Hidden Treasures
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Synopsis
A reunited couple search for a valuable treasure, a precious jewelry box, stolen from the Nazis and hidden away since World War II, in this powerfully emotional and romantic novel of rekindled love—perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Josie Silver, and Jill Santopolo.
Then…
Once upon a time, in a small village in southern France, a pretty, willful English girl is falling in love. Frances Langley has fallen under Benoit’s romantic spell, so sure is she that he is everything she’s ever wanted—a self-assured, sexy man, experienced and just a little bit mysterious. But Frances is hiding a secret—one that would surely separate them if he ever knew the truth. And to hold on to his love, she is willing to do anything for him, even put herself at risk by hiding a precious object, stolen by the Nazis decades before.
Now…
Years later, Frances’s son, Harry, opens the door of his late mother’s home, never expecting to see Tabitha—the lost love of his life—on the other side. Their angry parting had broken his heart, but now she holds a letter, sent by his mother just before her death, begging the pair to search—together—for a priceless jewelry box, hidden somewhere in her little Cotswold cottage.
Harry quickly dismisses the search, but as an art historian, Tabitha cannot risk the chance to recover something so valuable that was long thought to be lost. And so they embark on a journey of discovery, but soon find themselves searching for much more than a missing piece of art. Together they learn that the true riches are not those buried in the clutter of Francis’s cottage, but are instead the treasures they each hold, buried deep inside their hearts.
Release date: December 7, 2021
Publisher: William Morrow
Print pages: 336
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Hidden Treasures
Michelle Adams
Chapter One
Nook Cottage, The Cotswolds, Summer 2022
In the same little cottage down a dirt track lane, Harry Langley was sitting on the edge of the threadbare chair where his mother had spent the best part of the last ten years. Every muscle in his body ached, the position awkward with his tall frame bent almost double, his legs too long. By that point he had been there for a couple of hours, still dressed in the black suit that was one size too small and made him feel like a schoolboy still in last year’s uniform. Scrunching his eyes tight, he tried not to think about the chaos all around him. Standing up, he loosened his tie, shook off his jacket, wishing that his mother was there to help him with the massive task ahead. But she wasn’t, and he was alone, because they had buried her ashes at three p.m. that afternoon.
With the last of the day’s sunlight glinting from the mirror that hung on the chimney breast, Harry glanced around at the rest of the mess. Nothing about what he saw was new to him because he had been living within it for the last ten years. But still it came as a shock. His mother’s collection extended around the circumference of the room, the door to the hallway frozen somewhere within it, leaving just a small passage through which he could walk to the front door. Just as bacteria colonized an agar plate, the volume of possessions multiplied into the kitchen and up the stairs, a lifetime of hoarding staking its claim on every available surface. It had claimed the walls, the carpet, and in places even the ceiling. And now, following his mother’s death, it was his job to try to sort it out, so that the house could be sold. He didn’t know where or how to begin.
“Come on,” he said to himself, private thoughts verbalized as had become customary. Without his own voice, the silence would have been suffocating. “We’re going to have to do this eventually. Might as well be now.” Kneeling, he lifted the flap of a nearby box, labeled Spare Parts. A metallic scent hit him, an iron edge to it, sharp like the taste of blood. After fishing about inside he pulled out what he thought was a spark plug, and after that something obscure that could have been some sort of pump. Black grease stained his fingertips, which he wiped on the suit he knew he’d never wear again. The obscurity of the items only served to reassure him that his house was packed like a can of sardines in every possible corner with useless possessions. “Jesus, Mum. You really did keep everything.”
Well, almost everything, he thought.
From his position on the edge of his chair, he stared across the room to where his mother used to sit, the empty cushion dipping in the middle, as if expecting her return. Memories of the evenings when a balmy sun would bathe the room in pink light, bringing life to her cheeks and warmth to the drafty house, came to him then. As she would doze in the chair, he often used to look at her and wonder. Wonder why. Wonder when. But most of all he would find himself wondering how she could have done it. Had she found it difficult to let him go? Did she ever wish she could go back to that moment when she walked away, when she left him on the shopping center bench, and undo what she had done?
Did she ever wish she’d kept him?
How old had he been then? Old enough to remember the ice cream that the guard brought him while the police were called, and the note she pressed into his chubby hot palm. Almost ten years had passed since they had reconnected, since he had found her, and during that time he had done everything he could to be a good son, even living with her in the hope of getting the answers he needed to his questions. Now she was gone, and he was alone again, left in her house, and he still couldn’t explain why she had given him away.
