Seth let Caroline’s words wash over him. The baby – his baby – was smiling at him and he was smitten. He didn’t have the first clue about babies, but wasn’t this baby a bit small for four months old?
‘Four months old, you say?’
‘Give or take a week or two.’
‘Is she well? She’s so tiny.’
‘I’m fine-boned myself, if you remember.’ Caroline took one arm away from holding the baby and ran a hand down over a hip.
‘What’s her name?’ Seth asked, wanting an end to this encounter, and quickly.
Caroline shrugged. ‘I don’t call her anything.’
‘But you’ve registered her birth? You must have.’
‘Of course I did. It’s an offence not to. I asked the registrar what his wife’s name was and he said Rose, so I called her that. It’ll do.’
‘Rose,’ Seth said, reaching out with a finger to touch the baby’s cheek.
‘Very touching,’ Caroline said. ‘I can see you’ll honour your obligations. I don’t want to be a companion forever and it’s getting harder and harder by the day with her to care for, too.’ Once again, Caroline jiggled Rose roughly in her arms – and it was as though she couldn’t bear to say the child’s name. ‘So, once I’ve taken this money back to Plymouth, when are you going to do right by me? You’re a rich man now, Seth, so I’ve heard. Once we’re married, a nanny can do the caring.’
‘Married?’
‘Yes. As in you and me saying vows.’ Caroline smiled then, for the first time, at Seth. She pursed her lips, then poked the tip of her tongue through them. ‘You can’t have forgotten how good we were together?’
No, Seth hadn’t forgotten the physical aspect of his relationship with Caroline, but his heart had never been hers and never would be. And now there was Rose to consider. He could see Caroline didn’t have a scrap of love for her daughter – his daughter, too – but what could he do about it?
‘I’ll support Rose financially for as long as she needs support. But we aren’t going to be exchanging vows, Caroline,’ Seth said. ‘We can’t. Because, you see, I’m already married.’
Not the truth, but Caroline wasn’t to know that. Not ever. All the colour leached from her face and Seth thought she might faint. But then she turned puce with rage. ‘You’ll be sorry,’ she hissed. ‘Just see if you aren’t.’
Chapter Two
‘You haven’t, Seth, have you?’ Emma said. She clapped her hands together in excitement. ‘I know you said you were going to the bank – to get money to pay for this presumably – but I never expected to be sitting in your car!’ Emma tapped the wooden dashboard, then wound down the window and wound it up again.
‘Our car,’ Seth said.
‘Our car and you’ve got me a very swish outlet for my tarts. Are you sure? The Esplanade Hotel?’
Seth had waited until they were in the car before telling her about his visit to the hotel – a doctored version for the moment.
‘Very sure.’
‘The Esplanade Hotel’s all marble floors and gilded this and that. Gosh, it’s grander even than Nase Head House and that was grand enough the last time I was there. Oh, clever, clever you!’
‘Not so clever. I know the owner. He’s always taken crab and lobster straight off our day boats rather than going through the fishmonger, so I simply asked if he was prepared to give your French pastries a try. He was particularly interested in the crab tarts. I was there doing business anyway.’
Only part of which was true and he wondered if guilt over Caroline was making him say too much and too quickly.
He’d had no intention of having anything more than a brandy after paying Caroline off, but the thought that his daughter would grow up not knowing him, or he her, had rocked him more than he’d ever thought possible. He’d always hoped that he would have a daughter one day – but with Emma, not Caroline. He hadn’t been able to avoid giving Caroline his new address and he was dreading a letter arriving from her with details of where he should send money for Rose’s upkeep. If only he’d taken an office to run the fishing fleet instead of doing it from home as his father had always done, then he wouldn’t be running the risk now that Emma might find Caroline’s letters to him.
Caroline had gone puce with rage that he wasn’t going to marry her. ‘You’ll be sorry’, was what she’d said. ‘Just see if you aren’t!’ But her rage had subsided substantially when Seth had opened his wallet and given her the contents – all but a £5 note that he kept so he could buy his brandy. He’d had a hunch that money was all Caroline was after and she’d proved him right with every word, every action.
