Christina felt the blood drain from her face. The wad of money pressed cold and heavy against her side, like Judas’s silver weighing down her conscience.
‘Five thousand pounds?’ Ivy’s voice carried a note of uncertainty. ‘That’s rather more than we’d hoped to spend, but if it’s truly appropriate for liturgical use ...’
I cannot let Ivy buy this salver.The thought screamed through Christina’s mind as she watched Malcolm’s predatory smile widen. Ivy – sweet, trusting Ivy who’d shown her nothing but kindness – was about to spend her congregation’s money on a lie Christina had crafted with her own hands.
This isn’t right.All those justifications she’d fed herself over the last two years – helping Ernest save the estate, preserving history, only targeting wealthy collectors who could afford the loss – proved as thin as silver plate.This wasn’t Robin Hood. Ivy wasn’t some faceless millionaire. She was a retired vicar.
Say something. Stop this.But the familiar paralysis crept up on her, constricting her throat. Not fear, but the drilled-in restraint she’d taught herself to survive among her aristocratic in-laws. That suffocating, self-imposed composure which always rose when she should speak up, should push back, should be the version of herself she’d slowly let slip away. Her hands trembled as she gripped her bag.
Coward,she thought viciously.You’re nothing but a coward.
‘Perhaps,’ Christina interrupted desperately, ‘you should some take time to consider? Why not take the details, and a few pictures and present it as an idea to the next church council meeting?’
Ivy looked surprised. ‘Oh, I have full authority to make purchases up to £5000. The church council was quite clear about that.’
Malcolm practically rubbed his hands together. ‘Excellent! I can have it cleaned and blessed if you’d like – I know a wonderful chaplain who specializes in ...’
‘Actually,’ Christina said, her voice gaining strength from sheer panic, ‘I think Malcolm is mistaken. I distinctly heard the otherbuyer ask for this piece to be reserved for the week.’ She glared at Malcolm, then grabbed Ivy by the arm. ‘Let’s see if we can find something in another shop.’
She was already moving toward the door, her hands shaking as she fumbled for the handle. The brass was cold against her palm, solid in a world that suddenly felt like quicksand.
‘Of course, dear,’ Ivy said, though she looked puzzled. ‘Are you quite alright? You look rather pale.’
Christina forced a smile that felt like donning a court mask. ‘Just tired. Not sleeping well.’
She escaped into the February afternoon, holding the door wide, and willing Ivy to follow her. The exhaust-tainted air felt clean after the suffocating atmosphere of complicity she’d left behind. But as she hurried down the street, tugging Ivy along behind her, one terrible truth hammered in her chest with every heartbeat: there was no noble cause here, no Robin Hood righteousness – just plain, sordid fraud. What was she going to do about it?
Three
The small cottage was lit amber by the fire, a steady crackle of burning oak filling the silence. At the stove, Christina stirred the pasta sauce with more force than necessary, her jaw tight. Out beyond the gingham curtains which she’d stitched by hand, the February evening settled, the hush fragmented by the occasional hoot of an owl or bark of a fox.
Over the last eleven years, Christina had transformed these tiny quarters into something approaching bohemian charm, though space remained her greatest enemy.
The open-plan kitchen melted seamlessly into the dining area, where a table that had once graced her husband’s family manor house now bore the scars of countless meals and midnight manuscript sessions. She’d rescued it from the attic along with most of their furniture – a mismatched collection of Georgian chairs, a walnut bureau with a temperamental drawer and an enormous oak dresser that dominated one wall despite being utterly impractical for the space.
The inglenook fireplace, original to the seventeenth-century cottage, anchored the room with its blackened stones and iron grate. Copper pans hung from the beam above it, their burnished surfaces catching and throwing back the flames. Bunches of dried lavender and rosemary, suspended from hand-forged hooks, scented the air with summer memories even in winter’s grip – and catching sight of them, Christina smiled,knowing it wouldn’t be long now. February in Devon meant the daffodils were stirring, and soon her winter labours would begin to bear fruit as the cottage garden became a riot of colour and scent.
Books colonised every available surface in tottering, precarious towers – just as they had since she had moved in with Hamish to their first home in London. His academic magpie trait had followed them to Devon once he took up a post in the history department at Exeter University, and Christina had long since surrendered to the invasion. Cookery books supported medieval histories, and Christina’s collection of her mother-in-law’s discarded gardening magazines buried volumes on Tudor architecture. They spilled from the bureau’s shelves, formed stepping stones across the room, and created literary fortresses around the threadbare Persian rug she’d positioned to cover the new section of wood she had nailed down to replace a broken piece of timber.
