazing sun cast a shimmering veil over the eerie scene.

  Nothing stirred.

  The only normal sounds to impinge on the silence were the distant drone of a farm tractor and a thrush singing in tree tops above a wilderness of waist high grass, bracken and brambles.

  A shiver worked its way across Luce’s skin, and her hands strangled the steering wheel.

  “I should have asked you a lot more questions, Gram, while I had the chance.” Her strained voice was loud in the confines of the car. “This place is creepy.”

  For years, she’d listened to Gram recount her memories of this house; stories of idyllic days she’d spent here, the parties, the dances, and the dashing beau who’d stolen her heart.

  This derelict house more closely resembled a Hitchcock movie set than the image Luce had built up in her mind.

  “Oh, Gram,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she took it all in. “I’m so glad you never returned to see it looking like this.”

  The old lady, close to death, had gripped Luce’s arm with surprising strength, her whisper pleading, ‘When I die, you must go to New Zealand, to Katherine Bay, and return the portrait for me. Promise, Luce, promise me you’ll return it to Drumullen.’

  She had promised; and this vow she held sacrosanct.

  Now, despite the blazing heat, a chill permeated her body, and remembered dread made her shiver.

  Last night she had dreamed—

  The Dream – Luce always capitalised it – had terrified her for as long as she’d had memories. And when trapped in its grip, she was a child again ... alone with heavy boots, terror-filled screams, wailing sirens and that man. His dark, brooding features were indelibly imprinted on her subconscious mind.

  He was the bogey that preyed on terrified little girls.

  Now, The Dream hung in the shimmering air like an ominous precursor. Shivers goose-stepped their way across skin suddenly grown clammy. Luce fought the urge to turn tail and flee.

  I can’t, I promised Gram.

  Perhaps she should have paid a little more attention to that woman in the café.

  Hungry and thirsty, her body-clock out of whack and jet-lagged, Luce had stopped for coffee at a small café overlooking the sea on the outskirts of the town of Katherine Bay. The waitress, along with coffee, had chattily shared information. “So where are you headed? Meeting up with relatives or friends?”

  Luce smiled, recognising a fishing expedition. Too many years living in a Cornish village left her well aware of how small communities worked.

  Gossip was gossip, the world over.

  “I have a commission to execute. Then I intend to enjoy a well-earned holiday.”

  “A commission? Where would that be?”

  Luce debated a moment, but seeing nothing except interest in the young woman’s face, she said, “I have to visit Drumullen—” she broke off at the ludicrous change in the woman’s expression. “What is it?”

  After a quick glance over her shoulder, the young woman leaned closer. “You don’t want to go near there. Drumullen’s no place for strangers.”

  “Order up.” A curt voice rang out from behind the counter.

  “Coming.” The young woman called over her shoulder before turning back to Luce. “You take care, you hear? The folk out there are damned unfriendly.”

  Now, as she recalled that warning, another shiver worked its way across Luce’s skin.

  The painting she’d promised to return, a portrait of some old dude, had turned out to be a Gottfried Lindauer original. She’d had it valued for insurance. Horrified to discover it was worth a small fortune; she’d carried it the entire way in her hand luggage afraid to let it out of her sight.

  She parked in the shade of the privet and plucked the keys from the ignition. With a deep fortifying brea
th, she picked up the brown-paper wrapped portrait, her handbag, and opened the car door.

  A blast of heat hit her in the face.

  Once beyond the tree’s shade, the hot sun scorched the winter-pale skin on her bare arms.

  She huffed out a breath that lifted the hair off her sweat-dewed forehead, and picked her way across the uneven surface. A missed step here could spell disaster.

  And Luce sure hadn’t travelled twelve thousand miles to break a leg.

  Three wide steps led to the entry, and on the last one she saw that the heavy oak front door stood ajar.

  She should shove the parcel through that door and leave, but by now she was damned curious. She could no more resist peeking inside than she could will herself to stop breathing.

  Let’s just hope I don’t find too many dead cats.