But what if Emma saw the letter with a Plymouth postmark and asked who it was from?
He’d had a brandy and a beef-and-ale pie to settle the nerves fluttering in the pit of his stomach. He’d been finishing the last mouthful when Henry Clarke had spotted him. A God-given opportunity to have a bona fide reason for being in the hotel presented itself, so he’d mentioned his recent ‘marriage’ and his ‘wife’ and her cooking.
‘So I’m in business!’ Beattie Drew said she hoped things were going to go right for me from now on, and it looks like they are. Two surprises in one day! What with this car and everything. Only the doctor and the solicitor have got cars. And now us! Emma hunkered down into the leather seat. ‘No, make that three surprises,’ she said. ‘You didn’t tell me Hilltop has sold.’
Seth turned sharply to look at Emma and the steering wheel jerked in his hands. He struggled to keep the car on a straight course. What an idiot! He’d completely forgotten to tell her about Hilltop when he’d got in.
‘Who told you?’ His voice was sharper than he’d intended it to be as he concentrated on the road, which was full of potholes, in front of him once more.
But Emma seemed not to notice. ‘Mrs Drew, who else!’ she said, her voice full of happiness. She placed a hand on his on the steering wheel. ‘She came to see what I wanted her to do for us at Mulberry House, now Hilltop’s sold. She said she overheard people from Bath saying they wanted it. And that they are taking over Deller’s Café, which could be a possible outlet for my pastries.’
‘What a little businesswoman you’re turning out to be.’
‘Aren’t I?’ Emma laughed. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I make you a kept man some day.’
‘Now that would get tongues wagging,’ Seth said. The very thought! ‘But Mrs Drew heard right. And I apologise that I forgot to mention it to you.’
‘All forgiven,’ Emma said. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t not tell me important things like that.’
Was this the moment to tell her about Caroline? And Rose?
Emma unfolded the blanket on her lap and pulled it up over her shoulders.
‘You’re not cold, sweetheart?’ Seth asked, as he steered the car to the top of the hill and slowed to a halt, deploying the handbrake. The engine purred like a very noisy cat. The sun was dropping rapidly now and Seth hoped he’d remember how to light the carbide lamps for the journey back.
‘No. Just enjoying the luxury of this blanket.’ Emma shot upright again. ‘And the sunset. I’ve never seen sunsets so close before – all that sky! It’s as if we’re right in it! Look, it’s making your face all pink, like the flush on wild rose petals.’
Rose. Seth felt himself flinch at the word. The name.
‘And you,’ he said softly. He slid an arm around Emma’s shoulders and she leaned into him. He kissed the top of her head and her hair smelt of roses. Roses … he couldn’t get away from the word, could he?
‘Promise me we’ll come and look at sunsets as often as we can,’ Emma said.
‘Promise,’ Seth replied. He placed a hand under her chin and turned her head very gently towards him for a kiss.
Emma was so easy to please – a sunset for goodness’ sake. He couldn’t imagine Caroline Prentiss going into raptures over a sunset. He felt himself getting aroused. He wanted to make love to Emma right there and then.
<
br /> ‘Oh, Seth, my head is full of butter and flour and cream and eggs and quantities. I can’t wait to get started! I don’t know that I’ve ever been as happy as I am at this moment.’
Seth closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. He was going to have to tell Emma about Caroline and baby Rose. But now didn’t seem the moment. Besides, wasn’t telling a lie and simply not saying what ought to be said the same thing?
The contract to supply the Esplanade Hotel with crab tarts kept Emma busy for the next two weeks. Thank goodness the businessman in Seth had meant he’d insisted on converting the stable to a bakery before she opened up for business – the kitchen in the house would have been in a state of permanent mess if she’d had to make the tarts there.
