The Secrets Between Us (31 page)

We waited on the periphery of the group until he saw us. His face changed when his eyes lit upon Alexander. He smiled and beckoned and we stepped forward.

‘Good to see you, young man!’ Philip said in a croaky voice. The two shook hands, and at the same time Philip pulled Alexander close and embraced him. I stood back.

‘And this is your housekeeper. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.’

‘Sarah,’ said Alexander, his hand in the small of my back.

I stepped forward with my hand outstretched. I had an almost irresistible urge to curtsy.

‘Sarah. Good evening.’

‘Happy birthday, Mr Churchill,’ I said.

He and Alexander started talking, their heads close together, so I was excluded. I pretended to be fascinated by a picture on the wall beside the fireplace. It was a portrait, no doubt of a family member, a sad-looking, dark-eyed young man with a large moustache, in military uniform and incongruously holding a little dog in his arms. I wondered what had happened to him. Was he Philip’s father? I tried to make my drink last. I ate several canapés and moved on to the next picture. I wished I had the confidence to go and speak to somebody, introduce myself, but I didn’t. I kept my back to the room.

Then a friendly and familiar voice at my shoulder said: ‘Hello, hello, hello!’

I turned with a smile.

‘DI Twyford, I presume.’

‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? And what on earth are you wearing?’

‘I didn’t know you had an interest in fashion.’

‘I wouldn’t call that fashion, Sarah – it makes you look twice your age.’

‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’

He chuckled, took my empty glass from my hand and replaced it seamlessly with a full one. He leaned towards me to tell me something, but at the same time I felt Alexander’s hand on my waist.

He said: ‘Philip and I are going into the study. We have a little business to attend to.’

‘At a party?’

‘It won’t take long.’

‘OK.’

‘You’ll be all right?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘I’ll keep an eye on her,’ said the detective.

‘As long as that’s all you do,’ said Alexander.

DI Twyford held his hands up submissively.

‘No offence intended,’ he said quietly.

‘None taken,’ Alexander said.

‘Alexander …’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘That man’s not your friend,’ he told me, loud enough for DI Twyford to hear. Then he turned and took hold of Philip’s arm and helped the old man from the room.

When they were through the door, and even their shadows were gone, I turned to the detective and I said: ‘Sorry.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s par for the course. You’re a lovely girl. Of course he’s possessive.’

‘He’s not usually like that,’ I said, trying not to give away how pleased I was by the adjective he’d chosen to describe me.

‘To lose one woman is unfortunate. To lose two would be classed as careless.’

‘I’m no literary expert but that didn’t sound at all accurate.’

‘Don’t be pedantic. We’re supposed to be having fun.’

‘Have you found Luke Innes yet?’

‘We’re working on it.’

‘I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t seem particularly good at finding people.’

‘Luke Innes is a tricky one. He’s changed his name at least twice and has a penchant for foreign travel. Enough of him. Tell me, what’s new in your life. Any developments?’

‘Nothing new,’ I said.

‘Nothing at all?’

‘Ummm …’ I looked up at the ceiling. The lights from the chandeliers played prettily on the plaster. I considered my
new information, turned it over in my mind and thought there was no reason to withhold it. I could see no harm in sharing it.

‘Well, there’s one thing. I found out that Genevieve was pregnant when she married Alexander.’

The detective shook his head. ‘No, she can’t have been.’

I thought one of us had misheard the other. I smiled at a waitress who was proffering a tray of tiny mozzarella balls smeared with pesto. I popped one into my mouth. The cheese was sour and milky on my tongue.

‘She definitely was,’ I said. ‘I found her wedding dress – it was a maternity dress. She must have been more than a little bit pregnant because all her other clothes are way too small for me but …’

The detective was looking at me in a curious way.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘You do know that Alexander spent some time in prison?’

I nodded.

‘What exactly do you know, Sarah?’

‘Just that he was locked up for a while. I don’t know what he did or anything.’

‘Then you wouldn’t know. Alexander and Genevieve married almost as soon as he was released.’

‘So?’

The inspector leaned forward and spoke quietly, but distinctly, into my ear.

‘If Genevieve was pregnant with Alexander’s child when they married, she couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks gone. She wouldn’t have needed a maternity dress. All told, he was inside for the best part of a year.’

The penny dropped. The inspector steadied my arm and turned me away from the crowd so they would not see the shock on my face. My legs were shaky.

‘So Jamie isn’t Alexander’s son? I mean, not his blood son?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘If what you told me is true, he can’t be,’ he said. ‘And Alexander must know that.’

I remembered what Alexander had told me about the fight that led to Genevieve stabbing him.

I remembered how worried Alexander had been about the Churchills taking Jamie from him.

I thought of the way Alexander looked at Jamie; the way his eyes softened with love when he saw the boy.

‘Oh God,’ I sighed, as the full implications rolled over me, one after the other. ‘Oh no.’

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

THERE WAS A
breeze at my arm and the scent of Chanel and hairspray, and I turned to see Virginia all wafty and out of character in a dress and high-ish heels.

She said: ‘Hello, Sarah, how are you?’ in a tone of voice that made it clear she didn’t much care one way or the other, and then she said: ‘I’m afraid I must stop you monopolizing one of the few eligible bachelors in the room,’ and led DI Twyford away. He looked over his shoulder and jerked one hand upwards to mimic a hanging motion. I smiled and took another sip of wine. I felt a little sick. I had the strongest urge to be with Jamie, to sit beside him and hold his hand and make sure no harm came to him.

