The Last Days of Summer

And at that moment, the world split in two. What happened next could have been either of the following – or neither.

From the journal of Nathaniel Drury, 1968

I’m not sure what woke me. It could have been the breeze from Edward’s open window, or the buzz of the insects in the night. It might have been Edward himself, shifting in the bed beside me, an unfamiliar presence. It could just have been sleeping in a new room, one I’d never slept in during all my long summers in Rosewood.

Or maybe it was the sudden realisation of what I’d really seen in the tree house that afternoon.

Either way, at four a.m. the next morning, I was wide awake. And I knew, with an unshakeable certainty, exactly where I had to go and what I’d find when I got there.

It was still dark, as I crept out from under the sheets, careful not to disturb Edward. I dressed quickly, silently, in yesterday’s clothes, then opened the bedroom door a millimetre at a time to stop it creaking. It shut behind me with a tiny click, and I waited a moment to listen for any movement inside. Nothing.

Letting out a long breath, I padded barefoot across the landing, down the stairs. Someone had left a light on in the kitchen, and the pale yellow glow echoed the moonlight still illuminating the world through the windows. Rosewood was eerie in the not quite darkness, but I knew my way so well I’d have made it without any light at all.

I paused in the kitchen to grab a torch from the drawer, shoved on some shoes and a jacket from by the back door, and headed out for the woods.

Climbing the ladder to the tree house with a torch in hand wasn’t the easiest, but I was motivated, and made it up without too much trouble. Inside, the scent of the wood mingled with the last, lingering traces of Nathaniel’s years of smoking up there. I shone the torchlight into the corner where I’d seen the box, relieved to see it exactly as we’d left it the previous afternoon. Caro obviously hadn’t had a chance to visit yesterday.

Kneeling, the wooden floor cold and hard through my jeans, I pulled the box into my lap. I’d been distracted yesterday, assuming it was Caroline’s, that she’d squirrelled away Nathaniel’s pipe along with some of her other treasures. But looking now, it was clear that this treasure trove belonged to Nathaniel himself – the pipe, the tiger’s eye that he’d carried as a good luck charm for years, a postcard of Dylan Thomas with a quote from Under Milk Wood, a scattering of yellow rose petals…and the notebook.

I lifted the palm-sized black notebook from the box, my heart racing as I opened the cover, hoping I knew what I was going to find. And I was right. There, on the front page, inked in perfect black penmanship, were the numbers I’d been searching for. 1968.

It was smaller than the other diaries and journals he’d left behind, or I’d have recognised it sooner. Of course, so would Edward, so perhaps it was best I hadn’t.

Here, in my hands, was the truth. The answer to all the questions I’d been asking. The secret Isabelle had been fighting so hard to protect.

But I had to, and quick – before Edward woke and found me gone and started asking questions – or jumping to the right conclusions. So I settled down in the corner of the tree house, turned my torch onto the pages, and started to read.

I skimmed through the earlier months; I knew from the newspaper clipping that the party had happened in August, the same as the Golden Wedding. Still, I kept an eye out for Matthew’s name, pausing when it appeared in conjunction with a party in London in the spring – and a visit from Therese.

Therese seemed overly taken with a young nothing from one of the papers. Matthew something. Probably just looking for a new angle on the usual story: me.

It was comforting to see that Nathaniel’s narcissistic streak wasn’t something that had come later in life, anyway. I skipped forward a few pages, passing over ruminations on the book he’d been writing that, at any other time, would have fascinated me. I’d read them later. Right now, I needed facts.

Another visit from that Robertson fellow. Have made it clear to Therese that I Do Not Approve.

Soon, it was the summer, and the pages were filled with the move to Rosewood, the fresh start, away from London. And then, Isabelle’s plans for the party:

As if we haven’t had enough of the damn things in London. But if Isabelle wants a party…I imagine we shall be partying.

My hands shook as I turned the page, but even as my eyes scanned over the words, I knew something was wrong. This wasn’t the Nathaniel I’d grown used to reading through his diaries. It was as if it were written by another person. I blinked, and started again.

The day of the party arrived, and Isabelle spent all day preparing for it, while I was writing.

