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“I should probably start by saying I’m not here to embarrass you in any way. My interest is purely historical.”
Ben smiles, cocking his head just so. “My mother’s seen my bare backside on the front page of a tabloid. I’m not sure I’m capable of further embarrassment.”
I smother a laugh. “Good point.”
“We can relate in that regard, as I understand it.”
Waiters arrive with an artful green salad that I hesitate to ruin by eating it. The kind of plate that would break Instagram and now I’m certain my dad’s going to blow up my phone when he sees this credit card bill.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Ben says. “I took the liberty of ordering for us.”
“Thank you. And I take it you looked me up.”
“I do my homework as well,” he says lightly.
He’s charming. Approachable and disarming. Given what’s been written about him in the British press, I’d prepared myself for a real prick. So far, he’s quite gracious.
“It wasn’t easy, of course. You haven’t any social media that Sophie could find.”
“No. I learned that lesson in high school. It’s either completely toxic, full of people trying to get close to my dad, or trolled by sleazy celebrity press zooming in on pictures of a fourteen-year-old girl’s cellulite. I cleansed myself of the hassle and never looked back.”
“Well done.” He barely glances away, and a waiter appears to pour two glasses of wine for us. Ben raises his at me. “To self-preservation.”
“Cheers,” I say, clinking his glass before taking a sip.
“Enjoy that. It’s one of the last bottles the Tulley winery ever produced.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you were in the wine business.”
“One of several ventures we’ve had to retire in the current”—he pauses to consider his words—“restructuring of our financial affairs.”
“I’ll savor it then.”
“It’s shit,” he laughs with self-deprecating humor. “My great-grandfather understood even less about wine than he did finance. It’s a metaphor, if you will, for the spectacular decline of the entire estate. Lawrence Tulley spent an outrageous fortune on some slick git to tell him to buy this thing or that. Spent another absurd fortune to procure it without the slightest notion of what he was doing. Then promptly ran it into the ground.”
“Is that where you believe the slide began? With Lawrence?”
“Between you, me, and the flatware,” he says, tapping the side of his nose. “Though my father isn’t much better. Every few years, he’d come up with some fool scheme. Dad’s an easy mark for bad investments and doomed business ventures. Plenty have attempted to make him see reason, but he’s a stubborn old mule. I’m not convinced he’s noticed they’re selling the country house out from under him. He spends most of the year on his yacht in the Med or the chalet in the Alps. We’ve flats in London and all over the world that I doubt he’s even seen since he was my age.”
“I know the feeling. A few years ago, I was cleaning out my closet and found dolls I hadn’t played with in years,” I say, deadpan.
“Yes, quite,” he answers with a chuckle. “You understand.”
Ben’s a good sport, not at all touchy about the reality of his family’s situation. If anything, I get the sense he’s frustrated by his lack of status to do anything to stop the bleeding. Not that he’s living a frugal existence by any means. I think he’d be happy to rearrange the entire estate if allowed to. Modernize their portfolio and try to do something productive with what’s left. As it is, by the time he inherits the title, it won’t be much more than a piece of paper.
“You didn’t come to hear a bitter posh lament his vanishing inheritance,” he says then. “Please, the floor is yours. How can I be of service?”
The waiters clear our plates as we finish our salads. It allows me a moment to gather my thoughts and prime them with another sip of critically endangered wine.
“If you’ll forgive the faux pas,” I begin, “I was browsing the estate sale at your family’s home in Surrey…”
He smiles wryly. “This isn’t about my baby pictures, I hope.”
“No. It’s someone else’s picture, actually. I’m interested in this portrait of a woman.” I reach into my bag, then hand him a printout of a photo I took and a scanned copy of the letter. “I’m operating under the assumption that she is the Josephine from the letter. I found it hidden in the backing of the portrait.”
Ben looks startled. “You bought this from the sale?”
I nod.
