Only then did the deeper recognition arrive. Not the insult, butthe inheritance. She had become what she had tried to escape: her father’s daughter in more than blood. He had forged trust the way she forged silver, playing the benevolent banker while stealing in plain sight. She had done the same – hammering herself into a shape that gleamed convincingly enough to pass.
A forgery, yes. But a pure dead brilliant one.
And suddenly their contempt rang hollow. These custodians of a crumbling grandeur, preening over treasures they had not earned, mistaking inheritance for merit. She had mistaken their approval for something worth wanting. That error, at least, would not survive the day.
Hugo’s voice dropped to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than his shouting. ‘Does Hamish know that your family ruined ours?’
Christina’s spine stiffened, but her vision blurred. The ballroom seemed to tilt – the floor beneath her feet suddenly uneven, the ceiling with its cornicing spinning. For a moment, she couldn’t move. Her body felt rooted and burning, every nerve exposed like silver wire under flame.
Then, somewhere in the distance a door slammed shut, and the crack seemed to shatter something inside her chest. Christina turned, walked. Then fled.
Her heels clicked frantically against the floorboards, then muffled on the Persian runner in the hallway. Past the grandfather clock marking time she’d never have again, past the faded oil paintings of ancestors who would never claim her, past the vases of tulips and tree peonies, plants she would never again tend in the grounds of the Manor, out of the front door where the cold hit her, almost winding her.
She ran until her lungs burned, until the house was behind her and the sea air scoured her throat raw. Only when she slowed, when the noise of the house finally fell away, did she turn her thoughts to Hamish – pacing the worn floorboards of a lecturehall at St Andrews, gesturing with one hand, his notes forgotten on the desk behind him.
Then it came: the taste of salt and truth, and beneath it the metallic tang of fear. Not for herself. For him. For Elspeth.
Finally, she had done what Hamish had urged her to do: stood up for herself, by writing that crafty description of the late lot. And it had exploded in her face. ‘The Great Matter’ was now out in the open. Hamish was about to discover that his wife’s life was a web of lies as elaborate as any silver forgery. And he would never look at her the same way again.
Thirty-four
The lane twisted like a ribbon through hedgerows heavy with cow parsley and hawthorn. Bluebells spilled like ink through the woods on the verge. Christina barely saw them.
She gripped the steering wheel hard, her hands shaking.
She should have told Hamish. Years ago. Over twenty years ago, in their first bright autumn at St Andrews, or at any of the golden points since – when he told her he would always love her, when they sat in front of the fire that first Christmas in the cottage, swearing they’d never keep secrets, when Elspeth was born and he said he was the happiest man in the world.
She should have told him when their marriage was strong, unshakeable. But she hadn’t. And now, just when she thought they had rekindled that closeness, Frank had ripped it apart.
She hit the steering wheel. ‘Idiot.’
Would Hamish believe she’d never touched a penny of the Pemberton fortune knowingly; that her mother waited until after the final exam before telling Christina where her ‘savings’ had come from – a ‘clean account’ her father had painstakingly created? That after university, Christina had donated the balance of that account to charity, £75,000 – money her mother had urged her to spend to establish her jewellery business or buy a flat? That she’d spent her whole married life cringing inside, knowing her father’s fraud had forced Flora to sell land to pay for Hamish to go to university. Would it make any differencethat for the last two years, she had swallowed her principles and started forging silver to repay the debt she inherited from her father? For the same family who treated her with barely concealed disdain, who spoke in clipped tones when addressing her, who made it clear with every raised eyebrow and pursed lip that she would never truly belong in their world – no matter how carefully she had sculpted herself to fit their expectations, trading her natural boldness for timid deference, her sharp tongue for silence.
What cruel symmetry: her father, the thief who stole the Pemberton fortune, had left her no riches – only a razor-sharp mind, once quick with wit and quicker with a comeback. But he also left her the weight of his disgrace, which settled on her like a birthright. Debts that were never hers to pay, she carried as if carved into her spine.
The girl who’d once swaggered, loud and unafraid, had learned to mind her tongue in drawing rooms, to soften her vowels and lower her gaze. As if by shrinking herself – her voice, her fire – she might earn their acceptance.
But they never let her forget. Her blood was common. Her place, borrowed.
And so, while they muttered behind crystal and silver, she spent her nights hunched over forge and flame – not for beauty, but for penance. Her hands, once meant for brilliance, became practiced in the betrayal of forgery. Crafting fake silver to claw back some of the fortune her father had stolen – for the very people who would never forgive her for bearing his name.
Would Hamish understand any of that? She didn’t think he would. Not once he knew she’d hidden the truth for so long. Her eyes stung. Elspeth. What would happen to her daughter? Would the discovery of her grandfather’s criminal past horrify her? Christina thanked her lucky stars Elspeth was staying overnight at Penelope’s tonight. At least her daughter wouldn’thave to witness Christina’s confession to Hamish.
Outside, the hedgerows were bushy, and the sea beyond the cliffs glittered like hammered glass. Gulls wheeled in the high blue sky, their cries sharp as salt on the wind. It was a perfect Spring Day, but it failed to buoy her spirits. She tried to call Hamish. Twice. Straight to voicemail.
‘Of course,’ she huffed. ‘Ofcourseit’s off. That’s Hamish; why let the twenty-first century intrude.’ She imagined him, phone off, wallowing in Tudor politics, completely oblivious to the wreckage waiting for him.
The tyres grumbled over gravel as she pulled up outside the cottage. It looked cold, lonely, and unwelcoming.
What would Hamish do? Leave her? Probably.Wouldn’t she?
The car idled as she sat in the driveway. A face came to her, unbidden – Lady Flora, with her ramrod straight back, gloves on, arranging flowers in the loving cup. She wanted her mother-in-law to hear the truth before it twisted any further. It was her father who had committed the fraud, not Christina; she was guilty only by association. She had only been nine. But she could still apologize for her silence.
She turned the ignition off and sat, trying to convince herself those facts might alter Hamish’s reaction – then huffed. Yes, if she’d told him decades ago. But what Hamish would find impossible to forgive was that she’d kept the truth from him for over twenty years. And when you added in the forging of antique silver, the sentence became obvious – divorce. Their daughter’s greatest fear.
She would tell Flora about the cup’s real value. And that she had done something good. For once. That she’d found it. That she was striving to keep it from Ernest. That the family was still rich. If Flora was lucid, she could verify her signature was faked and decide for herself what to do with the cup – but even if Flora didn’t understand, Christina wanted to tell her, anyway.
She wiped her eyes, squared her shoulders, turned the engine back on, and swung the car around.
