A careful study of the kitchen reassured them that nobody had been in the house for a long time. Thick layers of dust and cobwebs covered every surface and were enough to reassure Peter that they could continue through the house and check each room.
Jemima stood outside her old bedroom, and a wave of familiarity made her long for the simpler times of her youth. She slowly pushed open the door, gasping at the sight that greeted her. The familiar pictures she had spent most of her nights staring at still hung on the walls. The huge window seat overlooking the rear gardens was still stuffed with cushions, hand-sewn by Eliza. The bed remained neatly made; the curtains were open to allow the bright sunshine outside to highlight the dust motes hanging in the air.
The achingly familiar scent of the room brought forth so many memories of her childhood that she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. She used to sit in the window seat, staring out at the stars and dreaming of the man she was going to marry. In her youthful ignorance, she had no idea at the time that life would have so many surprises in store for her, and that her life would not be as simple as in her youthful imagination. The silly young girl who had believed in the goodness of man, and a ‘happy ever after’, was a different person to the one she had become.
She was unaware of the tears trickling slowly down her face until Peter stood beside her, his hand resting lightly upon her shoulder. She leaned back against him for a moment, taking comfort in his reassurance.
In her youthful imagination she had known that her knight in shining armour would be tall, with dark brown hair and glorious blue eyes that twinkled with humour as he charmed everyone around him, she just hadn’t realised he actually existed.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jemima murmured, swiping tears off her face. “There are far too many memories here for me to deal with right now.”
She didn’t wait to see if he was following, and crossed the upper hallway and entered her parents’ room, which drew her to an abrupt halt. The deep breath she took reminded her so much of her parents that she nearly cried aloud. She felt a pang of longing so deep, she couldn’t withhold the sob that lurched into her throat and clutched her hands to her cheeks as memories flooded her. She had thought she was strong; that she could cope with anything that would be thrown at her, given what she had experienced in Derby. But she was wrong. She wished she could talk to them just one last time, and was starkly aware that she couldn’t. Her parents were gone.
“Jemima?” Peter whispered, trying to draw her into his arms, only for her to pull away.
“I’m all right,” she replied briskly. “Let’s get this over with.”
With her jaw clenched in determination, she stalked over to the fireplace in her parents’ bedroom, knelt down on the right side of the hearth and began to wriggle the third brick down.
Peter watched in amazement as the brick slid outward to reveal an inner chamber that was about a foot wide and six inches deep. Jemima reached in and withdrew a large stack of papers. Even from the doorway Peter could see the dust on them and knew without a doubt that they had been undisturbed since the day Jemima’s father had placed them there.
Once she had emptied the chamber, Jemima carefully replaced the brick and rose to her feet, holding out the thick sheaf for Peter to put into the small bag he had tucked under his voluminous cloak.
“Let’s go,” Jemima whispered. “If we have any chance of persuading Harriett to leave with us, we need to go now.”
She didn’t wait for him to follow and carefully skirted around him, heading toward the back door as though the hounds of hell were at her heels. She suddenly needed to get out of there and into fresh air and freedom.
Revisiting her past was all well and good, but there was little she could do now. She couldn’t even reclaim what was rightfully hers until Scraggan had been arrested and put behind bars.
A surge of anger swept through her as she considered the number of things that needed to be done to the place to make it habitable. Her thoughts immediately turned to Eliza. Once Eliza was married to Edward, she would undoubtedly be living in the luxurious splendour of his large mansion, and would not want to visit Padstow. Living in the house that had once been her home wasn’t going to be an option.
That left her asking herself if she could face living there either. She wasn’t sure. She hoped her future lay with the man now standing beside her but, if she had learned anything over the past several months, it was that life had a nasty way of throwing surprises at you when you least expected them.
If he was her husband, would Peter want to keep the house? Did she want to keep it? She wasn’t sure.
She stepped out into the early dawn sunlight and sucked in a huge breath of crisp morning air, glad to be away from the dust. The salty tang of sea air assaulted her nostrils, bringing a strange feeling of abandonment. She paused and stared over the tangle of weeds that had once been their neatly tended garden, and felt as though she had lost her anchor and didn’t know what she was going to do to keep herself afloat.
“Come on, it is already getting late,” Peter whispered, placing a hand beneath her elbow in an attempt to capture her attention. He hated to see the lost look in her eyes.
Clearly, returning home had disturbed her more than either of them had expected.
Jemima nodded jerkily and swallowed tears. She was going to compose herself, and get through the next few hours if it was the last thing she did. She could not afford to give in now, not when they had come so far.
“Wait,” Peter whispered, wrapping one long arm around her waist and drawing her closer to the solid protection of the house.
Jemima froze and glanced over her shoulder in time to catch Peter place a finger against his lips and tug his ear. She did as she was told and listened, but could hear nothing other than the rhythmic slapping of the sea on the small beach nearby, and the loud cries of the gulls as they swooped and glided along the coastline.
She was about to turn around when she heard what sounded like a soft footstep in the undergrowth. The sound was accompanied by the cracking of twigs, confirming that there was indeed someone creeping around nearby.
Peter instinctively moved to push Jemima between himself and the wall of the house, studying the dense foliage carefully. After several moments of silence, he released his hold on her cloak and began to creep toward the corner of the house, dragging her behind him. Once there he paused, listening intently. His instincts warned him that he was being watched, and it filled him with urgency to get out of the area and to Harriett Ponsonby’s before they were challenged.
Grabbing Jemima’s hand, he ran across the open lawn and into the cover of the hedgerow, one hand on the pistol resting on his hip. Once there, he scoured the area around them, but couldn’t see anyone. Now the sun had risen, it was easier to see into the dense thicket. But that also made them easier to see.
“Don’t stop,” he ordered, pushing Jemima toward a gap in the hedge. “Just lead the way to Harriett’s house and I’ll follow you.”
Jemima didn’t waste any time questioning him, and ran down the length of hedgerow. She stumbled once or twice on the uneven surface but managed to prevent herself from falling flat on her face, with Peter’s help.
She couldn’t remember Harriett’s house being so far away, and was intensely grateful when she saw the familiar single-storey stone fisherman’s cottage on the brow of the hill. Knowing Peter was at her back, a