Chapter Eleven
A Very Yorkshire Christmas
Her phone was screeching. Was it an alarm? Had she overslept? Missed a flight?
No. Worse. It was her mother.
Eva’s phone vibrated across the nightstand like an angry hornet, the screen blazing with notifications. Twenty-three texts. Each one escalating in panic and capitalisation. The final message simply read: “ANSWER YOUR PHONE NOW OR I’M CALLING THE EMBASSY.”
Sandy Coleman did not make idle threats.
Eva grabbed the phone just as it began its next attempt, her mother’s contact photo—taken at last year’s country club gala—filling the screen with its perfectly coiffed disapproval.
“Finally!” Her mother’s voice burst through the speaker before Eva could even say hello. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through? I’ve not slept a wink since you left, Eva Coleman. All. Week.”
“Mom, it’s five in the morning here—”
“I’m well aware of the time difference,” Sandy interrupted, her Tennessee drawl sharpening into something that could cut glass. “Your father had to give me a Xanax. A Xanax, Eva! You know how I feel about unnecessary medication.”
Eva sat up, pulling the duvet around her shoulders. The brass key tumbled off her nightstand, hitting the floor with a thud.
“I’m fine, Mom. I told you I was extending my trip—”
“Extending your trip?” Sandy’s voice climbed an octave. “That’s what you call this? Not ‘having a breakdown in a foreign country’? Not ‘abandoning all responsibility to play Nancy Drew’?”
In the background, Eva could hear her father’s measured voice suggesting her mother take a breath. Robert Coleman had spent thirty-five years perfecting the art of gentle intervention, though it rarely worked.
“I’m working on something,” Eva said carefully, already knowing how this would land.
The silence that followed was so complete Eva took her phone from her ear and looked at the screen to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.
“Working. On. Something.” Each word was a precision strike. “You mean this ‘mystery’ Courtney mentioned when I cornered her at the Kroger?”
Damn it, Courtney.
“It’s research into local history—”
“It’s a waste of time!” Sandy exploded. “You should be here, fixing your life. Do you know what people are saying? Linda Patterson announced to the entire book club that you’d had a nervous breakdown. I had to lie and say you were on a work trip.”
“Maybe I did have a breakdown,” Eva said quietly. “Maybe that’s okay.”
“Okay? OKAY?” Her mother’s voice reached frequencies only dogs could hear. “Nothing about this is okay! You’re almost thirty years old, Eva. No husband, no clear career path, and now you’re gallivanting around England like some … some … bohemian!”
Despite everything, Eva almost laughed. In Sandy Coleman’s world, ‘bohemian’ was the worst possible insult, conjuring images of unwashed artists and people who shopped at thrift stores by choice.
“I’m trying to figure things out—”
“By playing detective? This isn’t you, Eva. This impulsive, irresponsible behaviour. What am I supposed to tell people?”
And there it was. The heart of it.
“Is that what matters?” Eva asked. “What you tell people?”
“Of course it matters! Our reputation, our standing in the community—”
“Mom,” Eva interrupted, surprising herself with her steadiness. “Who are you without me?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“You just said it. You don’t know what to tell people. But this isn’t about you or your book club or what Linda Patterson thinks. This is my life.”
“Your life?” Sandy’s voice cracked, and suddenly she sounded less angry and more afraid. “Your life is here, Eva. With your family. Who am I if I’m not … if you don’t need …”
The words hung between them, an ocean of expectation and fear and love so tangled it was hard to separate the threads.
“I have to go,” Eva said softly.
“Eva Ann Coleman, don’t you dare—”
She ended the call.
The phone immediately began buzzing again, but Eva turned it face down.
Her hands were shaking—she wasn’t entirely sure if it was from the cold, or the emotion or both.
Unable to face her mother’s barrage again, she grabbed the phone and opened Instagram, seeking the mindless comfort of other people’s curated lives.
This was a mistake.
The first post was from Jennifer at Monarch Music: a close-up of her left hand sporting a diamond that could be seen from space. He proposed at the Ryman! Where we first met! #NashvilleLove #CountryMusicDreams
Scroll.
Her college roommate Rachel: Baby #3 on the way! The twins can’t wait to be big sisters!
Scroll.
Even Blake—Blake who couldn’t buy his own Secret Santa gift—had posted from Santorini. Best vacation ever with this amazing woman. #CoupleGoals #LivingMyBestLife
Scroll.
