Chapter 3
Three
The small cottage was lit amber by the fire, a steady crackle of burning oak filling the silence.
At the stove, Christina stirred the pasta sauce with more force than necessary, her jaw tight.
Out beyond the gingham curtains which she’d stitched by hand, the February evening settled, the hush fragmented by the occasional hoot of an owl or bark of a fox.
Over the last eleven years, Christina had transformed these tiny quarters into something approaching bohemian charm, though space remained her greatest enemy.
The open-plan kitchen melted seamlessly into the dining area, where a table that had once graced her husband’s family manor house now bore the scars of countless meals and midnight manuscript sessions.
She’d rescued it from the attic along with most of their furniture – a mismatched collection of Georgian chairs, a walnut bureau with a temperamental drawer and an enormous oak dresser that dominated one wall despite being utterly impractical for the space.
The inglenook fireplace, original to the seventeenth-century cottage, anchored the room with its blackened stones and iron grate.
Copper pans hung from the beam above it, their burnished surfaces catching and throwing back the flames.
Bunches of dried lavender and rosemary, suspended from hand-forged hooks, scented the air with summer memories even in winter’s grip – and catching sight of them, Christina smiled, knowing it wouldn’t be long now.
February in Devon meant the daffodils were stirring, and soon her winter labours would begin to bear fruit as the cottage garden became a riot of colour and scent.
Books colonised every available surface in tottering, precarious towers – just as they had since she had moved in with Hamish to their first home in London.
His academic magpie trait had followed them to Devon once he took up a post in the history department at Exeter University, and Christina had long since surrendered to the invasion.
Cookery books supported medieval histories, and Christina’s collection of her mother-in-law’s discarded gardening magazines buried volumes on Tudor architecture.
They spilled from the bureau’s shelves, formed stepping stones across the room, and created literary fortresses around the threadbare Persian rug she’d positioned to cover the new section of wood she had nailed down to replace a broken piece of timber.
The plink of rain echoed through the room; Christina dashed from the stove to check the bucket hidden behind the bay window curtain.
Another bucket stood guard in the upstairs hallway, catching the slow leak from the roof.
Christina sighed and returned to her stirring.
The cottage, part of the family estate, came rent-free – though at a price: no complaints.
She glanced around the cluttered space and wished, that her mother-in-law would finally give the go-ahead to put Chase Lodge on the market so they could move out of this little cottage.
The house had once been a hunting lodge; the clue was in the name – chase meant hunt.
Not only would they have more space there, but Hamish would love it – it was a proper house, with history.
Of course, living there would be a compromise for Christina, since the lodge was set in woodland near the coast, where roses would never thrive, nor peonies, sweet peas, or hollyhocks.
Yet she told herself it would be worth the sacrifice to jolt Hamish out of the introspection that had left him distant, unreachable.
Chase Lodge, she vowed, would be a fresh start.
She’d stop the silver forgeries, end her careful rewritings of the past for other people’s gain.
It was never meant to go on this long. What began as helping Ernest keep the Pembertons afloat – doing what family did – had slowly curdled into something else, a way to make amends.
Guilt had a way of dressing itself as duty.
Each piece she crafted was a quiet apology, shaped with steady hands.
Above her, the floorboards creaked – Elspeth practicing her drama exercises again.
At least tonight their daughter was home, not boarding, which meant they could maintain the pretence of family life for a few hours.
The sauce bubbled, filling the cramped space with a herb infused warmth that should have felt comforting but only emphasised her dilemma – after today’s encounter with Ivy in Malcolm’s shop she couldn’t escape the fact that her forgeries didn’t just fool the rich; what should she do?
The problem plagued her like a physical ache.
Confront Ernest? That thought sent a stab of panic through her.
What about confiding in Hamish? She shook her head.
Maybe in the early days, yes, but ever since their bitter row, two years ago, when words were hurled like broken glass – too sharp, too jagged to ever gather back in – silence had become their uneasy truce.
