by Liz Eeles
‘Hey, you’re going to miss Gran’s house. Turn left here, into the lane.’
Rosie’s bag shot across the back seat and dropped onto the floor when she screeched around the corner on two wheels.
Nessa, still gripping the sides of her seat, nodded at a small cottage. ‘That’s the one.’
‘It’s very pretty,’ said Rosie, slamming her foot on the brake and juddering to a halt.
‘Outside, it’s all thatched roof and roses round the door. Inside, it’s full of draughts and wall-to-wall spiders, but Lily loves it. Anyway, thanks for the lift, Rosie.’
‘Would you and Lily like a lift home?’
‘Nope. We’re good, thanks.’
Nessa couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. She raced up the garden path as Lily flung open the front door and ran outside. The young girl threw herself at Nessa’s legs and clung on like a limpet until Nessa stooped down to give her a hug.
Seeing them together made Rosie’s eyes prickle and she sat motionless in the car after they’d disappeared into the cottage. Being tied down by family responsibilities was best avoided. That was what she’d told herself for the last decade. Yet here she was getting all upset over a mother and child sharing a hug.
Was it because she’d never hug her own mum again? Or because, although Jake was absent much of the time, at least Lily knew exactly who her mum and dad were? She wouldn’t grow up with secrets that ambushed her when she was least expecting it. Secrets that would retain their power until they were out in the open.
Hardly able to see through her tears, Rosie pulled away and started heading for Dartmoor. It was time to find out the truth about her parents.
CHAPTER 26
‘Clapped-out’ was the only way to describe her mum’s Mini when it was parked next to a gleaming black Mercedes at High Tor House. A tall woman with red hair opened the door and Rosie wasn’t sure whether the look of horror on her face was due to seeing her or the heap of rust in the driveway.
‘My name’s Rosie Merchant. Would it be possible to see Mr Epping please?’
‘I don’t know.’ The woman shifted as though she felt uncomfortable. ‘I’m Caroline, the housekeeper.’
‘Hello, Caroline. Is Mr Epping in?’
‘He’s busy in the garden and I’m afraid that Mrs Epping is out.’
Phew, Rosie was glad about that. She plastered on her best smile. ‘I’m sure Mr Epping wouldn’t mind being interrupted.’
Caroline shook her head. ‘Mrs Epping was most insistent that he have no visitors. Is it important?’
You could say that, Caroline. I want to ask Mr Epping if he might happen to be my father.
Rosie smiled again. ‘I’d like to see him if possible. I’ve driven quite a long way and I’m willing to wait.’
Caroline stared at Rosie who stared right back. It was a good job Cecilia wasn’t at home, thought Rosie, or she’d have set the dogs on her at this point. But Caroline blinked first.
‘I suppose I can ask if he’d like to see you. Follow me, please.’
Rosie followed Caroline through the hall and into the sitting room where she and Charles had first met. Rosie took more notice this time of the portraits hanging on the walls. They were ancestors, she supposed. The great and good in the Epping lineage. Did any of the men in their old-fashioned clothing or the women in their best jewels look like her?
‘Excuse me, Mr Epping,’ shouted Caroline through the open French windows. ‘You have an unexpected visitor.’
Somewhere in the house, an animal was howling. Caroline turned to Rosie. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I was in the middle of feeding the dogs and they won’t wait.’
As she swept from the room, Rosie gazed out at the garden that stretched towards a tor in the distance. Her mum, a keen gardener, would have loved it. Much of the garden was given over to grass but there were tall plants in huge terracotta pots at the edges of the lawn, and near the house was a wide stone patio. On it, clustered in groups, were dozens of pots in colours from scarlet and bronze to the cerulean blue of the Spanish sky. Bright spring flowers overflowed from each of them and Rosie itched to get her fingers into the soil.
