Chapter 26
Sabrina slept a deep, dreamless sleep, and it felt much later than half past eight when she awoke. She had just dressed when
she heard a knock at the adjoining door. She opened it to find Marielle there with a very apologetic look on her face. “I
am so sorry about Friday night,” she said. “I can’t remember the last time I was drunk, because let’s face it, I was...
absolutely... gone.” Sylvie would have said bollocksed , she thought then. “I woke up with the most awful hangover and I couldn’t get rid of it and I had to go to bed early and—”
Sabrina interrupted her before she beat herself to a pulp.
“Oh Marielle, please don’t worry another moment about it.”
“It doesn’t take a lot these days to send me cuckoo. I bet I bored you to death, didn’t I?” She looked mortally embarrassed.
“No, you didn’t,” replied Sabrina with emphasis. “You talked, and I think sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger than
a friend.”
“Thank you. That’s so kind of you to make me feel better,” said Marielle, meaning it. “How did you get on at work yesterday?”
“Good—at least I hope I did. It’s a great place, really nice atmosphere.”
“I think so too.”
“Coffee?”
“No, I’ll let you get on. I didn’t want to interrupt you. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“No need.” Sabrina smiled.
“Don’t forget we have a date for the theater tonight. We’ll set off at six thirty.”
“I won’t forget,” said Sabrina. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but it couldn’t do any harm and may even do some good. She
needed to remember, and as hypnotherapy hadn’t worked, cleaning loos, cutting up pepperoni, and visiting a psychic all had
to be worth a go.
Sabrina had not long left the house for work when there was a hard knock at Marielle’s door, the sort of knock a debt collector
with a serious grievance might employ. She looked through the spyhole and saw the sour face of her cousin there. Well, that
took longer than she thought it might. Shoresend may have been a town, but it was full of village gossipmongers.
Cilla Charlesworth marched in as if she were carrying a mace and a brass band was following behind.
“Are you stupid, Mari Bonetti?” Cilla was the only one who ever shortened her name and it had always irritated her.
“Pardon?”
“You’ve done it again, haven’t you? You’re about to make a proper fool of yourself.” Cilla was walking around expending nervous
energy while Marielle watched on, waiting for her clockwork to wind down.
“Cilla, what are you talking about?” said Marielle, though she knew; of course she knew.
“Letting some... tramp into your house to stay and rob you. Possibly even slit your throat while you’re sleeping. What
sort of idiot are you?”
Marielle stiffened. She might have been touched if she’d thought this was Cilla concerned for her welfare, but it wasn’t;
it was about seizing a chance to belittle her, something Cilla had never been able to resist.
“I have a guest staying with me, yes.” Marielle forced herself to remain calm.
“Ha. That’s what you call her, is it? A guest .”
“How did you know?”
“Someone saw you buying clothes with a woman in town on Friday. So I rang Felicity to make discreet inquiries and she told
me you had a friend , as she put it, staying with you and working at the restaurant. It wasn’t hard to join up the dots.”
“Why is this any of your business, Cilla?”
“Do you have to ask, Mari? I am family and as such I’m more than qualified to be worried. Can’t you remember what happened
last time when you let someone rob you blind? How you weren’t killed in your bed is anyone’s guess. Everyone was saying as
much.”
Well, that little speech played straight into Marielle’s hands. “I’m so glad, Cilla, that you brought up how worried we should
be about each other as family ”—she overloaded the word with enough sugar to make her kidneys cry—“because this Hugo of yours is very concerning. You barely
know him and there you are splashing out eight grand on a cruise with him.”
Cilla’s neck shot back in indignation.
“How do you know I spent that on a cruise?”
“Who doesn’t know? You’ve told everyone. Plus a car because his Rolls-Royce is in the garage, and Lord knows what else you’ve
forked out for.”
“Not this again,” said Cilla. “If you’re trying to insinuate he hasn’t got a Roller, then you’re wrong, because I’ve seen
photos of him in it.”
“Oh Cilla,” scoffed Marielle, “I bought Teddy a Ferrari experience last Christmas. We’ve got photos of him in it, but it doesn’t
mean he owns one.”
“I’m not here to talk about Hugo.”
“No, but while you are here, we will,” Marielle threw back at her because she was cross and she wasn’t going to miss this
golden opportunity to drum some sense into the woman.
