Page 113 of The Cottage at Brambleton Hall

‘Sit.’

She did. The chair felt firm, the angle of it keeping her upright whether she liked it or not.

‘I don’t like surprises,’ Magnus said.

Sammy folded her hands in her lap, trying to stop them shaking. ‘I was going to tell you.’ Even as she said it, she heard the weakness in those words.

Magnus’s gaze rested on her before moving to the photograph. He picked it up. ‘Mr Wetherby trained me, from the age of sixteen.’ He set the frame back down. ‘He taught me that honesty was essential. I once decided something could be . . . managed,’ Magnus said. ‘Concealment is only ever temporary. The truth comes out in the end.’

Sammy sat still, absorbing his words. ‘I understand,’ she said.

Magnus shook his head. ‘We both know what happened. How did she get in. Did you let her in?’

‘I was in a hurry. I left the back door propped open.’

He held out his hand. ‘Key please.’

She pulled the chain over her head, fingers trembling as she unhooked the key and placed it on the desk next to the picture of Mr Wetherby. The small clink it made sounded louder than it should have.

‘I will let you in each morning, and if you need to go outside,’ he said, ‘you will have to ring the bell to get back in.’

Sammy’s hand went to her chest, her skin moist where the key used to sit, snug above her bra. ‘Yes Mr Magnus,’ she said.

‘Indeed.’

After Sammy shut the door, Magnus ran a hand over his face.

The photograph sat slightly askew on the desk. He picked it up. ‘What would you have done with her?’ he stroked the side of the frame. ‘Same as me,’ he said. ‘You’d have taken the key.’ He set his mentor down exactly where he belonged. ‘But you’d have let her earn it back.’

Magnus opened a drawer. His fingers closed around the key, then he dropped it in and closed the drawer. He reached for a pen, followed by a sheet of paper.

Magnus wrote the list quickly. He stopped. Read it through. Added to it. Another line. And another. He set the pen down, then picked it up again, tightening the wording on one of the tasks – no ambiguity.

Let’s see. She’d arrived on her first day two hours early, at the front of the house, unable to cook an omelette. Now she cooked for fourteen. He dismissed the unfortunate night at the pub. Not her fault that rascal Jimmy had chosen the same night for a drink.

Magnus folded the paper once, running a neat crease down the middle.

‘Miss Jenkins,’ he said, as if she was still there. ‘Let’s see how you cope under pressure.’

He went to find her, leaving the overhead light humming.

Twenty-seven

For once, Sammy walked the path to her cottage without taking her surroundings in. She couldn’t stop thinking about Magnus’s office; the key – her key – left on his desk. She kept coming back to that. Not the object itself, but how easily it had been taken from her.

Telling herself she’d feel better after a cup of tea and a natter with Chloe, Sammy rallied and tried to focus her thoughts on the gardens. Nate’s handiwork. The borders had lost their precision, edges blurring as the geraniums spilled outward. Their leaves were dulled at the tips, the flowers mostly spent.

Ahead of Sammy, a pheasant broke from the hedge, wings beating hard before it dropped out of sight again. Further off, sheep called across the fields.

She spotted a strange car parked beside hers – untidily, as if it had been left in a hurry. Not Nate’s.

Drawing closer, she groaned; music pulsed from inside her cottage, a bass line catching and breaking against the walls. As Sammy opened the door, the noise rolled out to meet her.

Jimmy lay sprawled on the sofa, one leg stretched out, foot on the coffee table, the other leg hooked back under him. Beside him was Chloe, flushed with drink. An empty wine bottle, another half full. Glasses left where they’d landed. A tacky ring on the table.

Sammy’s note was where she’d left it. Now face down.

‘There you are,’ said Chloe. ‘We thought you’d vanished into that big house for good.’