Read Online Jumping in Puddles by Barbara Elsborg - Free Book Online Page A

chest.
    “While there are still holes in the roof, I’ll never love the rain,” he mumbled.
    “We’ll see,” she whispered.
    On the next floor down, he showed her the long gallery, faded rectangles revealing where paintings had once hung. The bedroom he was about to paint had cans and brushes waiting in the middle of the floor.
    “Those rooms are occupied by my lodgers.” He gestured down the hall. “The rest I have to get ready for wedding guests. I have no idea how.”
    The list of work was repetitive: plasterwork, skirting boards, architrave, painting, papering, floor repairs. She didn’t see anywhere obvious to look for the Kewen. He was either hiding it, or he didn’t know he had it. Ellie erred toward the latter; otherwise wouldn’t he have sold it? So why had just the ring surfaced? She could simply tell him she’d bought it and ask if there was more, but since she intended to steal the rest, she’d be the prime suspect. Would that matter if she was back in Faerieland? Her head buzzed.
    “What’s in there?” She pointed to two closed doors.
    “Things I’ve saved to go back into the rooms once they’re finished.”
    “Can I see?”
    Jago unlocked the first, motioned her in, and switched on the light. The curtains were drawn.
    “Wow.”
    The room was packed with artifacts: chairs, tables, wardrobes, and an enormous four-poster bed covered with bubble-wrapped packages.
    “One of my ancestors spent a fortune while he was doing the Grand Tour in the nineteenth century.”
    “Thank goodness they had bubble wrap then.”
    He shot her an incredulous look and then cracked a smile when he realized she was joking.
    “There’s a lot of stuff. Did he ship back everything he came across?” she asked.
    “Probably. He was certainly an eclectic collector. Some of the items are attributed to Pompeii, and I don’t know whether they’re actual relics or copies. Either way, they’re antiques.”
    Oh God, had the Kewen already been sold and the money spent? The ring all that was left? Ellie swallowed. That couldn’t be true; otherwise, pieces would have turned up before now. Unless they’d been looking in the wrong place all these years, and the Kewen had been taken abroad. It said in the book it couldn’t travel over water, but Ellie wasn’t sure the book told the truth.
    Was it in this room? She looked under sheets at paintings and furniture, and ran her gaze over tapestries hanging on the walls. When she bent with her butt toward Jago, she heard him give a quiet groan, and she smiled.
    “This fat guy on the gray horse is a bit hideous,” she said.
    “My grandfather.”
    “Oops.” Ellie inspected the painting and the one next to it more closely, and then glanced back at him and frowned. Where was the resemblance?
    “What?” he snapped.
    “Nothing. Have you had to sell much?”
    “Bits and pieces. Nothing desperately important. I repurchased some items my father sold, though not everything I’d wanted.”
    Maybe his father had sold some of the Kewen and whoever bought it had put it in a bank vault and then died. There were so many possibilities that her head ached. Certainty that it was somewhere here began to fade.
    “Is your intention to make the house look as it once did?” she asked.
    “If I don’t have enough interesting artifacts on display, no one will pay to look round, and the only way I can see to make this place viable is restoring it, dressing the rooms, and charging people to tour while I live in a small corner.”
    “Is there anything here you’d considering selling?” She glanced around.
    “Almost everything has a price.”
    “Even you?”
    He frowned. “I don’t think I’d fetch much.”
    “No local slave market?”
    Jago gaped at her, and she laughed.
    “Some women would like a title. In the old days you’d have wooed a rich heiress and solved all your problems.”
    “Are you a rich heiress?”
    “Neither rich nor an heiress.” She looked around. “Maybe you