Outside the summer’s day inched toward eventide, the gray opalescence of clouds forming overhead and bringing the promise of rain. The air thrummed with the need for a storm. When it rained at River View, the care home where he had been working for the last ten years as a nursing assistant, the water levels of the river would rise to cover the part of the garden where the flowers bloomed. Worry grew then, over the thought of Margaret in room three, and whether somebody in his absence would deliver the flowers to her room as he did every other day. Joseph too would be missing him, no longer able to read but with an indisputable appetite for the newspaper each day. Harry would always find the time to read to him, but would any of the other staff do the same? The value he added to their lives seemed minuscule in comparison to what they added to his; they made him feel worthy and beneficial in a way little else could. How he longed to go back to that. Being in this house almost exclusively for the past couple of weeks was getting to be unbearable.
That afternoon, as runnels of sweat had trickled down his back, Harry had glanced at the faces of those at the funeral. Besides Victor, his boss at the care home, and Mrs. Gillman, the old lady from next door, there was just himself and the four pallbearers, who had stayed for the service to make up the numbers. He suspected upon Mrs. Gillman’s instruction. But twenty orders of service sat idle on the pews, as if Frances Langley had slipped from the world causing barely a ripple on life’s surface. A few weeks shy of her fifty-sixth birthday when she died, it was no age to have suffered a rogue DVT that got stuck on its way through her lungs. Harry had hoped the funeral would mark a turning point in the road for him, but the journey ahead was undeniably difficult, and he didn’t know how he was supposed to get through it alone.
When he heard the unmistakable squeak of his garden gate, followed by footsteps on the cobbled path, he felt sure he must have fallen asleep and was now lost somewhere in a dream. But moments later came the tapping of knuckles against the peeling paint of the front door. He wasn’t expecting anybody, and it was a bit late for visitors.
What time was it? Gazing down at his wristwatch was a habit, even though it had stopped long before the day he began wearing it. It was one of the few things his mother had given him, strapping it to his wrist before she left him on that bench. Although he had no idea of the truth, he had always felt sure that it had once belonged to his unknown father. He had always liked to believe that as a child, but when he had asked his mother, all she ever told him was that it came from somebody who loved him. Unprepared for guests he sat upright as the knocking resumed. From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of his reflection as he stood up. His hair was almost black, and his skin like pale honey, but his face was lined in a way it never used to be, his eyes darker and shaded. Turning away, he edged toward the hall. The truth was, he didn’t like to see just how much he had changed.
“Just a moment,” he called, edging past the junk. Perhaps it was Mr. Lewisham, the lawyer in charge of the sale of the estate, who had told him in no uncertain terms that he better stop messing about and sign the necessary paperwork. Hoarding, it seemed, was almost synonymous to unpaid debts, and the cottage, like it or not, had to be sold. But what would he be doing there at that time in the evening? Harry had three weeks before the auction was due to take place. With some urgency this time, the knocking started up again.
“All right, all right,” Harry said as he slid the chain from its bracket. On second thought, it was probably Mrs. Gillman. She had promised to plate him up a dinner, even though she herself was inching toward her nineties and in no physical state to be taking care of a man who was heading into his fourth decade of life. But she was that sort, always trying to help where she could, or solve any issues with a kind of wartime spirit that Harry admired. No doubt she would have been great at helping clear his mother’s house, if it wasn’t a near impossibility to negotiate the mess with her walker.
“It’s taken me all day to find this place again,” Tabitha said as Harry opened the door. Her face was cast in a gentle silhouette yet there was no mistaking it was her. Golden hair streaked by fire pooled on her shoulders. Shadows sketched a slim face, the chiseling of age that made him think of old photographs, of youth, and how it could be lost. That softly pointed nose, not as straight as he used to imagine it. Her body was the same, her frame slight, her skin pale, as if not a day had passed since he had last seen her. His breath caught in his throat so that he could barely speak.
“What are you doing here?” he said, his voice croaky and clipped. Whip-fast thoughts of his appearance quickened his heart rate. What would she make of him, and how he had changed in the decade they had been apart?
