The Secret Gift (7 page)

Immediately beneath it, he saw the headline.

NEW FEATURE! THE “WHERE’S WALTHAM?” REPORT

A grainy photograph of him, attempting unsuccessfully to hide behind a pair of dark sunglasses and a baseball cap, came into view. He remembered the day the photo had been taken. It had been early spring, barely a week after they’d buried his father. He’d been walking Murphy in Green Park, hoping for a bit of peace and quiet reflection.

It was the last time he’d ever done that.

As soon as the page was through, Graeme took up the sheet and read it.

Devoted
Buzz
readers have responded overwhelmingly, e-mailing, faxing, and otherwise sending in “Waltham Sightings” from in and around the U.K. Where is this most eligible bachelor and reclusive future heir to both the Dukedom of Gransborough and the Earldom of Abermuir hiding himself these days? More importantly, with whom is he hiding? Find him, provide us with a snapshot, and you could win the £1000 prize ... and ladies, if you should succeed in getting a date with this enigmatic aristocrat, the prize is increased to £5000!

The fax beeped, having just finished spewing through another page.

Graeme picked up what looked like another
Buzz
page. It appeared to be a map, marking each place he had supposedly been spotted, crisscrossing a route across the United Kingdom and the Continent, even the United States. Beneath it were thumbnail photographs of “possible” Waltham snapshots, a dozen or more of them, none of them clearly him—in fact none of them him at all. Most were nothing more than caricature, staged poses. “Waltham in a Mexican sombrero.” “Waltham in a beret atop the Eiffel Tower.” Bloody hell, there was even one of “him” standing with Elvis!

Graeme crumpled the fax into a ball and flung it into the hearth.

“Graeme?”

He’d forgotten his mother was still on the phone. “Yes?”

“Dear, why don’t you just end this silly game and come out of hiding? It only adds to the feeding frenzy, you know, this reclusiveness on your part. It’s a challenge I’m afraid they cannot deny themselves.”

“I’m not hiding, Mother. And this isn’t any
challenge.
I’m attempting to live a quiet and peaceful life. This is harassment, invasion of privacy, even stalking. A man should be free to live wherever and however he chooses without having to fear that the lens of some photographer’s Nikon is going to be shoved up his—”

“Unfortunately, Graeme,” his mother cut in, “you’re not just any man. You’re handsome beyond belief, wealthy with the absolute certainty of becoming even more wealthy, and unmarried. Remember those horrible, indelicate photos they took of Princess Diana working out at the gym? And then, afterward, all the papers could print for a week was the debate of whether or not she had evidence of cellulite on her thighs. They didn’t care if she had visited three hundred AIDs patients that day, or had single-handedly ended world hunger. The poor thing had to be afraid to go to the loo lest some photographer’s lens might be trained upon her bum. And much as they’d like to, they can’t hound her boys without incurring the anger of the free world. After what happened to their mother, the press have to tread very lightly. Alternate choices have been quite slim for the paparazzi—until you came along, that is. For whatever reason, Fate has made you heir to two very considerable legacies, which, in turn, makes you considerably more than just an average man. It makes you interesting. It makes you extraordinary. And this reluctance to show yourself only makes you that much more fascinating in their eyes.”

“Bloody lucky me,” Graeme muttered. He stared out the window onto the grayness of the North Sea. He would give anything to be able to board a ship down on that same shore and disappear.

“What you need, dear, is to come out into the light of their flashbulbs instead of hiding from them. Galas, events, the queen’s Christmas ball even. You need to be everywhere, be seen with everyone, and eventually the paparazzi will get bored with you.”

Graeme chewed over his mother’s words, weighing them against his own introversive feelings.

“And don’t even tell me you’re considering plastic surgery. I rather like your face the way it is. It shows your most fortunate resemblance to me.” She paused. “Seriously, though, Graeme, there is one other thing you can do to end all of this.”

“What is that, Mother? Move to the North Pole and frolic with the elves?”

She chuckled. “No. You could just get married and be done with it.”

