True Love (Nantucket Brides 1)

Next to the last house a narrow lane opened up, the entry to it almost hidden by trees. A little white sign said KINGSLEY LANE.

“Come on,” Izzy called and Alix followed.

There was a narrow sidewalk on the right and silently the two of them started down it, looking at the house numbers.

“They’re named,” Izzy said in surprise. “The houses have names on them.”

“Quarterboards,” Alix said.

“Is that a word you just made up?”

“No. It’s—I don’t know how I know the word but that’s what those wooden plaques are called.”

“FIELD OF ROSES,” Izzy said, looking at a house set close to the road.

“BEYOND TIME,” Alix read on another house on the right. There was a driveway beside it but a gate blocked their view into the garden behind. In fact, there was a parking place beside each house they passed. Some were so narrow the cars nearly scraped the sides, but it did get the vehicles off the street.

“Look, that’s a B&B. SEA HAVEN INN.”

“And that …” Izzy said, looking across the road, “is number twenty-three. It’s called TO SEA FOREVER.”

Before them was a large, stunningly beautiful white house. Since the simplicity of it gave it a timeless feeling, the house could be new or hundreds of years old. There were five windows above, four below, each flanked by dark shutters, with a wide white door in the center. The roof was topped with a railed walkway.

“This is it?” Alix whispered from behind Izzy. “Where I’m to live for a whole year?”

“I think so,” Izzy said. “It’s the right number.”

“Remind me to send my mother orchids.”

Alix fumbled in her big Fendi bag in search of the keys her mother had sent. She found them and made it to the door, but her hands were shaking so much she couldn’t get the key into the lock.

Izzy took the key and unlocked the door. They walked into a big hallway with a staircase going up on the left. To the right was a living room, to the left a dining room.

“I think …” Izzy began.

“That we just traveled even further back into time,” Alix finished for her. She hadn’t given much thought to how such an old house would be furnished, but she’d assumed it would be rather formal, done by some decorator’s idea of how the house should look. But this house had been occupied by the same family for centuries. Everything was a mixture of old and new—and new meant no later than about the 1930s.

The hallway had a tall secretary desk and a trunk inlaid with what looked to be ivory. In the corner was a big Chinese porcelain umbrella stand painted with branches of cherry blossoms.

They peeked into the living room to see furniture upholstered in striped silk, the arms showing wear. The rug was a pink Aubusson with walking patterns worn into it. There were tables, ornaments, and portraits of distinguished-looking people.

The two young women looked at each other and started laughing.

“It’s a museum!” Izzy said.

“A living museum.”

“And it’s yours,” Izzy said.

In the next second they started running from one room to another, exploring and yelling comments.

There was a small room behind the living area, which held a television.

“What do you think of that TV?” Alix asked. “Circa 1964?”

“Send that one to the Smithsonian and get your mom to buy you a flat screen.”

“Top of my list.”