Chapter 2
TWO
I placed a mug of tea on the low walnut coffee table, hoping the woman didn’t expect sugar as I had none to offer her.
She looked at it without picking it up. ‘I… I’ll just go and get the biscuit tin,’ I muttered, turning from her and rushing back to the kitchen.
There were a pair of comfortable armchairs beside the enormous stone hearth, the grate of the open fire lying empty, having been swept for the summer months.
In the winter, I loved nothing more than curling up in one of those chairs, the smell of a roast drifting from the Aga behind me, chopping boards full of fragrant vegetable peelings on the huge table in the centre of the room, a dog-eared paperback the only company I needed.
The flagstones were worn and smooth, a divot worked into the floor beside the sink where I still washed every pot and pan and plate by hand, refusing to let anyone inside to fit a dishwasher.
It was an unnecessary luxury, and so far since being back here, I’d managed to avoid any need for workmen, trying to ignore the mounting list of little jobs that were crying out to be done around the two-hundred-year-old building.
I pressed my palms into the scratched wooden countertop, leaning heavily against it as I tried to gather my thoughts, adjust to this intruder in my private space.
It felt so wrong to have her here, sitting in my chair, in my living room.
The instant I’d invited her inside, I’d regretted it.
I wasn’t the person to help her. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.
I took a deep breath and grabbed the tin filled with biscuits Aaron had picked up for me.
Heading back into the living room, I plonked it down on the table with more force than was necessary.
‘I’m afraid you can’t stay long. I’ll have to ask you to go as soon as you finish your tea.
’ Even as I said the words, I felt terrible.
The look of panic that flashed across her features confirmed just how rude I had sounded, but I didn’t apologise.
She had no idea what she was getting into coming here.
‘Are you from the village?’ I asked, wondering if she might be one of the new residents, the ones who’d complained about the church bells.
She shook her head, her face red and flushed.
It was cooler here in the sitting room than it had been in the garden, but the lowering sun was glaring through the bay window, and I walked over to open it, letting a soft breeze flow in as she stripped off the raincoat that was entirely inappropriate for a balmy day like today.
As she let it fall to the cushion behind her, her thin cotton cardigan slipped off her shoulders, and I caught sight of the bruise on her upper arm, purple and fresh and the size of a fist. My stomach lurched and dizziness swept over me.
‘What happened?’ I asked, my words thick, slow as I nodded towards her arm.
She glanced down at it, then looked back to me, her eyes wide and frightened. ‘I…’ She took a breath, then looked away, pulling her cardigan up, her hands wrapping around herself, obscuring the bruise from view. ‘I’m not sure… I don’t remember.’
I stared at her, watching as she moved to unstrap the baby from the carrier. ‘How old is your baby? ’
‘She’s five weeks,’ she replied softly, pulling off the baby’s hat to reveal a head of tight black curls. ‘Her name is Amala. And I’m Jade.’
‘You shouldn’t be rushing around yet. You should be resting.’
She gave a wry smile. ‘I know.’ She turned the baby to nestle in the crook of her arm, and I saw her tiny face for the first time. Smooth dark brown skin, with sparkling eyes a few shades darker. Nothing like the freckled pale skin of her mother, with her fine waist-length light brown hair.
‘Where’s her father?’ I asked softly.
Jade only shook her head, laying the baby on the seat beside her as she reached for her tea.
‘Why are you here?’ I asked, the words a low hiss, panic making me lose my manners.
‘I told you, Annie. I need your help.’
I froze, my eyes widening. ‘I didn’t tell you my name,’ I said softly.
I looked again to the baby, her black eyes staring up at the ceiling.
The anxiety I’d been feeling suddenly morphed into something more urgent, fuelled by a sense of suspicion that seemed to seep down my spine like tar, acrid and burning.
‘Who sent you here?’ I whispered. ‘Why have you come?’
Jade shook her head as if I was crazy. As if I’d made a mistake.
‘I read it on your post while you were making the tea. Look,’ she said, pointing to the catalogue on the table.
‘Annie Balfour. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to unsettle you.
I’m not thinking straight. It’s been a long and exhausting day.
I haven’t been sleeping. I’m so sorry, I know it must be strange to have me turn up like this, but I saw you there in the garden and I just knew you’d help me.
You look kind, and I heard the way you laughed with your neighbour.
And to find a woman around the same age as me…
I knew you’d be understanding. We have to stick together, don’t we? Us women.’
I frowned. She had no idea what kind of person I was. The secrets I kept. The things I’d done to secure this life, this safe haven for myself. None . And despite her innocent explanation, I didn’t believe her.
I swallowed, a question playing on my lips, though I didn’t want to ask it. Aaron had unsettled me in the garden, and now this. I was letting my imagination, my fears run wild. But still… she was here, and there was no doubt she was running from something bad.
‘Is it because of him?’ I whispered. ‘Are you… in danger?’ The words stuck in my throat, and I suddenly didn’t want her to answer – didn’t want the responsibility that would fall at my feet if she confirmed my very worst fears.
I’d been waiting for this day, I realised.
Expecting it… expecting her . Ever since I received that letter from my Aunt Betty last summer.
I got a lot of letters from her and my Great-Aunt Susan.
They were my only real link to the outside world – aside from Aaron – and they both loved to send me gossip and news from old friends and estranged family members.
I didn’t think Aunt Betty had any idea of the impact that particular letter would have on me.
The news that the man I’d walked away from after a decade-long relationship had found a new girl and got married just two years after I’d left him.
Ryan had been dismissive of my family throughout our relationship, never bothering to get to know them, but his grandmother had kept in touch with Betty – a fact I was certain Ryan was unaware of – and had shared the news with her over coffee.
She’d said the new wife was some twenty-seven-year-old girl, five years younger than me.
And staring at this woman now, I recalled the photograph my aunt had enclosed of the woman in the simple white satin wedding dress.
The pale, freckled skin. Long, fine brown hair.
Wide, innocent hazel eyes. I’d held that photograph in my hands and worried that I should warn her.
That I should break my pact to never leave this place, to go and tell her about the danger she was getting into.
But I hadn’t. I’d shoved the photograph back in the envelope and pretended it didn’t exist. That I didn’t know the truth.
And now, looking at this woman, I couldn’t help but think that the father of her baby, the reason she was here, was the man I’d gone to the ends of the earth – the ends of my moral compass – to escape. Could this really be Ryan’s new wife here in my house?