The plink of rain echoed through the room; Christina dashed from the stove to check the bucket hidden behind the bay window curtain. Another bucket stood guard in the upstairs hallway, catching the slow leak from the roof. Christina sighed and returned to her stirring. The cottage, part of the family estate, came rent-free – though at a price: no complaints. She glanced around the cluttered space and wished, that her mother-in-law would finally give the go-ahead to put Chase Lodge on the market so they could move out of this little cottage. The house had once been a hunting lodge; the clue was in the name – chase meant hunt. Not only would they have more space there, but Hamish would love it – it was a proper house, with history. Of course, living there would be a compromise for Christina, since the lodge was set in woodland near the coast, where roses would never thrive, nor peonies, sweet peas, or hollyhocks. Yet she told herself it would be worth the sacrifice to jolt Hamish out of theintrospection that had left him distant, unreachable.
Chase Lodge, she vowed, would be a fresh start. She’d stop the silver forgeries, end her careful rewritings of the past for other people’s gain. It was never meant to go on this long. What began as helping Ernest keep the Pembertons afloat – doing what family did – had slowly curdled into something else, a way to make amends. Guilt had a way of dressing itself as duty. Each piece she crafted was a quiet apology, shaped with steady hands.
Above her, the floorboards creaked – Elspeth practicing her drama exercises again. At least tonight their daughter was home, not boarding, which meant they could maintain the pretence of family life for a few hours. The sauce bubbled, filling the cramped space with a herb infused warmth that should have felt comforting but only emphasised her dilemma – after today’s encounter with Ivy in Malcolm’s shop she couldn’t escape the fact that her forgeries didn’t just fool the rich; what should she do? The problem plagued her like a physical ache. Confront Ernest? That thought sent a stab of panic through her.
What about confiding in Hamish? She shook her head. Maybe in the early days, yes, but eversince their bitter row, two years ago, when words were hurled like broken glass – too sharp, too jagged to ever gather back in – silence had become their uneasy truce. They lived alongside each other like tarnished silver left unpolished, the blackness spreading between them day by day. How could she explain that she’d been forging for his stepfather when Hamish believed his wife ran a legitimate restoration business?
As if summoned by her thoughts, Hamish appeared, hair dishevelled, clutching a leather-bound journal. At forty-three, Hamish looked older. He carried himself with an unconscious stoop, as if his tall frame was permanently folded into academic contemplation. Grey threaded his dark hair prematurely, the result of late nights spent deciphering medieval manuscripts,and his tweed jacket – elbow patches meticulously sewn on by Christina – hung with the comfortable shabbiness of a man who dressed for libraries rather than dinner parties. Yet, beneath a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, his eyes still held the gleam of someone who found genuine excitement in his work. Christina couldn’t help the little squeeze of love her heart produced, when he mumbled something about monastery inventories, while bumping into the low doorframe – again. This was a man who could recite Tudor dining customs ad infinitum but couldn’t remember to duck in his own kitchen.
When she had first met him – more than twenty years ago, in a library at St Andrew’s university – he had been hunched over an ancient tome, muttering to a fellow student about Henry VII’’s household accounts, his hair already going in six directions. She’d leaned over his shoulder, bold as brass, and corrected his reading of a particularly faded inventory.
‘That’s nae “silver platters”,’ she’d said, tapping the page with a scarlet red fingernail. ‘It’s “silver patens”– communion plates. Look at the context.’
He had looked round, startled, then broke into a grin that was half amusement, half challenge. ‘Well then,’ he said, in the sort of deep, rolling voice that conveyed privilege without trying, ‘you’ll have to stay and supervise.’ He stood and pulled out a chair for her, then gave a mock bow, gesturing at the seat as if presenting a throne. ‘Hamish Pemberton, at your service.’
She felt her stomach dip. A Pemberton. She masked the jolt with a smile, brushing a strand of hair from her face. ‘Well, Mr. Pemberton,’ she said lightly, refusing to betray her horror, ‘pleased tae meet ye. I’m Tina.’
The memory stung now. She’d been so proud of her expertise then, so certain of her integrity.Communion plates.Like the one Ivy wanted to replace, the one Malcolm had tried to sell her. The circle of corruption felt suffocating.
