“There was a smell,” he said finally. “Faint, floral. Perfume. I thought maybe it was the barrels, but it lingered longer than it should have.”
I turned towards the distant rows of vines where the cellar doors sat half-hidden under ivy and stone. “So now we’ve got a ghost with expensive taste. Perfect.”
Noah nodded. “Yeah. Really shaping up to be a flawless wedding weekend.”
I laughed but the truth was, the idea of someone creeping around the cellars in the dark made my stomach twist.
“I’ll check the cellar again tomorrow,” he said as he leaned back in his chair. “Have a real look around. See if there are any clues down there, just to be sure.”
There was something in his voice, steady, careful, that told me he’d already been worrying about it more than he wanted to admit.
“Do you actually believe this is connected?” he asked. “All of it?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t feel random. Someone’s taken that brooch, and they seem to be searching for something else.”
He studied me briefly, his expression changing. “You never give up, do you?”
“Not when I’m implicated, and there’s an open bar.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Good combination.”
We sat like that for a while, almost shoulder to shoulder, the conversation tapering into quiet. The night was still, the vines were silvered by moonlight now, the kind of air that made sound travel.
Then, in the glass of the terrace door, I caught a reflection, not just movement, but a shape. Someone standing in the shadows.
I turned sharply, but by the time I looked again, the space was empty. Just the leaves shifting in the breeze and the shimmer of starlight on the pavement.
A shiver went down my neck.
Noah followed my gaze. “What is it?”
“Someone’s out there,” I said, barely above a whisper. “Watching us.”
Chapter Eighteen
I awoke from a restless night to a beautifully calm morning, which should have been my first warning.
As I got ready, the view outside my window glittered in the early light, staff drifted calmly between buildings, and somewhere below came the hiss of the coffee machine from the kitchen. Even the vines seemed unusually still, their leaves suspended in the hazy morning light as though the entire estate had paused mid-thought.
I told myself it was simply the lull before the wedding festivities began properly. But I couldn’t shake the image from the night before. The flicker of movement in the glass. The unmistakable shape of someone standing beyond the terrace while Noah and I talked.
Noah had laughed it off, blaming stress, exhaustion, and one too many late-night debriefs. But even now, walking through the corridor, I found myself glancing instinctively towards the gardens at the edge of the vines.
Empty.
Still, the feeling lingered, winding just beneath the calm.
Who had been out there?
And did they have anything to do with the missing brooch?
Suddenly, the security radio crackled to life.
“New arrival at the gate. Appears to be the Rolls-Royce.”
I frowned just as Cleo hurried over, already looking concerned. The Harringtons had been using Lady Beaumont’s Rolls all week, but how could that be? They hadn’t left the estate.
Through the glass doors of the drawing room, I could clearly see Margaret and Richard Harrington exactly where they’d beenall morning, sipping Earl Grey and critiquing the breakfast menu with the intensity of Michelin inspectors.