They lived alongside each other like tarnished silver left unpolished, the blackness spreading between them day by day.
How could she explain that she’d been forging for his stepfather when Hamish believed his wife ran a legitimate restoration business?
As if summoned by her thoughts, Hamish appeared, hair dishevelled, clutching a leather-bound journal.
At forty-three, Hamish looked older. He carried himself with an unconscious stoop, as if his tall frame was permanently folded into academic contemplation.
Grey threaded his dark hair prematurely, the result of late nights spent deciphering medieval manuscripts, and his tweed jacket – elbow patches meticulously sewn on by Christina – hung with the comfortable shabbiness of a man who dressed for libraries rather than dinner parties.
Yet, beneath a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, his eyes still held the gleam of someone who found genuine excitement in his work.
Christina couldn’t help the little squeeze of love her heart produced, when he mumbled something about monastery inventories, while bumping into the low doorframe – again.
This was a man who could recite Tudor dining customs ad infinitum but couldn’t remember to duck in his own kitchen.
When she had first met him – more than twenty years ago, in a library at St Andrew’s university – he had been hunched over an ancient tome, muttering to a fellow student about Henry VII’’s household accounts, his hair already going in six directions.
She’d leaned over his shoulder, bold as brass, and corrected his reading of a particularly faded inventory.
‘That’s nae “silver platters”,’ she’d said, tapping the page with a scarlet red fingernail. ‘It’s “silver patens”– communion plates. Look at the context.’
He had looked round, startled, then broke into a grin that was half amusement, half challenge.
‘Well then,’ he said, in the sort of deep, rolling voice that conveyed privilege without trying, ‘you’ll have to stay and supervise.
’ He stood and pulled out a chair for her, then gave a mock bow, gesturing at the seat as if presenting a throne. ‘Hamish Pemberton, at your service.’
She felt her stomach dip. A Pemberton. She masked the jolt with a smile, brushing a strand of hair from her face. ‘Well, Mr. Pemberton,’ she said lightly, refusing to betray her horror, ‘pleased tae meet ye. I’m Tina.’
The memory stung now. She’d been so proud of her expertise then, so certain of her integrity. Communion plates. Like the one Ivy wanted to replace, the one Malcolm had tried to sell her. The circle of corruption felt suffocating.
‘Wine?’ Christina offered, though he’d already begun his distracted search for the bottle that sat directly in front of him.
Their fingers brushed as she handed him the glass – once, that simple touch would have sparked something.
Now it was just skin meeting skin, nothing more.
Apart from when Elspeth was home, they’d eaten together perhaps three times in the past month.
Hamish was either absent for work, or present but distracted, buried in his medieval manuscripts.
Their marriage was dissolving like sugar in the rain, making Christina desperately sad.
Part of her longed to talk through her dilemma, but the other part of her knew the distance was too great to bridge.
What could she say? How could she possibly explain to someone so absorbed in historical authenticity that she’d been creating historical lies?
Everything felt beyond reach. Night after night, she lay awake staring at the ceiling, her mind spinning but always landing on the same desperate thought: leave.
Take Elspeth north – Glasgow or Edinburgh.
Get away from Ernest and force Hamish to choose.
Us or them. A new life or the family that would never let him go, or let her in.
Hamish waved his free hand dangerously close to the wine glasses, nearly toppling one as he leaned forward, eyes alight.
‘It wasn’t just preservation,’ he exclaimed, his voice rising with excitement.
Christina blinked, scrambling to tune into the latest Tudor topic.
Oblivious to her confusion he stumbled on.
‘They layered the grain with ash – ash!’ – to keep out the weevils.
What ingenuity! No refrigeration, no chemicals – just fire and instinct. ’
Christina smiled faintly, instinctively nudging the glasses out of range as she listened to him orbit his latest preoccupation like a Tudor alchemist chasing the shimmer of gold in base metal.