Suddenly, it came to me. Because this was the story Nathaniel had told me, the last time we had sat in this tree house together. This wasn’t a journal entry; it was a story. The words sounded wrong because this wasn’t Nathaniel, my grandfather, talking. This was Nathaniel Drury, celebrated author. This was fiction, not truth.

He must have been hiding the box up here when I found him, the day of the Golden Wedding. Perhaps he’d even been rereading the entry from the party, before the big announcement. That was why he’d chosen that story to tell me, and why the words were so familiar. I’d heard this story before.

But in the version Nathaniel had told me, Matthew was alone when he died. I had a feeling that might be different in these pages.

I read on, swallowing down my apprehension as he talked about the party, the guests, the booze, the outfits. Until finally, we approached the end, and the tone changed again.

And at that moment, the world split in two. What happened next could have been either of the following – or neither.

Perhaps I walked in on them: Therese’s beau and my wife, kissing. Perhaps the champagne and the fury got the better of me. Perhaps I pushed him, and laughed as I watched the blood spill from his skull, and the life leave him.

I shuddered at the image. The laughing, I was sure, was Nathaniel overdramatising, making a better story. But what about the first part? Had Isabelle been having an affair with Matthew? Had Nathaniel really discovered them, and pushed him?

Perhaps she did it. Perhaps he threatened to tell her husband, her sister-in-law, everyone. Perhaps the fear of scandal, of losing the life she’d grown accustomed to… Perhaps that was motive enough. Perhaps fear made her push him, made her gasp with horror the moment she realised what she’d done.

I sat back, staring blankly ahead at the wall of the tree house as I processed these new stories. Outside, the sun crept up over the woods, sending a shaft of light through the window. Edward would be awake soon. I didn’t have long to try and make sense of it all.

I had three versions of the story now: the one Nathaniel had told me himself, and the two in the journal. One with him as the murderer, one with Isabelle. Were any of them true? Was Nathaniel just telling a good story?

There was something about that last version, though. A memory. I’d heard it somewhere before. No, not heard. Read.

Switching off my torch, and tucking the journal into my pocket, I swung down onto the ladder and raced back for the house. I knew what I was looking for now. And I knew exactly what questions I needed to ask.

“Did you really sneak out of my bed this morning to read your grandfather’s book?” Edward leant against the door frame of the Yellow Room, and I looked up from the last page of On A Summer’s Night, tears in my eyes.

“I needed to finish it.” And now that I had, I was more sure than ever which version of the story was the truth.

I’d been wrong. The sisters in On A Summer’s Night weren’t ever Ellie and me. They were Therese and Isabelle. And that story – of two women fighting over the same man, until one of them pushed him to his death down a cliff face – that was what had made Nathaniel so determined to write his memoirs. Even if I still couldn’t be sure if he’d ever intended to include the truth about Matthew Robertson’s death in them. He’d never written it down before – except possibly as fiction.

“And now you have?” Edward raised an eyebrow, watching me with a cool gaze, and I knew he suspected already. “Have you suddenly learned the truth about whatever secrets your family are hiding?”

“It’s just a story,” I said, my mouth dry. If I was right – if Isabelle really had killed Matthew – I couldn’t let on. Nathaniel had never said for sure. There wasn’t a truth to include in the memoirs – yet. But once I knew…if Edward found out, he’d want to include it. “Just fiction.”

“Nathaniel always said there was truth in fiction. If you knew where to look.” Edward pulled something from his pocket, and my heart stopped for a moment. “I finally realised that there was one more place the missing information might be hiding,” he said, pulling the newspaper clippings I’d hidden so carefully under the floorboard from the envelope in his hand. “I remembered seeing Nathaniel emerge from under his desk with a bottle of whisky one night, when we’d been working late. No sign of the journal, but I did find these. And this.” He held up the clippings, then tossed the second envelope, the one with my name on it, onto the dressing table.

“What do they say?” I asked, hoping my nerves weren’t making my voice tremble too badly.

“You found these clippings and realised that this could be a huge scandal. So you hid it from me. Right?”

