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‘Except that you’re in love with her.’
For a moment it seemed so obvious, so profound a truth, that Dominic couldn’t speak. Then reality reasserted itself.
‘Of course I’m not,’ he said, grabbing another handful of files. Where did all these bits of paper even come from? And what happened to them normally, when he wasn’t using them to help him ignore his sister?
‘Oh, Dominic.’ When he looked up, Sylvia was shaking her head sadly. ‘Are you really that stupid? I mean, I always knew I got the brains in the family. But really?’
‘Hey,’ he said, a little sharper than he intended.
‘Well, right now you are being officially stupid!’ Leaning forward to rest her wrists on her knees, Sylvia stared at him so intently he felt obliged to put down the files. ‘Listen. She’s great. She’s honest—fake identity notwithstanding—bright, efficient, gorgeous. She’s everything you’ve ever wanted in a woman.’
‘She’s a liability,’ he countered because he couldn’t exactly claim that any of the above weren’t true. ‘She’d ruin us.’ Just like their mother almost had.
‘How? By speaking her mind?’ Sylvia shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t want a docile miss who never said what she was really thinking. It would drive you crazy, trying to figure out what she wanted.’
‘She’s a scandal,’ he offered. ‘She was caught having an affair with a married man. A drug addict. No one knows where she was for three years. There are all sorts of stories...’
‘You know where she was,’ Sylvia pointed out. ‘Does any of it bother you?’
Yes, Dominic wanted to say. The idea of Faith being with another man, living with him. Loving someone who wasn’t him. But he couldn’t help but think that might bolster Sylvia’s argument more than his own.
Which only left him with the truth.
‘She’d leave, Syl. It’s what she does.’
Sylvia’s face fell, her eyes suddenly very wide. ‘Oh, Dominic. You can’t possibly think that’s true.’
‘I don’t need to think,’ he said, shuffling his files again. ‘I know. And she’s already done it once! You saw her at the gala last month. She hates that sort of thing. She hates our whole world. Why else do you think she ran away?’
‘But she came back,’ Sylvia pointed out. ‘She’s at Fowlmere right now. It’s been weeks and she hasn’t left. So maybe she changed her mind?’
He shook his head. If only it were that easy. ‘She told me herself, Syl. As soon as she sorts out the mess her father’s made of the estate, she’s out of there. She’ll be back in Florence, or India, or Australia before you can speak. She’s not the staying kind.’
‘Maybe she just hasn’t found something worth staying for yet,’ Sylvia suggested in a small, quiet voice.
He gave her a lopsided smile. ‘Yeah, well. I think she’s made it pretty clear that’s not me. Don’t you?’
* * *
‘Faith? It’s Sylvia.’
Faith didn’t bother asking how Sylvia had got her number—she just assumed she’d stolen it from Dominic’s phone. It seemed like a Sylvia thing to do. So, instead, she motioned to Jack to keep walking the hedgerow between the lower and upper fields without her. He knew what they were looking at, and looking for, far better than she did anyway.
‘Sylvia. What can I do for you?’
‘Oh, I was checking in, see how you’re getting on. You’re still at the old homestead, I understand?’ Sylvia spoke airily, as if it was a matter of no consequence, but Faith knew that if she’d spoken to her brother at all, she had to know that it was.
And yes, she was still at Fowlmere. And, against the odds, actually enjoying being there for the first time she could remember. Which wasn’t to say that her parents weren’t still capable of driving her crazy at times, but working towards something, as a family, seemed to be making a difference. Even her mother was hard at work pulling out long lost heirlooms and trying to restore them to their possible former glory. Maybe all they’d needed all along was a shared goal.
Maybe that was all she had needed, too.
‘I’m still here,’ she told Sylvia. ‘Actually, it looks like I’ll be staying for a while.’
‘Helping your father with the estate, I understand?’ Faith wondered where she’d heard that. Well, news got around, she supposed. Even when it was a lot more boring than scandalous nights in hotels and missing heiresses.
‘Trust me, he needs the help,’ she joked.
