Page 100 of A Scottish Lighthouse Escape

‘I don’t believe you,’ she insisted, though the tremble in her voice was telling us otherwise.

‘What’s my grandmother’s art signature?’ I asked.

Ruth blinked at me.

‘She never autographed her work in the usual way, but she did always paint a tiny image of something somewhere obscure in all of her pieces. What was it?’

Ruth pressed her lips together. She shuffled in her office chair. ‘A butterfly. A small, yellow one.’

Mitch jerked his head. ‘Go and take a look at her paintings, if you don’t believe us. In fact, go and check the front right table leg of the French-themed breakfast watercolour that’s on display just outside this office.’

Ruth rose up from behind her desk and straightened the hem of her jacket.

She stalked past us and opened her office door, letting in bursts of laughter and conversation. She was only gone a matter of seconds.

Ruth returned and clicked the door closed again behind her. She was having difficulty looking at either Mitch or me. She resumed her seat and hooked some hair back behind her right ear. ‘I just saw it,’ she managed. ‘The butterfly.’

‘I was planning on making a big reveal of this,’ I admitted to Ruth. Her stunned expression was trained on me. ‘I was intending on embarrassing you, making you feel small, like you did with Tilda all those years ago. But when you fainted just now, I couldn’t do it.’

Ruth swallowed and dropped her eyes to her glass desk.

‘I was all set on revealing who the real artist was in front of all of those people. I wanted to show everyone how talented Tilda was. I also wanted to make you realise how petty and jealous you are. But then … well…’ I adjusted myself in the leather chair. ‘We know how talented she was. I don’t have to yell it from the rooftops.’

Guilt controlled Ruth’s expression.

‘My grandma wouldn’t have wanted me to humiliate you like that. She wasn’t malicious.’

Ruth looked like she wanted to slither under her desk and vanish. She toyed with her swan dress ring, twisting it over and over. She bored her attention into her own hands for what seemed like ten minutes before finally forcing herself to look up at me again. ‘What that reporter said was true.’ She licked her lips. ‘I did try to pass off one of your grandma’s paintings as my own. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

I sat up straighter in my chair. ‘What happened? Why did you do it?’

Ruth rubbed at her face. ‘It was over forty years ago now. I wanted to win this prestigious artist award, but although my work was good, it wasn’t a patch on your grandma’s art.’

‘So, you decided to steal one of Tilda’s pieces?’ asked Mitch beside me.

Ruth blanched. ‘I’m so sorry. She’d painted the most beautiful impression of Rowan Bay harbour. It was the stillness and the atmosphere she’d created. I couldn’t compete with that.’

I eyed her. ‘What happened?’

Ruth kept putting her hands to rest on top of her desk and then removing them again. It was as if she didn’t know what to do with herself. ‘I submitted my application with a picture of your grandma’s painting and I pretended I was the artist.’

Colour illuminated her cheeks. ‘But what I didn’t know was that one of the judges was the sister of one of your grandma’s friends. She spotted the yellow butterfly insignia and she knew straight away I hadn’t painted it.’

Mitch flicked me a charged look. ‘What happened when Tilda discovered what you’d done?’

Ruth tried to keep her voice calm. ‘She was furious, and rightly so. Of course, she was. Anyone would’ve been.’

‘But?’ I probed.

Ruth let out a painful sigh. ‘But she said she wouldn’t take things further if I promised to make a significant donation to a charity she supported, helping working-class children to enter the arts.’ Ruth paused. ‘My parents were very comfortable. They owned their own interior design business.’ Guilt tore through her lined eyes. ‘I was so jealous of Tilda. Of her talent, of her looks, of her as a person.’

I angled my head to one side. ‘Jealous, also, because she was married to my grandfather?’

She stiffened and looked away. ‘Yes.’ Her words sounded like they were about to crumble, but she fought to keep it together. ‘I loved my husband, but he wasn’t in love with me. I deluded myself by thinking he was.’ She swallowed. ‘Jacob only married me for what he could get out of me. He knew my parents had money and he wanted a slice of the good life.’ She tried to compose herself. ‘Then Tilda and Howard moved to Rowan Bay, and I was smitten with this gorgeous, kind, funny man who loved to play rugby and go fishing down by the harbour.’ Her smile wobbled. ‘Howard had the most twinkly eyes I’d ever seen.’ She shook her head. ‘But your grandfather never gave me so much as a second glance. He was only ever in love with one woman and that was your grandma.’ Her voice finally broke. ‘I was eaten up with envy. It consumed me. This charismatic, lovely young woman had moved to the area and everyone admired her and her art. I couldn’t deal with it. I became someone I didn’t like, but it was as if I couldn’t help myself.’

I glanced over at Mitch.

Ruth pushed a lock of hair back behind one ear. ‘There was Tilda Michaels, this stunning young woman with the flame red curls and the artistic talent to match, married to a man I adored. She seemed to have everything.’ Her fingers laced and unlaced themselves. ‘And so, I decided that she wasn’t going to get everything her own way.’ Tears glistened in Ruth’s eyes. ‘I tried to make her feel unwelcome here, never included her in anything, drove her out of the local artists’ society, I even tried to spread some gossip about her.’ She blanched with embarrassment.