“That’s not… Nathaniel told me a story. About a death here at Rosewood. But it was just a story. And I wanted to know for sure if it was true before I talked to you about it. That’s all.”

“Saskia.” Disappointment laced his words. “For once just be honest, with yourself, if no one else. No more stories. Just tell me the truth.”

“Fine! I knew that there had been a suspicious death here and I was afraid. Afraid that Nathaniel might know more about it than he should.”

“You were afraid Nathaniel killed the man. Why? Did Isabelle have an affair with him?”

“I…think so. But I don’t know for sure. And…I don’t think Nathaniel did it. Really, I don’t.” I looked up at him so he could see I was telling the truth. “I found the journal. Just this morning. See for yourself.” I handed it to him, open at the page with the two endings, and watched as his eyes scanned the text.

His mouth tightened as he closed the journal. “You think it’s just another story?”

“I don’t know what it is.” I took a breath. “But does it matter? Nathaniel never left any notes about the death, and he hid this journal somewhere you’d never find it – in the tree house. So why should we include it at all?”

“Because the death of Matthew Robertson is public record.” He held up the newspaper clipping as evidence. “If we leave it out, we’re hiding something. We’re not telling the full story. We’re lying.”

“But we’re not! Nobody knows for sure what happened that night! We could just write that. Tell the story Nathaniel told me, where Matthew fell and died alone. Show the police report.”

“You’re doing it again.” Edward crossed the room, staring out of the window at the Rose Garden as he spoke. His words were measured, reasonable – but there was a tightness behind them that told me I’d stepped over some invisible line in his mind. “Rewriting events to suit your story. Ignoring the facts to tell the tale that makes you – or your family – look good.”

“That’s not fair. Why does everything have to be black and white with you? Truth or lie, and nothing in between?”

“Because it is!” Edward spun round from the window. “Whatever happened that night, it’s a fact. A truth. You can’t change that just because it doesn’t suit the story you want to tell. That’s not how biography works. And that’s exactly why you should have told me. This isn’t just your project – it’s ours. I’ve given up more than a year of my life for it. I deserved your honesty, not another story.”

“I would have told you!” I yelled back. Why was he being so unreasonable about this? “You just didn’t give me a chance.”

He shook his head. “It’s not just the memoirs, Saskia. I don’t want to live in a novelisation of my own life, written by you, to suit you. I’ve done that once already – lived with a woman who was the star of her own story, twisting facts and events to make herself the heroine, choosing true love over everything. I won’t do that again. My life is my autobiography, the way I’d write it – honest, unflinching, even when it hurts.”

“So what are you saying?” My skin felt too tight for my body, hot and uncomfortable. “That there’s no place for me in it?”

He met my gaze. “I’m saying that if you want to be a part of my life, you have to stop playing make-believe, Saskia. Especially with people’s hearts.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another envelope, handing it to me. “The truth matters, Saskia. But it has to be the whole truth.”

I opened the envelope and pulled out another newspaper clipping, this one much newer. Local school teacher dead in M6 crash. Local teacher, Robert Marks… I stopped reading and looked up at Edward. “He’s dead? Mum’s husband?”

“Three years ago,” Edward confirmed. “I thought she’d want to know the truth about what happened to him. Thought it might help her stop being afraid.”

“It will.” I held it close to my heart. He’d gone to find this – not just for the memoirs, I was sure. For my family. For me. “Thank you.”

He gave a brief nod of acknowledgment. “Someone knows the truth about what happened that night here at Rosewood, too,” Edward said, softly. “And I think finding it, asking those difficult questions, is exactly why Nathaniel wanted you to work on his memoirs, once he was gone. And I think you know that too. Talk to Isabelle, Kia. It’s time for the truth. Not another story.”

Then he walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him, and leaving me alone.

It was almost ten o’clock by the time I’d crawled out of the mental fog Edward’s departure had left me in. I knew he was right; I needed to talk to Isabelle. But first, I needed some more information. Ammunition, perhaps. Truths I could use to discover more truths. Because, just as one lie tended to lead to another, it seemed that truths did the same. I picked up the envelope with the newspaper clippings from where Edward had left it on the dressing table, and paused for a moment to look at the envelope from Ellie again, but in the end I left it where it was. One crisis at a time.