“You do know he went to Eton and he can absolutely prove that, not that he needs to,” said Cilla.
“So did Lord Lucan.”
“Oh for God’s sake.”
“Are you so desperate for this man to be genuine that you’re swallowing any old tripe that comes out of his mouth?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I love him and he loves me—it’s indisputable.” Cilla was unexpectedly on the back foot now, and she
didn’t like it at all.
“Because he’s good in bed? Yes, you’ve told everyone that as well. Haven’t you ever seen those programs where gullible women
go to foreign climes and are seduced by hot young men? Don’t you think they can switch on being sexually attracted to some
overripe desperado if they can squeeze the life savings out of her?”
“Overripe?” Cilla took great exception to that.
“Not you, them. They’re always lonely, grateful women who think if they cough up it’ll somehow make all those ‘I love yous’
genuine. Love brings gifts, Cilla; gifts don’t bring love. That’s a basic fact. Sweetheart scamming , that’s what it’s called.”
Cilla had seen those programs and she always thought those women—and men sometimes—needed a good shake.
She wasn’t anything like them. Hugo didn’t want her for a passport, and he wasn’t thirty years younger than her either. And
he didn’t fake anything in bed; he made sure she was very well taken care of. He was a giver, not a taker.
“You’re very wrong,” Cilla said. She didn’t want to listen to any more in case Marielle’s venom burned through her skull and
put doubts in her head. A relationship was nothing without trust; Hugo had said so many times.
“Cilla, please, do me one favor... ,” Marielle implored.
Even though Cilla drove her barmy, she didn’t want her to get hurt and she didn’t want Flick to have to pick up the pieces.
“Please don’t give him any more money. If he is genuine, and I really hope he is, for your sake, then he will not press you for it.
Yes, I think he’s taking you for a ride, but I would be delighted if you proved me wrong.
” She let out a long breath by way of a full stop.
Looking at Cilla’s face, she realized she’d probably been too brutal, more than she ever had before, and it didn’t sit well with her that she might have truly upset her cousin.
“Come on, sit down for five,” she said with a smile. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
She walked across to it, picked it up from the work surface, and went over to the tap to fill it.
Cilla stood stock-still, heart racing, furious. She hadn’t come here to be taken down and then have to sit here and drink
tea as if nothing had happened. How dare she? Marielle was the one being duped, not her, and she was trying to spoil things
for her because she was jealous.
Except deep down, Cilla knew she wasn’t, because Marielle had a much better hand than she had in life, even without a man,
and the river of jealousy flowed only one way. Cilla resented the easy, loving relationship Marielle had with her son and
how Flick seemed to be more fond of her than she was of her own mother. She resented that Marielle had friends who had never
invited her into their inner sanctum. She resented that Marielle was respected and liked in the community for being a good
nurse and a kind and generous woman. Cilla had been born with a seed of envy in her soul, and over the years it had flowered
into bitterness.
While Marielle was hunting in the cupboard and twittering on about biscuits or something, Cilla noticed the handbag on the
floor, between the dresser and the bookshelf, the zipper open. She saw the corner of a purse poking out of the top and she
took the chance to shut up her oh-so-self-righteous cousin once and for all. While Marielle was pouring the water into the
teapot, she made a quick snatch for it and shoved it in her own bag; then she stepped away from it to create distance. She
wasn’t anywhere near it when Marielle turned to bring the teapot over to the table.
“I came here because I am genuinely worried about you, whatever you might think,” said Cilla now, her voice subdued and a sniff added for effect.
“I did not come here for you to turn on me and attack me for my choice of partner. If you think about it, only one of us has a history of making the same mistakes over and over again where personal safety is concerned.”
Marielle had to concede she was right. She had never told anyone that when one guest left Little Moon, she’d found a nasty-looking
knife under the mattress which wouldn’t have been used for taking the peel off apples.
“I’m sorry if I shouted,” she said. “Please sit down. Look, I’ve got the best mugs out.” She tried a smile, but it didn’t
work.
“No, I think we’ve both said enough, so I’m going,” replied Cilla. “But please think on when you’re lecturing people about
being a good judge of character that you’ve been lied to and conned more than anyone I know. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
And with that she turned to go.