Graeme frowned at the phone, even though he’d expected the suggestion. It was, after all, the surest way to put an end to this madness, as well as fulfill his hereditary duty now that the continuity of two noble lines, one English and one Scottish and both very ancient, depended entirely upon him. Rather, on his ability to procreate. He thought of the many portraits of his ancestors that hung in the various family properties. For centuries his ancestors had managed to hold fast to their wealth and reproduce sufficiently to continue their noble lines into the modern age. So it wasn’t just his mother, or his uncle, whose hopes he had riding on his shoulders. It was the hopes and determination of every one of those periwigged, regal-looking faces that lined the venerable halls of his legacy.

Perhaps his mother was right. With circumstances the way they were, he would never be able to just meet a girl, get to know her, fall in love. Every time he encountered a woman, he would always have to wonder whether her interest was truly in him or in the prestige and wealth of his titles.

So, then, why put it off any longer?

“Draw up a list. Indicate who you think is the best candidate,” he said, his voice heavy with acceptance. “Talk to His Grace, my uncle. I’ll be coming down to London in the next week or so for work. We can meet and finalize the details then.”

Contrary to the morning before, Libby was up with the dawn the next day. She had hardly slept a wink throughout the night, so anxious about what she might find in the parish record books.

Miss Aggie and Miss Maggie were in the kitchen when she emerged from her bedroom, showered, dressed, and ready for the day.

“Goodness, child, but you’re up early. Even the cockerel has yet to crow!”

Though Libby wanted to waste no time in getting to the church, she knew it was probably too early for Sean MacNally to have awoken. So she had a simple breakfast of porridge and tea with the sisters, listening to their birdlike chatter, all the while watching the clock as it moved maddeningly slowly toward the eighth hour.

She was sitting in the churchyard, pulling the weeds that had begun to overgrow one of the older graves, when Sean MacNally came through the iron gate around nine.

It was a beautiful morning, blessed with clear skies so blue and so full of fat white clouds that they seemed to have been painted by an artist’s brush. The sea was mild, and she’d even taken a stroll down to the water’s edge, where she’d been greeted by the gulls swooping low over the shore. The pocket of her jacket was now full of the seashells she’d quietly gathered. Libby smiled at the minister and stood up, brushing the dirt and grass from her hands. “Good morning, Sean.”

“Good morning to you, Libby. You’re here bright and early, I see. I try to do that myself sometimes. So many of these graves are forgotten. I won’t keep you waiting with chitchat. I’m sure you’re anxious to see those record books.”

The minister led her inside the church, past the altar to a small room off the main nave. Once there, he fitted a rather ancient-looking key into the rather ancient-looking lock and shoved the door open to allow her inside. The room on the other side reminded her of a monk’s cell, with a small single lamp at the center table. The walls, she saw as she stepped into the shadowed room, were lined with shelves of register books, and there was an antiquated, musty sort of smell that fittingly marked the room as an archive.

“I keep thinking one of these days I’ll find the time to computerize these records.” Sean smiled. “Of course, that would require a computer, which we don’t have. We’re still a bit nineteenth century here, I’m afraid. The school’s headmaster offered to let me use the school’s computer at night, but I just haven’t gotten to the point of lugging all these books over there. It’s difficult when you’re the only minister for a region this size. I service this village and all the outlying settlements. So, we continue to write the records all by hand, in the way they have been done since ... well, since time began, I suppose, more out of tradition than anything else.”

He turned toward the shelves. “Now, let’s start with the year your mother was born.”

He removed a large folio-sized book that looked quite like a ledger, with pages of columns and boxes scribbled with notations. “The books are broken down into three sections,” he told her. “Christenings, marriages, and then deaths. When one of these events occurs, the details are recorded as they happen. We send a form in to the Registry Office in Edinburgh and keep the original record book here. Then, at the end of the year, the books here are indexed in the back of the ledger by family surname, with a notation of the entry number and page number.” He turned to the back of the book. “Would you know your mother’s parents’ names?”

“Hugh and Catherine Mackay.”