  The Gram-ism sneaked up on her, and she smiled. A smile tinged with sadness.

  Brushing aside the pang of sorrow, she pushed the door wide and stepped into an expansive foyer. It was dominated by a formal curving staircase that gave access to a second storey and a gallery landing, its ornate rail dulled with grime.

  A grandfather clock stood beneath the stairs, its tick long since silenced. Beside it, a Buhl table held a vase of flowers withered to the eeriest of dried arrangements. Desiccated petals littered the dust laden surface.

  On the wall above the table, a portrait looked on with sightless eyes.

  A door leading off the foyer stood open and through it, she saw a huge reception room, some of the furniture shrouded in dust sheets, other pieces festooned with cobwebs and layers of dust. Everywhere she looked there was evidence of neglect.

  Luce inhaled a shocked breath. Did the occupants just walk out and shut the door?

  The entire trip she’d worried how to explain her possession of that portrait to strangers. Now, such worries seemed pointless.

  Her soft-soled shoes squeaked on dust coated terrazzo tiles, the sound loud in the silence. She walked to the foot of the stairs, her movements sending dust motes swirling in the air. They hung shimmering in what sunlight managed to penetrate the dusty bevelled glass of the window above the front door.

  With her hand on the stair rail, Luce paused.

  It was here, she realised, on these very stairs that Gram’s dreams had died. So brutally, and so final.

  That long ago tragedy was suddenly all too real.

  It seemed to Luce as if it wafted on the very air and its essence permeated the bricks and mortar. The hairs on her arms stood upright like little pin-pricks. She closed her eyes and she could see it all, the battered, bloodstained body, and hear the shattering screams.

  “Gram,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Inhaling a deep breath, Luce opened her eyes again and looked upwards. Halfway up the stairs, she saw the outline of a woman shimmering in the heavy air. Transfixed and sure she was hallucinating, Luce stared bug-eyed, her feet glued to the floor.

  Blinking rapidly, she looked again, but the vision remained there, clinging to the stair-rail and bathed in an ethereal light, her fingers white against the dark wood. A nimbus of white surrounded her head, her blue eyes were dark with shock, ashen cheeks wet with tears, her mouth open as if she was screaming.

  The air was suddenly icy cold and Luce shivered convulsively.

  Is that a ghost?

  The stairs wavered and blackness rimmed Luce’s vision. Breathe, Luce. For God’s sake child, breathe.

  She obeyed Gram’s once familiar whispered order and everything came back into clear focus.

  You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Give it a rest. Luce jolted and looked over her shoulder, sure she heard Gram’s dry whisper.

  Nothing.

  Eyes wide, she looked around, but everything remained the same. The dust sheeted furniture, the silent clock, the dead flowers—it was all so … so abnormal. And no figment of her imagination.

  She was here in this house, alone.

  Goose bumps erupted on her skin and she shivered. This place was playing tricks on her mind. Filled with trepidation, her gaze winged upwards, but all she could see was the elegant stair-rail dulled with grime.

  There was no sign of the ghostly apparition.

  Air trembled from her constricted lungs—it’s jetlag, that’s all it is. It’s making me doolally.

  Too aware she was where she had no right to be, Luce looked around for somewhere to leave the parcel. Her gaze winged upwards to where other portraits lined the gallery walls. If she left the portrait she’d brought from England there with them whoever owned this place would never know she’d been here.

  Once decided, Luce climbed the stairs. She wanted done with the wretched thing. She couldn’t shake the dust of this unnerving place from her shoes fast enough.

  On the landing, she received a further shock.

  The parcel in its anonymous brown-paper wrapping abruptly seemed as hot as a live coal. Disbelief jostled among all the other tangled emotions.

  Her hands shook as she ripped open the paper wrapping.

  Luce looked from the portrait she held to the conspicuous gap on the gallery wall, a gap edged in black. Beside that blank spot hung another portrait, identical in every way to the one she held. Wicked, twinkling brown eyes under heavy black brows, long sideburns, intricately curled and shaped moustaches.

