A Bird Without Wings Read online

  Olivia broke the spell as she slipped past him into the room. “Sorry, Cal! I hope she didn’t cause any trouble.”

  “Not at all.” Callie extracted her hair from the baby’s grasp, and lifted her up to her mom.

  “I’ll just leave you two alone,” Olivia gushed and, with a significant glance at her brother, closed the door on her way out.

  She hastily clipped up her hair again and gathered her things as she got to her feet. “I just need to take some photos,” she muttered.

  “The camera’s charged,” he replied evenly, normally, and she saw that he held it. “At least enough to get you through today.”

  “Oh, thanks.” She managed to take it from him without touching him.

  “Successful day?”

  “I think so.” She flipped through her notebook to find the list of items detailed in Neville’s will. “Many of these items are in this house, I’ve been told, so if we can get started . . .”

  Still avoiding his intense gaze, she looked anxiously around the den. Suddenly, she forgot about him as her eyes fell on a painting of deformed birds in a beautifully ornate frame.

  “Another twisted bird painting,” she mused, stepping toward it. “Much nicer than the ravens, though. An exaltation of larks.”

  Again, it was done by an insignificant artist. Consulting her list, she found the painting, checked it off, and clicked off several shots of it.

  “We are expected to stay for dinner,” Lucius commented.

  “Is it that late?”

  “No.” He glanced at his watch. “You pushed them through very fast, Cal. Good work. Regardless, aside from not wanting to be here longer than necessary, I don’t want to get caught in weekend traffic, either.”

  She spotted a small jade sculpture that fitted the description of one on the list. “This is lovely. So . . . the family is still in possession of Neville’s things?”

  “I assume they came to Canada with Neville’s son—Carlyle?”

  She nodded.

  “—when he emigrated. Neville’s daughter—”

  “Lily,” she helped him, since he didn’t know or didn’t care about genealogical details.

  “Lily,” he granted, “retained the estate in Sussex. West Sussex, now. It’s been passed down through that branch.”

  “Linchgate Hall,” she murmured. “Lily married John Crawford in the late-1880s. And the property in Chelsea?” At his surprised look, she shrugged. “It’s in the will. It—and all its contents—went to Carlyle. Just wondered what had happened to the house.”

  “Oh. Well, I own that now.”

  “Really?”

  It was his turn to shrug. “A couple of years ago, the family signed it over to me.”

  She didn’t ask why; she suspected: repayment of a bailout.

  “I would have preferred not to be saddled with it, but the deed and attendant papers ended up in gift box under the Christmas tree.” He chuckled humourlessly. “So I get to pay the taxes and maintenance on it.”

  She wondered if it had been a fair trade. Perhaps. Chelsea sounded like an expensive sort of neighbourhood. And because she couldn’t help it, she made notes of the tangential questions and observations running through her brain.

  “Cal?”

  She looked up.

  “What are you writing?”

  “Notes,” she said, somewhat defensively.

  He put out an imperious hand and, with a little sigh, she handed over the book.

  His eyebrows shot up as he scanned the dense block lettering, flipping back several pages to see the steady stream of it, and then forward to the last bit again:

  CHELSEA HOUSE: WHEN BUILT? ARCHTCTRL STYLE? STYLISH SORT OF NGHBRHD? WAS THEN? IS NOW? WHY NEVILLE LVNG IN LDN? BUSINESS? OBVSLY TRVLLD LOTS, COLLECTING TREASURES. LDN MJR PORT, EASE-OF-ACCESS EUROPE. TRVLLNG COND’NS TO SUSSEX, L8 19TH C? GD, BD, INDIFF’T? ACCD’G TO CENSUS INFO, DID NOT LIVE @ LINCHGATE BTWN 1871 & DEATH. WAS CHELSEA JUST OFFCL RES? MAKES NO SENSE. BSIDES, D. CHELSEA, MDX, DEC QTR 1912. ELZBTH D. SAME, MIDHURST, SSX. DAMNED ODD. POISONING EACH OTHER FROM AFAR NOT LIKELY. EPIDEMIC? CHK POSS. BROKEN HEART W WIFE DEAD? FOLLOWED ON HER HEELS? CF. LANGDON SMITH’S WIFE. SO MAYBE. WHEN I WAS A TADPOLE—

  His mouth quirked.

