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There was an internal light, which must have been activated when the door was opened.
And right now it shone on the framed photograph resting upright against the back of the safe.
The same photograph that began the picture section in Steve Clifton’s book.
The photograph of the guests of David and Virginia’s house party the weekend Dorothy Clifton died.
Twenty-Eight
THE BRANDY ROOM
Me, and a layout of coffee, almond croissants, late-yield berries, buttered crumpets, and tureens of jam, yogurt and oats were waiting for Ian when he arrived.
And I was prepared, including the fact I’d already downed a whole cup of joe.
“Excellent,” he said when he entered the room. “Bloody coffee. I slept like the dead and I can’t shake it.”
Hmm…perhaps an excuse as to why he woke in such a foul mood.
I tipped my head back, and he pressed a hard but brief kiss on my lips before he threw himself on the sofa beside me and reached for the coffeepot.
“How late did you work?” I asked.
“Too late,” he murmured. “Email is the bane of my existence. It feels like I can delete fifty, and a hundred more will have arrived. I should never have made investments in Asia and Australia. The time difference means I never stop receiving emails.”
This was one of the myriad reasons I liked my job. It didn’t really depend on email. It was about face-to-face interaction.
“How did you sleep?” he asked, resting slanted sideways toward me against the back of the sofa with one finger hooked through a coffee cup that was squat, masculine, and ivory with a wide swath of what looked like tortoiseshell, banded in thin lines of gold, stating plainly what I thought from the beginning.
Each room had a matching service.
In his other hand, he held a croissant.
“I had a dream about Adelaide and Augustus.”
His brows drew down. “Is that why you asked Mum for their letters?”
“Yes. It was a very real-feeling dream.”
His smile was wolfish. “Were you doing naughty things to Augustus while you were lying beside me, darling?”
“They were picnicking with their kids, but yes, Adelaide’s thoughts rang the top bell on the saucy scale.”
He chuckled.
I twisted to reach to the table beside me and flipped the photograph I took from the safe toward him.
His gaze fell to it, and he halted in taking a bite of his croissant.
“Where did you find that?”
“It was in the safe.”
His eyes drifted there.
“Who’s this?” I asked, reaching over the top and pointing to the woman in the back with her head turned toward William. The same woman who came racing down the aisle in the dream where I was marrying David/Thomas.
He leaned forward, taking a bite of his pastry, and narrowed his eyes on the picture.
