Chapter Fourteen

Emma slowly slid her legs over the side of the bed. She grabbed at the edge of the bedside table for support. She’d heard the engine of Seth’s car splutter into life just seconds ago. Lurching forward, she grasped the edge of the chest of drawers and hauled herself nearer the window. She wanted to see Seth with her own eyes driving out of the gateway and going down over the hill towards Olly’s boatyard.

She was being as quiet as she could because she knew any noise would mean Beattie would come rushing upstairs to see if something was wrong. And she didn’t want that. She wanted to get downstairs by her own efforts as soon as she could. Take Matthew’s letter and his card from her drawer in the bureau and consign both to the fire in the range. It was too dangerous to keep them in the house. Seth might even have seen them already, although in her heart she didn’t think he had.

A scrunch of gears. Why did Seth always scrunch the gears before he drove off? She never did when she drove the car. Perhaps it was a man thing?

On legs that felt they might snap at any moment, Emma stepped closer to the window. She could see the roof of the car now, saw as it inched forward and manoeuvred between the gate pillars. Another step. She pressed her nose to the glass and counted every second – nineteen of them – before Seth in his car disappeared around the bend in the road.

‘Oi, my lady, what do you think you’re doin’ out of that bed?’

Beattie. With a squirming Fleur in her arms.

‘I wanted some air,’ Emma lied.

With fingers that pained her to move, she slowly dragged the catch on the sash window from right to left. But when she went to lift the window she found she had no strength at all, and her knees began to buckle. She had a feeling it wasn’t only the beating Margaret Phipps had given her that was responsible for that buckle. Was this, then, what guilt felt like? What it did to you? Still the image of Matthew giving her back the necklace was in her head. She could see him so clearly: his red blond hair, his green eyes that had amber flecks in them. His height, looming over her, but not threatening. His voice, so deep and rich, especially when he laughed; at her to begin with when first they’d met, she’d been certain of that. But when they’d got to know one another better, he’d laughed with her. Made her laugh.

‘Then it would ’ave been more sensible to let me do it, wouldn’t it?’ Beattie said. She plonked Fleur down on the floor and rushed to Emma’s side. ‘Just an inch mind. Seein’ as ’ow it’s sunny I don’t think it’ll be too cold for you this mornin’. And then it’s back into bed with you. I just came to say I want you to keep an eye on this scallywag of yours – who, I’m ’appy to say, don’t seem none the worse for ’er adventures – while I go and fetch you a breakfast tray and then I’m goin’ to take ’er out in that gurt perambulator Seth spent a fortune on. And seeing as ’ow I think you need buildin’ up, I’m goin’ to Foale’s to get some beef skirt to make you a pasty. That’ll put flesh on your bones, and colour in your face.’

And a merciful amount of time to go and do what I know I’ve got to do, Emma thought, as she allowed herself to be helped back to bed.

‘Sorry, I’m late,’ Seth said.

‘No need to be,’ Olly told him. ‘If that flush on your face means what I think it does.’

‘It doesn’t. And you need to scrub your mind out with carbolic soap.’

He knew exactly what it was that Olly meant – that he’d been making love to Emma. If only he had. Making love before breakfast was always the best time for them both; Seth thought it set him up for the day the way a plate of eggs and bacon did, only for his soul instead of his body. But there had been no lovemaking this morning and there had been something other than the loss of her necklace troubling Emma – the way she’d snapped her gaze away from his and had gone deathly pale when he’d said he’d telephoned her clients and explained what had happened to her. He’d half expected her to remonstrate with him for having gone behind her back and taken control of the situation – her business in effect – but she hadn’t. Her hand had flown to her breastbone and he’d noticed her breathing quicken.

Did he dare ask her when he got home later why that might have been? Did he want to know?

‘And there’s grass on your boots. Wet grass if I’m not mistaken.’

Seth looked down at his boots as though seeing them for the first time.

‘So there is. Dew. I went to the churchyard. Emma’s amethyst necklace is missing. Neither Mrs Drew nor the doctor has seen it.’

