The duchess leaned back into the chair and let out a soft laugh. “And is that what the newspapers say about you? Oh, the mother is always at fault. So is the wife, really. Women are supposed tocontrolmen, isn’t that how it goes? What’s that saying again: ‘Behind every great man is a great woman’. We’re supposed to be the ones holding them up, or holding them back. Forget having our own lives. Forget our own careers and loves and losses. We’re the matriarchs.” She narrowed her eyes and clenched her hands as she said the word ‘matriarchs’. Her body slumped forward, suddenly appearing exhausted. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think James ever touched your boy. He hasn’t been particularly active for the last decade, riddled with gout and in remission from bowel cancer. My husband has not been a well man. If he ever has abused children—and I’m not certain that he has—then I would say it happened long ago. Long before your boy went missing.” She had crumpled into herself, leaning over like a wizened old crone. The woman had aged a decade just speaking to me.
“Thank you for your time.” I stood and collected my bag. For a brief moment I hesitated, searching for some words of comfort. I grasped at nothing.
The duchess did not watch as I turned around and left her crumpled up on the antique armchair in the middle of that vast, stately house.
* * *
Since meeting the duchess,there have been times when I see the shape of her body wilted forwards on that armchair in my dreams. She haunted me. After the investigation settled down, the Duchess of Hardwick would die less than three years after I met her on that mild October day. I attended her funeral, accompanied by Aiden. It was a quiet affair with a surprisingly small number of attendees. They talked about her strength as a mother and a wife, and how efficiently she had run the day-to-day workings of Wetherington House.
Her children decided to sell the house, and the last I heard, it was to be converted into a museum, with many of the antiques auctioned off at Wetherby’s.
Her husband outlived her.
* * *
I’d leftAiden with Rob and his parents for longer than I’d intended to, though I didn’t rush back. I needed time to contemplate Maeve Graham-Lennox’s words. I pitied her and what she had been through. Families like hers weren’t designed to deal with such gritty issues. For them this wasscandal,and it meant their high reputation ended up dragged through shit. Their reputation was everything. Would people still pay to enter Wetherington House? Perhaps they would, but there would be an air of morbid curiosity. ‘This, ladies and gentleman, is the computer where the duke stashed his kiddie porn.’ The more I thought about it, the more I realised that weareall monsters. Yes. Us. We’re monsters. We enjoy reading about these stories. We’re the voyeurs of human suffering.
As soon as I pulled into the drive at home, I had the tickling feeling in my gut that I get when something feels wrong. The front door was open, for a start. I parked the car, unclipped my seatbelt and hurried out of the car. I was almost knocked over by a blonde woman half-dragging a boy of about ten, who was crying and holding a bandaged hand. Rob hurried out after her.
“I’m so sorry about what happened,” he said. He had to jog to keep up with the woman, and had his hands out in placation.
It was only after I’d had a moment to take in the chaos that I realised I recognised the woman as Siobhan Michaels. Her son, Billy, attended the Bishoptown Primary School, and she happened to work as a manager for Sonya and Peter’s holiday cottage business.
“I hate to say it, Rob, but the papers are right. He’s a menace.”
“Who’s a menace?” I snapped, moving into the turmoil.
Siobhan stepped around me. “I’m sorry, Emma. I think what has happened to Aiden is awful, but I don’t think he’s safe to be around children.”
“Well, not right now, no,” I said. “He’s still healing after what happened to him. Rob, what the hell have you done?”
Rob’s face was pale and sweaty. He was grimacing and his jaw was clenched. I noticed his eyes flitting around the yard, as if searching for reporters. “It wasn’t my idea. I got ambushed, all right?”
As Siobhan climbed into her car with the crying child, I grabbed Rob by the arm and forced him to look at me. “What did your parents do?”
“I think they were trying to help. They thought if Aiden had someone to play with, it might help his… development.”
“What happened?” I asked, my stomach already sinking down to my knees.
“He stabbed the kid in the hand with the scissors.”
I let go of Rob’s arm and staggered back. “Fuck.”
“Billy kept playing with the remote control for the television. He’d keep snatching the thing out of Aiden’s hand. I told him to stop it, but it seems Siobhan has spoilt that little shit rotten, because he wouldn’t listen to me. The next thing I know, the kid is pulling on Aiden’s hair. So Aiden picked up these scissors from the coffee table and stabs him in the hand. They were kids’ scissors so they didn’t do much. Just broke the skin a little.” He rolled his eyes. “You’d think the kid had been shot from his reaction.”
“Jesus, Rob. How could you think this would be a good idea?”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Just get your parents and get out,” I snapped.
“What?”
“I’m serious. You’ve done a shit job, here. It’s time for you to go.” I turned my back on him and stormed into the house.
ChapterThirty-Three
After that incident, I wasn’t sure if Sonya was malicious or just an idiot. Somewhere in that thick-skulled head of hers she’d thought that inviting Siobhan over tomyhouse would kill two birds with one stone. For one thing, it set up Rob with a woman who wasn’t me. For another thing, it introduced Aiden to another kid, which I genuinely believe she thought was going to go down well and get her some brownie points as the perfect caregiver. Sonya’s endgame was Rob and Aiden under one roof, with me free to be with my ‘other family’. I was sure of it.