She walked closer to the window, past a small writing desk with an inlaid blotter. A half-finished letter, written in thick black strokes, was lying on it, next to a silver Montblanc fountain pen. Pulling out her phone, she scrolled through the pictures until she got to the card left on her mother’s grave and compared the two. The writing did look very similar. She picked up the letter to study it more closely but hastily put it back when Charles came into sight, striding across the lawn. With the sun behind him and the lines on his face in shadow, he looked younger. Thirty years ago, with dark hair, he must have been rather dashing.
Rosie swallowed hard. Maybe she’d been too hasty coming here with secrets and accusations whirling around her brain. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the truth at all. But it was too late to flee.
Charles slipped off his muddy shoes on the patio and stepped into the room.
‘Miss Merchant, what are you doing here? I’m afraid if you’ve come about Driftwood House, it’s too late. My wife has decided – we have decided – to push ahead with the hotel plan. I’m sorry, after you put some effort into improving the house, and I’m sorry because I know the house means a good deal to you. But it’s for the best and you’ll soon forget it when you’re abroad. Our solicitor was about to contact you.’
So Driftwood House was definitely doomed. Rosie had suspected as much, but hearing Charles say it out loud left her feeling cast adrift.
‘Is there anything I can say or do to change your minds?’
‘Nothing.’ He started fiddling with the buttons on the cuff of his pale blue shirt. ‘There are… business reasons why the hotel plan has to go ahead. I’m sorry, and it’s a shame you had to travel here to find out this information.’
Rosie shook her head. ‘I didn’t really come here about Driftwood House. There was something else I was hoping to discuss. When I was sorting through Mum’s things, I came across a letter which was signed by someone with the initial J.’
‘Did you now?’ Unease flickered across Charles’s face.
‘I didn’t know who this mysterious J was but then…’ Rosie took a deep breath. ‘Then, I heard your wife call you Jay while you were at Driftwood House.’
‘My middle name is James.’
‘Yes, she told me.’
‘I see.’ He closed the French windows with a bang before turning back to Rosie. ‘What did this letter say?’
‘It said that Jay loved her and couldn’t wait to be with her.’
Charles stared at Rosie, a muscle twitching beneath his left eye. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You told me that you didn’t know my mother but I think you were…’ She hesitated, unsure about using the word ‘lying’ and accusing him so bluntly of being untruthful. ‘I think you were mistaken.’
‘What would it matter if the letter were from me?’
‘It mattered to my mother at the time and it matters to me now. I found the letter hidden away and want to know the truth. Please.’
Charles walked across the room in his socks and sank heavily onto the sofa. His next words were so quiet, Rosie could hardly hear them. ‘I can’t believe she kept the letter all this time.’
‘So the letter was from you?’
‘I could deny it but there seems little point now your mother’s gone and you’ve turned detective. If I answer your questions, will you keep the information to yourself?’
‘Of course, I have no intention of gossiping about my mum,’ said Rosie, reeling at the revelation that he had lied. What else wasn’t he telling her?
‘Good.’ Charles settled back on the sofa and clasped his hands together in his lap. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Did you love her?’
Charles raised his eyebrows at that. ‘You’re very direct, aren’t you? Just like Sofia. That was one of th
e qualities I admired in her the most – the way she saw the world as a place to be conquered. She wasn’t afraid of anything.’
‘So did you love her?’ demanded Rosie, holding his gaze although her insides had turned to jelly.
‘What is the point in raking all of this up? It’s ancient history.’
‘Not for me. My mum’s not here and I’ve realised there’s so much I never knew about her. I’m asking you to help me fill in some of the blanks.’
Charles rubbed his eyes and stared out of the window for so long, Rosie thought she’d blown it. But then he sighed. ‘Perhaps this is better out in the open, as long as it stays in this room. Yes, I do believe I loved your mother. We had a relationship a long time ago, when she was about your age. You look so like her, it gave me quite a shock the first time I saw you. The years fell away.’ He continued staring into the garden, lost in thought.
‘How did the two of you meet?’
‘Through my younger sister, Evelyn. I was telling the truth when I said that Evelyn and your mother became friends. My sister was the patron of a local charity and your mother was a volunteer. They both had good hearts.’