Seth threw his arms wide and flipped his hands over so they were palms upwards. He didn’t need to explain to Olly what might have happened to it – he’d know that it might have been snatched from Emma’s neck in the attack, or loosened so that it had fallen somewhere. It could be anywhere – not necessarily in the churchyard among the graves.

‘You went looking for it. Like looking for a needle in a haystack I imagine.’

‘The odds are bigger than that. Who’s going to hand a gold chain in at the police station if they find it? If they haven’t stolen it in the first place?’

‘Buy her another,’ Olly said.

If only it were that easy. Seth could understand how sentimental the necklace was to Emma, although he couldn’t understand how she wanted to even be in the same room as it, seeing as it had been taken from her mother in the first place by his father in lieu of rent. Somehow it had then got into Sophie Ellison’s hand and been around her neck the night Carter had killed her.

‘I can see you’re thinking about it,’ Olly said with a laugh, when Seth was slow to answer. ‘Well, think about it some more while you get some varnish on that hull.’

Seth picked up a brush and took the lid from the tin of varnish.

Something had shifted in their relationship – his and Emma’s – since the attack on her. A shiver of something that felt like a mixture of ice and broken shards of glass shot up between Seth’s shoulder blades and his shoulders twitched.

‘A bit of hard work will warm you up,’ Olly said, noticing the twitch but misinterpreting the reason for it.

‘Hope so,’ Seth said, and got to work.

Sometimes, least said was soonest mended. He wasn’t going to distress Emma further by asking questions she might not want to answer. Whatever it was, he hoped and prayed with all his heart it would blow over, and that they could get back to how they’d been before.

But leaving the country for Canada was out of the question for the moment. Despite what Dr Shaw had told the police, they were still keen to prosecute Margaret Phipps for kidnapping and were preparing a case. And a case against her mother for being an accessory after the fact. A court case loomed if Dr Shaw’s appeal against it wasn’t successful. The doctor was, Seth knew, trying to protect Emma from having to go to court as much as he was trying to do his professional best for Margaret Phipps.

But the day he could go into Tapper’s Travel and book their passage – his and Emma’s and Fleur’s – the better it would be for everyone.

It surprised Emma that she didn’t heal as quickly as she’d thought she would. Beattie had been ‘feedin’ ’er up ’andsome’, as the good woman told Seth. She had been every day with pasties and broths, and making sure Emma had lashings of butter on her vegetables, but there were still days when Emma felt weak.

A whole month had gone by and she still had a scar on her forehead that was proving slow to fade. Dr Shaw said he realised now he ought to have given the cut a stitch or two and he apologised that he hadn’t. He also said the scar might never fully go and Emma said it wouldn’t be a problem, she’d just grow her fringe longer.

More of a problem was that she was beginning to dread the plop of letters on the mat. Foolishly, she’d given her address when she’d written to Matthew to tell him he was not, under any circumstances, to write to her again. But she hadn’t been thinking straight at the time when she’d done that.

Mercifully, no letters from Matthew had arrived at Mulberry House and neither had Ruby brought any that had been delivered to the hotel – or any that she’d been able to get her hands on. Some might still have been delivered and found their way into other hands. Mr Smythe’s hands for example. Emma often woke in the night having nightmares about just such a scenario.

After she’d been unable to fulfil her orders for the Titanic survivors fund-raising, Emma’s orders had dried up. The Carlton over in Torquay had withdrawn their contract. Mr Clarke at the Esplanade had shown more understanding and Emma’s contract with him was still in force, but with a reduced requirement now that autumn was all but over and fewer guests were booking in. Rich, private, clients – like the Singers – had all gone to their homes in Cannes or Nice for the winter.

Edward, with Beattie’s help, had done his best to bake as well as Emma did, but he just wasn’t up to it. And he never had been a fast mover, either in mind or body.

