Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy 1)

There was a black iron door standing open in one of the hallways, light streaming through it. All Kami saw at first glance were the flowers on the door, tiny flowers and lines as if the flowers were caught in a river, but then she made out, in the lower right-hand corner of the door, a woman’s profile. She was drowning, the flowers caught in her hair.

When Kami pushed the door open, she noticed that the doorknob was a clenched fist. She didn’t want to say “Wow, creepy architecture you have going on here” to Ash. There were so many times it was excellent that a boy could not read your mind. She just kept smiling as they walked into the garden, and she saw a tall, broad-shouldered man with straw-blond hair and Ash’s blue eyes coming toward them, pushing a wheelbarrow.

“Hey there, son,” said Rob Lynburn. “Who’s your friend?”

“Kami Glass.” Kami offered a hand.

Rob let go of the wheelbarrow and shook it. He had callused hands, a farmer’s hands rather than the lord of the manor’s hands. When he smiled, she saw where Ash had inherited his charm, though his father’s was less polished. She had not expected a Lyn

burn to look so normal.

“Well now,” said Rob. “Not Claire Somerville’s daughter?”

“Yes,” Kami said thankfully: information was beckoning at last! “Claire’s daughter.”

“Of course, of course,” Rob said. “Now I look at you, I see you’re just as pretty as Claire.”

“Not really,” said Kami. “My mother said you used to have an office over Claire’s before you moved away.”

“Between you and me,” Rob confided, “not so much an office as a hidey-hole. Sometimes a man needs to be by himself, no matter how lovely the ladies he’s living with are, and Rosy and Lillian were always that. Of course, I had your lovely mother’s company for lunch every day. Claire Somerville!” He turned to his son. “We’ve been all over America, practically, haven’t we?”

“Practically,” said Ash.

“In all that time, I never saw a face like Claire Somerville’s.” Unlike his remark about Kami being as pretty as her mother, this Kami believed. She had seen the way men could not forget her mother and Angela, always wandering back for another look as if every man was a compass and beauty was true north.

Don’t tell your father, Mum had said. Kami wondered for the hundredth time, Don’t tell him what?

“My mother said you two were great friends back in the day,” Kami lied enthusiastically. “You must have some fun stories from before we were born.”

“Oh, a few, a few,” Rob told her. “Come to think of it, my other boy has mentioned your name a couple of times. Kami, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Kami said, caught off guard by feeling guilty at the mention of Jared and being pleased by the way Rob called Jared “my other boy” so casually. She smiled up at him.

He used her moment of weakness to escape. “You give your mother my best, now. Ash, give me a hand with this load of clippings, and then I’ll let you get back to the lady.”

Ash complied, with an apologetic look at Kami. Kami was dispirited enough by her lack of investigative skills that she watched them go without protest. She followed the rockery wall, counting stones and preparing interview questions that would elicit some information. The rockery ended and a climbing frame for roses began. Kami began to count blooms.

A voice behind her said: “And who, may I ask, are you?”

Kami spun around twice, so she was dizzy when she saw that the climbing frame was in fact an arch, making an alcove of roses in the depths of the Lynburn garden. Among the roses and the shadows was a figure in black. If Rosalind Lynburn was a ghost, this was the living woman. No one had told Kami that Lillian and Rosalind were identical twins.

Lillian Lynburn stayed sitting, legs crossed, a picture of elegant composure. Ash might have got his charm from his father, but he had gotten his polish from Lillian. And yet she didn’t remind Kami of Ash, or of her own twin. Her presence was not like Rosalind’s but Jared’s. She exploded into the senses like a punch in the face.

On Lillian, Rosalind’s pale veil of hair was pinned up in a smooth chignon. Rosalind’s soft mouth was painted red and pursed impatiently, waiting for Kami’s response.

“Oh,” said Kami. “Oh, hi. I’m Kami Glass.”

Lillian raised her darkened, sculpted eyebrows in what seemed to be an utter lack of recognition. “All right,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Ash invited me,” Kami said uncertainly.

“Did he,” said Lillian, with a vague air of surprise that Kami found insulting.

“You knew my parents,” Kami forged ahead. “Jon Glass and Claire Somerville?”

Lillian’s face remained perfectly blank and indifferent. “They were more likely to know me than I was to know them,” she offered. “I was the Lynburn.” The nerve of her, able to state such a thing so coolly, made Kami almost laugh. Lillian’s eyebrows lifted; they were the only expressive feature of her face.

“My mother was right about you,” Kami said.