  “When you were a tadpole and I was a fish / In the Paleozoic time, / And side by side on the ebbing tide / We sprawled through the ooze and slime,” he quoted in that slightly amused and all-too-beautiful voice.

  “You know it?”

  “Evolution. Brilliant bit of poetry. But what does it have to do with all this?”

  “Oh. Nothing really. Just thinking about Neville and Elizabeth, living apart all those years, probably—”

  “Probably?”

  “On each census, they are apart. She in Sussex; he in London. Chelsea could have been his official residence, or he happened to be there during census enumerations, though that would be highly coincidental. So they probably lived apart, and then died—I don’t have the precise dates; I haven’t ordered the death certificates yet—within the same three-month period in 1912.”

  “By poisoning?” he queried, smirking, gesturing at her notes.

  “Well, if they were apart, then there must be a reason. Dislike is a good start. And divorce was not so common then. But being apart rather deflates the idea of double murder, murder-suicide, et cetera, simply by dint of lacking access. Not to mention that the probable separation had gone on over forty years. So why bother? A coincidence, their deaths so close together? Or, it was a happy marriage, and one of them died of a broken heart. Which made me wonder if that were literally possible, and I thought of Langdon Smith’s wife, who committed suicide after he died.”

  “Sad.”

  “Stupid.”

  “Love conquers all,” he said with mild irony.

  “Love conquers some.” At his odd look: “Sorry. I’m a quantifier.”

  “I guess so.” He whistled with a vaguely astonished air. “How do you know the poem?”

  “A favourite of my parents’. They quote it to death.” The recollection made her feel vaguely ill, as if she had eaten something a bit off. “They thought it delightfully romantic that Smith wrote the poem for his wife who was so lost when he died that she killed herself. So, the house in Chelsea. Did you not live there when you lived in London?”

  “No.”

  Talk about wasting money! Of course, unlike the rest of the family, he had abundant resources. He was allowed frivolous choices, she supposed.

  “Do you know if any of the items in Neville’s will are still there?”

  “Not sure. It’s was the London base for Gramps—and his father before him, I imagine—when there on business. It has a caretaker—the same family has been employed for generations. I’ll probably sell it.”

  “A shame really.”

  “Why?”

  “You should keep it in the family. Traditions must be a great thing. To have a deep family history, to know where you’re from and who you are.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “Stability.”

  “Roots do not determine your worth, doll,” he said gently.

  “You don’t know that, having so many. It’s quantifiable.”

  “And you don’t know that . . . having none?”

  “I think this is the desk on the list,” she said, changing the subject. “Baroque-style, mid-nineteenth century. Italian. Look at the carving,” she mused, running her fingers down a heavy leg designed with grape clusters and nymphs. “Exquisite.”

  “I think it overwrought,” he said discouragingly.

  She grinned. “I agree. Still a phenomenal piece of craftsmanship,” and he conceded that that was true.

  She snapped photos and made notes while Lucius walked her through the house. There was another bird painting—of several deformed grouse—in a salon, and each wing (hah, hah, she thought drolly) of the house had at least one.

  “Lucius, these TBPs—what do you know of them?”

  “TBPs?”

&nbs
p; “Twisted bird paintings.”

  “Ah. You are afflicted with the modern fondness for acronyms. Let’s just call them the Birds, hm? Anyway, I know nothing of them, actually, other than what you’ve told me. Twisted wings, flocks of birds, unimportant or unheard-of artists.”

  Having circled back near the den, she urged him inside. Closing the door, she leaned against it.

  “Look, I think they are a good thing to focus on in the HRF explanation. Neville paid particular attention to them in the will, unlike other works that were mentioned en masse. And the Birds were left specifically to Carlyle, not Lily. There has to be a story about them. No one knows what they’re about, why he commissioned them.”