Emma knew it was the wrong end of the year for finding new business, but she was doing her best. Christmas wasn’t far away and she’d had the idea of making a French dessert she remembered her papa making the year her mama had had Johnnie and was weak from the long, protracted birth and unable to stand for long in the kitchen – bûche de Noël. She’d even, in a rash moment, considered asking Mr Smythe if he would be interested in her making some for the hotel, seeing as his late wife had been French and his children being brought up bilingual. She doubted she would ask him, though.

The bakery was full now of the scent of chocolate and whipped cream and chestnut purée. She had no recipe to follow so had had to experiment. While some of the prototypes were nowhere near good enough to sell, they’d still tasted delicious.

Emma closed her eyes doing her best to conjure up her parents’ and Johnnie’s faces in her head. But she couldn’t. It was as though as their bodies were fading to nothing but bone in the cemetery, her memory of them all was fading, too. Each day they slipped further and further away from her. Since Margaret Phipps’s attack on her in the churchyard, she hadn’t felt up to going up to their graves either. Maybe if Seth would go with her, then she’d go. But not alone. Not again. Not yet. If ever. Not even on the off chance she might find her amethyst necklace lying somewhere. Margaret Phipps had been questioned and denied vehemently that she’d snatched the necklace from Emma’s neck. No one believed her.

Before Emma’s beating, Seth and Olly had often gone down to the Blue Anchor of an evening for a glass of ale, but since that time Emma hadn’t liked being left alone when it was dark outside. And now the nights were drawing in quickly. It was dark by half past five, and if it had been a cloudy day, even earlier. Emma was working on her self-confidence, but it was rather slower to come back than she would have liked. It felt like trudging through wet mud sometimes just to venture from the house. But she made herself do it. She wasn’t giving in.

And in the evenings, when Fleur slept and Seth caught up with paperwork in the study, to take her mind off her slow recovery – and because she thought she might go mad with inactivity if she wasn’t doing something – Emma began to sew. She made dresses for Fleur, smocking the bodices the way she’d seen her mama do it. She was glad now that she’d paid attention – not only to the sewing, but to the making of a pattern. Her mama had been able to make anything just by looking at it and had never needed to pay for a Butterick or a McCall pattern from Rossiter’s to be able to make clothes. Why, once, her mama had gone with Dr Shaw’s wife to look in the window of Rockhey’s in Torquay because while Mrs Shaw liked the style, she didn’t like the colour and Rockhey’s didn’t have the dress in navy-blue. Her mama – so she’d told Emma – had stood, hands on hips studying the dress for a good ten minutes in total silence. And then she and Mrs Shaw had gone to the haberdashers and bought some material, and within a week the doctor’s wife was wearing her new dress to the Bijou Theatre in Paignton.

Emma was working on a new dress for herself, sewing the seams by hand. She’d seen a sewing machine for sale for thirty-six guineas and just as soon as the monies for her pastries were in, she’d go and buy it.

‘Mama,’ Fleur said, interrupting Emma’s thoughts and bringing the bakery back into focus.

Emma tipped another teaspoonful of chestnut cream into the bowl in front of Fleur in her high chair. As soon as the sponge had cooled she’d spread the chestnut cream over it and roll it up carefully in a tea towel.

‘And I can’t keep you in there forever while I work, can I?’ Emma said.

The day before, Emma had stopped Beattie taking Fleur out in her perambulator because, worryingly, Beattie’s cough was back now autumn was slipping towards winter. Emma had told her not to arrive so early today, but the morning was galloping on and still no Beattie.

Ah, the bang of the back gate.

But it wasn’t Beattie who came into the bakery. It was Edward.

‘Ma’s took bad, Mrs Jago,’ Edward said. ‘Coughin’ all night ’er was. ’Er didn’ want me to do it, but I took some of the money from the teapot on the mantelpiece and I went fer the doctor. ’Er said I ’ad to come and tell you ’er id’n comin’ in today or you’d worry.’

‘I am worried, Edward,’ Emma said. ‘Your ma was far from well yesterday.’

Emma would miss Beattie almost as much as she missed her own mama if anything happened to her; if she went to join that wastrel of a husband of hers in the graveyard. Emma shivered, just thinking about it.

