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Cecilia, still tear-stained but more in control, had slipped back into the room. She held out an envelope to her husband. ‘This arrived before we were married and I opened it. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. That seemed too hard-hearted, even for me.’ She gave Rosie a straight stare. ‘But I hid it from you.’
Charles’s hands were shaking as he pulled a single sheet of paper from the envelope and, after reading the words on it, he buried his head in his hands.
‘What? What does it say?’ Rosie snatched up the letter and read aloud.
‘Jay – I’m contacting you to make you aware that I’m pregnant with your child. I don’t expect anything from you. I certainly don’t expect you to disappoint your family and leave Cecilia. David still loves me and, even though he knows about the baby, he wants to marry me – he’s a decent man who will give me and my child the stability we need. You and I didn’t part on good terms but you deserve the chance to be a part of your child’s life. If you want to know your child, reply to this note. If not, David will become the child’s father and he or she will never hear about you from me. Sofia.’
Rosie ran her fingers across her mother’s handwriting. The rain had ceased and the wind had dropped. Everywhere was silent. Charles stood up slowly, as though it took every ounce of strength he possessed, and, without a word, walked from the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Cecilia watched him go before taking the letter from Rosie and placing it back in its envelope.
‘My husband can no longer bear to be in the same room as me. And I imagine that you hate me, as much as he now does.’ She stared through the window at the grey, wet world outside. ‘You’ll have plenty to tell the inhabitants of Heaven’s Cove when you get back.Cecilia Epping was so terrified of losing the fiancé she loved, she did something quite dreadful.’
Rosie couldn’t speak. She was smothered in secrets that had wrapped their corrosive tendrils around people’s hearts and changed lives forever. What would have happened, thirty years ago, if Charles had seen that letter? Her heart ached for her mother, waiting for a message from the father of her child that never came.
Cecilia turned on the lamp on the writing desk, flooding the room with an amber glow.
‘Driftwood House has haunted me since Charles and I were married. Every day I thought of you growing up there, without a father.’
‘I had a father,’ murmured Rosie, suddenly feeling fiercely protective of the man who had helped to raise her.
‘Of course. I meant without your biological father.’ Cecilia paused. ‘I thought reducing the house to rubble would finally lay our ghosts to rest and discourage you from ever coming back to Heaven’s Cove. But instead it brought you to our door.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘How ironic.’
‘I don’t know how you’ve lived with such a huge secret for all of these years,’ said Rosie, shaking her head.
Cecilia laced her fingers together as though she was praying. ‘When we found out there would be no babies, I thought it was punishment, divine retribution, for keeping you from my husband. But I was too embroiled in the whole situation and he’d missed too much by then for me to show him the letter and confess what I’d done.’
Her sigh sounded more like a sob and, in spite of everything, Rosie felt a stab of sympathy for this woman who’d trapped herself in a web of lies.
‘Being unable to have your own child was coincidence, not punishment.’
‘Are you sure?’ Cecilia rubbed her eyes like a tired toddler. ‘Do you know, I was frightened of you when you first turned up at our door? I was scared you’d blow my secret sky high and turn my husband against me. Iwashis second choice. It’s stupid to think otherwise, but we’ve grown together over the years and I didn’t want that to end.’
‘I’m sure it won’t. He’ll understand when he’s had the time to take it all in. It’s not easy.’
‘Not for him and not for you.’ Cecilia closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath. Then she looked at Rosie and gave a sad smile. ‘There’s a kindness in you that’s hidden deeper in Charles.’
‘I’m not always kind, and I think what you did was dreadful. But I don’t hate you, whatever you think, and I won’t be telling anyone in Heaven’s Cove.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘Because I don’t want my mother’s memory tainted with gossip, and nothing would be gained from telling people. It wouldn’t change what’s happened and, whatever you think, I’m not looking for money or vengeance. That’s not the sort of person I am.’
‘Then your mother brought you up well.’
‘She did, and my dad too.’
‘David sounds like a thoroughly decent man.’
Rosie swallowed. ‘He was, far more decent than I ever realised.’
Cecilia walked to the fireplace and stood beneath Evelyn’s portrait. ‘So what happens next? Will you go back to Spain?’
‘I’m not sure. My life has been there for the last few years but…’ Rosie shrugged.
‘Life doesn’t always work out the way you expect.’
Cecilia traced her hand across the Epping family crest carved into the stone fireplace, her fingers coming to rest on the rose at its centre. ‘Should you decide to remain in Heaven’s Cove, I’m sure you can continue living at Driftwood House now we plan to build our hotel on the outskirts of the village instead.’
