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2nd January 2019
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
A thousand times fuck!
I’m fucked!
Fucking Rowena!!!
First my wife, now my mother!!!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Every hair on my body rises in shock as I pore over the entry time and time again.
First my wife, now my mother.
The words ring through my brain, a loud klaxon of wrongdoing.
My wife? Caroline?
And guilt surges like a tsunami through my chest.
But. But…we…we—Kit was dead when Caro and I fucked that first time. I never touched her while they were together.
Not once.
Before they were together. Yes. But… not while they were a couple.
First my wife!
Was she having an affair? And he found out?
Is this why he left her nothing in his will?
That makes sense. It always seemed such a shockingly cold-blooded move. And Caroline was angry… but she accepted the exclusion readily.
Was she aware that he knew?
Did he confront her?
He must have—his will was changed in September last year.
But an affair with whom? One person? Two people? More?
Fuck. Poor Kit.
I think back to Christmas in the Caribbean. There was no hint of marital un-bliss between them. Or maybe I didn’t notice because I was too busy fucking my way through the American tourists.
Oh hell.
The answer is probably chronicled within these pages.
Dare I look?
Do I even want to know?
There’s a knock on the door that startles me. I close the book and instinctively lean over the journal to hide it from view. Danny enters, and I must look as guilty as sin because she doesn’t tell me why she’s there. “Are you okay, my lord?”
“Yeah. Yeah. What is it, Danny?”
“The countess has gone out with Jenkins to the sheep. She didn’t want to disturb you. But she wanted to help. We have twenty-seven ewes lambing right now.”
“That many!”
“Yes, my lord.”
“But it’s just the beginning of the season!” I frown—that’s a lot at once. “I’d better go and help too.” I rise from the desk, taking Kit’s journal with me. I don’t want any prying eyes seeing this, and on a whim, I grab the Leica M6 I brought from London and automatically check that it has film in it.
“I’ll hold dinner, my lord.”
“Okay, thank you. I have no idea what time we’ll be back.”
* * *
Alessia rides with Jenkins in the Defender as it bumps down one of the lanes in the dark. The high verges, covered with brambles and grass, seem to loom out of the night, so Alessia’s grateful she’s not driving. Jenkins glances at her, his brow etched in concern.
“My lady,” Jenkins almost shouts above the noise of the engine.
“Alessia.”
“Yes. I have to ask…” His words trail off as if he’s reluctant to say more.
“What is it, Jenkins?”
He clears his throat. “Are you… are you in the family way?”
Alessia frowns. Family way? What does that mean?
Jenkins tugs his ear. “Might you be… might you be pregnant, my lady?”
Alessia’s blush warms her cheeks, and she hopes it’s not visible in the darkness of the car. “No!” she exclaims. “Why… why would you ask me such a thing?”
His shoulders fall as Jenkins visibly relaxes. “No. ’Tis a good thing, my lady. We don’t want pregnant women around lambing.”
“Oh. Oh yes. I understand. I am sorry.”
“No need to apologize, ma’am. I forgot to ask earlier.”
Alessia flashes him a smile. “I know pregnant women should not be around lambs and goats.”
“Goats?”
Alessia laughs. “Yes. Where I am from, we have goats.”
He turns by a large structure that Alessia realizes is a substantial barn. He parks next to a steel door, where three other cars are stationed.
“We’re here,” he says. “You’ll be glad you wrapped up warm.”
The barn is cavernous and chilly, and there must be a hundred or more ewes inside. Several are bleating loudly, in the throes of labor—these have been separated into smaller pens away from the pregnant flock. Among the pens, a few newborn lambs are already being nuzzled and licked by their mothers as they root for milk from swollen udders. A couple of the estate workers are busy with lambing among the pens.
They’re just in time to watch one of the farmhands, whom Alessia has not yet met, help deliver a lamb. Wearing surgical gloves, he cleans the lamb’s nose to help it breathe and places it in front of its mother to be licked clean. He grabs a bottle and dabs a little of the ointment, which Alessia notices is iodine, on the lamb’s navel.
“Good evening.” He nods a greeting to Alessia. “Oh, there’s another,” the young man says, and he sits back while the ewe delivers that lamb on her own. “Good girl. Easy there,” he says in a soothing voice to the ewe and repeats the same cleanup process with her lamb.
“Where are the gloves?” Alessia asks Jenkins.
“The workstation over there.” Jenkins points with his chin. His eyes are on the ewes and who’s going to pop next. “We try to let them do this themselves. New Zealand Suffolk rams tup the sheep. Means they should have narrow shoulders and finer heads. Makes them easier to deliver. But some of them need help, my lady. It’s good we keep an eye. We don’t usually have them all lamb at once.”