She wiped her hands on her apron, then took Fleur from her high chair.

‘Come with me to the house, Edward, and I’ll give you more money for anything the doctor says your ma needs. And some brandy. There’s a full bottle somewhere.’

‘There was blood, Mrs Jago, only you mustn’ tell Ma I told you ’cos she said she’d kill me if I did.’

‘No she won’t. And I won’t say you’ve told me either.’

But Emma’s own blood had run cold at Edward’s words. The world and his wife knew what coughing up blood meant, didn’t they? It could, Emma knew, mean that Beattie had a burst blood vessel somewhere, but not with the cough – this was more serious.

‘Er said I wasn’t to ask you fer money or anythin’ at all.’

‘You didn’t ask me. I offered it. That’s not the same thing. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Mrs Jago. I think so. But I won’t be able to tend to Ma if ’er needs tendin’ to, what with ’er being ill and all, and come and work for you, will I?’

No, Emma thought, you won’t.

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?’

Emma had been trying to decide how best to broach the subject of a nursemaid for Fleur with Seth. Because, even before her cough had come back, Beattie hadn’t been able to run after Fleur and clean the house, since Fleur was into everything now she was walking properly. Besides, the child needed more fresh air and exercise than Emma was able to give her with a business to run. But whoever they employed, Emma would have to be able to trust her completely. She still woke in the night sometimes in a panicky sweat of fear that Fleur had been taken again, although she knew Margaret Phipps would have no hand in it if she were. The poor girl was in an asylum in Plymouth, considered too mad to face charges.

Would Emma ever be able to relax if she had a child of her own, fearing that bad things might happen again, just as they’d happened to Fleur?

A tear slid down Emma’s cheek. She hadn’t conceived yet. Would she ever?

‘Oh, I’ve upset you tellin’ you about Ma,’ Edward said.

‘I’m upset for her,’ Emma said, ‘but not because you told me.’ A truth and a lie wrapped up together. What sort of person was she turning into with secrets she’d hidden from Seth and thinking of her own needs before Beattie’s?

The bûche de Noël could wait. And so could asking Seth about a nursemaid.

‘I’ll come back home with you, Edward, and then your ma can see I’m not upset. How will that be?’

‘Grand,’ Edward grinned at her like a three-year-old, not someone almost twenty years of age. ‘Just grand.’

Seth slammed shut his car door. He was early. No sign of Olly waiting for him outside the Burton Hotel as they’d arranged. It was difficult in the boatyard, with customers and suppliers coming in and out all the time, for Seth and Olly to talk about private matters – Fleur and her safety in Seth’s case, and Olly’s worry over his rapidly declining ma. If they went to the Blue Anchor it would be full of fishermen, some of whom had worked for Seth and might want to come and talk. He didn’t want that. So the Burton Hotel it was.

It began to rain so Seth deduced that Olly would see his car parked outside and come on in. God, how he owed that man! He was going to miss Olly’s company when he and Emma went to Canada, which he was sure he’d be able to persuade her to do. Had to persuade her to do – life was too much of a struggle here for her now. The recent letter from his aunt had worried him – his uncle wasn’t up to running his fishing fleet anymore. In the letter, his aunt had hinted that her husband would give Seth a half-share in the business immediately, if he were to go over to Canada, the rest to come to him on their deaths. Not that he wished them in their graves before their time.

He’d have to tell Emma about the letter soon. And he wasn’t looking forward to it. Every time he’d mentioned Canada so far, she’d been adamant she wasn’t going. He had to get her to change her mind. Couldn’t she see that it was always going to be a struggle for her to build up a business in the town? Too many people knew too much about them both. And it wasn’t just that. The setbacks she’d had – the torching of her bakery, her beating and the kidnap of Fleur – hadn’t helped. And there was still Miles in the equation. He had to get Emma to see how much less stressful life in Canada would be for them. And he had to get her to marry him in the eyes of the law, so they could have a bona fide photograph on the mantelpiece of their new home, in a new country.

