Overwhelmed with the immensity of it all.
Agitated about the choices.
Scared she might make a complete mess of everything.
When she’d laid her head down on that first night after the will had been read, her brain had buzzed in a furious swarm. She’d pushed her hot forehead into the cool of the goose-down pillow, trying to quiet her mind, and one shooting conclusion had rushed in.
Flipping over, she’d stared at the ceiling of her childhood bedroom and knew.
The gardens. They were hers now.
If she did nothing else, she wanted them the way she’d always dreamed.
“Thank you for taking care of the situation.” Jen looked back at Mr. Briggs after surveying her new project. She’d hired a new team of gardeners after dispensing with any rebellion from the old. She’d been pleased with her own determination. “I’ll do what I like here.”
“Excellent. Your grandfather would be proud.” He beamed, then reached into his satchel. “He wanted me to give this to you after the family matters settled down.”
She took the manila envelope. A hard object poked out from the middle. “What is it?”
“A letter from Lloyd.” The solicitor gave her a gentle smile. “And a gift. He wanted to make sure you were the only one here when I gave it to you.”
“Why couldn’t he have given it to me himself?” She frowned at the cover, no writing or suggestion of its contents penned on it.
He shrugged. “Lloyd had his ways.”
“Yes.” She sighed. Her grandfather had always done as he pleased and she shouldn’t be surprised he had his own ideas of how to end things. A sudden desperate desire to know what was inside seized her. “Was there anything else, Mr. Briggs?”
“No.” He turned to go, then stopped. “Jennet.”
She took one more glance at the envelope, before looking at him. “Yes?”
“Your grandfather spent a long time deciding who he wanted to give his estate to.” Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he stared at her, his gaze steady. “I think he made a brilliant choice.”
A blush of pleasure and pride and bewilderment heated her throat. “Thank you.”
“Take care of it.” The solicitor marched away, his last words thrown over his shoulder. “But I can see you already are.”
Rushing into the vestibule, she brushed off the new housekeeper she’d hired yesterday and raced up the stairs to her small bedroom. She sat on the bed and slid a trembling finger under the lip and flipped it open.
A red leather box dropped onto her lap. The gold trim glistened in the soft English sunshine spilling from the window.
It was a ring box.
Slowly, Jen took it in her hand. There was a clever little band clasping the box closed. Taking a deep breath in, she snapped it open.
The ruby ring.
The ring her grandfather had claimed as his. The ring she’d been sent to steal. The ring she thought he’d been buried with over a month ago.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured to the room and the lingering ghost of her grandfather.
Setting the gem on her blue comforter, she yanked the one piece of paper out of the envelope.
She’d know her grandfather’s handwriting if she lived another hundred years. The paper was familiar, too. The Fellowes crest, inherited from the ancestor who’d wrenched these Kent lands from a rebellious Saxon, glowed in embossed glory at the top of the damask stationary.
Jennet,
I lost my heart a long time ago on the banks of the River Ness. I lost this
ring, too. The two have always seemed to me to be entwined. It is why I
sent you to the wilds of Scotland to bring the ring back to me.
I needed to see it one more time before I died.
A tear streaked down her cheek and the grief she’d felt standing in the old family graveyard as they laid her grandfather to rest welled in her throat.
You did that for me, Granddaughter, and I am grateful. I know it wasn’t
to your liking to go there and deceive. You were ever a child of your
mother, with her stern ideas of right and wrong.
She sniffed. He brought up her mother again and with great fondness, she could tell by the underlying emotions circling in his words.
But you did it, and I can die in peace. I thought about bringing this ring
and the memory of my lost love with me. It was what I’d planned.
Eventually, however, I knew it wasn’t right.
The ring and the love that goes with it should stay here on earth.
I believe both you and your mother would agree. And you’d both be right.
The words echoed in the air around her, as if he were still standing here, alive.
You’d both be right.
Looking at the sparkling ring, she took in a deep breath. For a moment, the old panic, the old fears and worries and anger, clutched inside. Her grandfather had held on to his prestige and his power with an iron hand. She’d fought to break free and not until he died did he give her what she’d wanted since she’d been five.