“Have you seen Edward?” Ellie called to me from the kitchen, as I passed. “Only, his car’s gone. Did he tell you where he was going?”

“No.” The word came out as a croak, and I swallowed to try and find my voice again. “I don’t know where he’s gone.” Except for far away from me. And really, that couldn’t be much of a surprise.

I’d worry about Edward, and the future, later. First I had to deal with the past.

I stepped into the kitchen. “He gave me this before he left.” I handed her the newspaper clipping about Robert Marks’s death, and her face lightened as she read it.

“Oh, thank God.” She paused. “I shouldn’t say that about someone being dead, should I?”

“I think, under the circumstances, people would understand,” I assured her. “Will you tell Mum?”

Therese had taken to breakfasting alone in her cottage, since the funeral, and I found her taking tea and toast when I arrived.

“How are the memoirs coming?” Therese asked, as she grabbed an extra teacup and saucer for me.

It was the perfect opening, even if I felt a little guilty about shanghaiing her at breakfast. I couldn’t let it pass. “There was some amazing stuff in the box files Nathaniel left, as well as his journals.”

“Really?” Therese raised her eyebrows. “I never really took my brother for the sentimental keepsake type, I must admit.”

I shrugged. “Maybe not, but he’d obviously put some time and effort into gathering things together for the memoirs. Photos, letters, newspaper clippings – the works.” I looked her in the eye, and prayed she’d finally get the hint. “All the way back to when he first met Isabelle. And when they moved in to Rosewood.”

Therese’s body went still, her cup raised slightly off its saucer, and I knew I’d got my point across.

“Everything?” she asked, eventually. “You think he really has notes and photos of everything that happened?”

“Everything important. The problem, of course, is that it’s all just from his point of view.” And some of them were entirely fictional.

“Well, they were his memoirs.” Therese had regained some of her composure by then, and placed her teacup and saucer on the table, turning her attention to the toast and jam.

“Of course. But, in the same way that you, quite naturally, want to read the parts he’d written about your childhoods, I’m sure others will want to read the sections about them. See if the stories fit with their memories.” I, too, was studying the toast plate, mostly so that Therese couldn’t look in my eyes and realise I had no idea what I was fishing for.

“I mean that I want to make sure that what we have is accurate, and to do that we need to ask other people who were there at the time.” I figured that was about as vague as it could be without eschewing words altogether.

But Therese wasn’t holding with vague. “You want me to confirm what’s in Nathaniel’s notes, so that Isabelle can’t claim it isn’t true.”

Which was absolutely the case, except for the fact that Nathaniel hadn’t given me the truth to work with in the first place. “I just don’t want to upset Isabelle any more than we have to.”

Therese sighed. “Kia, are you absolutely sure you want to do this? You know that some boxes, once opened, can’t be closed again.”

“I know,” I said. “But I think I have to. I have to know the truth before I can decide whether to publish.” I pulled the envelope from my pocket and took out the two newspaper clippings. Therese took them with shaking fingers, touching the photo of her and Isabelle with Matthew. Then she saw the second clipping about the inquest and stilled.

“I want to know everything. Who was he? Matthew Robertson, I mean? Nathaniel’s journals said…he was your, well, suitor, I guess? Before Uncle George?”

My great-aunt sighed again. “Suitor. I suppose he was. But back then… He was…everything to me. Until Isabelle stole him away.”

“They had an affair?” I felt cold just saying the words. Perhaps I walked in on them: Therese’s beau and my wife, kissing.

“Isabelle…she hated that I was younger, prettier, than she was, then. That all the men who’d been dancing attendance on her in London were suddenly lining up to talk to me once I arrived at Rosewood. And that even Nathaniel wanted to talk to me, his sister, about things that mattered.”

“She was Isabelle. Same as always. The world had to be about her. So she stole him away.”

“Just like in On A Summer’s Night,” I murmured, and Therese gave me an amused smile.

“You noticed that too, then? When that book came out…that was when Isabelle started getting nervous. And when Nathaniel announced that he was publishing his memoirs, well. I think it pushed her over the edge.”

