‘And you’re going to dispose of whatever it is you’re clutchin’ for dear life in your right ’and before you come back with ’er, aren’t you?’
‘You don’t miss a trick!’ Emma said.
‘No. And ain’t you glad I’m your friend and not your enemy?’
‘God help me if you were,’ Emma laughed. ‘But you can be my witness as I consign it to the flames.’
Emma scrunched up the letter a bit more for good measure, pulled back the cover on the range and threw it into the fire.
Oh, how good it was to have Ruby back in her life again.
As Emma had thought he would be, Seth was less than keen for her to use the kitchen at Nase Head House to advance her business. So she’d politely, but firmly, informed Mr Smythe, when he’d written to formally invite her to use his premises, that she wouldn’t be taking up his offer.
She’d had to wait until the end of February before her bakery was finished, though. But now, as March crept slowly along, orders had begun to build up again. She even had the Esplanade Hotel contract back.
March storms were whipping up in the bay at regular intervals, which meant that Seth’s boats were often in harbour rocking dangerously on their moorings instead of being at sea, and it had lifted Emma’s confidence that she was bringing in money to the household when Seth couldn’t.
It was so cold that there were fingers of ice on the pavements to catch the unwary and Beattie Drew had slipped and sprained an ankle badly. So now Emma had to do her own housework as well as everything else, although Beattie Drew was able to keep an eye on Fleur when Emma pushed the baby in her perambulator down to Shingle Cottage on the mornings when Seth couldn’t take her in the car because he had to be somewhere else. More time out of Emma’s day, but at least she knew Fleur was being well cared for and it gave her a chance to check on how Beattie was.
In the house, Emma woke every morning to patterns of ferns on the insides of the windows: Jack Frost had passed by and left his calling card, her mama had always said.
‘See, Fleur,’ Emma said. ‘Jack Frost’s been again and painted the windowpane for you. Isn’t that beautiful?’
Fleur blew bubbles and smiled. She grasped Emma’s forefinger with her whole tiny hand. How perfect the nails were, how flawless her skin. Emma ran her fingers through Fleur’s coal-black hair – how straight it was, just like Seth’s, and how soft. Fleur’s hair seemed to be growing faster than the rest of her was and it flopped in front of her eyes, so that Emma had to struggle to keep it tied back with a ribbon. She’d have to cut it soon, although she knew superstition had it that the longer a baby’s hair was kept un-cut, the stronger the baby would be in life. Perhaps she’d leave it for the time being.
Emma’s monthly was a day late and she could hardly breathe for excitement. She’d never been late before. Was she going to have a baby at last? She hoped so. Part one of her plan to have a child with Seth so that their child and Fleur could grow up together, be companions, was working at last, wasn’t it? The plan that wasn’t working, though, was that if she didn’t respond to Matthew’s letters – one arrived most weeks now, delivered by Ruby – he’d stop writing. So far, each had been consigned to the fire in the range without being read, apart from the one that had been crumpled in her hand the day Ruby had disturbed her reading it. And just as she’d let Ruby witness her burning that one, so she’d thrown each letter Ruby now brought to the same fate.
‘Time to get you ready, mademoiselle,’ Emma said. ‘Papa’s taking you to Mrs Drew’s today.’
She bustled about putting a clean nappy on the baby, then dressing her warmly. Ruby had bought Fleur the prettiest coat in a deep green with crimson embroidery on the collar from a jumble sale, and Beattie Drew had knitted a bonnet to match. Dear old Beattie Drew, Emma thought, what would she do without her? Although Beattie wasn’t coughing quite so much now, the walk up the hill to Mulberry House was out of the question with her sprained ankle. Emma was worried that Beattie wasn’t telling her the half of how she felt, or what happened at night when illnesses were often worse than they were during the day.
‘There, don’t you look the ticket?’ Emma kissed Fleur on the nose before placing her back in her cot. ‘Mrs Drew will probably kiss you to death! Oh, here’s Papa now.’
