Chapter12
Felicity was cleaning the front room when Brent came back from Dale’s late that afternoon.
A wide smile spread across his face when he saw her. “Oh, good. There you are. I had a great research day. Found out some more things about Lawrence. Want to grab a quick drink and I’ll tell you what I found?”
“I’d love to. Let me just finish tidying up this room.”
“Perfect. I have a bottle of wine in my room. A nice merlot. Does that sound good?”
“It does. How about I meet you out on the porch in about fifteen minutes? I’ll bring the glasses.”
She hurried to finish her task and popped up to her room for a moment. She ran a brush through her hair and took a quick look in the mirror. It was hard to disguise the slight blush on her cheeks. She tried to convince herself it was just from the chores and running up the stairs to her room. But her heart laughed at her.
She headed back downstairs to the kitchen. “Gran, I’m going to sit out with Brent for a bit.” She reached into the cabinet for two wine glasses.
“Good. You should take a break. You’ve been working hard all day.”
She crossed through the house to the porch and slipped outside. Brent was already there, waiting for her at the far end of the porch. She walked over and sat down, setting the glasses on the table between them.
“I’m dying to know what you found out.”
“Here. Just let me pour the wine, then I’ll tell you.”
He poured the wine and handed her a glass. Their fingers brushed lightly. He paused and looked into her eyes, holding her gaze for a moment longer than necessary. A flicker of something passed between them—a spark of connection. Her heart skipped a beat.
He recovered and held up his glass. “A toast. To Magnolia Key and the secrets it holds. And to us figuring them out.”
She clinked her glass against his. “To uncovering the mysteries of the past.”
They both took a sip of the smooth, rich wine. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes still on her. “So, I found some interesting things in Dale’s records. Apparently, Prince Lawrence visited Magnolia Key several times in the 1920s, always staying at the Magnolia Landing Boardinghouse.”
“Really? I wonder what drew him to the island so often.”
“That’s the mystery, isn’t it? A prince from a small country, regularly visiting a tiny island off the coast of Florida. And it looks like he came at least every other year. There has to be a story there.”
She nodded. “There does.”
“So I did some digging around about these sister islands that they had back then. Usually, it looked like there would be one big ceremonial meeting when they were declared sister islands and that was about it. But Lawrence kept coming back, repeatedly.”
“There has to be some reason.” She frowned.
“Or some person…”
“You think he was involved with someone here on the island?”
“Maybe? Just one of the thoughts I had.”
Her mind spun with possibilities. “And the way Miss Eleanor reacted when we mentioned his name… She definitely knows something.”
“I think so too. I think we need to dig deeper into the prince’s connection to the Whitmore family. There’s a piece of the puzzle we’re missing.”
She took another sip of wine, savoring the way it warmed her from the inside out. Or maybe that was the effect of Brent’s presence, the intensity of his gaze, the low timbre of his voice as he talked about his findings.
She wanted to spend more time with him. Get to know him better. And she did want to figure out the mysterious Prince Lawrence. She did. “So, tomorrow we’ll do more research?”
“I told Dale I thought I’d be back again tomorrow to do more digging. You want to come with me?”
“I do. I’ll just need to help Gran with breakfast first, but then I’m all yours.” The words slipped out before she could stop them, and she felt her cheeks flush.
