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What if I told her I was his fiancée? But… I wasn’t. And I didn’t want to be, did I? Bloody hell, I was a proud feminist and a suffragette! I wasn’t supposed to want or need any man, least of all a bloody chauvinist like him!
‘I’m his cousin!’ The words came out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. A cousin. A relation close enough that it wouldn’t be strange for us to have been travelling together—and distant enough to still make me competition for Miss Fotheringay.[2] The flash of hostility in her eyes told me she understood perfectly.
‘Oh, his cousin?’ Her eyes swept once more over my rather short figure, my brown, shoulder-length hair and equally brown eyes. Her lips twitched in a sarcastic smile. ‘Of course! The family resemblance is so startling! I should have noticed it before.’
‘What do you mean, Violet?’ Mrs Fotheringay asked, confused, not noticing how I was trying to murder her daughter with my gaze. ‘She looks nothing like the gentleman.’
Apparently, the daughter had not inherited that penchant for sarcasm from her mother. Her father must have been a nasty piece of work.
‘He gets his looks from the other side of the family,’ I told them both, not taking my eyes off the younger woman. ‘Now, if you would be so kind as to take me to him…’
Mrs Fotheringay opened her mouth, but her daughter was faster.
‘Of course! I’ll take you.’ She smiled at me, her teeth gleaming like razorblades. ‘I’m sure he will be glad to see me. He has grown quite fond of me over the last few days. I was the only one who was really there for him, you know.’
If I strangle her now, would that count as murder? Surely, English law would make an exception in a case like this.
Probably not. After all, the law had been written by men, and they hardly ever were reasonable.
‘Lead the way,’ I told her, returning her smile.
She led me down a corridor towards a room at the back of the house. Outside, I could hear the whisper of the wind and surge of the sea. We had to be close to the cliff’s edge, here.
‘Wait here, will you?’ she told me with another smile. ‘I’ll go in first. Maybe he doesn’t want to see you. He hasn’t had long to recuperate, and it might not be good for him, seeing a strange face like that.’
Strange face? Who does this witch think she is? If anyone is the stranger here, it is she!
I opened my mouth, but before I could say a word she had already slipped into the room, leaving the door open just a fraction. Peering inside, I could barely see the end of a bed in which someone was lying. Part of me wanted to fling that door open - but another part shied away from it. What if it wasn’t him in there? What if it was some total stranger?
‘Hello, darling…’ Miss Fotheringay leaned over the bed with a broad smile on her face. ‘How are we this evening? Do we feel a little better?’
The only answer to this was silence. Icy silence.
Promising. Very promising indeed.
‘Have we drunk the hot tea I made for you? I’m sure it would be good for us.’ Her smile widened even more. ‘And have we kept the hot water bottle on our feet?’
Hot water bottle or no, the silence on the other side of the door dropped another few dozen degrees in temperature. The smile on Miss Fotheringay’s face flickered slightly, but she did her best to keep it intact.
‘Well… um… listen. There is this young woman here to see us. I mean, to see you. There’s no need to, of course. I can send her away and make you another cup of tea, and you won’t have to worry about-’
Her voice broke off in the middle of her sentence.
‘Um… All right. Maybe I should let her in.’
Two seconds later, she came marching out, her lips pressed tightly together.
‘He wants to see you,’ she informed me. Huffing, she stalked off down the corridor. I, for my part, reached for the doorknob.
Please, I sent one last, desperate prayer upwards. Blimey! I hadn’t prayed this much in years! Please, let it be him!
Pushing open the door, I stepped inside.
Sweet Reunion on the Rocks
The room was small and homely: a single window looking out over the cliffs, a gently flickering lamp on the bedside table, pictures of sailing ships on the wall and a four-poster bed with velvet hangings that had seen better days. But I didn’t really take in any of that. I didn’t even see the beautiful view of the cliffs and the sunset over the sea through window. Because in the bed, clothed in the tattered remnants of his black tailcoat, and with a bandage around his right leg, lay Mr Rikkard Ambrose.
He was not looking at me, but staring the other way, at the flowered wallpaper. This gave me a prime opportunity to study his profile to my heart’s content. It was just as I remembered it: rock-hard, immovable and with power etched into every inch.
