When the phone rang, he snatched it up, hoping it was it Mariana telling him she was on her way. ‘Hello?’
‘Mr Beresford?’
He didn’t recognise the voice and had to damp down his disappointment. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m Shirley Peters, Bill Reynolds’s daughter. He said you wanted to talk to me about our family history.’
Mariana ought to be here for this conversation, he thought. Or maybe this would be his excuse to talk to her if she stonewalled him, and he could open the conversation by telling her of any new developments. ‘Thank you so much for calling,’ he said, and filled her in on what they’d found about the painting so far.
‘So what did you want to know?’ she asked.
‘We’re trying to find out more about Alice. Is she related to you?’
‘She’s my four-times great-grandmother,’ Shirley confirmed. ‘I can email the family tree over to you, if you like.’
‘That,’ Angelo said, ‘would be fantastic.’
‘I’ve got some copies of birth and marriage certificates, too,’ she said.
‘If you’ve got Alice and Robert’s marriage certificate, and Thomas’s birth certificate, I’d love to see them.’
‘I’ll scan them in and email them with the family tree,’ she said.
‘Thank you so much. And I can send you what we have,’ Angelo said. ‘We have photos of a sketch and a painting we think might be Alice. Our theory is that Carulli and Alice fell in love when he was her drawing teacher, they had an affair, and Thomas was the result. Carulli was already married so he couldn’t marry her, and we think Alice’s father might have given Robert the farm in return for marrying Alice and saving her from scandal.’
‘That would explain something in Dad’s old papers—the farm’s always gone to the oldest son, but Thomas was the youngest son. So if the farm belonged to Alice’s family before she married Robert, maybe this was their way of making sure the land stayed with Alice’s bloodline, starting with Thomas and then to the eldest son,’ Shirley said thoughtfully.
‘Do you have any family papers—letters or diaries?’ Angelo asked hopefully.
‘Nothing as far back as that, I’m afraid,’ Shirley said. ‘But I’ll look through what I have, and I’ll let you know if there’s anything relevant.’
‘Thank you. I really appreciate it.’
He’d just finished sending Shirley an email with photographs of the sketches and a rough written version of their theory when the doorbell rang.
He glanced at his watch.
Mariana.
Time to talk things through, to tell her how he really felt—and please, please, let her want the same things that he did.
He took the stairs two at a time and flung the door open.
‘Hi.’
Was it his imagination, or did she look nervous? ‘Come in,’ he said. And how ridiculous that every single word seemed to have gone out of his head. He couldn’t just throw his arms round her and kiss her and tell her that he loved her. She’d think he’d gone crazy. But he couldn’t just stand there and say nothing, either. ‘I...’ He noticed the dark shadows beneath her eyes. She’d obviously slept as badly as he had, last night. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. Sorry, my tutorial meeting overran.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry about yesterday, Mariana. About losing my temper and yelling at you. And I’m not being insincere—I know I hurt you and I’m truly sorry.’
‘Apology accepted.’
Though her tone was utterly neutral and he couldn’t tell what was going through her head. Did she really forgive him or was she still angry with him? Accepting an apology wasn’t the same thing as saying everything was OK between them; or maybe he was just getting tangled in lawyerly semantics. ‘Can we talk?’ he asked.
She paused for so long that he thought she was going to say no, but then she nodded.
He ushered her into the kitchen and gestured to her to sit down at the table. ‘Coffee?’
‘No, thanks.’
Her expression said it for her: she knew he was trying to put off the moment when he finally opened up to her. Time to stop prevaricating and be brave. He sat down opposite her. ‘I wanted to come after you yesterday. But then I thought of what you’d been through with Eric and I didn’t want you to feel bullied. I wanted you to see that I’d respect your wishes, that I’d give you space when you asked for it.’