“But at the end of the book… Ursula. She pushes Sebastian over the edge of the cliff after they fight. Do you think…” I couldn’t say the words. I could hardly think them.

“Do I think Isabelle pushed Matthew?” Therese shook her head. “I think Nathaniel was just telling a good story. As far as I know, the coroner’s verdict is correct. He was drunk and he fell. As simple – and as horrible – as that.”

“You weren’t there?” I’d hoped that Therese might have seen something – even if it was just my grandparents a safe distance away when they heard Matthew’s scream.

Therese looked away. “I was young. And there was a lot of champagne at that party. I remember Nathaniel and Isabelle arguing about Matthew, and realising what was going on – that the man I loved had fallen for my sister-in-law. I walked out, grabbed the nearest glass, and got very, very drunk. The next thing I remember is waking up in bed the next morning with a splitting headache. I never even heard him scream.” She sniffed at that, and I realised that, for Therese, this wasn’t just history. It was her life – her loves, her losses.

“Tell your father I don’t think I’ll join you all for meals today,” Therese said, getting shakily to her feet. “I don’t feel quite right.”

Now I felt really guilty. “Do you want me to bring you something? Soup or sandwiches at lunchtime?”

Therese shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I have a fully stocked kitchen here, you know. I just… I just feel old, today. A day in bed and I’ll be back to myself.”

I nodded and watched her make her way slowly to the bedroom, past a mishmash of outfits and accessories from the past hundred years. I thought I knew which decade Therese would be dwelling in today.

Isabelle was in the Orangery when I found her, arranging another condolence bouquet into a vase. She didn’t look up as I came in.

“So, you’ve found it then.” She dropped the last of the flowers onto the low table between the sofas and stared out of the glass at the woods beyond. “I can’t imagine that you would have sought me out, otherwise.”

I sat gingerly on the edge of the other sofa. “I spoke to Therese. She told me a little about what happened the summer you moved in here. I wanted to be sure that I had the story straight before…”

“Before you confronted me.” Isabelle looked up at me sharply, then. “I know what she will have said. I don’t care. I want to know what my husband wrote about me. About me…me and Matthew.”

“He didn’t.” It came out more bluntly than I’d intended. “There was nothing in any of his notes about you having an affair. He hid his journal from that year. And when I found it… He wrote everything that happened at the party where Matthew died as a story. With two possible endings.” In fact, I was starting to think that even he didn’t know what happened that night. Wouldn’t it be just like Nathaniel to set us up a murder mystery?

I still wasn’t feeling great about this part, so I looked down at my shoes as I replied. “We knew that there was something you were afraid would be in there. I needed to know what it was, before I could make a decision about whether or not to publish the memoirs. When we couldn’t find it…”

“You went and asked Therese.” My grandmother’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile, something I’d never seen on her face before. “And of course she was more than happy to give me up. She’s been waiting forty-eight years for the chance to make me pay for what I did. So. What are you going to do now?”

“Was Granddad really never unfaithful to you?” I asked, tangentially. “The diaries say not, but…”

“No.” Isabelle sighed. “In fact, I imagine that everything he has written there is the truth. It was messy and ugly enough without any embellishment.”

That much I could agree with. “If he wasn’t, then…” I trailed off, unable to finish the question. This was, after all, still my grandmother’s sex life I was talking about.

“Because I knew he could. Because I worried he might. Because I was twenty-four and insecure and there were all these beautiful girls who wanted my husband.” She turned back to look out of the window, then went on. “Because I was jealous. Because even after everything – the grand romance, the book, the elopement, the house – he still spoke to his little sister more than me. I started to think that maybe all it had ever been was a literary pretension – that he loved the story of loving me more than the person I was.”

“He didn’t.” The power with which Nathaniel Drury had fallen in love with his wife was obvious in every scrap of paper he’d left behind, even if it hadn’t always been clear by his actions.

“I know that now.” Isabelle’s voice was sharp. “Fifty years together – don’t you think I learned something about the man? But back then…”

“Why Matthew?” Even Therese, who had clearly adored the man, hadn’t really said much of substance about him. From Nathaniel’s journal, he appeared the sort who showed up for parties, caused trouble and left before anyone had to deal with the fallout.