“Honestly?” she asked, her lips pursed. “I have literally no idea.” Razor sharp, her voice had an edge to it that he recognized, as if they were fresh off the back of an argument and nowhere near finding a resolution. Seeing her again, the same person changed by time, the person whose touch he once knew so well and whose musky scent he could muster just by thinking of it, had rendered him mute. Standing before him was the woman he had lost, and the woman he had never stopped loving. Eventually she took another step forward, but still he didn’t move. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”
Contemplating the proximity, so close he could reach out and touch her—and oh how he wanted to reach out and touch her—it was as if time had bent back on itself. Ten years ago, he had watched her walk away from this house, but now the scene was playing out in reverse. She was back, and for a moment it was as if nothing had changed at all, as if she was returning after just a few short, angry hours apart. As if they still belonged to each other. But then he remembered how much his reflection had changed, how time had moved on, and how life, for some at least, had been lived. How Tabitha, no doubt, had moved on. Glancing to the floor, he took a step back.
“Sorry, yes, of course.” He held himself firm as she shuffled past. Birds sang in the trees outside. Water babbled, the surrounding land rain-soaked and soft. As she moved past, he caught her scent, and goose bumps shivered up his arms. Fingers flinching, he moved to touch her, just to find out if she was real. Pulling away at the last moment, he realized he was too scared to break the mirage or do anything that could cause her to leave. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he managed to say as he closed the door.
For a moment she said nothing as her eyes scanned the mess. “Neither can I. And it’s worse than it was before,” she said, tapping a brown envelope against her leg. Shame enveloped him like a curtain drawn, that she was witness to the way he had allowed himself to live.
“I know,” he said quietly. “There’s been a lot going on, I suppose,” he said after a time. “I’m trying to clear it. But as you can see, it’s quite a big job.”
“You can say that again. Look at it all,” she said, shaking her head. “I assume you weren’t expecting me.”
“No.” He paused, not sure where to even begin. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re here, but why would I be expecting you, after all these years?”
“Ten,” she said. “Ten years.” She motioned to the living room door. “We have something we need to discuss.” When he didn’t move, she said, “Can we go through, sit down?”
“I’m sorry,” he stuttered, “it’s just . . .”
“Just what?”
“Well, I didn’t expect to see you.”
“You said that already.”
“I know, but now you’re in my hallway, and you look, I mean, you always looked, but then we were young, and now, well, you’re a woman and, well . . .”
“Oh, just spit it out if you’ve got something to say.”
“Well, I have,” he said, aware of the heat in his ears, the flush of his cheeks. “I was going to say that you look great. Beautiful. That’s what I was going to say.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m rambling,” he said then. Pointing to the living room door, he beckoned her on. “Please, go through.”
Weaving between boxes and bags stuffed with secondhand clothes, he led her through the wedged-open door to the living room, then offered her his mother’s chair. His skin prickled at the memory of her body as she moved past him, of the way she used to hold him, and how they used to fit together. Of what it felt like to touch her. It might have been ten years, but he wanted her still as if it was yesterday. He had never stopped. As he stood near the window, she took a seat.
“So, where is she?” she asked then.
“Who?” For a moment he had forgotten anybody else existed in the world.
She tutted, let her gaze drift to his face. “Your mother, of course.”
His assumption had been that Tabitha’s arrival was symptomatic of his mother’s passing, so her question threw him a little. He stumbled through an answer. “Well, she’s not here.”
“When will she be back?”
“Er, she won’t be,” he said, stumbling a little. “She, um, she died.”
Tabitha stopped tapping the envelope, her nervous fidgeting eased by the new information. “Died?” she asked, her eyes finding his, the first time her voice betrayed its softer qualities. The gray blue of her irises drew him in, like pools in which he could swim toward something better. “When?” she asked with a degree of suspicion.
“Couple of weeks ago.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “That’s not possible.”
He shrugged. “I’m afraid it is. We interred her ashes today.”
Tabitha looked to the envelope and noted the postmark. “But she wrote to me two days ago.” Leaning across the room she handed the envelope to him. “She told me I had to come here, that you needed my help.”
For a moment everything seemed to freeze, no breath for him to take, no sense of his surroundings tangible to touch. It was as if two worlds had collided, and he was in that moment right after impact, just before the explosion destroyed everything he once knew. He could never have imagined any situation in which his mother and Tabitha could have ever been brought together, and now Tabitha was here, saying that his mother had engineered it, that she had brought Tabitha back to him. It was too much to take, and he sat back in the chair as he finally took a breath.
“That can’t be right. She couldn’t have.”
“But she did.” He took the envelope at her indication. Scrawled across the front was Tabitha’s name, and an address he didn’t recognize. The top had already been torn open. Italic letters bore all the traits of his mother’s hand, the swirling consonants, the rounded vowels. He reached inside and his fingers found a second envelope. Pulling it out he saw his own name written on the front.