‘Ah, good. All ready, I see.’ Seth sounded impatient.
‘On time,’ Emma said. ‘You did say a quarter past eight and it’s only just that.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Seth said. He bent to pick up Fleur from her cot, grabbing her roughly, making her cry. ‘Ssh, now, there’s a good girl.’
But Fleur wouldn’t be shushed.
‘Seth, what’s wrong?’ Emma said. ‘I know you. You didn’t look at me when you came in and you usually do. And now you’ve made Fleur cry because you’re handling her roughly. She’s picked up on your mood.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Babies don’t pick up on moods. They’re just babies.’
Emma sighed loudly. What did Seth know about babies really? And what did she know, for that matter, but she had noticed that when she laughed, Fleur did, too. And if she was impatient to be getting on with something, then Fleur was always more fractious than usual.
But there was no time to talk about all that now.
‘Where are you going so early?’ Emma said. ‘Is it to do with the boats?’
Seth had picked up Fleur now, but had his back to Emma still. He spun round, startling the baby in his arms.
But it was Emma who had the more startled look in her eyes when Seth said, ‘Better you hear it from me than someone else. Caroline Prentiss hasn’t gone to America. Her pa’s ill and she’s back in town.’
Chapter Seven
‘How dare you?’ Caroline said. She was seated in the passenger seat beside Seth and had her arms wrapped tightly across her chest to keep out the cold.
Seth had a rug stowed in the boot, but he wasn’t going to fetch it for her. Against his better judgement, Seth had acquiesced to Caroline’s request to meet. That her father was ill there was no question – the whole town had heard the news – but the night that Seth had saved Charles Maunder from drowning, Caroline hadn’t bothered to return from Plymouth to be at his bedside, or to support her mother. What a night that had been! Such a storm. Seth had lost some fishing equipment but, mercifully, none of his boats. Others in the town had not been so lucky and had lost their boats, and therefore their living. Jumping into the freezing water in the harbour to save the flailing Charles Maunder had salved Seth’s conscience, a little, about the fact that he had fared better than most. He had a feeling that coming back to see her sick father now wasn’t the only item on Caroline’s agenda.
Seth shrugged but didn’t answer her question.
‘How dare you refuse me! I want my baby back. If you won’t give her to me, then it’s kidnapping.’
‘You dumped her like a sack of potatoes on the table in the bakery, if you remember. You didn’t want her then. And I don’t consider caring for my own child is kidnapping. The last time I saw you, you said you were going to America. What’s put a stop to that?’
‘The person I was going with isn’t ready to join me.’
Changed his mind, now he’s got the worth of you, no doubt, Seth thought.
‘Yet,’ Caroline added, when Seth was slow to respond. ‘He’s been held up. In his business dealings.’
Whatever they might be; a wife to leave possibly, Seth thought. He said, ‘And he’ll be happy to have a ready-made family for this venture?’
Caroline blinked and jerked her head backwards as though surprised at his question. Hah – he was beginning to find holes in her story, wasn’t he?
‘He’d do anything for me,’ Caroline said, recovering quickly, although Seth couldn’t help noticing the flush that flooded the side of her neck as she spoke. ‘We’ll let the courts decide about Rose shall we? Brother of a murderer, son of a man who died in prison, put there for smuggling? If you ask me he should have been hanged, too
.’
‘No one is asking you. Least of all me. But I will tell you I was reliably informed that the authorities had their reasons. At the time.’
Setting a sprat to catch a mackerel, was the reason he’d been given. The authorities had believed, at the time, that his pa had been part of a much bigger smuggling racket and that other parties would get messages to him in gaol and then they’d be caught, too. But that hadn’t happened.
‘A tad suspicious, though, that you managed to keep your nose clean,’ Caroline sniffed. ‘If I may say that?’
Seth wasn’t going to respond to that. He had kept his nose clean and that’s all there was to it. But he did wonder if the evil-by-association tag would ever leave him, and if he’d need to go a long way away before it did. But he refused to let Caroline rile him with her jibe.