‘So you began a relationship?’ Rosie raked her hands through her hair. ‘It’s hard for me to take in because you and Mum seem so different.’
‘Don’t people say opposites attract? I always thought that was rubbish until I met Sofia. I’d led a rather sheltered life – nannies, public school, top drawer university – and I’d never met anyone quite like her. She was a free spirit, brave, and full of life, but I don’t need to tell you that. She was dating your father when we met but she broke off the relationship when she and I’ – he hesitated – ‘grew fond of one another.’
‘I didn’t realise she was going out with Dad at the time.’
Charles nodded. ‘We didn’t mean to hurt him.’
‘But you did.’
‘Your mother dealt with the situation as kindly as she could.’
Rosie thought back to how disgusted she’d been with her dad for cheating on her mother twenty years ago. She’d thought there was no excuse, no good reason. But perhaps it was partly payback for what had happened to him a decade earlier.
‘We never expected to become so close because we came from such different backgrounds, and I was almost ten years older and supposed to marry Cecilia.’
‘Did Cecilia know about Sofia?’
‘She did, later.’
‘Poor Cecilia,’ muttered Rosie, wondering if that was when the woman’s softer edges had hardened.
‘Poor Cecilia indeed.’
‘Were you engaged to her at the time?’
‘No, but our families had an understanding.’
‘An understanding?’ spluttered Rosie. ‘We’re talking about the late 1980s, not the 1800s.’
‘My family did things differently. They followed a different code and I was brought up to do the right thing within it.’
‘And falling in love with my mum didn’t fit into their plans.’
‘Certainly not. That’s why we kept our relationship as secret as possible. We met clandestinely and planned our future but it all went wrong when Evelyn died in the car accident. My parents were completely destroyed with grief. We all were, and I couldn’t be selfish and add to the damage.’
‘And you viewed being in a relationship with my mother as damage?’
‘I didn’t, but my family would have.’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘To be brutally honest, your mother was strong enough to cope with the inevitable fall-out but I wasn’t.’
‘Would the inevitable fall-out have included being disinherited? You might have been happy to live at Driftwood House, but only until this place became available to you.’
That was something she hadn’t meant to say and it elicited a sharp intake of breath from Charles.
‘My family affairs are not your business, and you know very well what happened next. I broke off my relationship with your mother.’
‘You broke off your engagement. You’d promised to marry her: “The thought of our wedding day, and spending the rest of my life with you, fills me with joy.” That’s what you said in the letter.’
Charles went pale at that and Rosie was glad. Her mother must have been devastated by her fiancé’s betrayal, and it wasn’t only her mother he’d deceived. ‘When did Cecilia know about my mum?’
‘Not at the time, but I told her later when she needed to understand the agreement regarding Driftwood House.’
‘The house that was my mum’s consolation prize.’
‘It was never that. I cared about your mother and wanted to make sure she always had a roof over her head. I wanted to—’
‘—do the right thing?’ Did that sound sarcastic? Rosie certainly hoped so. No wonder Cecilia was so keen to see Driftwood House reduced to rubble.
‘I wanted to do the right thing, yes. We used to meet on the cliffs and your mother loved that house, so I bought it when it came up for sale. It was going to be a surprise. I imagined the two of us living there, but then Evelyn died and everything changed.’
‘And now you’re taking the house back because Mum is dead and you don’t have to pretend to care any more.’
Charles flinched at that. ‘I’m not proud of my behaviour back then. But I didn’t pretend to care about your mother.’
‘Did you stay in touch?’
‘That wouldn’t have been fair on any of us. Your mother resumed her relationship with your father and married him almost immediately. And Cecilia and I moved to be near her parents in Northumberland after our wedding and only returned to Devon ten years ago when my father died.’
‘When you inherited this amazing house.’
‘That is correct.’ Charles’s mouth drew into a tight line. ‘I think we’ve said all that needs to be said. I truly am sorry about your mother but Cecilia is right that it’s time to draw a line under all of this and proceed with our hotel plan. The link has been broken.’
