Free The Debutante by Kathleen Tessaro

woman who was so darkly knowing last night? There seemed to be two of her, or rather, at least two.
    ‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly, turning away. ‘Perhaps a touch of our famous English eccentricity.’
    ‘Look at these books. They’ve never been read. Here.’ She pulled one out and handed it to Jack. ‘Every single one of them is new.’
    He leafed through it.
    ‘Why would anyone lock it up?’ Jo wondered.
    The question hung in the warm morning air.
    ‘Perhaps the heating didn’t work or the roof leaked.’ Jack handed the book back to Cate. ‘It’s not uncommon for old houses to have whole wings sealed off.’
    ‘It’s a mystery,’ Cate insisted.
    He shook his head, laughing. ‘A locked door is hardly a mystery!’
    It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about the shoebox. She even went so far as to open her mouth. But then she shut it again, quickly. It was private. Her secret discovery.
    ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she agreed, letting it go. ‘Perhaps it all comes down to a leak in the roof.’

    Cate headed back to her room, adrenalin pumping. The room had been locked for over a generation — not even Jo knew about it.
    Something happened; something she felt certain was connected to the box.
    Why else would it be locked? she thought, turning on the taps in her bath and putting in the plug. Maybe Irene planned to have a family to fill this old house but her husband was called to the war. Afterwards, when he returned, who knows? Perhaps he was injured or couldn’t bear to be touched.
    Or maybe she’d fallen in love with someone else.
    It was a riddle; a puzzle to be solved.
    She opened the bathroom window, looking out across the expanse of green meadow and the limitless view beyond.
    What life had Irene dreamed of for herself as a young woman? Here, overlooking the sea, she must’ve felt that nothing could fail, that she had everything she’d ever imagined. A beautiful house, a titled husband … Now there was only an old house with a locked room, books that were never read and a shoebox, filled with strange tokens and memories — like a message in a bottle.
    She trailed her fingers in the warm bathwater.
    Did she have an affair? Who was the handsome sailor in the photograph? Did he give her the bracelet?
    Slipping out of her dressing gown and nightie, she stood in front of the steamy bathroom mirror, pinning her hair up.
    It was a mystery, no matter what Jack thought. He was too sure of himself for his own good, that was his problem. Self-satisfied and superior and, yes, prudish. So what if he was dismissive of her? She was the one who had the upper hand now and he didn’t even know it.
    It gave her a thrill to have a secret in play.
    It didn’t matter what he thought of her. In another day, they’d be back in London and she wouldn’t even have to speak to him again.
    God, even at this early hour it was so hot!
    She pushed the window wider, stretching her arms high.

    Jack was standing on the lawn with a mug of coffee. How did she get into that room? He had the keys. There was no way she could’ve picked the lock. She didn’t look like she’d know how.
    He paced back and forth in frustration. She wouldn’t conform to anything he wanted her to do or be. In his head he’d composed whole conversations; pleasant little scenes in which he took the lead, showing her what to do and how to do it. But instead she constantly slipped away from him. Despite her golden appearance, she was fast, dark and mutable; like mercury. He couldn’t get a grip on her at all.
    And he had the unsettling feeling that she was indulging him; that she found him vaguely ridiculous. He was conscious of being constrained by professional protocol and social niceties while she, in contrast, found her way into locked rooms, landed unfamiliar jobs, slipped into strangely undefined relationships.
    There was a noise.
    He looked up.
    Caught in a ray of light reflected from the window-pane, Cate was standing by the