  “They were commissioned?”

  “Well, they must have been. How many artists would do such similar treatments of birds? The styles are varied, of course, but those misshapen wings are common to all.”

  “And so?”

  “There is something intrinsically personal about them, something that meant a lot to Neville. The family is very fond of them, though I don’t know why. They’re ugly as all get-out. I’m telling you now, though,” she went on as Lucius laughed, “the frames are worth a mint even if the paintings are valueless.”

  He leaned against the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “Okay. Go on.”

  “If I can explain their existence—no. That’s virtually impossible. Too much guesswork. But if we can craft a story about them, we might have the basis for a simple family secret, as opposed to a secret treasure. Failing that, or even in addition to that, we can sell the family on the idea that the HRF is just Neville’s possessions. Look.” Crossing the room to lean next to him on the desk, she scrolled through images on the camera. “See that? That’s a seventeenth-century Italian cassone. It’s very valuable. This tapestry . . . the use of silhouette? The gradation? I would lay good money that it’s William Morris. And this sideboard? Bourbon Restoration. It’s worth a fortune.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “All what?” she asked absently, still flicking through images. “Look at that,” she murmured of a nineteenth-century secretary. “Gorgeous.”

  “Did you study art history? Design? In addition to your business degree?”

  “Oh, no,” she replied dismissively. “Anyway, once I’ve completed my research, it might be an idea to have everything appraised.”

  In the ensuing silence, she looked at him expectantly to find him frowning at her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Features clearing, he roused himself. “Not a thing. Come on. Let’s get out of here and go visit Gramps. There’s a lot of stuff at his place.”

  ***

  It took some time and many protests before they were able to leave, and it was clear that Lucius would have left without notice had she not been there. But she liked the Ransomes, despite their self-indulgent lifestyles, and was certain to hear from them soon, for Lucius had ensured they all had her cell number and office extension, and very clear instructions that only she was to be contacted regarding the HRF. Not him.

  “Your family is lovely,” she ventured as they drove back to the city.

  “They haven’t the collective sense of a rabbit.”

  “They do seem to be lacking ambition. Do any of them work for Falcontor?”

  “My dad did for several years. He has the brains for it, and I fully expected he was going to take over from Gramps, but he decided that he’d rather work on his inventions.”

  “Inventions? Has he invented anything?”

  “New ways to waste time and money.” He sent her a wry glance. “What are the odds I was adopted?”

  “Pretty good,” she chuckled. "And your uncles? Tom and Charles?”

  “Who knows what they do? Tom used to run FalTech, but stepped down for his son. James. And we all know what a disaster that was.”

  “Do they even speak to James?”

  “Oh, they would. But he’s cut himself off entirely.”

  “They didn’t press charges?”

  “Now, don’t be ridiculous, doll! They’re keeping a calf fatted for the prodigal’s return.”

  So James had embezzled; it wasn’t just a rumour. She smiled slightly. “They do love unconditionally, don’t they?”

  He shot her a look as if he had heard the wistfulness in her voice. “What of your family, Cal?”

  “Far idler than yours. What does Gordon—Gramps—think of all this? James, FalTech and all?”

  He didn’t say anything for several moments, and there was sadness behind the anger when he finally responded. “Gramps is too old to be doing what he’s doing. Falcontor is massive and complicated, and the man’s in his eighties. He wanted to retire, and after Dad left the company, had it in his head that James would eventually take over after getting some experience at FalTech.”

  “James? Not you?”

  “I made it clear many years ago that the one thing I wanted was not to be saddled with having to take care of them. So James became the de facto heir-apparent to running Falcontor. Running the whole group of companies.”

  “But you do take care of them,” she reminded. “How many times have you stopped what you were pursuing to help them? Not to mention the cash you’ve given them.”

  “Loaned them,” he corrected.

  “Right,” she agreed dryly. Just as she had ‘loaned’ Leon money.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “that house is emblematic of the sort of thing that’s killing them. As a family, they used to be worth nearly a billion. Now, not so much.”

