No, that was superstitious nonsense. Frustratingly, Grace dismissed it only for thoughts of Owen to invade her mind instead. None of her friends had commented on Bryn being Owen’s nephew. Perhaps they’d known all along or perhaps they hadn’t seen that it mattered. Not that it did matter because even if Grace had erred in assuming he was married to Bethan, it didn’t follow that he had feelings for Grace. And she wasn’t free anyway because she was committed to caring for Gran.
She reached Widmacott Wines and walked through the shop to the office, sending an impersonal smile to the owner, a bulky man in his sixties. ‘Good morning, Mr Widmacott. May I get you some tea?’ He usually liked a cup at the beginning of the day.
He grunted by way of assent, so Grace moved into the kitchen to make enough tea for all of them – Mr Widmacott, Mr Timms in the shop, Albie in the store across the yard and herself. She might not have another chance for hours.
Not that the conditions were hard. Mr Widmacott was a tough, remote sort of man but not difficult. If Grace wasn’t entirely happy here, it was only because she missed the independence of being her own boss and the companionship of her friends. But it was a job – a well-paying job – and Grace believed in looking forwards instead of backwards.
With the tea distributed, she began typing invoices. Widmacott’s sold wine to hotels, restaurants and private houses as well as to customers who called in the shop. Grace’s role was small but she still took a pride in it.
She’d produced a reference from Silver Ladies to get the position but realising Mr Widmacott wasn’t the man to take to an uppity, interfering sort of female, she’d said nothing about managing the business. Instead she’d focussed on her experience in typing, filing and telephoning. ‘I left because I missed my family,’ she’d added, to show there was nothing shady about her return.
‘What were you doing before Silver Ladies?’
It was the question she’d dreaded. ‘I worked as secretary to a medical man.’
‘Elaborate, please.’
Grace had sighed, assuming she had no chance of securing the job now. Widmacotts supplied the Arleighs’ wine. ‘For Doctor Arleigh.’
‘Are you one of those girls who took his wife’s necklace?’
She’d looked Mr Widmacott in the eye. ‘I’m one of those girls who were falsely accused of taking a necklace.’
He sniggered to suggest it was the way of all criminals to deny their guilt. Then his eyes hardened. ‘I need someone I can trust,’ he’d said. ‘Someone discreet.’
Understandably. Customers wouldn’t want their drinking habits blabbed to all and sundry.
‘Are you that person, Miss Lavenham?’
Was he being sarcastic? Grace had detected no sign of it. Perhaps he intended to give her a chance, after all. ‘I’m trustworthy and discreet,’ she’d assured him.
‘Then start on Monday and we’ll see how you get on.’
With that, he’d turned to some paperwork.
‘Thank you, Mr Widmacott,’ she’d said, and was favoured with the first of many grunts by way of reply.
It was a job that paid enough for her to start saving, albeit modestly, and its location on the Ruston side of Northampton meant travelling was easier and cheaper than if she worked in the centre. It wasn’t Silver Ladies and Grace wouldn’t be working with her friends but it was a beginning and it gave her hope of a better future.
‘I’m going out,’ Mr Widmacott announced now.
Grace didn’t ask where he was going. She’d asked on her first day, thinking it would be helpful to know in case she needed to telephone a message to him, but his hard stare had told her to mind her own business. Perhaps he had a secret mistress.
Grace worked diligently all morning, but the work wasn’t stretching enough to occupy her mind fully and her thoughts returned to Mattie’s evasiveness that morning. She decided to call in on her way home.
‘I’ve no wish to pry into your personal business, Mattie, but is something troubling you?’ Grace asked. ‘Something to do with Gran?’
Mattie sighed, gesturing for Grace to sit. ‘I’ve been putting off telling you because I know you rely on me to help. I feel bad about it. Truly I do.’
‘Feel bad about what?’ Grace probed gently.
‘It’s my Sally. You know her Ted works in the greengrocer in Northampton?’
Grace nodded.
‘His boss is retiring so Ted’s been promoted to manager and given the flat above the shop to live in. Ted’s keen to make a go of it but he can’t afford an assistant. He needs Sal to work in the shop.’
