‘Of course he was,’ said Annabelle, her own tears falling, laying her hand to Iris’s face. ‘You always made him the happiest. It was your effortless gift to him.’
‘He made me happy,’ said Iris, crying more. ‘Always.’
‘He’ll do it again,’ said Annabelle, her stare full of grief, but faith too.Hope.‘He’ll find you again. You’ll find each other. I believe it. And until then, you’ll have your child.’
It was as Iris was leaving that Annabelle insisted she take her wedding band.
‘Robbie’s father was different when he gave this to me,’ she said, pressing it into Iris’s hand. ‘I received it in love, please take it with mine.’ Her swollen eyes glinted. ‘This world is far too judgemental a place. Don’t let it judge you. Not more than it already has.’
‘I won’t,’ said Iris, more tears breaking from her. ‘Thank you.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘Go back to Doverley, I suppose. Face Ambrose’s music.’
It was what she intended to do.
But Lord Heaton was in the home’s entrance hall when she got to it. She recognised him easily – he hadn’t changed, other than that he was wearing his silly show colonel’suniform in place of faded tweeds – and, feeling no inclination whatsoever to speak to him, she walked past him.
‘Get out of there this instant,’ he’d yelled at her, the last time he’d spoken to her. ‘My god, is that you, Iris Winterton?’
‘Is that you, Iris?’ he said again now, pulling her to a halt.
And perhaps on another day, in another set of circumstances, she’d have been surprised that he still knew her.
‘You’re the image of your mama,’ he proclaimed, which might have surprised her too: that he remembered her mother.
But she had no capacity for surprise.
Nor could she muster the energy to care when Heaton told her that he’d just been visiting his sister.
‘What’s brought you here?’ he asked.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, since what would it mean to him?
‘You’re a WAAF at Doverley, I believe?’ he said.
That did take her aback.
‘How do you know that?’ she asked.
‘Gosh, I’m not sure.’ Was he blustering? ‘I must have heard it from someone.’
She frowned, and was about to ask him who he’d heard it from.
Then she realised she didn’t care.
‘I say,’ he said, peering at the tear stains on her cheeks. ‘Are you quite well?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘And I must get back.’
‘Let me take you?’ he offered. ‘I have a driver. He’s bringing the car around now.’
‘It’s fine, honestly.’
‘Please, my dear. I’d … like … to help you. You really don’t look well.’
She was about to protest again.
