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“I know, but I can have some control over her decline. If I move her somewhere unfamiliar and new, off-site, who knows what it would do to her? Here I can check on her. I’ve made it work. I’ve had to. I had no choice.”

Frances took a breath, feeling anger building inside her. Not necessarily at Lucie; more at her situation.

Lucie blinked. “I’m sorry for what you’re going through. I really am.” She paused for a moment, then added, “Your mum is in her room, by the way. She took some reassuring, but she settled.”

“Thank you,” Frances said, embarrassed she hadn’t even asked after her. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, more — she realised with a shock — that she felt her mum was safe with Lucie. “If you have any problems with Hannah, then tell her to see me.”

Lucie nodded, opened the door, and stepped outside, into the darkness.

“I trust I can rely on your discretion,” Frances called out.

“Of course. Good night, Frances.”

Frances watched as Lucie’s shadow disappeared into the stable courtyard, where Christmas carols were being sung. The conversation didn’t feel finished — or, rather, she hadn’t wanted it to end. Even though it had become heated, it felt good to talk to someone, to get things off her chest. It made her feel less alone. In an odd way, Lucie made her feel less alone.

Shaking her head at herself, Frances closed the door and slipped her coat off. Thankfully, the air didn’t smell too bad, likely due to the open windows and the faint smell of air freshener. Had Lucie sprayed that? Had she looked around the house? She should have felt violated that someone had been into her space, but she only felt grateful. Lucie had been there when she wasn’t.

Pushing the growing feeling of guilt aside, she headed to the kitchen to close the windows and make a start on dinner. Whilst she was draining the potatoes twenty minutes later, her mum appeared in the doorway.

“Are you okay, Mum?” Frances called.

“Oh yes, I was having a rest. I thought we could go and see the lights.”

“Not tonight. But I promise I’ll take you soon.”

Frances breathed a sigh of relief that her mum seemed calm and didn’t appear fussed about what had happened. Had she forgotten about it, or was she avoiding mentioning it?

“Dinner won’t be long.”

“I thought I already had dinner.”

“No, not yet.”

“Didn’t I have some toast?”

“No, Mum,” Frances said. “Sit at the table, and I’ll serve up.”

“I’m sure that elf was here again. I like her,” Rose said as she sat.

“Oh, was she?”

“We should invite her round.”

“We’ll see, Mum,” Frances said, more automatically than anything.

As they ate, her attention kept slipping back to Lucie, irritatingly so. She was staff, Frances reminded herself, and even though Lucie worked for the trust, not for her directly, that hardly changed the fact that Frances was her boss.

Lucie was probably into men anyway, like most of the women she’d found herself vaguely interested in over the years. She’d had plenty of interest from men herself. They’d sniffed around her like dogs after a bitch on heat, attracted by what they assumed would be a healthy bank balance.

In the entirety of her life, she’d never seen an attraction to the opposite sex. They were fairly useless in her experience. Most of them could talk the talk, but a lot of it was simple willy-waving. Mara had been quite firm that they couldn’t discriminate based on sex when it came to hiring, which was odd, considering the world was already doing it against women.

Telling herself Christmas would soon be over and Lucie would be gone should have settled things, but it didn’t. She should not have become this difficult to ignore. There was something about her that kept bobbing to the surface in inconvenient moments when Frances had other things to think about.

CHAPTER 8

Lucie covered a yawn as she made her way to the staff room. It was disorientating to arrive at work in daylight. A wake-up call from Hannah an hour ago had presented her with an opportunity to get back in her supervisor’s good books — something she wasn’t going to pass up.

Thankfully, there was no mention of the previous day’s toast-burning incident, so she assumed she had gotten away with being late for her shift. Whether Hannah would find out over the course of the day and give her another ticking off, she wasn’t sure.