“If I’m honest, I don’t even know any more. Partly because he was making a play for Therese, and I blamed her for the lack of conversation between me and my husband. Partly because he was easy, and I knew it would mean nothing at all to either of us in six months’ time. It would only matter to Nathaniel.”

“And yet, he left it out of his notes for the memoirs. He barely even mentioned it in his journal.” Which still baffled me, a little. Yes, I could understand Nathaniel wanting to spare Isabelle the scandal, or even not wanting his own cuckolding to be common knowledge. But then why wouldn’t he tell Isabelle that he wasn’t including it? Why wouldn’t he set her mind at rest?

“Yes.” Isabelle picked up a rose stem and twirled it between her fingers. “I can’t quite decide if that was a kindness, or a cruelty. After all, he obviously wanted me to worry, to reflect on my sins, or he would have told me. The fact he’d made plans for what would happen in the event of his death… He obviously suspected it was coming. He must have known how I would react.” She touched a thorn with her fingertip. “Perhaps he wanted me to confess.”

“I’m starting to think he wanted us all to confess,” I admitted. “That he wanted us to get all our secrets out in the open so we could see that we were none of us blameless.”

“And then we’d all forgive each other? Have a big group hug?” Isabelle had one incredulous eyebrow raised. “Do you really believe that?”

“He wanted you to stop lying to yourself,” Isabelle said bluntly. “Nathaniel always said that fiction could not exist without truth. You have to know yourself first.”

“Maybe he’s right,” I conceded. I’d certainly done a lot of introspection over the last six months. But it wasn’t something I really wanted to discuss with Isabelle. “Will you tell me what happened? The night Matthew died?”

Isabelle sighed, her gaze still focused somewhere past my head. Somewhere in the past, I suspected. “It was the night that Nathaniel found out about us. He was in a rage, of course. I tried to keep him calm, to keep what was happening from all the guests. And that, at least, I managed. Everyone just assumed it was the drink – and God knows there was plenty of that.” She shook her head and looked at me again. “Anyway. He confronted Matthew, tried to throw him out of the house. There was yelling, and Therese overheard us all arguing, realised what had happened.”

“Yes. And Matthew went back out to the party, and Nathaniel and I went back to arguing. It wasn’t until later…” She swallowed, looked away.

“I’d gone outside to get some fresh air. I walked around to the front of the house, and I saw them.”

“Matthew. And Therese. He tried to kiss her, and she struggled, pushed him away. He staggered back, then lurched towards her again. I started running, trying to get to them, and the pillars blocked my view, just for a moment. But then there was a scream, followed by the most awful silence.”

“I don’t know. When I reached them…they were both on the ground, Therese on top of Matthew. His head was cracked open; there was blood everywhere. Therese was barely conscious, but I managed to get her up. I dragged her into the shadows before Nathaniel came bounding out the front door, followed by the rest of the party. We escaped round the back of the house, and I got her up to her bedroom, into bed, before I rejoined the party.”

Isabelle shook her head. “Later, he saw blood on my dress. I’d not noticed it, in the dark and the chaos. But…he saw it. And I think… I think he thought I killed Matthew.”

“How could I?” Isabelle asked. “When Therese woke up the next morning she remembered none of it. And even if she had…Nathaniel idolised his little sister. If he thought, for a moment, that she might have killed Matthew, it would have broken him. And I don’t know that she did kill him. They were both drunk. Chances are it was an accident. He slipped and pulled her with him, or vice versa. I don’t know. I only know that I didn’t kill him.”

For forty-eight years, Isabelle had been protecting Therese, and Nathaniel, and they never even knew.

“Besides,” Isabelle went on. “I owed her…something. For what I did to her and Matthew. This was a secret I could keep.”

“And one I can, too.” I’d have to tell Edward the truth, I knew, but since the truth was that nobody knew the truth, and that Nathaniel had known even less than us, I felt on solid ground. As long as Isabelle agreed. “So, what do you want me to do about the memoirs now? Publish or not?”

