Page 108 of The Secret Castle in the Highlands

Mason offered Eliza an encouraging smile. ‘Would you mind coming up here to read out that letter that you’re holding, Mrs Compton?’

Eliza nodded after a moment’s consideration.

I gave her a nod of encouragement as Mason gallantly held her hand and assisted her to the microphone, where he adjusted its height for her. Then he stepped back to stand beside me.

Eliza’s hair, like a puff of white candy floss, bobbed as she took the letter out of its plastic envelope. She held her hand out to Mason and he understood, passing her the diary. She took it and dropped her eyes to the pages fluttering open.

From out in the crowd, a young father, his toddler son hoisted on top of his shoulders, called out, ‘Excuse me. Does this mean that the Scarlet Highwayman never set fire to the orphanage, after all? Or murdered that high court judge?’

‘That’s right,’ Eliza’s voice rang out through the microphone. ‘It was thugs that Augustus Lapley and his crooked relatives paid who committed those terrible crimes. They were trying to frame Gideon Kelly – the Scarlet Highwayman.’

Alex shrank back under the hostile gaze of the surrounding crowd.

Eliza took a breath. ‘Please listen to this section of Georgina Lapley’s diary first and then I shall read this letter.’

She began to read aloud from Georgina’s diary into the microphone, with a throng of Port Starr locals gazing up at her.

16 February 1794

‘Mother, can we go to the park today? Please?’

I smiled indulgently down at my eight-year-old son, with his thatch of corn-blond hair and faint trace of cinnamon freckles dusted across the bridge of his slightly upturned nose. It was like gazing into a mirror.

He scuffed his shoe on the chequered hall floor. I asked him to stop. ‘You know how irritated your father becomes when he sees you doing that.’

‘Perhaps that’s why I do it.’

I frowned at him.

‘After the park, could we take a stroll along the beach, Mother?’

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed at his appealing expression. ‘Oscar Charles Lapley, you are incorrigible.’

‘Is that a good thing to be?’

‘Sometimes it is.’ I lowered myself to his height, so that I was parallel with those wide, sea-blue eyes. ‘Have you finished practising your violin piece for Mr Kelly?’ As I uttered his name, a deep blush gathered on my cheeks. I hoped Oscar wouldn’t notice.

‘Yes. Well. Almost.’

I ran my hands up and down the sleeves of his dark velvet jacket. ‘Come. I’m sure a break would be beneficial for you.’

We started for the door, its stained-glass panes mirroring the winter sun.

‘Oh, I’ve forgotten my scarf. Wait here, Oscar, while I collect it.’

My lace-up boots tapped along the hall and up towards our cloakroom.

‘Can I help you, madam?’ offered Harris, our butler. He had materialised out of nowhere, a kindly smile playing around his mouth.

‘I’ve forgotten my sage scarf. Not to worry, Harris. I’ll fetch it.’

‘As you wish, madam.’ His tall, bony back vanished as quickly as it had arrived.

I hitched my russet skirts up a little from my ankles and carefully negotiated the two steps to where our assorted cloaks, coats and jackets were assembled. There was a pungent smell of mothballs.

I fetched my silk scarf hanging from its peg and knotted it at the base of my throat. It was then that I heard murmuring voices across the hall.

There was a sliver of light creeping out from the drawing room. The heavy oak door was ajar and as I approached, the voices gained more clarity.