“Did you hear what she said?” he asked me.
I managed to straighten up properly. I nodded. Our eyes didn’t quite meet. Edwin continued to gaze at his screen.
“You’ve got to help me.” Alex’s voice cracked. “The baby isn’t safe with her. She’s gone to the cliffs. You’ve got to get her back.”
I gestured to Edwin. “I can’t. I can’t leave him here alone.”
“If I follow her, I’m afraid of what she’ll do. I’ll stay here and watch him.”
I stared at him.
He exhaled heavily. “You don’t trust me.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not that.”
“What, then?”
“I have to stay with him.” Despite me not using his name, Edwin’s concentration broke suddenly, and he knelt up to peer over the back of the sofa, frowning at us.
“Where’s Mummy?” he asked.
“She’ll be back soon,” I told him. I held my hand against his cheek for a moment, stroking it with my thumb. Once he’d settled back down, I forced my legs to propel me to the doorway until I stood directly in front of Alex. His pupils were wide, his breathing rapid.
“Go home,” I told him. “She’ll come back once you’ve gone.”
“Laura...”
“Just go. You’ve done enough.”
He left. Within minutes of his car retreating down the lane, Ruth appeared from the direction of the stable block. I guessed she hadn’t gone to the cliffs at all, but had circled within the boundary of the garden to listen for his car leaving.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
She held out her arms as Edwin scrambled off the sofa and scurried into them.
“I’m great,” she said. “I’m starving, actually. I think six small meals a day are the way forward at the moment. Who’s for pancakes?”
We gobbled them with golden syrup and lemon juice, out on the patio, gorging ourselves until our chins were sticky and our stomachs bloated. Then we sprawled on the cushions in the shade, sucking sugar from our fingers and dozing, resembling nothing more than a pack of wild animals sated after a successful kill.
25
Seraphine
EDWIN AVOIDS BEINGin the same room as Alex for the rest of the evening, and Danny goes off to phone Brooke, so it falls to me to show Alex and Kiara to the annex and hand them the key in case they feel the need to lock themselves in. They do: I hear the lock click before I’ve even crossed the day nursery. Back in the kitchen, I consider these strangers we have allowed into our house: I have warmed to Kiara, but something about Alex troubles me. I bolt the door on the kitchen side, blocking their access to the main part of the house overnight. Suspicion works both ways.
Upstairs, Edwin has just come off the phone to Vera.
“I told her Laura had been found here, injured,” he says. “But I didn’t mention Alex and Kiara and everything else. Not yet. It’s too complicated. She’s going to come down tomorrow, and she wants you to go back with her, Seph. Please do—let her look after you for a couple of weeks.”
“Okay.”
I step forward and rest my forehead against his chest for a minute. His heart rate is fast, I think, or my perception of time is skewed. I’ve grown up with the expectation that my big brother can always make things better. But he can’t this time. He’s not even my big brother this time. He’sherbig brother.
I want to talk to him about that, but I don’t know what to say. He seems distracted, distant. But as I pull away, he murmurs, “I don’t care who your parents are, you know. You’ll always be my sister.” I hold back my tears until I’m in my bedroom.
It’s too hot for bedcovers, but I curl up in the middle of my mattress, my head tucked toward my knees, like a defensive creature trying to deter predators, trying to shut out the world. Will Vera still want me to go back to London with her when she finds out I’m not her real granddaughter? Will she end up giving Summerbourne to Kiara? This is all my fault. If I’d stayed away from Laura, never met Alex and Kiara, I could be mourning my father properly now with the support of my brothers. Instead, I’ve discovered that Edwin isn’t my brother at all, and I’ve no idea whether Danny is either.
Does this story have to come out? Do we need to tell people? Will Kiara want to meet her grandmother, claim her inheritance, keep her newfound older brother to herself?
