Jack shrugged. ‘Just really good friends, I think.’
‘Like us.’
‘Not quite,’ he said and nibbled her ear.
She slapped him away gently. ‘People will see.’
‘Do you care?’
‘No. But none of that when we see Hélène. I don’t want to rub her nose in it.’
‘I’m sure your sister will have long got over any attachment she had to me.’
‘It’s only just over two years, Jack.’
He raised his brows. ‘Come on.’
‘You don’t know Hélène.’
‘Will Élise and her daughter be there?’
‘Yes, by now I think they will be. Hélène said they would be following on after her.’ But Florence wasn’t just worrying about seeing her eldest sister, she was also utterly terrified her mother might die before they reached her. Might even have died already.
‘Okay,’ Jack said, ‘looks like we’re disembarking now.’
Gerry had helpfully arranged a driver to take the three of them and their luggage to the Cotswolds and he had booked them rooms at a hotel in Stanton, all in the few days before they’d departed Malta. He himself was heading for London.
The journey seemed to take forever and as the car swept into Stanton, Florence recalled her previous visit. Each house and cottage constructed of golden ochre stone flanking the quaint high street, some of the buildings grand, others less so. Of course, it was much colder now, and the wind was icy.
‘The entire place looks as if it has been left behind in the past,’ Rosalie said. ‘A bit like Mdina in that way.’
‘That’s what I thought too.’
Florence glanced at her aunt, whose thin, beautiful face was giving nothing away but, just like Claudette when she was feeling anxious, Rosalie’s hands were twisting in her lap.
‘There it is,’ Florence said and burst into tears when she saw a tiny girl with long dark wavy hair standingwaiting patiently behind the gate. Her heart caught and she couldn’t speak. Jack, who was sitting in the front, turned round and squeezed her hand.
‘She looks just like Élise,’ he said.
Even through her tears Florence could not stop smiling. ‘Oh my God, let me out. This is it.’
The car came to a halt and Florence leapt out and raced over to the cottage. With eyes the colour of cognac, the little girl gazed up at her aunt. The lump in Florence’s throat was back.
‘Hello darling,’ she managed to say. ‘I’m your Auntie Florence.’
‘J’ai deux ans,’ the little girl announced.
‘English please, Victoria,’ a voice said, and then her sister Élise ran from the door to the gate, swooped the child up and, with her daughter held in one arm, she hugged Florence with the other.
‘Maman!’ Victoria shouted. ‘No squeeze me!’
‘Sorry, darling,’ Élise said and put her down and her eyes were wet with tears.
Florence felt so moved she was struggling for breath. ‘I … never thought this day would come.’
They gazed at each other without speaking. At first sight Élise looked just the same, except that her long dark hair was shoulder-length now, and she wasn’t wearing her usual wide-legged trousers, jumper, and lace-up boots. The orange dress she wore complemented her eyes, the exact same colour as her daughter’s, and when she smiled they lit up and her face looked softer than it ever had before.
Motherhood suits her, Florence thought and smiled back. ‘But here we are,’ she added. ‘Here we bloody well are.’