In a rash moment of confidence, Emma had taken Mr Clarke some of her mince pies – made the way her mama had always made them with some flaked almonds on the top and a teaspoonful of cream cheese mixed in with the mincemeat. He’d eaten three, one after the other, and placed an order for three dozen a day although there was almost a month to go until Christmas Day. Winter, so Mr Clarke had told her, was a quiet time in the hotel trade and any chance to make profits had to be grasped with both hands.
Mr Clarke said he’d tell his business associates about Emma’s cooking, and he had. She had three hotels on her books now. She still hadn’t found time to go and ask the new owners of Deller’s Café about supplying them yet, but that could be for the future. She had plenty to occupy her at the moment.
To complete her orders Emma had two large ovens working flat out and a pile of wood under cover outside to keep them going. A table that would easily have seated twelve, if she ever needed it to, stood in the middle of the room and served as a preparation bench and for cooling the tarts.
Seth came in just as she was setting that morning’s first batch of blind-baked tart cases on the table to cool. She’d need to get on because they had to be delivered by two o’clock, ready for afternoon high tea at the hotel. Usually, Beattie Drew’s son, Edward, took them to the station to be put on the train and someone from the hotel would take them off at the other end, but today Seth had promised to take her in the car.
‘Oh, you’re going out. And you’re wearing a black tie. Is it someone’s funeral?’
Seth knew lots of people now that he was running what had been his pa’s fishing fleet. When his pa and his brothers, Carter and Miles, had been found guilty of smuggling and gaoled, two of the bigger boats had been impounded to pay costs but that still left plenty of boats for fishing. It had been a mercy that Seth had played no part in the smuggling operation – purposefully kept from it by his father. And, of course, Matthew Caunter – an undercover Customs Officer – had evidence that Seth was innocent of any wrongdoing. How often there was something to bring Matthew into Emma’s head, if not her heart the way Seth was in her heart.
‘Not yet.’
‘What does that mean?’
Seth often attended funerals where Emma’s presence wasn’t required, but he seemed to be talking in riddles.
‘It means I’ve just had some bad news.’ Seth hung his head.
‘What is it? Who? Not Beattie Drew? She was coughing yesterday when she was brushing down the stairs. I said I’d pay for her to see Dr Shaw. I—’
‘Not Mrs Drew. It’s my pa. He was found dead in his cell this morning. Mr Bettesworth’s secretary has just let me know. The prison governor telephoned Hilltop, but got no answer. I ought to have told them I’ve moved. Given them my new telephone number. So …’
Seth seemed to have run out of words.
‘Oh,’ Emma said. ‘I see.’
Hanged? Stabbed? Natural causes? Emma was impatient to know. The first two could mean even more trouble for Seth and a horrible way to die for anyone. But she knew Seth would tell her in his own time. He was still obviously in shock, poor man. And as far removed in character from his pa and brothers as it was possible for a man to be. When Emma thought about how Seth had stood up for her against his pa, shown her friendship and loyalty when few others did, she got that warm and comforting feeling flood through her. Love. It had, perhaps, been calf love on her part at first, but now it was most definitely love of the grown-up sort. Her heart lifted at the sound of his footfalls in the hall when he came home; at the sound of his voice calling her from another room; at the way he looked at her with so much love.
Emma dusted off her floury hands on her apron and went to Seth, took his hands in hers.
She’d often wished Reuben Jago dead because of all the hurt he’d caused her when he’d made her homeless, coming up with some trumped-up charge that her mama had been behind with the rent, and that he needed his tied cottage for another fisherman seeing as her pa had died, too – lost at sea on one of Reuben Jago’s fishing boats. He’d sold or burned all Emma’s belongings too, the evil, evil … Emma couldn’t find a word in her vocabulary horrible enough to describe him. She’d often thought she’d throw a party to celebrate when Reuben Jago died, but now … well now she could see how upset Seth was.
‘I’m sorry, Seth,’ Emma said. ‘A pa’s a pa. He gave you life, no matter if he wasn’t the best pa in the world.’
‘An understatement, Emma, if ever there was one.’
‘I know. But without him none of this would be yours, would it? He did at least make that possible for you.’
