Sins

‘You want to marry me?’ she asked him as soon as she could speak. ‘Why?’

‘Thought it would be a good thing, what with the little one coming and…well, everything,’ Dougie told her determinedly. He might not have the expertise that Tod Newton and his ilk possessed when it came to women but Dougie knew Emerald better than to tell her that he loved her.

Emerald moved uncertainly in her chair whilst she tried to order her thoughts.

Dougie was proposing marriage to her because he thought it would be a good thing. She would be the new Duchess of Lenchester, Lenchester House and Osterby would be hers, she would have security, social position, wealth and a husband whose praises her mother never stopped singing. Something unsought and desperately fragile, so fragile that it made her hold her own breath, had started to unfurl inside her, something sweet and warm that made her want somehow to be that Emerald she had always refused to be. Fear and anger ignited inside her, uniting against their shared enemy. Emerald let out her breath and welcomed her return to normality.

‘Me, marry you?’ She arched one beautifully curved eyebrow.

Dougie winced at the contempt in her voice.

‘Certainly not.’

Marriage to anyone right now was the last thing she wanted. And as for marriage to the drover–unthinkable and impossible, of course.

From the library window, Emerald watched as Dougie crossed the square, drawing the attention of an elegantly clad young woman he passed. Emerald started to frown. Dougie was good-looking, she admitted grudgingly–good-looking and tall and broad-shouldered, and titled and rich…The kind of man a woman could rely on, come what may.

Her frown deepened. She wasn’t actually regretting turning him down, was she?

He had known that Emerald would turn him down, Dougie tried to comfort himself as he made his way back towards Lenchester House. He was due at Osterby tomorrow morning for the Boxing Day meet and he should already have left. He had been a fool to go round to see Emerald just because Amber had happened to mention, when he had telephoned to wish them all a Happy Christmas, that Emerald had opted to remain in London. But a fool could dream, couldn’t he?

Jay and the girls had gone for a walk but Amber hadn’t wanted to go with them. She was worrying about Rose, who hadn’t answered the telephone when she had rung her this morning to wish her a Happy Christmas. It didn’t seem like a proper Christmas without her here. Ella had told her not to worry and had said that Rose would either be sleeping in because of all the work she had been doing, or alternatively might have gone to church.

She was concerned about Emerald’s absence as well, but for different reasons. Amber looked out across Denham’s frost-whitened gardens and the parkland beyond. She couldn’t help thinking of another Christmas that had been shadowed, as this one was, by the conception of an unplanned child. Pain and guilt tightened round her heart.

Soon a new life would be born to the family, the first child of a new generation, her own first grandchild, and no matter what the circumstances of its birth the child itself would be welcome and loved. A grandchild. Hope uncurled inside her, pushing through the darkness of her guilt and despair just as, beneath the frost-hardened ground, already the spears of spring’s bulbs would be uncurling themselves ready to push through their darkness and into the light.

Hope, surely one of the strongest and most enduring of all human emotions.

Chapter Thirty-Three

January 1958

Ivor called Rose into the office one morning, a week into the new year, and gave her her notice, saying that he didn’t feel she was properly committed to her work. Haltingly Rose tried to explain about Mr Russell, the shock and fear she had experienced, although she did not, of course, tell him about Josh rescuing her and what had followed.

On Christmas Day, when they had eventually got up, Josh had fed her on smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels and hot strong coffee, before walking her home to the Chelsea house late in the evening.

She had felt self-conscious at first, self-conscious and uncomfortable in the light of the intimacy they had shared, but Josh had soon put her at her ease, reminding her that he was her best and closest friend, and that anything that happened between them was natural and understandable and did not need to be dwelled upon with anything other than gratitude that he had been there for her. And now at least, she told herself wryly, she had a standard against which to measure all other men’s kisses, because when it came to kissing, even without any experience to help her, she knew instinctively that Josh’s kisses were very good.

Her employer, though, was in no mood to listen to her account of the attack in the Russells’ flat. In fact, he was so angry with her, denouncing everything she tried to say in her defence, that Rose knew that Mr Russell had already put his side of the story to Ivor.

‘There’s no room here for someone who disobeys orders and upsets clients,’ Ivor told her.

‘You mean you want me to leave?’ Rose was desperately hoping she might have misunderstood.

‘Yes, I want you to leave,’ he agreed, ‘and the sooner the better, before you cause any more trouble.’

It wasn’t even lunchtime so there was no point in her going back to the Cheyne Walk house. Neither Ella nor Janey would be there. And besides, the person she wanted to tell first was Josh. Josh would understand.

Rose knew the minute she saw the small crowd at various stages of having their hair done, standing outside the salon on the street along with Josh’s stylists and juniors, that something was wrong.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ she asked Irene, the receptionist, catching hold of her sleeve as the other girl stood on the pavement staring up at the windows of the salon.

‘I don’t know.’ Irene looked frightened and upset. ‘These men arrived–big and heavy and really nasty-looking, if you know what I mean–and they told us that we all had to leave. Francis said that he wasn’t going anywhere because he was in charge since Josh wasn’t there ’cos he’d gone to the bank, and one of them just picked up a chair and smashed it down over one of the basins and told Francis that the next time it would be his head.’

Irene was crying now, and Rose could understand why. At least Josh was safe.

‘Has anyone called the police yet?’ she asked Irene.