‘I told you to let me deal with this,’ said Gregory upon seeing her.
‘Deal with this? Deal with this? This is not a “this”—it is a her. I mean, it is my aunt.’
‘Oh, Prudence, Prudence... I never meant it,’ her aunt wailed.
‘Didn’t you?’ Her heart was thudding uncomfortably high in her throat. As though she was going to be sick.
Gregory came round the table and to her side. ‘I told you to let me deal with this,’ he repeated, murmuring into her ear. ‘This is likely to be an unpleasant interview.’
‘I don’t understand. Where did you find her? How did you find her?’
‘Liverpool. And I had people search for her.’
Oh, yes, the moment Bispham had mentioned Liverpool, Gregory’s relaxed demeanour had completely disappeared. He had known at that moment exactly who was waiting for him in here.
‘Liverpool? What on earth was she doing there, of all places? And why did you have people searching for her?’
‘I will explain it all later,’ he said, ushering her inexorably towards the door. ‘Go and have some tea and—’
‘No. Absolutely not. I need to know what is going on. What she thought she was doing. How she could have done it.’
‘Prudence, will you just do as you are told?’
‘No. Not this time.’
He gritted his teeth. ‘And here was I, thinking you were becoming more malleable.’
‘Malleable!’ She rounded on him with real anger. ‘I lost my virginity in that summer house—not my mind. The only reason I haven’t objected to you giving me orders since then is because you haven’t asked me to do anything I didn’t want to.’
‘And there was I also thinking I had turned my tigress into a purring kitten with my prowess in bed,’ he said ruefully.
‘Well, you thought wrong.’
‘Clearly,’ he said. And then tipped his head to one side. He nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You may stay.’
May stay? She was just about to protest at his choice of words when she caught a glimmer in his eye. And a twitch to his lips.
He was trying not to laugh.
And then she recalled that he had never minded her standing up to him. Out on the road they’d gone at it like hammer and tongs on more than one occasion and he’d never held it against her. In fact she wouldn’t be a bit surprised to discover that it was one of the things that had made him fall in love with her.
Lifting her chin, she flounced over to another chair and sat down on it.
Her aunt, who had been watching the murmured and yet heated interchange warily, now burst into noisy sobs.
Gregory motioned for Wrothers to leave the room. He did so, looking mightily relieved. It was Gregory himself who went to the sideboard and poured a glass of brandy. And then strode to her aunt and offered her the glass.
‘Oh, Aunt Charity doesn’t drink...’
Her aunt was a Methodist. Though not, apparently, a very consistent one. For she snatched at the glass as though at a lifeline and downed half the contents in one go.
Prudence waited in vain for her to cough and splutter. She simply gave a little shiver, then downed the rest like a seasoned toper.
When Prudence looked to Gregory he gave a wry smile, then made a gesture towards Aunt Charity as though to indicate that the lady was all hers.
She could ask whatever questions she liked. Though all she could think for a moment was, How could you?
‘Perhaps you would like to begin with ascertaining what your aunt was doing in Liverpool?’ Gregory suggested.
‘You know very well what we were doing in Liverpool,’ said Aunt Charity crossly. ‘We were fleeing the country. It was all Mr Murgatroyd’s idea,’ she said, turning the empty glass round and round between stiff fingers. ‘He said it was the only way to escape the gossip. To start a new life in the New World. He made it sound so...’ She shook her head and shut her eyes briefly in what looked like a spasm of pain.
‘He had lost all the money in Prudence’s trust, I take it?’
Aunt Charity’s shoulders slumped. ‘He said he was going to triple it. That we would be so wealthy nobody would think it odd for us to leave Stoketown and set up in a nice, fashionable resort somewhere.’
‘Why should you want to leave Stoketown?’ asked Prudence.
Aunt Charity had been such a committed member of her congregation. So active in all the good works performed in the community.
‘Because I couldn’t ever hold my head up there. Not after Alfred.’
Alfred? Gregory mouthed at Prudence.
‘Her first husband,’ said Prudence. ‘The one who drank.’ She eyed her aunt’s empty glass again, wondering if her aunt had been spotless during that period of her past.