He looked at Tabitha for an answer. “I don’t understand.”
“And you think I do?” she asked, sitting back in the seat, crossing her legs. “Look at the letter she sent me. It won’t take you long.” Pulling out the folded paper, he read the brief message.
Dear Tabitha,
Ten years ago, when Harry came home, I didn’t understand what he was losing in leaving you behind. Although I didn’t ask him to, I know it was my fault that he ended your relationship. He didn’t know how to be my son, and thought in trying to be so, there wasn’t the room to be anything else, and I wasn’t strong enough to show him how. Please go to him now, deliver this letter, and help me put the wrongs of the past right again, and help him save his home. I’m afraid you might be the only person who can.
Frances
“You see,” she said when it was clear he had finished. “What are these past wrongs I’m supposed to help you put right?”
That was about the size of it. Turning the envelope over he saw that indeed the postmark was from two days before.
“I’ve got no idea,” he said after a while.
“And the bit about me being able to save the house. What’s that about?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Are you going to lose it or something?”
“Yes, in three weeks’ time. My mother rang up a lot of debts, and I’ve got to cover them. I don’t have a choice. It’s going to be sold, and I don’t know where I’m going to go.”
“Then you’d better open your letter. See if it makes any more sense than mine.”
He nodded, and sliding his finger under the flap, he tore the envelope open. Reaching in for what he expected to be a letter, he was surprised to find the thick edge of a Polaroid photograph. It was of a jewelry box, something ornate and silver. Maybe tin, he supposed if it was old and not worth much. It was quite beautiful whatever it was made of, cherubs on the sides, olive branches fashioned into handles. The bottom was rippled as if surrounded in flames. On the back of the photograph his mother had written something else.
Harry,
Many years ago, I hid something very precious to me. It was the most precious thing I possessed in all the world. Look for this box. It is here, hidden in the house. As you search through the things I’ve kept, and once you find what’s hidden inside this box, you will have the answers I could never bring myself to give you.
Now I’m gone, I must give you this chance to understand who you are, no matter the repercussions. Tabitha is the only person I can think of who might be able to help you do that.
I know you doubted that I wanted you here, but all I ever tried to do was keep you safe.
Forgive me, please.
Mum
Harry set the photograph on his knees. “I don’t understand,” he said. The mess towered over him as he looked up at it, and then to Tabitha whom he still couldn’t quite believe was there with him. She reached toward him with an outstretched hand, so he offered her the picture, their fingers just inches apart. “Among all this?” he asked. “I’m supposed to find that in all this mess? I just don’t—” he began, but she cut him off.
“Oh my god,” she said, leaning forward. Seconds later she was on her feet, staring at the mess.
“What is it?”
“She wants you to find this box. Is that what she’s saying, that it’s somewhere in this house?”
“I think so.”
Unexpected laughter snuck from her lips. “But it can’t be,” she said to herself. “How could it end up here?”
“How could what end up here?” Harry asked, still unsure. Tabitha’s reaction was putting him on edge. He could feel his heartbeat quickening, her excitement infectious.
“Don’t you recognize this box at all?” Shaking his head, his confusion growing, he saw a smile forming on Tabitha’s lips. “Jesus, Harry. Didn’t you pay any attention at school? You’ve really got no idea what this is?”
“No, Tabitha. I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
“Well, at least I understand why she thought I might be able to help. Because this is a piece of history, Harry. When I received her letter, I could never have imagined this. This is called The Klinkosch Box, and it is an antique that has been missing for almost eighty years. One of the most famous artifacts looted by the Nazis during the Second World War. Nobody has any idea where it is. There must be thousands of people looking for this in some shape or form, and your mother’s telling us that it’s here, in this house.” Shaky fingers covered her mouth to stifle the excitement. “Harry, do you have any idea how important this is? How much something like this is worth?”
Hope rose in his chest like a child’s balloon. A future where he could pay his mother’s debts, stay in the cottage that had become his home. “Would it be enough to save this place?”
For a moment her face softened, and he saw the same woman with whom he’d once fallen in love. Whom he still loved. Ten years apart had done nothing to diminish his feelings for her. Seeing her again had confirmed that. Turning away, he glanced in the glass at his reflection, the tired eyes staring back at him, the lined cheeks etched during years they’d spent apart. Could she see him, as he once was, or did she see only what was left of him now? Back then he’d had no choice but to leave her behind, but now she was here again he realized how much he wished it had been different.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “This box would be worth enough to save your home ten times over.”
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