by Gloria Cook
Selina was running, running with a struggling, shrieking Lottie, back up towards Ford House. She’d take the captured child into the woods. She hadn’t got the boy but the girl was her main target.
Dolly had always been a strong, fit woman and she drew on all her reserves to chase Selina, shouting all the way. She got just in front of Selina and reached out to get Lottie back. Selina whirled sideways and avoided her, then backtracked, this time heading towards the ford.
Lottie kept fighting. She clawed and scratched Selina’s neck, then managed to rake her nails across her eye. Selina howled but did not stop. The water was running fast and was two feet deep above the road. Selina halted. The ford had a bridge at the side, tight against the tall hedge, but with the child beating on her it would be a precarious passage and Lottie might manage to get a grip on the foliage. So she began to splash through the muddy water.
Dolly went after her, screaming in the furious need to save her grandchild. She flung herself off her feet at Selina. She hit Selina in the middle of her back and sent her hurtling frontwards. Selina and Lottie hit the water with a heavy splash. The momentum took Dolly after them and she fell on Selina’s waist. Selina still had a grip around Lottie, and while trying to beat Dolly off her she pushed Lottie’s head in under the water.
‘No! No!’ Dolly screamed in terror. ‘Don’t you dare hurt her. I won’t let you!’ She couldn’t do anything from where she was, so she got up and climbed over Selina and faced her. Selina was pressing down on Lottie with all her might.
Dolly bent forward and swung her fist up high. With a howl of rage she brought her fist forward and smashed it across Selina’s jaw. Selina’s head swung to a right angle. But she went on trying to put an end to Lottie’s life. Next, Dolly kicked out. Her boot got Selina’s cheekbone and this time she was stunned almost senseless. As her hands let go of Lottie, Dolly’s were reaching to save her.
She brought Lottie’s head up out of the water, and crying in fear she wiped the wet and dirt off her little face. ‘Lottie! Lottie. Speak to Granny.’
Lottie had clamped her mouth shut and had not swallowed any water. She was desperate for breath and gasped some in. Then she was crying and scrabbling to get out of the water to her grandmother.
Dolly hauled her out and gathered her into her chest. Shaking, drenched from the rain, muddy and crying, Alan crossed over the bridge and went to Dolly.
‘No, no!’ she cried. ‘Alan, run up to the farm. Get Mr Rowse. Get Mr Jonny. Get anyone!’ It took another few seconds to break through Alan’s fright and need for comfort before he staggered away.
Dolly looked down on Selina, stirring now, crawling on her hands and knees to get out of the ford, coming in her direction. ‘I won’t let you hurt my family!’ Dolly shouted. Lottie was cradled against her, sobbing, her eyes tight shut. When Selina got close, raising her dripping head, a maniacal expression of deadly intention glaring from her once beautiful eyes, Dolly lifted a foot and brought it down fiercely on her head. Selina was knocked senseless. Her face was under the water.
Dolly rested her foot on the woman’s head and kept it there long enough so she could never raise it again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
There was a gathering of Harveys and Rowses. The only one there not related by blood or marriage was Perry. He felt everyone’s eyes on him. ‘I’m glad she’s dead. My sister was evil. I’m sorry I didn’t get her away earlier, that Lottie was nearly… don’t worry, I won’t have her buried anywhere near here. How’s Lottie now?’
Emilia had just come down from Lottie’s bedroom. ‘She’s badly scratched and a bit shaky. Tom’s reading her a story. I’ll go back up to her in a minute.’
‘I can’t say how relieved I am that Selina’s dead,’ Ben said vehemently. He had told Emilia and Tristan his belief that Selina had intended to reveal the secret to Jonny about Louisa being his half-sister. ‘There’s no big black cloud hanging over us now.’
‘I’m sorry about your troubles, Ben,’ Perry said, eyeing the other man uncertainly.
‘I don’t need sympathy from you,’ Ben replied, dismissive and hostile.
‘If you’re going to take that tone with Perry then you won’t be welcome under my roof, Ben,’ Emilia said, unarguably.
Ben got up from his chair in the sitting room. ‘Your roof? That should never be. I don’t intend to ever darken your door again. As for Brooke, she’s welcome to stay in America for good but I won’t let her keep my children from me. I’ll find them. I won’t be back to Hennaford until I’m able to bring my children with me.’
‘Ben.’ Tristan was grim. ‘Be very careful or you’ll end up a lonely old man.’
Ben shot an angry glare at Emilia before turning on Tristan. ‘Congratulate yourself on being the only truly happily married brother. Goodbye.’ He left.
Jonny shook his head, appalled at his uncle’s behaviour.
Emilia found Ben instantly forgettable. ‘Mother, are you all right? You took quite a few bruises. I’m so proud of you, and like Elena and Jim, so grateful for what you did.’
Dolly pictured Selina’s head floating lifelessly on top of the water of the ford. ‘I only did what any other good woman would have done to protect her young.’
‘You mustn’t blame yourself for being unable to get Miss Bosweld out in time to prevent her from drowning, Mrs Rowse,’ Winifred said.
‘No, indeed,’ Perry added. It was justice, his sister dying like Libby had.
‘I don’t,’ Dolly said. ‘Like I’ve said, I only did my best.’
Emilia was looking at Perry. He needn’t go back to London now, at least not straight away. She’d talk to him alone tomorrow. From now on he’d be wonderfully unencumbered, free at last to grieve properly for Libby and think of the future. With her. She would have it no other way. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll slip back up to Lottie.’
‘Why don’t you go up with her, Perry?’ Dolly smiled kindly at him. ‘The maid would be delighted to see you. Eh, Edwin?’
‘Yes, dear. She would,’ Edwin agreed.
‘You don’t mind, Mother, Father?’ Emilia was surprised and delighted. ‘That Perry and I…?’
‘We did at first,’ Edwin said. ‘But after all that’s happened today, well, nothing’s to be gained by us climbing on a high horse. And at the back of it, well, I believe Alec would only want you to be happy.’
Emilia glanced at Tristan, who gave an open-handed gesture. ‘You never left Alec like Ursula did me. You didn’t break his heart.’
She turned to Will. ‘Son?’
Pleased to have been invited to sit in with the grown-ups, he had taken everything in quietly. ‘I nearly lost my little sister today. It’s made me aware how fragile the barrier is between life and death. I find this situation hard but I won’t do anything to make things difficult.’
‘Thank you, Will.’ Emilia hugged him. ‘You’ve just shown me that one day you will be worthy of your father’s farm, but Tom and Lottie will get a joint share too.’
She held out her hand to Perry. ‘Shall we go up?’
‘I’d like nothing more.’ At the door, he said, ‘Thanks, everyone.’
Hand in hand, Emilia and Perry climbed the stairs, to the little girl who meant so much to both of them. Climbing at last to a future together.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2004 by Severn House
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Gloria Cook, 2004
The moral right of Gloria Cook to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and ret
rieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788630665
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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