The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (best novels of all time txt) 📕

you are quite right. Drawings of the garden show that the folly stood somewhere over there.” She pointed to the right. “But they disassembled it during the war, because of the bombs. When the National Trust took over care of the property in the 1970s they found the stones over by the edge of the wood and put it back together again. I don’t know why they put it there. Perhaps to keep up the Palladian symmetry?”

“Mm.”

Arkady put his hand on Nick’s shoulder again. “Stop bothering Caroline with your hobby,” he said. “Let’s see the rest of the house.”

Caroline was affronted. “I am happy to answer all questions,” she assured Nick, turning her shoulder to Arkady. “If you are interested, there are drawings of the gardens in the pamphlet about the house. The last marquess’s young sister made watercolors of them sometime in the eighteen hundreds, and they are really quite evocative—though she painted them by moonlight, so they look more ominous than pretty. You can buy the pamphlet in the gift shop.”

Nick thanked her in a strangled voice.

“Let’s get on with it,” Arkady growled.

Caroline looked the Russian up and down with obvious disapproval. “As you wish,” she said stiffly.

Nick survived the next few minutes by keeping his eyes mostly on the floor and humming a marching tune under his breath. But when Caroline threw open the door to the marquess’s grand suite, announcing proudly that they were about to see Falcott House’s prized possession, his eyes were dragged upward by a force beyond his control. There it was. No bed, no furniture at all, but taking up almost one whole wall was the huge portrait of his family that used to hang in the drawing room in the Falcotts’ house in Berkeley Square. It had been painted soon after his father’s death, yet it included his father. The seventh marquess was in shadow, to symbolize that he was no longer living. He stood behind his wife. Her body was in shadow, too, but her lovely, grieving face emerged into sunlight. Both parents were gazing with sorrowful pride at Nicholas, Clare, and Arabella, who were shown in full sunlight, lounging smilingly around the Grecian folly, the girls plaiting roses into each other’s hair.

Nick stood before the picture, caught in the painted glances of his long-dead sisters. He barely heard Caroline as she spoke but tuned in when he heard his own name on her lips.

“. . . Nicholas, who was the eighth and last marquess, is the young man shown here. It is sad to think that just a few years later he would die in battle, and the title would die with him. You can see his signet ring prominently displayed. The father’s hand is in the same position as the son’s, do you see? But the ring is missing from his father’s hand. That and the red cap trimmed with white fur which Nicholas is holding shows that he is the new marquess—”

“Excuse me.” Nick heard his own voice as if from a great distance. “Where is the loo?”

Caroline looked at him with real concern. “Are you all right?”

“He’s fine,” Arkady said.

Caroline shot Arkady a look of loathing, which he returned full force.

“It is downstairs, through the gift shop,” she said to Nick. “We are nearly finished here, so we’ll meet you down there, shall we?”

“Yes, fine. Thank you.”

Nick practically ran downstairs, tearing the ring from his finger and stuffing it in his pocket as he went. He charged through the gift shop, which was in what used to be his study, paying no attention to the drab young woman behind the desk. He wrenched open the door to the bathroom and turned on the taps in the sink, splashing his face with cold water; it had worked when Kumiko had done it two weeks ago.

The assistant looked at him curiously as he walked back through the gift shop and out on to the drive, where Caroline and Arkady were waiting. Caroline put her hand on Nick’s arm, letting Arkady stride ahead toward their holiday flat. “I just wanted to say that it will be all right,” she said. “My husband is just the same as your Mr. Altukhov. A difficult man. But difficult men are sometimes secretly the kindest. Upstairs he told me all about how you lost your family and how you’d always wanted to see the original of that portrait, because the girls look so much like your sisters.” She peered into his face. “Yes, I can see it. I wonder if you are a distant relative.”

Nick stared at her blankly for a moment. Then a big smile split his face. It was all too absurd. “No relation,” he said. “But thank you. Thank you for your comforting words.”

He caught up with Arkady and put his arm around the older man’s shoulders. “Caroline likes you after all,” he said. “She thinks I should keep you.”

“I do not understand,” Arkady said. “You were miserable a moment ago and now you’re laughing.”

“Send me home, then.”

“You are home.” Arkady produced the key and proceeded to open the door to their flat. “We jump at dawn. It was not a good idea, spending a few days here in the future.”

“The present.”

Arkady held the door, allowing Nick to enter, then closed it behind them. “Tomorrow, my lord, this present that you love so much will be the far away future.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Arkady shook Nick awake an hour before the sun rose. He was as fussy as a valet over Nick’s outfit, and then as anxious as a girl over his own. But finally, when the first gray light was filtering through the windows, they were primped and ready in their unmentionables and Hessian boots, their tight jackets and starched cravats. They poked their beaver-hatted heads cautiously out of the door, then stepped into the early dawn like two nervous peacocks. No one was about.

“We stroll down to that bend in the drive,” Arkady said. “When we are far away enough from the house we