But Seth had a feeling it would be easier to pull teeth from a hen that it would be to persuade Emma to go to Canada. He glanced in the mirror behind the bar and saw a reflection he wasn’t thrilled to see. Rupert Smythe had just come in with Charles Maunder. While Maunder was a decent enough fellow – even if he was Caroline’s father – Smythe was another matter. Maunder had, after all, given him a good price for the fishing fleet and the cottages.

Where the hell was Olly? If he’d been on time, and if he – Seth – hadn’t ordered in two pints, then they need not have stayed in present company. What were Maunder and Smythe doing here anyway? Smythe owned a hotel of his own. If he wanted a drink he could simply pour himself something or get a waiter to do it for God’s sake.

Seth dropped his gaze. Smythe, he doubted, would even acknowledge his presence, since he’d banned him from Nase Head House. And then he remembered that Smythe had offered Emma the use of his kitchen for her business after her bakery had been torched. Hmm … what ulterior motive had he had in offering that? Seth had put his foot down and flatly refused and Emma had given in readily enough.

Seth heard Charles Maunder laugh – rather raucously, he thought. He couldn’t imagine Smythe telling a dirty joke, but you could never tell with that man. He’d allowed Caunter to use a room to spy from, hadn’t he?

The last thing he wanted was for Charles Maunder to see him and come on over, then mention his daughter, Caroline. To Seth, no news was good news and the good news he wanted was that Caroline had perished. However, so far, all Seth’s enquiries had drawn a blank. Caroline and Miles had disappeared without trace, either to the bottom of the sea under assumed names, or in America with their bought aliases. Did Maunder even know, Seth wondered now, that Caroline had left for America with Miles?

Dare he ask Maunder if he had heard from his daughter? Dare he? He must surely have heard the rumours that Ruby had told Emma about. And would a man who had lost a daughter in that tragedy be laughing quite so raucously so soon after, if Caroline had drowned? Seth knew, beyond question, that he’d probably never laugh again if Fleur were to drown.

‘God, man,’ Olly said, clamping a hand onto Seth’s shoulder, ‘but you look like you’ve dropped a five-pound note and found a farthing. I’m amazed you didn’t crack that mirror!’

Seth started and spun round to face Olly. ‘Have you seen who’s over there?’ he said. But the second Olly made to look, Seth grabbed his wrist. ‘No. No, don’t turn around. I’ll tell you. Smythe and Maunder.’

‘Good grief,’ Olly said. ‘Lowering themselves, aren’t they? Coming in here. Thanks for this.’ He picked up the mug of ale he rightly guessed Seth had bought for him and took a long swig.

‘It’s a respectable enough hotel,’ Seth said, ‘or why are we in here?’

‘To talk about things we can’t discuss at the boatyard where there are colts’ ears listening.’

Olly always referred to his apprentices as ‘colts’ – young and untrained horses.

‘We’ll need to be quick about it, then,’ Seth said. ‘The light’s dropping. Emma doesn’t like being alone in the dark since—’

‘It’s all right,’ Olly stopped him. ‘You don’t have to say since when. I know. The thing is, Seth, the doctor wants Ma put away. She’s getting worse by the minute. Lavatory problems if you get my meaning. You must have noticed I rely on you more and more when I have to slip back to the house to check on her.’

Seth nodded. Fleur’s lavatory needs were enough to be dealing with, never mind a grown woman’s. And yes, he had been left in charge for longer and longer periods lately. What Olly would do about that when he found out what it was Seth was planning – and what he was here to tell him about – he couldn’t begin to guess at.

‘Put away? Where?’

Olly shrugged. ‘I don’t know that I can allow it to happen,’ he said. ‘If Ma was a dog I’d have her put down. God, but that’s a dreadful thing to say. He screwed his eyes up tight and Seth knew he was fighting tears.

‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ Seth said. ‘I understand your meaning. Life’s cruel for some.’