Her sister Lily: Just closed on our dream home! Five bedrooms for all those future grandbabies Mom keeps asking about
Eva tossed her phone aside, pulling her knees to her chest. The room felt smaller suddenly, like the walls were closing in.
Everyone else was collecting life milestones like her Dad collected baseball cards, while she was literally going backwards, trying to solve the mystery of a dead woman’s lost love in a city where the radiators clanged like ghost chains.
By the time she made it downstairs, showered but nowhere near refreshed, Eva felt like she’d already been awake for three long days. The smell of beans, bacon and proper English tea drew her to the dining room, where Florence was arranging the morning spread with her usual military precision.
“Morning, love,” Florence said, then stopped, taking in Eva’s face. “Oh dear. Sit. Tea first, then talk.” Eva knew by now that tea in Britain could cure almost everything. But not this.
Eva sank into her usual chair. The dining room was empty, pale morning light filtered through lace curtains.
Florence returned with a pot of tea in a cosy shaped like a Christmas pudding, complete with felt holly leaves that had seen better days. She poured a cup, added milk without asking, and then, instead of bustling away, sat down across from Eva with a definitive plop.
“Right then,” Florence said. “What’s wrong? And don’t say nothing. I’ve run this inn for forty years. I know that look. Was it your mum?”
Eva almost choked on her tea. “How did you—”
“That particular combination of exhaustion, guilt and fury? That’s mothers.
” Florence’s eyes twinkled with understanding.
“Mine once drove four hours to tell me I was disappointing the family by not marrying the butcher’s son.
Turned up at two in the morning with a three-page letter she’d typed up on her old Remington and made me read it aloud. ”
“She made you read it aloud?”
“Said she wanted to make sure I absorbed every word. Even brought carbon copies for my sisters.” Florence poured herself tea. “The butcher’s son is in prison now, so I feel I made the right choice. But you didn’t come down looking like death warmed over to hear about my mother. What did yours say?”
Eva wrapped her hands around the warm cup. “She thinks I’m wasting my time here. That I should be home, fixing my life, finding another suitable boyfriend, being who she needs me to be.”
“And what do you think?”
“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I’ve spent so long being what everyone else wanted that I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
Florence studied her. “Let me ask you something. What does your heart want?”
“I don’t know,” Eva admitted.
“Your mind?”
“To be practical. Go home, get another boyfriend, job, make everyone happy.”
“And your gut?”
Eva was quiet, considering. “My gut says there’s something here I need to understand. About Margaret, about myself, about … something.”
Florence nodded. “It’s clear a lot happened before you got here, love. Failed relationships, family expectations, a life that looked right but felt wrong. This trip—it’s not really about Margaret Wells, is it?”
“No,” Eva admitted. “I don’t think it is.”
“Sometimes we need to get properly lost before we can find ourselves. And sometimes,” Florence added, rising to refill the teapot, “we need to stop running long enough to let the right things catch up.” She paused at the sideboard, her hands stilling on the china crockery.
“Everyone makes decisions they think are right at the time. Keeping secrets, protecting people, holding on to things that maybe should have been shared.” Her voice had gone soft, distant.
“What matters is what we do when we realise the weight of those choices.”
She turned back, her usual brisk manner returning, but Eva caught something in her expression—a flicker of old guilt, perhaps, or recognition.
“More tea, love?”
She bustled away, leaving Eva to contemplate her cryptic wisdom and wonder what exactly was trying to catch up with her.
It didn’t take very long, as twenty minutes later Charlie appeared in the doorway, looking uncharacteristically uncertain.
He wore his usual uniform of jeans and a sweater—forest green today that brought out the flecks of gold in his eyes.
In contrast to his usual cool demeanour, today he carried himself like a man approaching a spooked animal.
“Morning,” he said, hovering at the threshold. “Florence said you were down here.”
“Did she also tell you to check on the pathetic American?”
“No.” He stepped into the room. “Actually, I came to ask if you’d like to see Castle Howard. The Christmas decorations are worth the trip. And it’s meant to be clear today. Mostly clear. Partially clear. Look, it probably won’t rain the entire time. Dry like.”
Eva studied him suspiciously. “Did Florence put you up to this?”
Charlie’s brow furrowed. “No? Why would—” Understanding dawned. “You think I’m here out of pity.”
“Aren’t you?”