Page 147 of The Cottage at Brambleton Hall

‘He did.’

‘That’s outrageous.’ Chloe shook her head. ‘Jimmy wasn’t there with your permission, was he? Jimmy was my guest.’ Sammy ran her thumb along the stem of her glass. ‘You can’t fire someone for being kind,’ Chloe went on.

Sammy looked beyond the low wall where the sea rippled, the colour of wet slate under the evening light. A wave broke harder than the rest, white against the darker line. ‘It’s not just that,’ she said.

‘Then what is it?’

Sammy didn’t answer. Chloe wouldn’t understand.

‘You’ve been working flat out for them,’ Chloe said. ‘Anyone with a bit of sense would see that.’ She reached for her drink, took a long swallow, then leaned in again. ‘Try explaining it properly. You didn’t ask Jimmy to stay – you didn’t even know he was there. Any reasonable person would understand that.’

Reasonable. Magnus looking at that photograph of his mentor Mr Wetherby – she suspected Mr Wetherby never did ‘reasonable’.

‘Why are you even dealing with him?’ Chloe added. ‘There must be someone above the butler – a board. Or HR. You don’t just accept it.’

Sammy shook her head. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

‘Everything works like that if you push it.’

The wind gusted, stronger this time, rattling the glasses against the table. Chloe reached out to steady hers. ‘Honestly,’ she said, softer now, ‘that place was never you. You were bending yourself to fit it. You didn’t used to be this . . . wound up.’ Chloe’s face was open, certain.

They’d done this before – different problems, different evenings, but always the same slow untangling until things seemed manageable again. Twenty-five years of it.

‘Come back to Swansea for a bit,’ Chloe said. ‘We’ll figure it out like we always do. Something else will turn up.’

The words settled easily. Sammy felt the pull of it – the little room waiting in Swansea, the jobs she could probably pick up without much effort, perform without much effort. She turned her glass in her hand, watching the wine slosh against the sides.

‘I know you liked working in the big house,’ Chloe said. ‘But liking something doesn’t mean it’s right for you.’

‘It wasn’t simply something I liked,’ she said. Sammy’s gaze drifted back to the sea.

Further along the terrace, a couple had drawn their chairs close to the low wall, a plate of chips between them.

It would be easy to listen to Chloe. Retreat.

Sammy sensed Chloe watching, waiting for her to land there.

Sammy took a slug of her wine. It had warmed in the glass. ‘I need to think,’ she said.

‘Don’t overthink it,’ Chloe said. ‘That’s when you get stuck.’

Sammy’s mouth curved, not quite a smile.

They sat like that for a while, the two of them, the years between them – shared flats, shared secrets, shared nights that blurred into mornings.

Chloe reached across, squeezed Sammy’s hand. ‘You don’t need all that nonsense up at the big house,’ she said. ‘You’ve got me.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, because it was easier.

But it wasn’t enough. It never had been.

Valerie spotted him as he came out of the village hall, trailing behind a group of other men, hands buried deep in his pockets. ‘Jimmy!’

He pretended not to hear.

In three strides, she caught up with him and grabbed his sleeve. ‘Don’t you walk away from me.’

He pulled free. ‘I’ve got nothing to say. I’m going for a pint. We always go after skittles.’