‘And Sally needs you to help with the children,’ Grace finished. Dread was a leaden weight inside her, but she summoned a smile. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity for them. Of course you must help.’
‘But I’ll be moving away and letting you down.’
‘Gran and I will cope. But please don’t mention it to Gran until I’ve made some arrangements.’
‘I won’t say a word,’ Mattie promised. ‘But Sal wants me as soon as possible.’
‘I understand.’
Grace’s smile withered as soon as she stepped outside. Mattie refused to take more than a modest payment for looking after Gran so replacing her was going to be expensive. Even if Grace managed to pay for a replacement, she’d have no money left to save for better accommodation or to repay Ruth.
Moving Gran to Northampton would save on care costs as Grace could pop home in her break, but Northampton rents were higher. Too high, probably, though it wouldn’t hurt to investigate them.
Grace went into work the next morning intending to make enquiries in her break. Concentration was difficult and she was glad when a wine delivery arrived because it took Mr Widmacott out of the office just as she made a foolish mistake in a letter. Scrapping the ruined paper, Grace fed a fresh sheet into the typewriter.
A messenger boy appeared. ‘Package for Mr Widmacott.’
‘Thank you, I’ll—’
‘To be put into his hands only.’
Mr Widmacott walked in from the store and took the package.
‘You haven’t opened it?’ he asked the boy.
‘Not me, sir.’
The boy went on his way with a sixpenny tip and Mr Widmacott returned to the store.
He was still there when his wife telephoned twenty minutes later, so Grace went to fetch him.
When she thought about it later, Grace supposed she’d been too distracted by her troubles to wait for an invitation to enter after knocking on the door. She walked straight in only to be frozen to the spot by what she saw.
Albie was removing labels from the bottles that had arrived that morning and Mr Widmacott was replacing them with labels from the package the messenger boy had brought.
Clearly, cheap wine was being sold as expensive wine and Mr Widmacott was making a tidy profit.
Grabbing her arm, Mr Widmacott marched her back to the office.
‘Your wife’s on the telephone!’ Grace cried.
He pushed her against a wall and held her there as he picked up the phone. ‘Half an hour earlier? Noted, Gertrude.’
‘So,’ he said, hanging the telephone up. ‘This is the moment I discover whether you really are trustworthy and discreet.’
It was like looking through a kaleidoscope that had suddenly changed pattern. Mr Widmacott wasn’t concerned with protecting his customers’ secrets. He was concerned with protecting his own. Grace’s high salary was hush money, an accommodation between thieves. Except that Grace wasn’t a thief.
Realising it, he snatched up her coat and bag, and thrust them at her. ‘You’re dismissed, Miss Lavenham. And don’t think about informing the police. There’ll be no evidence on the premises by the time anyone gets here, and who’ll believe you anyway? A servant already dismissed for thieving? You breathe a word about me and I’ll let it be known that I got rid of you for stealing too. You’ll have no chance of another job for all your fancy London reference.’
Grab
bing her arm again, he steered her onto the street.
Troubles didn’t come in threes. They came in fours.
Forty-eight
‘Go to Fairfax Park?’ Jenny was appalled. ‘No, Johnnie.’
‘It won’t be too much for me. I’m getting stronger every day. Look.’ He snaked an arm around her waist and lifted her off the floor.
‘Stop it, Johnnie! Put me down!’
He did as she asked. ‘Don’t be angry, sweetheart.’
‘I’m not angry. I’m—’
‘Worried about me. It’s angelic of you, but you heard what the doc said yesterday. He’s astounded at my progress.’
‘He also said you should rest.’
‘He was being cautious. This plaster cast is a nuisance, but otherwise I’m fine. I’ve no discomfort at all except for the pain in my heart when you’re cross with me.’ Sighing, he laid a hand over the afflicted organ and turned his mouth down.
‘I’m not—’
‘I’m teasing,’ he smiled. ‘But I’m not suggesting we trek the Himalayas. If you drove my car to Fairfax Park, I could rest all the way.’
‘You wouldn’t rest when we arrived. You’d take photographs and be disappointed with the results because you wouldn’t be able to hold the camera properly balancing on a crutch.’
