As I sit here belowdecks, my thoughts are of you and how much I hated to leave you. This ship takes me far away from you and Marian, away to another world that seems impossible to imagine. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that one day this war will be over and, God willing, I will be able to return to your side.
She looked up and met Tom’s gaze. “He did love her.”
“Did you think he didn’t?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. A few things people have said. A feeling. But this letter … it was written by a man who loved her very much.”
She looked down and continued reading, her voice soft.
I know we can’t be together. I know how impossible it all seems right now. I have a job to do and so do you. But that doesn’t stop me from telling you how much I love you and long to be with you again. You are in my every breath, and in my dreams I hold you in my arms. What we had … what we have … is too beautiful to be wrong.
Stay strong, my love, and when this is over I will see you again. Until then,
Always yours,
Kristian
Abby looked up at Tom in confusion. “Kristian? Who on earth is Kristian?”
Tom looked down at the letter and back into her eyes. “Kristian,” he said quietly, “is probably the reason this was hidden under the floor.”
“Edith was having an affair.”
“Looks like.”
“But with whom? Who was Kristian?”
“Maybe the rest of the letters will tell you.”
Abby sat down on the floor and crossed her legs. Something about the date at the top of the letter kept drawing her attention. In 1943, Elijah came home, just ten months before Iris had been born. Iris. Abby picked up the picture of Edith and the baby hidden with the stash under the floor. The possibility hit her square in the chest. Good God, had Iris been Kristian’s daughter and not Elijah’s? It would explain so much. And if Elijah had known …
Tom sat down beside her and took the letter from her fingers. “This is dated February of ’43, and judging by the tone of the letter, it sounds like Edith’s affair with this Kristian was already ending. Edith wouldn’t have been pregnant with Iris yet, not if Iris was born in 1944. That is what you were thinking, right?”
She nodded, somehow let down. “I guess I let the romantic mystery of it all sweep me away.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” His smile was slightly crooked. “This seems pretty crazy to me. At least you can’t say the house is boring. In a place like this, family secrets are almost a given, aren’t they?”
She smiled back, somehow relieved that the dates didn’t add up.
“Why don’t you read the letters in the garden? It’s warm out and it’ll get you out of the fumes.”
“Oh, right. You’re starting the painting today.” She tucked the box under her arm and pushed herself to her feet. “And I’ve kept you from it.”
“I don’t mind. It was kind of exciting. There’s a lot of history in these old houses, but most of it gets lost. I still don’t know how you knew to look here, though. Heck of a hunch.”
“I was walking around, thinking about how to furnish this room, and the board creaked. It kind of felt like there was … I don’t know, no support under it.” She smiled weakly, knowing she was a terrible liar. “What can I say? I read a lot as a kid. I used to dream up stuff like this in my imagination all the time.”
She hoped she’d sounded convincing. Because admitting she’d followed Edith up the stairs and into the nursery before she disappeared would not exactly make Abby the picture of perfect mental health.
Tom seemed to accept her explanation as he too got to his feet. “Well, I’d better get to it. I’ll get to that switch today, too. Don’t want you to always be in the dark.”
“Thanks, Tom.” She was hugely relieved that things were back to seminormal after last night. While Tom was crazy-attractive and kissed like a devil, she knew deep down that their attraction could only end in heartbreak … for her. Even if Tom were on the market, she wasn’t looking for a relationship. Relationships were messy, with emotions involved and the potential to be hurt at the end. And this would end. She wanted to find out about her family but after that the house was going up for sale. She had no reason to keep it.
Tom replaced the floorboard as Abby went downstairs and made some toast and tea for breakfast. She heard the tapping of his hammer, replacing the nails and locking away the secret compartment, now empty.
She sat in the garden among the tangle of shrubs and rosebushes and sipped her tea. Looking down at the box in her hands, Abby couldn’t imagine the meager contents of the box would take too much time to go through.
She picked up the letters and untied the faded ribbon holding them together. The paper was thin but the words were easily discerned. As Abby read the stack, there was no doubt in her mind. Edith had been having an affair. Each letter was filled with love and tenderness, and the emotions expressed on the written pages made her feel slightly like a voyeur, peeking into private moments.