He took it and stared at it. Then tears came to his eyes. “Yes. I left it in here for Livie.” For a minute he didn’t speak. “I loved her so much,” he whispered. “From the first moment I saw her, I loved her.” As he held the ring tightly, he gave a little smile. “It wasn’t mutual. She had a summer job being housekeeper/cook to a couple of sedentary old men. It was a surprise that I, a nineteen-year-old boy, was also staying here. She called me ‘Worthless Boy’ and said I was good for nothing but causing her more work.”
He looked at Casey, his eyes glistening with tears. “And she was right! I was so young and stupid that I thought an oath I’d taken to my country was more important than she was. I didn’t tell her that I was waiting to be picked up whenever our government got around to remembering me. All I really knew about my mission was that I was to be gone for a year and there could be no contact with family or friends during that time. But even knowing nothing, I was so full of my own importance that I didn’t tell Olivia anything. I let her believe I was a college dropout, content to live on my family’s money.”
Kit took a long drink of the coffee and a bite of the bagel. “This ring was my grandmother’s. I waited until three days before Olivia was to leave for New York to star in a Broadway production of Pride and Prejudice to ask her the big question.”
Pausing, he turned the ring over in his hand. “She went to Richmond that day. That’s all that happened. A simple, everyday thing like that changed our lives. I was asleep when she left or I would have asked her not to go. But I was worn out from…” He waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter now. An hour after she left, the agents came for me in a big black car, and I was given twenty minutes to pack and leave.”
He looked at Casey. “I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I scribbled out a letter, begging Livie to wait for me, but I was afraid to leave it and the ring in my bedroom. I was scared that the government men would take it. I slipped away from them—something I’m good at, which is why they wanted me—and went to the well house. I knew that no one but Livie and me came in here.”
He smiled in memory. “The old peacock guarded the place. Livie and I had peck marks on our legs from his beak. But the good thing was that the creature kept the kids away.”
“Letty and Ace.”
“Yes,” Kit said. “They were everywhere, into everything. No one had a secret that they didn’t find out. But the well house and its ferocious guardian belonged to Livie and me.”
“You left the letter and the ring in here for her?”
“I did,” he said. “I thought they’d be safe and that she’d be sure to find them. The note had contact information for my family, and I begged her to go to them.”
He looked at Casey. “I saw her on Broadway. It was a couple of months later. The night before I was to ship out, they took me to New York and put me up in a cheap hotel. I knew that I was being sent on an undercover mission that I might not return from. I wasn’t supposed to leave the hotel room. I’d been ordered, at the peril of my life, to contact no one.”
His eyes burned in intensity. “But I had to see her. If the penalty had been a firing squad, I couldn’t have stopped myself. I sneaked out a bathroom window, climbed down a drainpipe, and ran to the theater. I paid a man five hundred dollars for his ticket, then I sat in the back and watched her. She was an excellent actress, very natural. I thought that by the time I returned, she’d be the leading light of Broadway.”
When he looked away, Casey reached out to put her hand over his.
“The mission stretched into three years, and there was a point where I was more dead than alive. I only survived because I was sure Livie was waiting for me.”
For a moment he stared up at the window. “When I got home to the U.S., I had healed only enough that I could walk with two canes. I was shocked that my family hadn’t heard from Livie, and I couldn’t believe that her name wasn’t in lights in New York. I went to Summer Hill to find her. I was joyous, thinking of being with her again. But when I got there…”
“You found out that she was married to someone else,” Casey said.
“Yes, and they had a little boy, who I thought was hers—which meant that she hadn’t taken any time after I left to find someone else. I saw her in the appliance store and from what I could tell, she ran the place. When I followed her home, I saw her house with its pretty lawn, and I realized that she had what she needed. She did not need some damaged military man who disappeared for years at a time.”
He looked at Casey. “Oh, hell! I wish I had been that self-sacrificing. The truth is that I was angry. Furious! Why hadn’t she waited for me? I could have given her any house she wanted. I could have—” He took a breath. “I felt betrayed, but worse was that I didn’t understand any of it.”
“Until today.”
“Yes, until today.” He calmed himself. “I can’t imagine what Livie went through. Expecting our baby and totally alone. Her parents were older and fragile. They wouldn’t have been any help.”
“I think she turned to Dr. Everett.”
“Your grandfather,” Kit said. “If I’m piecing the story together correctly, he sent Livie to a maternity home in Jacksonville, Florida, to have the baby—our baby. Then he sent a childless Estelle after her. Looks like she said thanks by using Livie’s mother’s name, Portia.” He paused. “Estelle is right. This is my fault. I should have contacted Livie to make sure she got the ring. I should have waited outside the theater and spoken to her. But I was afraid the agent in charge of my mission would find out that I was gone. Back then I thought that’s what was important. I should have done something!”
Casey couldn’t bear to see him so devastate
d. “Did the mission you were sent on help anyone?”
“Yes,” he said. “It saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives.” He took a breath. “I’m sorry I’ve been so harsh over these last weeks. I didn’t mean to be so angry, but it’s all gone wrong. Through all those years, my pride kept me from contacting Livie. But when I retired…” He looked at Casey and shrugged.
“You returned to Summer Hill.”
“Not intentionally. When my secretary heard that the movie star Tate Landers was my distant cousin through little Letty, she nagged me into going to meet him. He told me about his plan to buy our family’s plantation. He didn’t want to be publicly identified as the owner, so he asked me to put it under my name. I almost said no because that would mean returning to Summer Hill and risking seeing Livie again. But I told myself it had been long enough that the old wound had healed. What an idiot I was! Just the sight of this place brought everything back so hard it was as if I’d never been away.”
He paused. “I meant to leave as soon as the paperwork to buy Tattwell was done. But then I saw Olivia on the street and…” He lifted his head.
“And you couldn’t leave. Not again. What about the play?”
Kit took a moment before he answered. “I bought the warehouse, remodeled it, wrote the play, badgered you and Stacy into helping me, all of it, so I’d have a reason to be near Livie. I thought I knew her well enough that she wouldn’t be able to resist trying out for a role. But when she wanted nothing to do with me or my play, it made me furious. I apologize for taking my anger out on all of you.” He was beginning to recover himself. “I’ve told no other person this story.”