‘Stop putting barriers in the way. I thought you wanted to see Lydia race.’
‘I do, though I’m not sure she wants an audience just now.’
‘She didn’t object when I suggested coming along.’
‘She said we could please ourselves. I think we might make her nervous.’
‘I think we might help to smooth over the awkwardness between her and Harry.’
‘We didn’t help last Thursday night.’
Johnnie had thought he was doing the right thing by suggesting a small dinner at an Italian restaurant to celebrate Lydia’s birthday. He’d invited Harry, Hux and Sam without telling her, hoping that time spent relaxing over a meal and some wine would give her and Harry the chance to move past whatever problem had got in the way of their friendship.
But it hadn’t. Harry had been charming to them all, Lydia included, but Jenny suspected he’d only accepted the invitation to avoid causing offence. Lydia had been even more subdued.
‘I think Harry likes her,’ Johnnie had suggested afterwards.
‘Of course he likes her.’
‘I mean I think he’s attracted to her. Perhaps the problem is that she doesn’t feel the same.’
Jenny thought he might be right about Harry’s feelings. She was less sure about Lydia’s, especially when she remembered Lydia had looked close to tears when she’d opened her gift from Harry: a tiny gold racing car on a chain to wear around her neck. It was certainly possible that she was sad because Harry’s feelings were making their friendship awkward. But it was equally possible that Lydia returned his interest but couldn’t cope with the vulnerability of admitting she cared.
Wondering if it might help Lydia to talk about her feelings, Jenny had approached her the following morning. ‘I don’t mean to pry, but I can see that you and Harry have had your differences.’
‘That’s because we’re different people. Harry hasn’t understood that yet. But he will.’
Which meant what exactly? Lydia wouldn’t say.
Thankfully, Johnnie had been too busy trying to lift the mood of the party to notice other undercurrents like the way Jenny’s heartbeat had begun to skitter the moment Hux walked in. Jenny had met him for the first time on the day of Lydia’s accident. She’d been talking to Owen about Grace’s return to Ruston when she’d glanced round, seen Hux and felt… Disconcerted, she supposed. Oddly off-balance. He must have felt something too because his eyes had widened as though he’d been taken by surprise. They hadn’t spoken a word beyond hello and Hux had left soon afterwards, but even so the incident had unsettled her.
Seeing him again at Lydia’s birthday dinner she’d been dismayed to realise it was an incredibly powerful attraction she was feeling. Jenny had grown up being admired by men but never felt an answering interest until Johnnie. Even with him it hadn’t been like this. The attraction she felt for Hux sizzled and sparkled inside her like a firework in the sky.
He wasn’t handsome like Johnnie. Neither was he dashing like Harry. His hair was too straw-like, his skin too freckled and he even had a small chip in a front tooth. But his crinkly blue eyes and warm, slow smile were extraordinarily appealing. Hux was everyone’s best friend, but Jenny’s feelings went far beyond mere liking. From the way he’d looked at her at the dinner, so did his.
Afterwards, she’d told herself she’d exaggerated her feelings. It just wasn’t possible to be so instantly and overwhelmingly drawn to another person, especially not when you were already in love with someone else.
Yet the day she and Lydia had returned from a booking to find Hux in the office, her heart had trembled and danced again.
Seeing her, he’d got up quickly from the visitor’s chair. ‘I should be going,’ he’d said. ‘I only came by to deliver the race schedule for you, Lydia.’
‘You said you were staying to tea,’ Ruth had protested.
‘Do stay,’ Johnnie urged.
Hux had looked torn but must have decided it would look strange if he left having already told Ruth he could stay. Sitting down again, he’d set out to be entertaining, though Jenny had sat in silence, her senses screaming awareness of him. Hux must have felt the same because when he finally got up to go, he’d whispered, ‘Sorry.’
The last thing Jenny wanted was to go to Fairfax Park and see Hux again before she had this ridiculous attraction to him under control. It wasn’t as though her feelings for Johnnie had changed. She loved Johnnie just as much as ever.
‘Let’s wait and see how you are over the next few days,’ she suggested. ‘Besides—’
‘You might have to work,’ Johnnie finished, grinning.
