Someone to Love by Jude Deveraux Page B

expensive Claridge’s Hotel. Jace ignored the looks on Mick’s and Gladys’s faces. He could see that they’d like to do most anything other than search out antiques, but it wasn’t five yet, so Jace gave them their assignments. Mick was to rent a trailer to haul what they bought back with them, then he was to go to a flea market and buy knickknacks from around 1878.
    “I don’t know about ornaments,” Mick protested, glancing at Gladys.
    “I know a bit,” she said, moving closer to him.
    “You can’t go together,” Jace said. “Gladys, I want you to do some research.” He handed her a piece of paper. “That’s all I know about a woman and her husband who lived in London in 1878. I want you to find out everything you can about her, and I want all the pictures you can get.”
    She looked intrigued by the assignment and stepped away from Mick. “Eighteen seventy-eight?”
    “And after. What happened to the woman and her children? Mick, see that you get me lots of picture frames. Little ones.” He gave them each a stack of cash.
    In spite of Mick’s complaints about his assignment, the three of them set out with enthusiasm. They met back at the hotel for an eight o’clock dinner in Jace’s room and took turns telling about their day.
    Mick had booked the trailer, then taken a cab to a flea market where he’d met a little old lady who delighted in helping him. “I told her I worked for the BBC and I was supposed to decorate a bedroom for a young lady of 1878. She asked me questions about the room and I told her about Priory House. All I had to do was listen to her tell me the history of every object.” He unwrapped perfume bottles, a silver brush, a comb and hand mirror set, china ornaments, pretty hairpins, three brooches, and a pair of stockings. “If you want more, she’ll be there tomorrow. It seems that all she does is haunt the markets. Her eldest daughter—” Smiling, Mick stopped talking and looked at Gladys. “What did you get?”
    Jace smiled in memory of the rivalry between lovers. It was something else he missed.
    “What about you, sir? What did you get?” Gladys asked.
    Jace realized there hadn’t been much time, so maybe Gladys hadn’t found out anything. He didn’t want to embarrass her. He’d visited four antique stores and found a bed very like Ann’s and a big green ottoman. One store owner told him that what he’d chosen were the most common pieces of the Victorian era and that if he were a connoisseur—
    Jace had cut him off, not wanting to waste time hearing a sales pitch. That the furniture in Ann’s room was the “most common” reinforced his belief that she wasn’t “the beloved daughter” of Arthur Stuart.
    For a moment, Jace thought of upgrading the furniture. Maybe he should buy the four-poster rosewood bed that was a ringer for the Lincoln bed in the White House. But no, the idea was to re-create a familiar-looking environment for Ann, so he stuck with what he’d seen.
    After Jace told of his purchases, he turned to Gladys. “Did you have time to find out Catherine’s last name?”
    Gladys excused herself from the table and returned a few minutes later with a half-inch-tall stack of photocopies. “The aristocracy in England keeps track of its own.”
    Jace took the papers and began looking through them. Catherine Nightingale Stuart married Peregrine Willmot, the earl of Kingsclere, in 1872. They had nine children.
    “I stopped by a tourist information shop and got this.” With a little cat smile, she handed Jace a triple-fold brochure advertising a castle to see. It had acres of parkland, a maze, a playground for children, and—
    Jace drew in his breath as he unfolded the last page. There was a photo of a portrait of Catherine. “Castle Veraine’s most beautiful inhabitant, Catherine Nightingale Willmot,” it read below the photo. “The mother of nine children, but she never lost her eighteen-inch waistline.”
    Jace looked at Gladys.