‘I didn’t want you to get hurt,’ Cassie said.
Emily shook her head despondently. ‘I messed up badly, didn’t I?’
‘No,’ said Ben firmly, putting an arm around her. ‘You didn’t. You must never ever think that. It was circumstances and the subsequent actions of a sick woman who messed things up. If your father hadn’t been involved in a fatal car accident, this story would have had a very different ending.’
Emily smiled wanly. ‘You always say the right things.’
‘And that’s why we love him to the moon and back, isn’t it?’ said Cassie brightly, desperate to lift the mood. However she hadimagined the confrontation turning out with Rosalyn, she hadn’t foreseen Emily coming under attack the way she had. There had been no sense of victory or triumph in exposing the woman for the fraud and liar that she was, but maybe that was only right because sometimes in life there were simply no winners. Just survivors.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Keith had arrived at The Maples just over an hour ago. The purpose of his visit was to make himself useful to Hilary, and in a very practical way. To that end he’d arranged for a log delivery, something he’d always done before winter set in, and he had duly arrived at the same time.
As plans went, it had been a huge gamble. Hilary could have accused him of being high-handed and sent him away, which she’d had a perfect right to do. He had not behaved well towards her. He hadn’t behaved well towards Diane either, but Diane wasn’t his problem right now. His focus had to be on his wife.
When Hilary had opened the door to him – he hadn’t used his key to let himself in, he didn’t feel he had any business doing that – she had stared back at him with the severest of expressions on her face. She’d then tilted her head to look over his shoulder and had seen the delivery man dropping off the logs on the drive.
‘I didn’t order any logs,’ she’d said. She’d sounded confused rather than affronted.
‘No,’ he’d replied, ‘but I thought it might be a good idea with the weather now turning so cold. If you’ll let me, I’ll barrow them round to the back garden and put them in the log store for you.’
‘Why?’ she’d asked, still looking at him severely.
‘Because that’s where they always go.’
‘I’m not stupid, Keith,’ she’d said stiffly, and folding her arms across her chest. ‘I know where they go, I’m just asking why you would want to go to the trouble of doing that. Or,’ she’d gone on, her voice taking on a more suspicious tone, ‘did Nina put you up to coming here?’
‘I came because I wanted to talk to you. But first, I’ll deal with the logs, if that’s all right with you?’
‘Hmm … ’ she’d said.
Which he’d taken as near to an affirmative answer as he was likely to receive from her.
Now, and with one last pile of logs to stack neatly in place, he removed his jacket. He’d worked up quite a sweat while applying himself to the task and he’d found that he’d enjoyed the physical labour of it. The satisfaction too of making sure everything was placed in neat tidy rows had given him a sense of a job well done.
This was something he hadn’t experienced in a while, he thought, the single-minded focus of committing both mind and body to the simplicity of a strenuous and mundane chore. He pondered if there wasn’t an element ofputting his house in orderas he’d gone about the job.
All the while he’d been working in the garden, catching snatches of birdsong and reliving happier times of family life here, he’d been conscious that from inside the house Hilary might have been watching him. Possibly she was wondering what he wanted to say to her. He wondered much the same thing. How to begin? How to explain even a fraction of the emotions he’d gone through?
The raging anger.
The gut-wrenching pain.
The absolute bewilderment.
The very profound sense of regret.
All of it had combined into a roiling explosive mess and erupted because of going to that awful spiritualist church. It had left himbadly shaken, hollowed out and he doubted Diane would ever forgive him for some of the things he’d said. Having completely lost control of himself that evening, he now possessed a better understanding of what Hilary had experienced when she’d lost control at Tigs and Fabian’s wedding.
‘I thought you might like a mug of tea.’
Surprised at the sound of Hilary’s voice, he stopped what he was doing. ‘Thank you,’ he said, taking the mug from her and hoping it was a peace offering, a sign that she might be prepared to talk to him. Until this moment she’d given no indication that she would.
‘I see you’ve stacked the logs in your customary orderly fashion,’ she observed.
‘Some things never change,’ he said.
‘Perhaps not,’ she murmured, turning to gaze down the length of the garden.
