A Terrible Beauty (25 page)

“Jeremy—” I started.

He did not let me continue. “I find it inconceivable anyone cares so very much about one lousy little piece of bronze, no matter what one can read on it, no matter who found it where. Yes, to scholars of Ancient Greece, it has enormous significance. But on the black market, why on earth would any dealer—or whatever these fellows call themselves—become so obsessed with such a thing? Better he should hunt down the treasures of Egyptian pharaohs or something like the gold mask we saw in the museum in Athens. The one that bloke who fancies Troy found and said belonged to the chap who went after Helen? Can't remember his name.”

“Agamemnon,” I said.

“Precisely,” Jeremy said. “I can see you are all horrified by my lack of specific knowledge on the topic, but let me assure you my level of disinterest is far closer to that of the average person than any of yours. Normal people do not sit around worrying about things that happened ten thousand years ago.”

“More like three or four thousand, actually,” Fritz said.

“Yes, yes, I have utter faith in your dates, Herr Reiner.” I could tell Jeremy was enjoying this. “The material point remains. Someone bent on earning a fortune selling pilfered antiquities would have given this up as a bad job years ago.”

“If only you were right,” Fritz said. “Sadly, the market for such things—”

“I do not speak of these things in general,” Jeremy said. “I refer specifically to the bronze in question. You do still have it, Hargreaves? Can't have it slipping away now.” Colin did not reply to this inane question. He remained standing, away from the table around which we were gathered, his back to us.

“I do appreciate the point,” I said. “Why would someone pursue this so relentlessly?”

“No one would,” Jeremy said.

“Yet clearly someone is doing just that,” Margaret said. “Someone who has resorted to violence again and again.”

“You are all falling straight back into his trap,” Colin said, turning hard on his heel to face us again. His dark eyes blazed. “What evidence do we have for any of his claims? If he lied about stealing, he can just as easily have lied about what happened after.”

“How dare you?” Philip's countenance flushed. “I have stood by and watched you steal my wife, keeping out of your way because of the deep respect I have for her. I will not tolerate any further insults from you.”

“I would be more than happy to discuss your shortcomings in greater detail, but believe it would be best if we did so outside, away from the ladies.” Colin's voice was deadly calm.

“There is no need for any of that,” Fritz said. “I can attest to the attack at Troy, as could the rest of the archaeological team. And I assisted him after he had been badly beaten in Ephesus.”

“You saw the attack?” Colin asked.

“No, but I—”

“Then you do not know the identity of the perpetrator?” Colin continued.

“No, but—”

“So we are left to take on faith Mr. Chapman's version,” Colin said, glaring at Philip when he opened his mouth to speak. The look silenced him. “For all we know, he hired someone to rough him up to lend credibility to his story.”

“Why would I have done that?” Philip asked.

“I haven't the slightest interest in considering the question,” Colin said. “Your credibility is shattered. It would be best for everyone if you took yourself off and returned to whatever life it is you actually ought to be living.”

“What are you suggesting?” Philip stood, his hands balled into tight fists.

“I apologize if I did not make myself understood,” Colin said. “I did not offer a suggestion. I meant to say, quite clearly and without question, that I do not believe anything you have told us from the moment you entered this house.”

“Colin—” I started, but he silenced me with a raised hand.

“You have taken advantage of our goodwill and you have tormented my wife. I will stand for it no longer. Leave at once.”

“That is quite enough.” Now I stood. “He cannot leave, not when we know someone is trying to physically harm him. To allow him to do so would be inhumane.”

“He is not Philip Ashton,” Colin said, “and if he wants to stay under my roof for another night, he will confess his true identity.” Philip blanched, and I thought I saw a hint of moisture in his eyes, eyes I had recognized the moment I saw them.

“First off, if we are to be technical regarding the subject, this is my house, and my roof, and I shall decide who stays here,” I said. “Do not let your anger get the best of you.”