‘You and me both,’ Olly said. ‘Which brings me to my motive for keeping you from the lovely Emma. How do you feel about buying my boat-building business off me? I’d be happy to come in as a designer if someone should want a new boat, but you know enough about the repairing side and the actual building side now to take it on. You’ve got a natural way with working with wood, you’re good with the apprentices, you’ve got business acumen, you—’

‘Whoa, whoa,’ Seth said, if nervously because this was the last thing he’d expected Olly to say. And it was something he wasn’t going to be able to take on. ‘You could sell ice to the Eskimos.’

Gosh, how easily that word had dropped into his lexicon. The only Eskimo he’d seen had been in photographs in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But now he could be seeing them for real before too long.

‘So will you?’ Olly said.

‘Can I sleep on it?’ Seth hedged. It would take more than one night’s sleep before he could come to a decision, either way. He took a long swig of the beer and it didn’t touch the sides going down.

Seth picked up letters from the mat. The afternoon post no doubt. He wondered why Emma hadn’t done it, but then remembered she’d been experimenting with a chocolate Christmas dessert she’d been feeding him for days now while she worked on the recipe – every single one had tasted good, and more or less the same to him, but Emma wanted to perfect it, so she said.

He quickly flicked through the envelopes to check they all said Jago – more than a few letters had been delivered for the previous owner of Mulberry House which he’d had to forward on. Ah, good. Seven envelopes and Jago written on every single one. He tossed the letters into the silver dish on the dresser in the hall. He’d deal with them later. The sooner he told Emma what Olly had proposed and his reasons why he was going to refuse, the better.

‘Sweetheart! I’m home!’ he called.

But there was no answering call. No little yips of garbled sounds from Fleur which he took to mean, ‘Hello, Papa, I’m glad you’re home.’

Seth shrugged off his coat and hung it on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. He called again. There was no answering call this time, either, and the echo of his voice stayed in his ears far too long for comfort.

A ripple of unease ran through him. He’d been in this situation before. An empty house. A cold house. A house without Emma in it when he’d expected her to be.

He’d search every room before he raised the alarm.

Something had happened.

Again.

‘As much as it costs, Doctor, I’ll pay,’ Emma said. ‘Or Seth will.’

She had no idea how much an operation at the county hospital in Exeter would cost, but Beattie would more than likely need one, so Dr Shaw had just told her, and Emma was going to make sure she got it.

She was seeing the doctor to the door of Shingle Cottage. Beattie had been taken to the cottage hospital in Paignton and had been given an X-ray on her lungs. Emma had paid for a taxi so that Beattie could be taken there quickly. Now she was home again, and the doctor had called to check on her, at Emma’s request.

Emma had helped the doctor get Beattie into bed, Beattie grumbling all the while that she was perfectly able to get into bed by herself, but the amount of coughing she had done had proved she patently wasn’t.

‘It might not come to that,’ Dr Shaw said now. He laid a hand on Emma’s forearm.

Something stilled inside Emma. Her blood flow? Her heart? ‘She’s not going to die is she?’

‘We all are. Sometime,’ the doctor said. ‘Sadly some of us have to go before our three score years and ten.’

‘But not Beattie,’ Emma said. ‘Please, not Beattie.’

‘If I can do anything to prolong her life, then you know I will. A specialist is going to read Mrs Drew’s X-rays tomorrow and telephone me with his opinion on them. And that’s as much as I can tell you, Emma.’

‘But Beattie said the doctor at the hospital told her they could take a piece off her lung if needs be and she’ll still be able to breathe. That is possible, isn’t it?’

‘Ssh.’ The doctor put up a hand to silence her. ‘It isn’t ethical to be talking about this, and it isn’t respectful to Mrs Drew who, I happen to know, has ears that have no need of an ear trumpet.’

Emma was unable to stifle a laugh. She could well imagine Beattie making an ear trumpet of her hands so as to hear their voices better, and probably leaning out of the bed so she could. Then the smile evaporated as though a switch had been flicked, the way she flicked a switch to turn the light off and a room was in darkness again.