Nathaniel hadn’t known what happened, despite his fictions. There was no story to tell, beyond the one he told me in the tree house, his last day on earth. But Isabelle’s affair… That would hurt her, if the world knew.

“Me?” Isabelle raised both eyebrows, this time, perfecting her ‘artfully surprised’ look. “Darling, I believe the decision was left to you. And to Edward.”

“Yes, theoretically. But I’m not going to publish things that make my family unhappy.”

That gave her pause, and she studied me for long moments before saying, “No. You should publish. Publish everything. If we are going to do this, then we are going to do it properly. A true history of the family.”

“Warts and all,” I murmured, with a smile, getting to my feet. Adultery, betrayal, secrets and lies, just like all of Nathaniel’s novels. Just as long as it didn’t include murder. “Okay.”

“Just one thing, darling,” Isabelle said, as I headed for the door. I turned back to face her. “What about your own truths?”

“You mean Ellie?” I asked, feeling colour rising to my cheeks. That story would not be pleasant to write. But Isabelle was right, just as Edward had been. If we were telling one truth, we had to tell them all.

“Edward?” Now I was very confused. “He’s left, I think. Ellie said his car had gone.”

“He’ll be back,” Isabelle said, with more confidence than I had. “So, when are you going to tell him the truth?” And before I could interrupt, tell her that he already knew about me and Greg, she went on. “When are you going to tell him you’re in love with him?”

Edward didn’t come home at all that night. I skipped dinner and holed up in the Yellow Room, sitting out on the balcony, watching the driveway in case he returned. As I sat, I relived the day over and over in my mind, telling the story a dozen different ways, before settling on the truth. The bare facts of what had happened were more than enough to tell me what I needed to do next. Especially my grandmother’s parting words.

Was I? I considered, stretching my story to encompass everything from our first meeting, up until the moment he’d walked out that afternoon. But even that wasn’t enough to give me my answer, so I pushed it further, out into the future, trying to imagine Rosewood without Edward. My life, without him in it.

Love isn’t roses. Of all people, it was Greg’s words that came back to me now. It’s sticking around to fix things, even when it’s the hardest thing in the world to do.

Like he’d done. Like my father had done, sticking with my mum even though it meant giving up everything he’d worked for. Like Isabelle, hiding the truth from Therese and Nathaniel to protect their happiness.

Except Edward had left Rosewood. I frowned. That didn’t fit. He’d stayed through everything else. Through my grandfather’s quirks and rages, through the Golden Wedding, through Nathaniel’s death, through Isabelle’s crazies, through my stories and lies… He’d been there for me, every moment, ever since I arrived home. Even though I was the last person he wanted to fall for. After all, I’d already done everything he was afraid of to my own sister. He had to know I was capable of betraying him the same way his ex had.

I wouldn’t, though. I knew that with a bone-deep certainty that no story could shake. I wasn’t that Saskia any more. I was a different me.

When darkness fell, I nipped to the study and grabbed a blank notebook and the orange jumper from Nathanial’s chair to keep me warm, and returned to my seat on the balcony. Then, wrapped up in wool and the fading scent of pipe smoke, I started to plan. If I wanted to start over and figure out what I really wanted out of my life, there were some discussions I needed to have first – with myself, and with others.

Put like that, it was almost easy. I wanted to write Nathaniel’s memoirs, just like he’d asked. I wanted to make up with Edward. And, most of all, I wanted to make things right between me and Ellie.

But Edward’s words were sticking with me, no matter how much I wished I could ignore them. Was I just playing make-believe? Pretending that things could ever be okay between me and my sister again? Pretending that I was capable of writing the memoirs the way Nathaniel would have wanted?

He was right about me hiding the truth from him – and myself. Who was to say that he wasn’t right about everything else?

I slumped down in my chair, and something on the dressing table caught my eye. Maybe I already had the answer to my questions – the letter from Ellie, addressed to me, that I’d been too cowardly to read until now. I stood, crossed the room, and picked it up, holding the stiff paper between my hands as if I could weigh the contents.

If I really was going to face the future honestly, to try and live in the real world, rather than my own, comfortable, fantasy version, surely this was the place to start?

Closing my eyes, I slit the envelope open with my fingers, and prepared to change my life.