“Is there some question of his identity?” Jeremy asked. “I thought he had proven to us all that he is who he claims?”

“I
claim
nothing,” Philip said. “One does not need to
claim
to be the person one has been since birth. It is simple enough to establish one's identity, even after all these years, when one has the truth on one's side.”

“Right now, the only thing we must discuss is what to do with the bronze,” I said. “Colin, will you go to Fira and wire someone at the Archaeological Museum in Athens?”

“
Nein
,” Fritz said. “Herr Dörpfeld would want the piece to go to Berlin or Vienna.”

“That can all be figured out,” I said. “For now, we need someone in a position of authority involved.”

“The moment I send the telegram we must assume Chapman's enemy will be alerted to it,” Colin said. “If he cares so much, he no doubt has more than one person operating on his behalf on the island. He may even have someone in this house.”

“He most certainly does not,” I said. “I trust all of our servants implicitly.” I pulled my husband aside in order to speak to him privately. “I have never seen you so governed by your emotions. You are the one I rely on to provide calm in a storm, yet you appear determined to make this tempest even worse.”

“He has taken advantage—”

“What he has done matters not to me at present. We must secure the bronze and stop any further harm from coming to Philip or anyone else.”

He squeezed my hand with such strength I feared he would crush it. “You are quite right,” he said. “I have let my emotions run away with me. When I think of him speaking to you privately about intimacies—”

“Stop,” I said. “There is no value in discussing this now.” We rejoined the others and I laid out my plan. “A wise man does not act in haste, so I propose we wait until morning to send any telegrams. Philip, you and Fritz will remain here as long as necessary until—”

“Until you hand me over to the police,” Philip said. “I cannot argue. I deserve far worse.”

“No,” Fritz said, a sudden strength in his voice. “I will not stand by and let you be arrested for a mistake made during a time when you were suffering so greatly. Your mind was not clear. You had lost everything—your name, your fortune, your wife—and I am of the opinion that we must forgive your transgression. We will return the bronze to the proper authorities, and can determine the best way to do this, but whatever we decide it will not include making you pay any further for what you have done.”

 

Philip

Athens, 1896

When the season at Ephesus ended and Philip started for Athens, for the first time in years—really, since he had left England after seeing Hargreaves kiss his wife—he allowed himself the luxury of thinking about Kallista again. His love for her had not dwindled a bit. If anything, his heart desired her more ardently. But he had chosen a different path, one that had proven challenging and satisfying. And now that he no longer worked in Ephesus, perhaps he would enjoy a little peace, at least until Demir's henchmen caught back up with him.

When he first told Reiner he meant to leave Ephesus, his friend tried to convince him to stay, an effort Philip appreciated, as he understood the significance of the site and both the pleasure and the satisfaction of undertaking his chosen work there. He would not be swayed, however, and confessed to Reiner he believed he had no choice but to go because of the ongoing threat from the man who had beaten him. Reiner declared that then he, too, would leave, and that together they would find another dig to join.

What Philip could not have imagined was that Reiner would come to him, only three weeks after they had departed Ephesus for Athens, where they both planned to spend the winter, with several enticing possibilities for the subsequent season. He'd contacted the leaders of expeditions in Paestum, with its three magnificent Doric temples in southwest Italy; in Leptis Magna, the sprawling site of a Roman city in northern Africa; and in Sicily's Valle dei Templi, a shockingly well-preserved area full of Greek temples, near the city of Agrigento. Reiner offered one last option, apologizing as he described it.

“It is a site not so spectacular as the others, but I am well acquainted with the man leading the dig, Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen. We were students together at Tübingen, studying ancient history. He has obtained a firman to dig at a site that, while on a far smaller scale than Ephesus or Troy, will prove fascinating nonetheless: Ancient Thera, a city built by colonists from Sparta in the eighth century B.C., on the Aegean island of Santorini. I can assure you Hiller von Gaertringen would not choose to work somewhere without merits. He is one of the most competent archaeologists I have ever encountered. I thought I would mention the site, as it is more isolated and away from the ordinary path of tourists.”