Damn ethical. Emma might have died had Seth not taken her to Beattie the night she’d discovered his pa had sold her belongings and made her homeless. She’d do everything and anything she could to help Beattie and damn and blast and go to hell all thoughts of ethical.

‘But we can’t!’ Emma yelled. ‘We can’t! Beattie’s ill. She needs me. She might need an operation. I told Dr Shaw I’d pay. Or you would if it was a lot of money; more than I’ve got in my bank account.’

‘You had no right to say I’d pay anything,’ Seth said, as evenly as he could. Of course he’d see Mrs Drew financially cared for her, but the woman had four daughters and two sons to do any physical caring she needed. He told Emma so, his eyes never leaving hers as he spoke. He thought he saw something like defiance in those eyes and it scared him.

‘You’re saying all this because you’re angry I wasn’t home when you expected me to be. I’m hardly in the door and you’re bombarding me with things I don’t really want to hear right now. I didn’t have time to let you know where I was and why.’

‘I’m not angry. I was frightened – yes, I’ll admit that – when I came back and found you not here. Again. I’m sick to the eye teeth of living in fear of those who might want to harm us, as we’ve been harmed before – you can’t deny me that?’

‘No,’ Emma said. Still she was holding his gaze, wide-eyed. ‘I came back as quickly as I could. I ran all the way.’ Her hands were still on the handle of the perambulator and Seth could see her knuckles were red with the effort of pushing it up the hill. Her cheeks glowed, too.

‘I thought something had happened to you both and maybe it wasn’t Margaret Phipps after all who had beaten you.’

‘How many times do I have to tell you it was her?’

‘A man is allowed his imaginings, Emma.’

Emma blinked. Dropped her gaze. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. It’s just the situation with Beattie, and me not being here when you got home, making us say things we ought not to. But I’m still saying we can’t go to Canada. Not yet.’

‘If ever, I think you mean,’ Seth said.

He wished now he’d let his head rule his heart as it usually did and that he hadn’t blurted out about the letter from his aunt.

‘Can I pretend I didn’t hear that?’ Emma said.

‘But you did.’

The sooner they went to Canada the better it would be. Better for Olly who could start looking for someone to whom to sell his business now, rather than in a few months’ time. Better for Emma, who was struggling with her business, unable to accept that circumstances and a seasonal business were against her achieving the success she aspired to.

Fleur began to grizzle.

‘Is she hungry?’ Seth asked.

‘I expect so.’ Emma unstrapped Fleur from her harness and began to lift her from the perambulator. ‘So am I, and I expect you are, too.’

‘Then perhaps it would be a good idea for you to feed her.’

The sound of Emma breathing in hard and holding that breath as though she was never going to let it out again alarmed Seth. He could read her thoughts almost; ‘She’s your child, not mine, you feed her’ was what he was reading. That and ‘Have you no compassion that I’ve spent almost the entire day concerned for Mrs Drew?’

‘I’m sure you can scramble her an egg, Seth,’ Emma said, each word clearly enunciated. She thrust Fleur out towards him. ‘If you do that then I’ll put you a pasty to warm and boil a few potatoes to go with it. But I won’t be eating because suddenly I’m not hungry any more. I’ve got a bûche de Noël to finish decorating and I’m going to finish it. It won’t take me long.’

Her heart hammering in her chest, Emma put the letter from Matthew – un-opened, un-read, but she knew the writing well enough to know it was from him – in a tin bowl. Then she struck a match, held the flame towards the paper.

The fires in the ovens weren’t lit and she couldn’t light them at this time of the night or Seth might question why she had, so a match it would have to be.

She watched the paper twist and curl, singe at the edges, before it caught well alight. It was gone in seconds. But it was a long time before her heart rhythm returned to its usual pace.

She was going to have to tell Seth, because the last thing she wanted was for him to find a letter and challenge her with it. Besides, the lies she was having to weave, and the subterfuge, were eating away at her soul the way maggots work their way through a piece of rotten meat until there’s nothing left.