“Well, the records are indexed by father’s name, and there are likely to be several ‘Hughs,’ so it looks as if all you’ll need to do is go through the Mackay births for the year. I’ve a few phone calls to make, so if you don’t mind I’ll leave you to it. Can I bring you some tea when I come back?”

Libby nodded and thanked him. As soon as he was gone, she read and then reread every Hugh Mackay birth record, but none of them indicated a daughter named Matilde having been born. She even went back and read every Mackay birth record, Hugh or not. Still there was nothing.

“I just don’t understand it,” she said a couple of hours later when Sean came back to check on her.

“Hmm ...” He sipped his tea. “Are you certain your mother was born here in Wrath Village?”

“No, not exactly certain,” she admitted. “But I have to believe there is some connection for her to the village.”

Libby looked at him. “Why else would she have left me the photograph?”

Sean took up the photograph of the young man that Libby had found in her mother’s things, giving it another, closer look. “I wish I could say I recognize the man, but I don’t. There’s a familiarity there, but nothing I can point a finger to. But then, I’ve only been here in the village the past seven years.” He gave her the photo back. “And you’re certain your mother’s birth name was Mackay?”

All it had taken was his asking that question. It was as if a light suddenly switched on. “Wait a minute.” Libby took up the record book again. “You said these entries were written as they occurred.”

“Yes ...”

“Well, one thing I do know for certain is that my mother’s birthday was August twenty-fourth ...”

She was already flipping through the pages, scanning the month column, and she began reading all the passages on or about August 24.

“These are christenings,” Sean added over her shoulder, getting caught up in the search. “It could have been recorded days or even weeks after she was born, depending on the time of year, and if the family were farmers, depending on what was being done about the farm. People sometimes had to wait until after the harvest was brought in, or sometimes, if they lived outside the village, they just waited until when next they came to church services.”

Libby started reading every christening record, starting with August 1, no matter the surname. And then, finally, she stopped.

“Listen to this, Sean. ‘Christened this day, the thirtieth of August in the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Forty-two, a daughter born to Hugh Donn, a crofter, and his lawful wife, Catherine nee M’Leod, on Monday, the twenty-fourth of August. The christening was witnessed by Euan MacNeish and James Mackay, crofters, and the daughter was given the name of Matilde.’ ”

“Well, the first names certainly match,” Sean said.

“And the date of birth, but what I don’t understand is why she went by the name of Mackay. She even included it on my birth certificate, registering my name as Isabella Elizabeth Mackay Hutchinson.”

Sean sat down beside her. “Libby, is it possible your mother had been married before she married your father? You said she was thirty years old when she married your father, aye? Is it possible that she had already been married once before, when she was younger, and was perhaps divorced or even widowed?”

Libby picked up the photograph of the unknown man. She’d just assumed it was a cousin or a friend. Could it be instead ...

A husband?

Libby decided to take a short break before setting out on her next task, that of studying the parish marriage records, which would take much longer, since she would be searching a number of years, rather than just one. The musty air and low light inside the records room had given her a headache, so she’d decided on a short walk and some fresh air, escaping to the village’s fish and chip shop—called simply the Chip Shop—down the street for lunch.

As she’d handed over her two pounds fifty to pay, Sean stopped by to tell her he had to leave the village for an outlying settlement that was in unexpected need of his services. He explained that he would have left her on her own but he wasn’t at all certain when he’d be coming back that night. Would she mind very much if any further search through the record books had to wait until the morning?

Since she wasn’t on any timetable, Libby bid him good-bye, picked up her newspaper-wrapped fish and the accompanying bag of chips, and took the short stroll to the village green.

There was a small garden there that in summer would be replete with native flowers, but now, in the chill harshness of autumn, the blossoms had long gone. It was still a lovely spot, with the small harbor with its fishing boats lined along the dock and the bay stretching out in the distance. Libby took a seat on a stone bench and quietly had her lunch. She thought of her mother growing up in the village and wondered if she’d ever sat at that same spot, on that same bench. She was so deep in thought that she didn’t hear the footsteps approaching on the gravel walkway behind her.