Philip could not have hidden his shock, his astonishment, his joy, at what he immediately viewed as a turn of good fortune. “Thera—this is more than I ever could have hoped, Reiner,” he said, leaving his friend befuddled.

“I must stress that it is not a fair trade for Ephesus.”

“Santorini is a place close to my heart,” Philip said. “My villa was there—is there—only now it is hers. Kallista's. I would never dare disturb her or let her know of my presence, but the mere fact I may be on the island at the same time as her—that is more than I could ever have hoped for. I cannot thank you enough, dear man, for this opportunity. Just to be near her will be a gift. I shall never be able to repay you.”

 

18

“Not turn him in to the authorities? You cannot ask that of us,” Colin said when Fritz had made his extraordinary pronouncement imploring us to keep Philip from being held responsible for the theft. Jeremy laughed quietly, shaking his head, but Margaret, her eyes soft, looked as if she might be at least partly convinced by the idea.

“Indeed I can,” Fritz said. “I understand how close you and Ashton were before, but I am the one who has stood by him since our party stumbled upon him in Africa, and I now know him better than you. I saw the physical effects of his illnesses and all those months living in the bush, and I saw that the only thing keeping him alive was the hope of being reunited with the woman he loves. Can you imagine the pain he felt when he realized she no longer mourned him? When he realized she had pushed aside her memories of him to make room for a new life with his best friend?”

I swallowed hard listening to this, and tugged at the lace on my cuffs, not knowing where to look.

“No one argues it was anything but a terrible blow,” Jeremy said. “Most blokes would have wanted revenge. Pistols at dawn. Although he did know Hargreaves to be a good shot, so he might—”

“I would never have done any such thing,” Philip said. “I chose not to interfere. I saw that the world and those in it whom I love had gone on without me, and although that caused me pain, I could not fault any of you. You believed me to be dead, and life is for the living. I rejoice that you found each other, and when it became clear to me how deeply you cared for one another, I made the conscious decision to step back.”

“I told him it was foolish,” Fritz said. “That he should go to his sister, and reclaim his title and position in the world, but he refused.”

“I did not have the heart to rip my nephew's inheritance from him,” Philip said. “I had lived for nearly two years without the trappings of my title—and I owe my very survival to you, Reiner, in those early days; without you I would not even have had the funds to buy a simple meal. But once I began to work, I found a new purpose in life. I—”

Colin interrupted, curling his well-formed lips. “Yes, we have already heard that part of your fantastical tale. If you have nothing further to add by way of providing evidence as to your identity, my verdict on the matter remains the same: You are a fraud and an impostor.”

“I am happy to provide whatever proof you wish,” Philip said. “Ask any question you like. Shall we revisit our days at Cambridge? Recall evenings spent at the Eagle over too many pints? Discuss the particulars of an ill-planned excursion to find the Colossus at Rhodes?”

“I am happy to go over the details of any of those.”

“What about the time you climbed to the roof of the Wren Library at Trinity and Lundt spotted you? You convinced him not to report you by promising him a bottle of that whisky we used to take from your father. We had to go all the way to Anglemore Park to get it, because we could not find any in the house in Park Lane.”

“It was from a small maker who would not let it be sold in England,” Colin said. “My father brought it from Scotland himself.”

“When we went to London in search of the whisky your mother forced us to go to that awful ball—I can't remember who hosted it—”

“Of course not, because you weren't there,” Colin said. “You have proven to be in possession of a basic knowledge of my past. Hundreds of people knew about my father's whisky preferences, and it is not difficult to determine the name of the porter at Trinity College. I was embroiled in any number of scrapes during my student years, and a little judicious poking around the Oxford and Cambridge Club could give you the details of many of them.”