‘For you, maybe.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean…’ Rosie hesitated. Once the words were out she couldn’t take them back, and she wasn’t sure she wanted this cold man in her life.
‘Meaning what exactly?’ repeated Charles.
A clock chimed in the far reaches of the house, its tone deep and melancholic.
‘I think you might be my father.’
It was said. Silence stretched between Rosie and Charles, sticky as treacle. A sudden gust of wind swirled through the potted plants beyond the French windows, and Rosie thought of Liam. What would he think of her being so closely related to this man?
Charles suddenly jumped to his feet. He shook his head, breathing heavily. ‘Why would you say such a thing? Are you so desperate to save a dilapidated house?’
‘This has nothing to do with Driftwood House,’ said Rosie, blood pounding in her ears.
‘Your father is David Merchant.’ Charles sounded so arrogant, so sure. What had her mother ever seen in this man?
‘Do you know the date of my birthday?’
‘Obviously not. Why would I?’
‘It’s the eighth of June, 1989. That’s seven months after my mum and David were married, and apparently I wasn’t a honeymoon baby.’
Charles blanched, his face as pale as the chalk-white vase behind him. ‘You must have been premature.’
‘That’s what my mum implied. But I’ve spoken recently to the midwife who delivered me and I was full-term.’
‘That can’t be.’
‘And Mum told the midwife that—’
‘What can’t be?’ Cecilia had slipped into the room unnoticed. She stood by the door, tapping her foot on the polished parquet. ‘What the hell is she doing here?’
Charles got to his feet, colour flooding his cheeks. ‘I didn’t realise you’d be back so early, Cecilia.’
‘I said, what the hell is she doing here? I left instructions that you weren’t to be disturbed.’
Cecilia almost spat out the words and Rosie stood up to go. Now that she’d confronted Charles and found out the truth about his relationship with her mother, what was the point in carrying on? She wasn’t going to beg him to admit they were related, or waste her time persuading him she was telling the truth. But Charles spoke, his voice now low and calm.
‘Miss Merchant is claiming that I’m her father.’
‘That’s preposterous! This gold-digging ploy won’t save your home, Miss Merchant.’
‘Gold-digging?’ Rosie stood in front of the fireplace, drawing in shallow breaths. ‘I don’t want your money and if you’re determined to destroy Driftwood House, so be it. I thought your husband might want to know that he might have a daughter, but I was wrong.’
‘Charles?’ barked Cecilia. But Charles said nothing. He was looking at Rosie as though he’d seen a ghost. He sank back slowly onto the sofa, his hand on his chest. Oh God, he’d have a heart attack if this continued. Pushing past Cecilia, Rosie hurried through the hall to the front door.
‘Your ploy will come to nothing,’ shouted Cecilia after her. ‘There will be no DNA tests, no more meetings, and no rumours about parentage or you’ll be hearing from our solicitor. Fly back to where you came from and leave us all in peace.’
Rosie fumbled opening the door, almost fell through it and rushed to the Mini, her feet crunching on the gravel. Dark clouds had blotted out the sun and drops of rain were splattering on her dusty car. What had she done? Sharp stones pinged against the Mercedes as she slammed the Mini into reverse, did the worst three-point turn of her life and zoomed between the stone pillars that marked the entrance to High Tor House.
The long track back to the road was pitted with potholes but she didn’t slow down. The car bounced and scraped while she put distance between herself and Charles. The man had broken her mother’s heart in a cavalier fashion so what had she been expecting – a touching reunion?
‘Stupid! Stupid!’ she spat out, hitting the steering wheel and trying to see the road through her tears. She’d lost her mother and Driftwood House, and the man she felt more certain than ever was her father was cold and heartless. She would never see him or have anything to do with him again. Cecilia was right. It was time for her to go back to Spain because, even though Matt had betrayed her too, there were no more secrets or lies waiting for her there.
