For All Time (Nantucket Brides 2)

Graydon had to come up with a lie quickly. “Dr. Huntley said—”

“Say no more,” Jared said. “If you want to see it, Toby has a key to the house. Feel free to look. I haven’t seen that picture since I was a kid. Last I knew, it was leaning against the very back wall and there’s probably a lot of stuff in front of it. My attic is poorly lit, so if you want to bring it over here, do so. Actually, I’d like to see that picture again.”

“Thank you,” Graydon said. The men said goodbye and Graydon watched Jared walk down the lane to Kingsley House.

On Sunday morning, the women went to church services. Graydon begged off, saying he had some work to do, and he nudged Daire to stay with him. They were going to go through the Kingsley attic.

When Toby and Lorcan returned from church, Daire and Graydon were in the family room staring at a huge, sheet-covered package leaning against the wall.

“What’s that?” Toby asked.

“One of Jared’s ancestors,” Daire said, then explained how they’d spent all morning in the attic of Kingsley House, armed with big flashlights and searching for the portrait. “We had to move heavy boxes, old furniture, a big birdcage, and …” He looked at Graydon.

“And what looked to be a basket full of shrunken heads,” Graydon said, “but we didn’t stop to investigate to make sure.”

Curious, Toby went to stand beside him. “Were you looking for something specific or just exploring?”

“I was trying to find the portrait of Alisa Kendricks Kingsley, and I think this is it.”

“Ali,” Toby said softly. “The little girl in my dream. But what made you think she’d had her portrait painted and that it was stored in the Kingsley attic?”

“I told her to have it done, and since Dr. Huntley said she and her husband were never credited with building houses on the island, I asked her to leave proof inside the frame.”

Lorcan and Daire were looking at him in puzzlement but Toby’s mouth opened in astonishment.

“When did you see her?” Toby’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I had a dream the night of the dinner party.” Graydon sounded as though it didn’t matter at all. “Shall we see what we have?” He nodded to Daire to take the other side of the old, yellow, dusty sheet and they lifted it off.

It was a portrait of a young woman. It was what was known as a primitive painting, probably done by one of the itinerant painters who roamed America making portraits of anyone who could afford them. The boards the picture was painted on had warped a bit, but they didn’t take away from the prettiness of the young woman with her strawberry-blonde hair and her bluish-green eyes. However, the surrounding frame was too heavy for the size of the picture and nearly overwhelmed it. You could hardly see the young woman’s face for the carved dark oak that surrounded it.

“She looks like your friend,” Lorcan said.

“Alix.” Toby was looking at Graydon. He hadn’t said a word about having a dream in which he’d met the young Ali. But maybe in a roundabout way, he had. Had all his comments about tattoos and churches and historic recipes come from his dream?

Graydon didn’t look at Toby. If he had, she would probably have asked him about his dream. Was she in it? Why hadn’t he told her about it? She stared at him but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

She watched as the men turned the portrait to the wall and Graydon began to inspect the back of the big frame. Oddly, it was carved in the back almost as much as in the front. Intricate vines and leaves, with little flower buds peeping out here and there, covered the back. Graydon ran his hands along the edges as though he were searching for something.

Whatever he was trying to find didn’t seem to be there. But then, a ray of light hit the frame and Toby, standing a few feet away, could see the design more clearly. “I think parts of the wood used to be painted, or maybe dyed.”

When Graydon moved to stand beside her, he saw that the little flower buds had a faint reddish tint to them. The color was hard to see over two hundred years of darkened wood, but it was there.

Kneeling, Graydon took one of the buds in his fingertips and twisted. It moved. Just a bit, but it did move. It took three more twists before a little door opened to expose a tight roll of papers. He took it out and handed it to Toby.

She held the roll out on her open palm. “M

aybe we should take this to Dr. Huntley and let the archivists open it.”

Graydon was from a much older country. A mere two hundred years didn’t impress him. He took the papers from her and unrolled them. There were three sheets of what looked to be a good linen bond, two of them filled with tiny writing, obviously done with a quill pen. The last sheet had sketches of houses drawn on it.

By the time Toby had looked at all the papers, Graydon had pulled four more rolls from inside the frame.

“This is proof that Alisa designed the houses and that the first Jared built them,” Toby said. “Dr. Huntley will like this.”

“Wait!” Daire said. “There’s another one.” In the top right corner was a tiny carved flower that looked as though it had once been blue. “I can’t figure this one out,” he said as he stepped away.

It took Graydon several tries as he twisted, turned, and pushed the little blue flower. He was about to give up when a long, thin door sprang open. Inside was a single piece of paper rolled to the size of a pencil. When Graydon opened it, his face seemed to lose all color and for a moment he wasn’t able to move.