‘I’ll remind you, Caroline, that you were happy enough to let that brother, that son, share your bed when it suited you.’
‘Brothers,’ Caroline said. ‘Plural. Didn’t Miles tell you he was seeing me for a while?’
Caroline spoke as though intending to wound, but her words didn’t even scratch the surface of Seth’s feelings, his emotions.
‘I only have your word for it.’
Could he believe anything Caroline said? In all likelihood she’d made it up on the spur of the moment to goad him. But it made him think. He made rapid calculations in his head. Fleur was born on the July 16th the previous year. Count nine months back from that. No, impossible for Miles to have fathered Fleur because he was in custody then. He considered telling Caroline that Miles had escaped from prison, had come round to Mulberry House threatening him and Emma, but decided against it.
‘The only reason you bothered to ask to meet me in Victoria Park,’ he said, ‘was because you wanted all the trappings that came with everything at Hilltop now it’s mine. Or was. As you now know, it’s been sold. It didn’t take you long to meet someone to emigrate with, did it, once you knew I was already married? So I question your motives now in wanting Fleur back.’
‘Fleur? She’s called Rose.’
‘On her birth certificate she is, but I’ve been to a solicitor and had her name changed by deed poll.’
‘You can’t do that!’
‘You’ll find that I can and I have. Go and see Bettesworth if you don’t believe me, although I doubt he’ll trade any confidential information.’
‘Why Fleur?’ Caroline gasped. She looked deflated now, as though all the air had been knocked out of her. As though she realised, now that Seth had made legal moves for the protection of their daughter, she was losing ground in her argument about kidnapping.
‘Because Emma and I choose to call her Fleur.’
‘Huh, that grasping half-French bitch.’
‘Get out! This conversation is over.’
Seth leaned in front of Caroline to open the passenger door, and when his arm accidentally brushed her breasts, he jerked it away as though bitten.
Caroline merely smirked at him. She remained seated even though a gust of wind caught the door and blew it wide open. The wind was blowing at her hat and loosening strands of hair, blowing them across her forehead. But she seemed unaware of it, immobile.
‘This conversation most definitely isn’t over, Seth,’ she hissed. ‘If I can’t have Rose – oh, so sorry, Fleur – then I’ll have her worth. In cash.’
‘You want to sell me my own child?’
‘A thousand pounds should do it.’
Seth gasped at the amount she was asking for. Yes, he had it, but would have to sell some property to realise the funds. And possibly sell a few shares, too. Did he want to do that? If only he’d found a buyer for the fishing fleet then the ready cash wouldn’t be a problem, but he hadn’t.
But, by whatever means he paid off Caroline, could he be certain she wouldn’t spend it all in weeks and come asking for more? No, he couldn’t be certain that she wouldn’t. But what choice did he have?
‘You’re a lower form of life than ever I thought you were,’ Seth said.
And then, unbidden, the thought came into his head that Fleur might have inherited Caroline’s base trait. But if she was being brought up by him and Emma then she’d take on better values by association, wouldn’t she? Seth couldn’t be sure and he shivered.
‘Cold?’ Caroline said, with a grin showing back teeth that were beginning to rot. The sight made Seth want to retch.
He had a feeling that for all her fine ways and her affected airs, Caroline was mixing with people who drank and, more than likely, took drugs too if those teeth and the pallor of her skin was anything to go by.
‘Not particularly,’ Seth said. He was, in fact the opposite – fired up with rage at Caroline’s attitude and scheming.
‘Well, if you are, I can think of something we could do to warm ourselves up. There’s no one to see us here, is there?’
She pointed to the sea in front of them, then to the track they’d driven down to get there. They were at least three miles from the nearest habitation. Seth had made sure of that.
‘And if there were, they’d see nothing,’ Seth said. ‘I’d like to say I regret every single moment I was foolish enough to spend with you, but Fleur is the exception.’
‘Wifey’s bakery back in action yet?’ Caroline said quickly, fluttering her eyelashes.
