Despite her faults, there were times Cat could sympathise with Aunt Em’s situation. Cantankerous she might be but Cat understood how she must feel, isolated and very much alone after losing Jenna, who, for over the thirty odd years she and Gerren had run Tarwin House, had become like a sister to her. Small wonder she had reached out to the first hand of friendship offered to her.
Although she had never mentioned anything while away in France, Cat knew Em would love to spend a holiday with her brother and sister-in-law, now that all the building work was finished and the hotel was up and running. She’d already made up her mind to ask her father to put in a word for her, but after this current and still unknown misdemeanour, which seemed to have eclipsed all the other wrongdoings Em had been responsible for, she thought it wise to drop the idea for the time being. Ruan, she knew, had the patience of a saint and made a lot of allowances for his sometimes difficult old aunt. Her latestcrime, however, had seen his tolerance evaporate and Em lose the last of her nine lives.
‘So what exactly has she done this time?’ she asked.
Taking Cat by the hand, Nathan pulled her down to sit beside him on the couch. ‘It happened this morning, a couple of hours before you arrived,’ he said. ‘Dad walked in here and found the Gossip Girls. Em was responsible, of course, and ghastly Rosalind … well … he discovered her in his bedroom holding one of Mum’s photos in her hand.’
‘Oh, Nathan.’ Cat’s hand went to her mouth as she realised the seriousness of this latest offence. ‘What did he do?’
‘I kicked them all out,’ came the sound of an unexpected voice as Ruan returned, closing the lounge doors and joining them.
‘And where is Em now?’
‘She’s moved back into Caer Gwyn,’ Ruan said irritably, ‘and she is no longer allowed to set foot in the hotel. Her meals will be sent down to the house. She will still have the use of Harry for any shopping trips or excursions but I will not have her here, not after that woman…’ He broke off biting his lower lip. ‘She was in my room, for God’s sake, pawing over photos of your mother.’
Cat saw the anger that sparked in her father’s dark eyes. Cassie Trevelyan had died from a massive haemorrhage after giving birth to her third child, a girl who survived only twenty-four hours and had been christened Tegan. Twenty years on it appeared no one had been able to replace the woman he still referred to as his one true soulmate. ‘I have my work and my family,’ he’d told them both on many occasions, ‘and it would have to be a pretty special woman for me to want her permanently in my life.’
Reminders of raven-haired Cassie were everywhere. From the portrait over the fireplace to silver-framed photos both in the lounge and Ruan’s bedroom. To find Rosalind Myers thereholding onto such a precious possession must have sent him into the mother of all meltdowns.
‘It was bound to happen,’ Nathan said grimly. ‘Since Em joined that wretched coven of old gossips they’ve been dying to get up here for a nose around. It would have been better if she’d gone to live in Provence with the grandparents,’ he added, referring to the fact that since they had departed for the South of France, Ruan had been left with Gerren’s legacy: coping with one extremely difficult and bloody-minded elderly woman.
‘Your grandfather had years of it,’ Ruan argued. ‘They did offer but I didn’t feel it was fair. They deserved some peace in their lives. And what I’ve done today? It’s not a knee-jerk reaction; it should have happened long ago. Caer Gwyn is, after all, her home and she was happy there until your grandparents left. I made the mistake of welcoming her here, thinking she wouldn’t miss them so much if she was surrounded by family. Well now she’ll have time to reflect on her actions and realise what befriending such a hideous group of women has cost her.’
‘I doubt she’ll do that,’ Cat replied. ‘Since Jenna left they are all she has in the way of friends and company. And a bad choice for Em is better than no choice at all.’
‘Well it’s up to her.’ Ruan shrugged, clearly in no mood for sympathy. ‘I have a business to run. If I hadn’t caught them today, who knows what might have happened next? Letting themselves into guests’ rooms to snoop? Believe me, they have no sense of right or wrong. Anything goes for them and I won’t have it. Not in my hotel.’
So, Cat thought, there it is. Aunt Em has been sent back to Caer Gwyn to reflect on her wrongdoing. The tall white building, circular in design, had been left to Em when her parents died and Gerren inherited Tarwin House. Perched on a small promontory half a mile from the hotel and reached by a narrow, raised, single track road, high above the incoming tide, it wasa folly; the finishing touch to Jago Menhenick’s house building aspirations. But unlike other follies, this was a proper house with rooms and a sweeping staircase leading up to a glass walled lounge where you could see for miles up and down the coast. Triple glazing had long replaced the original aging glass, which had a tendency to ripple unnervingly in a strong south-westerly wind. A lift had also been installed to avoid having to climb the many steps to the top floor. But the important things had remained, like the beautiful multicoloured stained-glass panels set into each door. Cat remembered it as a wonderfully quirkyAlice in Wonderlandstyle house full of light and secret places, which she had loved to visit as a child. Now Em was there in splendid isolation, just like theLady of Shalott. Not that she could expect Sir Lancelot to come riding by any time; more like Harry in the Bentley to pick her up for shopping.
‘Will she ever be allowed to return here, Dad?’ she asked, her thoughts turning serious.
‘At this moment I’m not sure, to tell you the truth.’ Ruan rubbed a hand over his jaw; his expression spoke of anger and betrayal. His own flesh and blood had allowed three awful women to roam at will, picking up personal family items and examining them and no doubt opening cupboards and drawers. ‘I mean, what the hell was she thinking of bringing them up here? And not just to look but to subject me to …’ he hesitated, taking a deep breath before he continued ‘… that awful bloody woman made some totally insensitive comments about Cassie. I felt like punching her.’
The woman he referred to, Cat realised, could only be Rosalind and whatever had been said was obviously too personal and upsetting for him to share. Worse than her comments though, whatever she had seen here would no doubt be spoken of in great detail as she gleefully communicated her news to anyone in the village prepared to listen.
‘Oh, Dad.’ Seeing him so miserable, Cat immediately jumped to her feet and joined him on the other couch. Looping her arm in his she gave him an affectionate squeeze. Nathan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring quietly at the floor. They both hated to see him so upset by what had happened. Cat wanted to strangle Rosalind Myers and no doubt Nathan, too, had a few ideas about the punishment he’d like to inflict on this dreadful woman and her detestable little posse.
‘I’m fine, honestly,’ Ruan assured them, ‘although I could murder a drink.’
‘It’s almost one,’ Cat said, checking her watch and wanting to get them all out of this room and the gloomy atmosphere they all seemed caught up in. ‘How about I freshen up and we all meet in the dining room for lunch in ten minutes?’
‘Good idea.’ Ruan’s smile returned as he leaned forward and kissed her forehead before letting her go.
As Cat headed along the corridor to her room to change, she decided once their meal was over she would head across the causeway to Caer Gwyn. She needed to have a serious talk with Emelia Trevelyan.
Chapter Two
Cat arrived just after two thirty, determined to make Em see how foolish she had been and alert her to the wedge she had driven between Ruan and herself. But her great-aunt was having none of it.
‘I can’t understand why you invited them up there in the first place,’ she scolded, ‘you must have known what would happen.’
‘I invited them for coffee. No harm in that, is there?’ Em, only five feet two but nevertheless a bit of a tiger when roused, snapped back.
‘Em, the top floor is our private family home.’
‘Andmyhome too,’ she reminded Cat as she brushed a stray tendril of her short grey bob back from her face with one neatly-polished finger.
‘Of course it is, but it’s not a place for strangers.’