  “Poor things,” she said coolly.

  “They’re the epitome of house-poor—they have zero cash. And that isn’t the only property, either. At least real estate is—under normal circumstances—a fairly sound investment. It’s the houses they build that cost more than they’re worth; the needless renovations to perfectly fine extant houses. It’s the cars and the parties and the first-class travel to nowhere for long stretches of time. It’s the investments on ridiculous schemes that fail miserably. The sheer expansiveness . . . You win some and lose some—but they’ve been on the losing side for too long and with too much regularity to support their excesses.”

  The last time she had displayed empathy for his position, he had dismissed her, so, though she understood exactly what he was talking about, she didn’t comment. “So how is it that you escaped their fate?”

  “It was a bit temperament and a bit experience. When I was a minor, Gramps handled my trust fund. He involved me in it, and at the same time, taught me the business. I was his protégé, in a way. By the time I came of age, I knew exactly what I was going to do with my money.”

  “Which was?”

  “Double it in a year.”

  “Did you?”

  “Nope. Eight months.”

  “Good plan.”

  “I liked it.” He grinned reminiscently. “Damn’ near lost it all. Bond market virgin, you know, going into it like I knew it all. I was cocky as hell in those days.”

  She wasn’t sure in what way that was different.

  “Even were I to wash my hands of my parents’ generation, I’m worried about the others. My cousins, siblings—they’ve blown their trusts as far as I’m aware. And the next generation—well, there may not be anything left by the time Lucy’s twenty-one. Or much sooner. She’s probably as flighty as the rest, though, so it wouldn’t matter.”

  “She seems a normal little girl. A bit on the serious side, actually. It was she who started me thinking about using the Birds as a focal point—she sees how out of place they are. Maybe she takes after you and Gordon.”

  “Here’s hoping.”

  “I like Benedict. He doesn’t live there—he told me definitively that he’d rather be dead—and doesn’t spend that much time with the family. Reminded me a bit of you—I mean, in addition to the physical resemblance—with his air of familial despair. Though generally he is better humoured about it. He plans on doing a documentary fil
m once he finds a suitable subject.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Lucius muttered. “I couldn’t believe it when he went to film school. My own brother.”

  She laughed helplessly at the disgust and woe in his voice. “The point is, he’s not wasted his trust. He’s saved it to finance his film—whenever that happens.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “And he works, you know. As a DOP and a director—commercials and music videos and the like. See?” she soothed. “They aren’t all bad.”

  “Yeah, not all.”

  “They’re gammas,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  He shot her doubtful look. “Gammas?”

  “The mortal enemies of all alphas!”

  He chuckled. “How so?”

  “Betas are obedient to alphas, hoping to step into place. Gammas—whew! They go their own way. They are alphas without the leadership ambitions, and barely notice when someone tries to influence or control them. My parents are gammas. My brother’s a beta.”

  “And what are you?” he teased.

  “What do you think?” she countered, her voice mild but guarded.

  “Mm. Can’t pin you.” He grinned. “Much as I’d like to. But I’m busy driving and all.”

  And just like that, the mood in the car changed. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed, and reached over to brush his knuckles over her hot cheek.

  Gordon Ransome’s home was an ivy-covered mansion in Rosedale that rumbled classy old money as loudly as the Ransome clan compound screamed tacky new. Callie chewed on her thumbnail, for once out of actual nervousness, wishing it wasn’t too late to re-think her casual summery outfit.

  Opening the car door for her as she sat like a bump, Lucius’ fingers wrapped around her wrist and pulled her tortured thumb from her mouth.

  “Gramps is a pussycat,” he chided. “Don’t look so scared.”

  “I’m not scared,” she defended, and scrambled from the car. But the bravado faded as the door was answered by a uniformed butler.

  “Good evening, Mr. Lucius,” the older man greeted with a stiff bow.

  “Hi, Bradley. This is Miss Dahl,” he introduced her, tugging her forward from where she was attempting to disappear behind him. “Gramps in?”