The hairs on the back of Seth’s neck began to prickle. ‘If I could be certain you started that fire, or instigated it, I—’
‘Ah, but you can’t, can you?’ Caroline shrugged her shoulders, which Seth took to mean she had been involved and that she was pretty sure he’d never get to the bottom of it. ‘I don’t see why that little cow, Emma Le Goff, should get what should by rights be mine. Men are supposed to marry the women they get their evil way with. And it wasn’t as if you had to marry her, was it?’
And he hadn’t married Emma yet. But Caroline Prentiss was never going to know that.
Seth was never going to give Fleur up to Caroline’s custody. God only knew what would become of the child if he did. God forbid, she could even sell Fleur on again. If Caroline could ask him to buy his own child, would she have any reservations about selling the child to someone else? People did, he knew. Childless couples who were desperate for a baby had been known to pay big money for the right child.
‘You’ll get your thousand pounds,’ Seth said, teeth clenched, his words coming out staccato fashion. ‘It might take me a few days to realise the cash, but you’ll get it. I’ll leave it at your parents’ house.’
No way was he going to meet Caroline anywhere, ever again. The sooner she was out of their lives for good the better it would be. Especially for Fleur.
Caroline gave a false laugh. ‘And have them question why you’re bringing money around?’
‘They don’t know about Fleur?’
‘Of course they don’t. And I hope they never will. To tell my pa now after his heart attack, albeit a minor one so the specialist at the hospital said yesterday, might set off another one.’
Caroline was showing concern for her father rather late in the day in Seth’s opinion.
‘I’ll leave the money at Bettesworth’s for you to collect. And I hope your father recovers soon.’
And there were no false words in that. Charles Maunder was a decent enough chap – Seth had never heard bad words spoken against him.
‘He will as long as he doesn’t know about, er, Fleur.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be party to a man having a heart attack.’
‘Very noble of you,’ Caroline said, her voice dripping sarcasm. ‘And I’d rather not have to go to Bettesworth’s. The fewer people who know about this the better. You can post a bank draft to—’
‘No! Cash or nothing.’
Hmm, perhaps Caroline was right. It might also be better for him if Bettesworth knew none of this. But all the same, Seth didn’t want to be traced as having any association with Caroline through a bank draft.
‘Giles, then,’
Caroline said. ‘She’s still loyal to me.’
Seth remembered the housemaid that Caroline had talked over as though she was of no consequence when he’d been calling on her.
‘And Giles lives where?’
Caroline gave Seth the address and he made much of taking a notebook from his inside pocket, and a pencil, and writing it down.
‘Give me a week from today.’ He’d have to arrange a covering bank loan in order to give Caroline her money, but he saw no problem with that because with a dozen properties as collateral the bank manager would be only too pleased to do business.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to get out of this place now. Too parochial. With my looks, and your money, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I find it really easy to get into films. Come to think of it, another couple of hundred pounds would be useful.’
‘That, too,’ Seth said. ‘It will be money well spent. But it’s the last you’ll ever get from me. Understand?’
Caroline giggled. Then she lowered her lashes and made a pout of her mouth at Seth. ‘You feel like murdering me, don’t you? Must be in the blood, what with your brother, Carter, having murdered Sophie Ellison.’
‘You don’t know how much,’ Seth said. He leapt out of the car and yanked on the starting handle with all his might.
Thank God Caroline hadn’t got out of the car to goad him further and the car started first time.
Because otherwise, what might he have been capable of?
‘Sell some of the cottages? Which ones? Not Shingle Cottage? Please say not that one.’
Emma couldn’t quite believe what she’d just heard. Seth had only just told her that he’d met up with Caroline Prentiss three days ago. And he’d waited until now, when they were in bed, to tell her.
At first, when they’d got into bed, they’d cuddled up as they always did, but now they were lying side by side, on their backs. Not touching. Emma didn’t know what she thought or felt about it all. Or about Seth for that matter. Would he ever be free of the woman?
Emma: There's No Turning Back Page 11