  Even the clothes they wore were the same.

  Dark serge suits, snowy linen and flowing cravats, the only difference she could discern was the jewelled cravat pin in the portrait she held.

  “Who the blazes are you?” She stared first at the portrait on the wall, then at the one she held.

  With a cracked laugh, she realised the absurdity of asking an inanimate portrait such a question.

  “More to the point, who are you?” The harsh male voice was so close the heat of his breath warmed Luce’s chilled cheek.

  Too late, she remembered the door of this deserted mansion had stood open.

  She whirled, and was confronted by a dark, forbidding stranger—the man who stalked her nightmares.

  Luce screamed.

  The frantic sound echoed off the walls.

  Chapter Two

  One week earlier

  Ethan Galloway heard the ripple of shocked whispers as he walked up the church aisle, his booted footsteps loud in the hushed stillness.

  One guess who will be the topic of dinner-time conversations this week.

  The hand holding his black Stetson clenched on the brim, and he was glad he had dressed for the occasion in unrelieved black. Although the locals would most likely frown on his western cut shirt and dress slacks that broke perfectly above his gleaming black boots, but he’d had no time or inclination to procure more conventional dress.

  And this would cause even more talk.

  The soft swell of organ music rose to the ceiling dome of the church.

  Ethan paused in front of the bier holding his father’s coffin fully aware of the curious eyes trained on his back, all of them eager to catch any betraying emotion.

  This kept his expression impassive, and the hand holding his Stetson remained rock steady.

  He stood at the foot of the bier, one hand, palm down, on his father’s coffin.

  Dad, it was never meant to end this way.

  A wave of sorrow threatened his composure. With an iron will, he shoved down the painful emotions; he needed every ounce of self-control to get through this morbid ritual.

  It’s not as if I can change one damned thing about the past.

  He turned and with one swift, veiled glance he surveyed the silent mourners, the cream of Katherine Bay society, before he stepped into the front pew. With a curt nod, he acknowledged his stepmother and step-sister and that clash of gazes, brief as it was, assured him they both still hated his guts.

  Stella’s green eyes flashed and a flush suffused her ivory skin, her black-gloved hands clenched as she bore his cursory inspection. Widowhood looked becoming on her.

/>   Charlene, after one bored grey perusal, ignored him.

  Grim humour surfaced. So what is new?

  Ethan sank into the pew, knelt and bowed his head in prayer; and the curious were doomed to disappointment.

  At the end of the service, black suited pallbearers carried Austen Galloway’s coffin from the church. Ethan stepped aside to allow the two women to precede him. When the widow faltered, he courteously offered her his arm. Stella’s glance of glowing gratitude filled him with disgust; he would not play her games.

  Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face.

  She stiffened and yanked her hand from his arm and head held high, she followed her husband’s coffin from the church.

  Outside, Ethan slammed the Stetson on his head, and tilted it low over his eyes. His lip curled. Did the whole damn population have to turn out and gawk?

  Impassive and immovable, he ignored the crush of people crowding forward as Austen’s coffin was loaded into the hearse. When it was done, he took a slow, deep breath, his composure little more than a fragile veneer.

  He stood beside the widow to greet the mourners offering their condolences.

  Wry humour lightened his black mood as he encountered far more disapproving looks than welcoming ones. It wasn’t every day a prodigal son returned home.

  “Your father will be missed.” Archie Talbot pumped Ethan’s hand. “We weren’t sure you’d get here in time.”

  The old man is still going? Ethan had thought the man ancient twenty years ago; he must be damned near as old as Methuselah.

  “We?”

  “Austen’s lawyer is my partner.”

  The connection made, Ethan nodded. “I almost didn’t. I managed to get the connecting flight in Buenos Aires by the skin of my teeth.”

  “How long will you be here? There’s a mountain of legal work.”

  “Let the boy catch his breath.” Carol chided her husband and laid a plump hand on Ethan’s arm, the lilac crêpe of her dress a near match for her skin. “Really, Ethan. Your hair. And that ear-ring!”