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CHAPTER 20
This is not a good idea, insisted Rosie’s inner voice as she pushed open the door to the café. But she ignored it, as she usually did, sat at a table next to the window with her laptop and logged on to the free Wi-Fi. The signal in here was far more reliable than at Driftwood House, and better for snooping on the Eppings.
The past was often best left in the past. Her mother had obviously thought so. Why else would she have guarded her secrets so zealously? But then she went and died and her secrets were now floating to the surface, like flotsam on the beach after a storm. And Rosie was feeling rather storm-battered.
Grief felt flat. It had settled on her like a suffocating blanket, draining her energy and dulling her thoughts. But this latest shock was different. It fizzed and made her fingers tingle. She’d hardly slept last night and, when she did at last fall into an exhausted slumber, her dreams were full of her mother embracing Charles Epping in a cliff-top hotel while Belinda took notes.
Rosie looked through the window, past the striped bunting, at the shops and whitewashed cottages lining the cobbled High Street. Front doors opened directly onto the street, with doorsteps worn down by centuries of footsteps, and the blue sea sparkled nearby. Villagers had enjoyed the same view for hundreds of years. Everything in Heaven’s Cove was solid and permanent. But her own history, her roots, were shaky and unclear.
‘Can I get you something?’ Pauline, owner of the Heavenly Tea Shop for donkey’s years, was standing by the table. She was wearing a pretty floral apron and smelled of vanilla and coffee beans. ‘It’s good to see you in here. How are you doing after what happened to your mother? Such a terrible tragedy.’
Pauline had a foghorn voice and a couple of tourists on the next table gave Rosie a sympathetic smile.
‘I’m OK, thanks, Pauline.’
‘What’s happening at Driftwood House?’
‘I’m not sure yet.’
‘Those Eppings are a nightmare.’ Pauline glanced nervously over her shoulder and dropped her voice to a loud whisper. ‘None of us around here can stand them. They’re absolutely loaded but I bet they won’t contribute to the village hall fund at all. They don’t give a monkey’s about Heaven’s Cove.’ She straightened up and took a small spiral notebook from her pocket. ‘Anyway, enough about those two. What can I get you?’
‘I’ll have a coffee please, an espresso.’
‘Nothing else? I’ve got carrot cake and eclairs and home-baked scones. You could have a lovely cream tea. Your mum always enjoyed one of those.’
‘I’m not very hungry at the moment so just a coffee, please.’
Pauline snapped her notebook shut. ‘Coming up.’
Rosie went back to her laptop and typed in a search forCharles Epping, Dartmoor.Dozens of entries scrolled up on the screen, including a link to Wikipedia. She clicked and started reading.
Charles Epping is a businessman and landowner. His ancestor George Epping was knighted by King Henry VII for providing support during The Wars of the Roses and granted several hundreds of acres of land in the county of Devon.
His family was given the land. They didn’t even have to work for it. Rosie frowned and continued reading the brief entry. There was an Epping family tree which stretched back to William the Conqueror.
High Tor House had its own section, which told her that it was built in the late fifteenth century and had been extended during the centuries that followed. It was reputedly haunted by the ghost of a white lady who walked the building. Rosie shivered, remembering the chill she’d felt in the hallway when she first went inside.
She scrolled to the end of the entry for personal information. Charles and Cecilia were married in London on 5 May 1989, a month before she was born. There was no mention of Charles Epping having any children, and a separate Google search brought up nothing relevant. What was Rosie expecting? An entry about his missing love child?
‘Here you go.’ Pauline placed a steaming coffee on the table and a plate next to it. ‘I know you said you weren’t hungry but you’re looking a bit peaky so this is on the house. With you living in Spain and all, I chose the most exotic European item we have on the menu.’
She nodded at the golden pain au chocolat on the plate and Rosie’s stomach growled when its sweet smell hit her nose. She hadn’t been able to face breakfast after such a disturbed night but she was hungrier than she’d thought.
‘Thanks, Pauline. That’s really kind of you.’
‘You’re most welcome. Are you still trying to persuade the Eppings not to knock down Driftwood House?’
Rosie nonchalantly nudged her laptop screen out of Pauline’s line of sight. ‘Kind of. I’ve spruced up the house in the hope that he’ll change his mind about the hotel.’
‘Hmm. He doesn’t come across as the kind of man who changes his mind, and his wife’s a piece of work by all accounts. They don’t let anything stand in their way – what the Eppings want, the Eppings get.’ Pauline sniffed. ‘But good luck with it.’
Pauline really wasn’t a fan. No one in Heaven’s Cove seemed to be, so what would they think of her if it turned out that she and Charles Epping were so closely related? Rosie shook her head. It was a crazy idea. There was no way that her mum would have taken up with such a cold fish.
When Pauline went off to serve a young woman who’d just come in with her baby, Rosie went back to her screen. She nibbled at the soft pastry and scrolled through more information about Charles Epping’s life, pausing when she got to his sister.
Evelyn Amelia Epping, Charles’s younger sister, died at the age of 27 in August 1988 after being involved in a traffic collision near Bayeux in Normandy. She was engaged to Viscount Pelham at the time and due to marry before the end of the year. Before her death, she was patron of a number of charities in Devon.
What a terrible tragedy for Charles and his whole family. It showed that however rich and grand your family might be, death still cast its shadow. Rosie felt a sudden stab of sympathy for cold, austere Charles Epping in his haunted house on the wild moors.