The Silver Lady was booked for a wedding on the morning of the race day. When a booking came in for the afternoon, Jenny sent up a prayer of thanks.
She fetched the post and carried it into the living quarters where they were having breakfast. ‘A letter from Grace and another letter for you, Ruth.’
She passed Ruth’s letter over and opened Grace’s. ‘She says she’s well but— Oh! She’s lost her job.’
‘What happened?’ Lydia asked.
Jenny read out Grace’s story.
Lydia made a disgusted sound. ‘That Widmacott man needs locking up.’
‘We should all write back to Grace,’ Ruth said. ‘Just so she knows we’re thinking of her.’
Ruth opened her own letter and suddenly jumped up, overturning her teacup in the process.
Jenny jumped up too, ready to pat Ruth on the back. ‘What is it, Ruth? Are you choking?’
‘No. Yes. Sorry. I’m fine now. I just need some air.’
Jenny mopped up the mess and a few minutes later Ruth returned.
‘Choking can be frightening,’ Jenny sympathised.
Ruth sent her a smile but it was a weak smile.
On Friday afternoon, Jenny went out on a booking with Lydia, leaving Ruth looking after Johnnie again. ‘You don’t mind?’ Jenny asked, her conscience stirring because Ruth was being left behind with him often.
It wasn’t fair, but Jenny was finding it hard to be around Johnnie while she was feeling so confused and Ruth made a wonderful nurse. Whether she was helping to organise photographs, playing endless games of backgammon or teaching Johnnie basic cooking skills, Ruth kept him entertained. But Jenny was sure there was a flare of annoyance in Ruth’s eyes as she confirmed that she’d stay behind again. Clearly, she was beginning to feel imposed on.
‘The Saturday afternoon booking cancelled due to sickness,’ Johnnie announced when they returned. ‘I know it’s bad for business, but it means we can go to Fairfax Park after all. Isn’t that wonderful?’
Jenny wanted to cry.
‘Could we a
sk Ruth to join us?’ she asked later. It was craven to want safety in numbers, but perhaps Ruth would welcome the chance to support Lydia.
Johnnie was all for it. ‘Good idea. She’s looking peaky from all the work, so a day out should be a tonic.’
Ruth didn’t see it that way. ‘It would mean closing the office,’ she pointed out as though that would be a shocking thing to do.
‘Only for a few hours,’ Jenny reasoned.
‘Yes, but—’
‘Don’t bother coming if you don’t like the idea,’ Lydia said coolly.
Ruth’s face flamed as she realised she’d been tactless. ‘I’d love to see you race! I was concerned about the office, but Jenny’s right. We only need to close for a few hours.’
Lydia took an early train to Fairfax Park. Jenny drove Ruth and Johnnie down later.
‘It’s a good job you’re not racing, my love,’ Johnnie joked. ‘At the speed you’re driving the only race you’d win is the snails’ race.’
‘I’m being careful,’ Jenny told him, though the reality was that she was dreading their arrival at Fairfax Park and doing everything she could to delay it. A futile exercise, of course. Sooner or later they’d arrive at Fairfax Park and then –
Jenny swallowed down panic.
Harry had left passes for them and given permission for them to park in the courtyard, but it was Hux they saw when they arrived. Slim-hipped and broad-shouldered, he loped towards them in the distinctive green overalls. Jenny’s heartbeat accelerated wildly.
She turned away, leaning into the car as though searching for something, but in reality trying to calm herself. She touched the ring Johnnie had given her and vowed not to betray his love. Then she straightened and shook Hux’s hand without revealing how the workmanlike roughness of his skin made her softer fingers feel scorched with heat.
‘Glad you all could make it,’ Hux said.
Even the soft drawl of his voice sent shivers rippling across Jenny’s skin though he didn’t look at her in particular. He didn’t need to. Jenny’s sense screamed awareness of him and she was sure his were screaming awareness of her. How unfair it was!
‘We’re thrilled to be here,’ Johnnie told him. ‘I brought my camera. I hope that’s all right?’
The Silver Ladies of London Page 29