Six letters? Seth had been sure there had been seven when he’d flicked through to see they were all addressed to Jago. Perhaps he’d been wrong. Perhaps coming home to an empty house had muddled his memory.

The house wasn’t empty now, though. He’d done as Emma had suggested and scrambled Fleur an egg and now she was upstairs asleep. He’d eaten the pasty and potatoes Emma had prepared for him, but they’d tasted like ash in his mouth without Emma sitting on the other side of the table. She’d gone back to the bakery to have another attempt at the fancy French dessert she was so intent on perfecting. She was still there now.

The rift between them was getting wider, wasn’t it? And he didn’t have the first idea how to close it up again.

‘Flowers?’ Emma said, and Seth’s heart lifted a little because she smiled. ‘For me?’

They’d cost far more than he’d expected a bunch of flowers to cost, but the assistant in Ireland’s had explained that they were out of season and hothouse grown, hence the expense. Not that he begrudged a penny he spent on Emma really.

‘Who else?’ Seth said. ‘I’m sorry. For yesterday. For speaking so harshly.’

‘I’m sorry, too,’ Emma said. ‘I don’t know what got into me, making my words colder than the inside of St Mary’s on a January Sunday.’

Seth laughed. Emma had such a funny way of describing things.

‘But stocks? They must have been hugely expensive. Birthday flowers perhaps, but it’s not my birthday,’ Emma said.

‘No. But it is our anniversary.’

‘Is it?’

‘Didn’t I just say?’

‘Yes, but anniversary of what?’

‘The day we got our photograph taken in our wedding finery.’

Emma blushed then.

‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you? And there’s me thinking women were the more romantic!’

‘I’ll put them in water,’ Emma said, taking them from him. ‘Thank you.’

Seth watched Emma walk through to the kitchen. She looked and sounded distracted. As though their anniversary – sham as it was – meant nothing to her. He followed her.

‘Is something wrong?’ Seth asked.

‘Wrong?’ Emma said, not looking at him.

Seth watched as she seemed to take ages putting the flowers – stem by stem, arranging and re-arranging them – in a crystal vase that had been his ma’s.

‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ Emma said, her voice so quiet Seth couldn’t be entirely sure he’d heard her right. She turned around to face him.

‘You’ve got something to tell me?’

Emma nodded, sucking on her bottom lip. She took a deep breath, in through her nose, but didn’t let it out again.

‘What?’

Emma clasped her hands together in front of her. Her shoulders hunched, and she seemed to be trying to make herself smaller somehow as she took in yet more air. He noticed the muscles of her stomach tighten. And then she let her breath out again and her words came out in such a rush Seth felt they were blowing him backwards.

‘Matthew Caunter’s been writing to me. From America. I didn’t ask him to and I’ve only written back once, after he told me his wife had left him. For another woman. She’s taken their son with her and Matthew was heartbroken. You do understand I had to do that? Imagine if Fleur was taken again and she never came back.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Seth snapped at her. He often woke in the night, drenched in sweat from some dreadful dream, that just such a thing had happened; dreams he never told Emma about. But Caunter back on the scene? Albeit by letter. ‘I still don’t think you ought to have written to him.’

‘Well, I did, Seth,’ Emma said. She had her arms folded in front of her waist now. ‘I told him not to write to me again, but he did. Ruby’s been bringing the letters because he’s been sending them to Nase Head House, expecting me still to be there. But stupidly, when I wrote to say how sorry I was he wouldn’t be seeing his son any more, I put this address on it. And a letter came here yesterday. It was in the tray. I saw it on the top when I went out to the bakery. So I took it. But I didn’t read it. I burned it without opening it. Oh, Seth, I can’t keep this from you any more. The subterfuge and the lies will only pile up,’ Emma said. ‘You don’t deserve for me to do that to you.’

Seth shrugged. So he’d been right. There had been seven letters on the mat yesterday. Whatever it was he thought might be wrong with Emma, he hadn’t been expecting to hear this. He was beginning to regret spending so much money on the flowers now. Already the over-cloyingly sweet smell of them was making him feel sick.