His words drifted, toxic and heavy. Amy turned sharply. Hugo went still. Ernest, for the first time, seemed lost for words.
‘All high and mighty, aren’t you, the great silver expert?’ snarled Frank.‘You’re real confident for someone standing on a landmine,’ Frank growled. ‘You keep flappin’ your gums, but you’re gonna wish you’d shut it, real soon.’
‘Frank,’ Ernest hissed.
Frank’s voice cracked like a whip; his anger came out in a thick native tongue. ‘Naw. Get tae – I’m no puttin’ up wi’ this shite.’
It must have been the strong Scottish accent that did it. Suddenly Christina was back in her final year at St Andrews, a few days after she’d sat her last exam. Red sandstone cloisters. That high, cold Scottish light. A shopkeeper with a Glaswegian accent had just sold her two bacon rolls. Outside the shop, Hamish was standing awkwardly, holding out a lopsided bouquet of roses and a picnic basket containing a bottle of Champagne.
‘It’s gallant,’ she had said, proffering her soggy bacon rolls in return, ‘but I can’t reciprocate. It’s taken my mum’s savings simply to keep me here.’
He grinned. ‘Well, it’s not like my lot have any left. Our family fortune vanished over ten years ago – we invested in a dodgy bank which collapsed. Wexley & Co. Ever heard of it?’
She had. Her throat tightened.
‘Some bloke stole the lot,’ Hamish said. ‘Robert Miller, he was called. Ruined us. Ma managed to sell some land to pay for me to come here.’ His mouth turned down, and she thought she sawhis eyes grow damp for a moment. He sighed. ‘But there isn’t enough to save the family estate long term. The beautiful house I grew up in gobbles cash just to keep standing. Who knows how much longer we have left there before it collapses around our ears.’
She touched his arm, said how sorry she was. Pretended. Said nothing.
Didn’t say:Robert Miller was my father.
Didn’t say:My mum’s “savings” were from a hidden account the police never traced. She told me after I sat my last exam.
Because the moment she’d seen his face fall, she knew that if she told him, their budding romance would’ve ended right there.
She blinked away the memory, and stared at Frank’s red face, begging him silently not to say any more.
‘Frank,’ Ernest said, warningly.
But Frank would not be silenced. ‘Go on,Tina. Why don’t you tell the room?’ His smile was pitiless. ‘Tell them your nice university education was paid for wi’ stolen cash. Pemberton cash.’
Frank turned to Hugo and Amy. ‘This lass is Tina Miller. Daughter of oneRobert Miller. Wexley & Co. Rings a bell, aye? Her dad wasn’t just a fraudster – he wasthefraudster. Bob Miller. Families ruined.People losteverything. I was a junior cop on the case, and it was bad. I’ve always reckoned he had a man killed, just to try and keep the whole thing under wraps.’
Silence; like a guillotine’s blade falling.
Hugo was the first to speak. ‘You used our money to pay for your education ... forcing Ma to sell land, the first Pemberton to do that in 700 years ...to pay for Hamish’s!’
The blood drained from Christina’s face. She opened her mouth, but no words came. She wished she’d told Hamish. But it was too late. It wasalltoo late.
Ernest turned to Frank, venom in his voice. ‘You idiot.’
Amy cleared her throat with faux innocence ‘So, what you’re saying is ... she’s the daughter of that Miller? Robert Miller? Well, well.’ She gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘I always knew you were grubby, but this is impressive even for you.’
Around them, auctioneers finished their preparations. Red lot stickers bloomed like wounds on furniture that had witnessed generations of secrets.
Hugo sniffed. ‘You do realise your father virtually bankrupted us? Our way of life gone. All of it.’ His voice rose. ‘And now you’re swanning in with your expert opinions and your fake bloody modesty, like butter wouldn’t melt. Now I understand why you always know the value of things.’
Christina took a shaky breath. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘You never once belonged,’ Amy interrupted, her smile thin and venomous. ‘You didn’t even play the part convincingly. A grifter’s child in silk, thinking pearls and manners could buy you class. But class isn’t something you steal, you know. It’s bred.’
Christina absorbed the words without flinching. The room fell into a dense, expectant quiet, heavy with the satisfaction of a truth finally spoken aloud. No one contradicted Amy. No one needed to. This was the family’s judgment, and it had been waiting for her all along.
She let it settle. Not because it wounded her, but because it clarified what she had always known and refused to name. Proximity was not belonging. Civility was not acceptance. The rules she had learned so carefully were never meant to admit her – only to measure how convincingly she could imitate them.
Fine.
If this was the limit of what they could offer – blood and breeding passed off as virtue – then she was finished asking to be let in. The verdict was theirs. What she made of it would not be.