Emma glanced around her bakery. Guessing that he might be caught for smuggling some day, Reuben Jago had made all his property over to Seth as soon as Seth was legally old enough to own property, so that the authorities wouldn’t be able to get their hands on it. And Reuben had been caught along with Seth’s brothers, Carter and Miles. With Carter hanged for the murder of the family maid, Sophie Ellison, it meant that Seth only had one brother left now – Miles. And he was still in prison.
‘Yes, you’re right as always, sweetheart. Good job I kept my nose clean and refused to go to sea. Seems there’s a mercy in suffering from seasickness after all.’ Seth gave a hollow laugh. ‘Some other sense made me refuse to unload when the boats came back that day. There were plenty to testify I didn’t.’
There was a silence between them for a few moments; they both knew who one of those who had testified was – Matthew Caunter. Emma rarely thought about Matthew these days and there he was, popping into her head twice in the space of a few minutes, unbidden.
‘I’m glad,’ Emma said, ending the silence. She squeezed Seth’s hands between her own. ‘I’d never have had you otherwise.’
At least now Reuben wouldn’t be coming out and turning up wanting Seth to give him a home. But Miles? What about him?
As if reading her thoughts, Seth said, ‘Miles doesn’t know yet. Or at least I don’t think he does, unless there’s some sort of underworld grapevine and news has reached him.’
‘But they’ll tell him, won’t they? The authorities I mean. Soon?’
‘No one knows where he is, Emma. Miles absconded a month ago.’
‘Absconded? A month ago? How?’
‘Mr Bettesworth’s secretary was brief, but it seems he was taken to the county hospital. He’d feigned some illness or other. While he was there he managed to evade his guard somehow. The last anyone saw of him he was walking out, arm in arm, with a woman – and even then, the secretary said, they couldn’t be sure it was Miles.’
‘You should have been told all this before,’ Emma said.
‘I should. But the authorities obviously had their reasons as to why I wasn’t. I suspect they expected Miles to turn up here – either at Hilltop or down on the quay. Now I come to think of it, Sergeant Emms has been around rather a lot, just looking and passing the time of day.’
‘Spying,’ Emma said.
Her choice of word made Seth look sharply at her. Matthew Caunter had spied for HM Customs. Emma wished, with all her heart, she hadn’t used that word.
‘That’s the least of my concerns now,’ Seth snapped. ‘I’ve got to go. I have to formally identify the body, make arrangem
ents. That sort of thing.’
‘I don’t suppose there’s a snowball’s chance in hell,’ Emma said on impulse – frightened by the sharp tone of Seth’s voice, ‘that the Reverend Thomson will allow your pa to be buried in the churchyard?’
She was relieved when Seth laughed.
‘You say the most wonderfully irreverent things, sweetheart, and I love you for it. But hell will probably have to freeze over first before the good reverend allows a Jago in his church again,’ Seth said. ‘There’s a place near the prison for burials such as this.’
Seth’s Adam’s apple rose and fell and Emma could see he was close to tears.
‘I’ll come with you.’ Emma let go of Seth’s hands and began to untie her apron strings. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to finish this order first, but then …’
‘No need. You stay here. I’ll be back in time to drive you over to deliver them. The sea is too rough for any of my boats to go out today – even the crabbers. And that’s something we’ll need to talk about. I’m not sure I want to be in fishing any more. Not now.’
‘But what will you do?’
‘Well, Uncle Silas has written yet again asking me to join him in Canada. He—’
‘He runs a fishing fleet, Seth! You’ve just said you’ve had enough of fishing, or words to the same effect!’
‘I know. But I could get a manager in to run things, but be a figurehead perhaps?’
‘You wouldn’t be able to keep your nose out of the office, in case someone was fiddling. Like your pa fiddled things.’
Emma sighed. This was getting dangerously close to a row and Seth didn’t need that.
‘You’re right, I wouldn’t. I could always work for Olly. I don’t know, I haven’t thought it through yet.’
Emma: There's No Turning Back Page 3