I hadn’t been able to protect my own son, but I could protect Jamie.

I decided to slip out, pick the boy up from Claudia’s and take him back to Avalon. I would not exactly be lying if I said I was feeling unwell. I could take Jamie into my bed, sleep with my arms around him so that nobody could take him from me. In the morning we could work something out, Alexander and I, some way of guaranteeing Jamie would always be with us. I could ask Neil for advice. That was what I would do. I’d call him first thing. I was halfway across the room, on the way to the exit, when I sensed,
rather than saw, Alexander return. I could tell by his stride and the set of his shoulders that something good had happened. He came straight across the floor to me, took hold of my hand and leaned down to kiss my cheek gently.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and get another drink.’

‘Alexander, I think we ought to fetch Jamie and go back to Avalon,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Something’s wrong.’

‘He’s fine. I’ve had my mobile on. Claudia’s sitter hasn’t called.’

‘She doesn’t know him very well. She wouldn’t be able to tell if he was getting worse.’

‘Sarah, he’s perfectly all right.’

‘But what if this is all a set-up? What if the Churchills set this up so they could take Jamie away from us?’

Alexander pulled a face and took a step back from me.

‘What’s put all this into your head?’

I stared at him. He looked like a film star. He stood tall and confident with his shoulders straight and his head held high. For the first time since I’d known him he looked proud – not in a defiant way, but in a heroic way.

‘Sarah? What happened? Did that bastard Twyford say something to you?’

‘No, no. I’m just worried. I’ve got a bad feeling about Jamie. I’m scared something awful’s going to happen. Alexander, please …’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK. We’ll call the sitter. We’ll speak to Jamie. Will that help?’

I nodded miserably.

Alexander led me to the far end of the hall, through a narrow drawing room, beautifully decorated and lined with chairs, and into a kind of anteroom, where bottles of red wine were breathing and Sancerre chilled in buckets on tables covered with white linen cloths. Sparkling crystal
glasses were lined in ranks. The waiting staff had been restocking their serving trays from the room, but it was empty when we went in. They were busy preparing the dining room for the sit-down supper.

Alexander took out his mobile phone and called Claudia’s number. He switched the phone to loudspeaker so that I could hear.

The sitter answered.

‘Hello, Mr Westwood.’

‘Hello, Sue. I’m sorry to bother you, but we just wanted to check that Jamie was OK.’

‘He’s fine. He’s been good as gold and his temperature had gone right down last time I checked.’

Alexander raised his eyebrows at me. I chewed at my thumbnail and shook my head. That wasn’t good enough.

‘Would you mind passing the phone to him? We need a word.’

‘You want me to wake him?’

Now Alexander pulled an exasperated face at me. I reached over and took the phone from him.

‘I’m sorry, I know it’s hassle for you, but I need to hear Jamie,’ I said. ‘Otherwise we’re coming back now.’

The woman sighed. We heard her pushing herself to her feet. We heard her footsteps as she crossed the hall and went up the stairs. We heard the creak of a bedroom door being pushed open. We heard her say: ‘Petra and Allegra Lefarge, why aren’t you in bed, you naughty girls?’, and we heard the twins giggling.

‘We’re looking after Jamie,’ one of them said.

‘Is he still awake? Are you awake, pet?’

We heard Jamie sigh.

It was definitely Jamie – I recognized that sleepy little voice, and my body responded with a surge of tenderness.

‘Your daddy wants a word with you.’

‘Daddy?’

‘Just wanted to say night night,’ Alexander said.

‘Night,’ Jamie sighed.

‘Sleep tight, pet,’ the sitter said. There were some muffled sounds as she tucked Jamie in, and then we heard the footsteps retreating.

‘All right?’ the sitter asked.

‘Fine now, thank you,’ I said.

‘You’re welcome,’ the woman replied frostily.

‘OK?’ Alexander asked. He put the phone back in his pocket.

I nodded.

He took hold of a bottle of red wine, filled two glasses and passed one to me.

‘What are we celebrating?’ I asked tentatively.

Alexander beamed. ‘I’ve now, officially, repaid Philip Churchill every penny of the money I owed him.’

He leaned down and kissed me hard, full on the lips. One of those kisses that made me thrill to the core because it was a kiss for me and nothing at all to do with Genevieve.

‘It means we’re free,’ he whispered. His hand was in my hair, the heat of his breath was in my ear.

‘Free from what?’ I asked, all low and soft because he’d said: ‘We’re free’; he was including me in his future.

‘Avalon, Philip, Genevieve, this family. We don’t owe them anything any more. They have no hold over us. I’ve paid off my debt.’

‘You mean we can leave? We can take Jamie and leave? We can go somewhere else? Somewhere far from here?’

‘We can do whatever we want,’ said Alexander.

‘Let’s go now,’ I said. ‘Let’s go tonight.’

But we didn’t. The night wore on and the clock turned slowly. After an exhausting dinner of curried soup, game pie and roast potatoes and plum pudding, during which I struggled to make conversation with the two elderly
gentlemen between whom I was sitting, a four-piece band struck up. They were playing old dance music, tunes I recognized but did not know well.

I didn’t care about the music. All I wanted was to be with Alexander and Jamie, somewhere, anywhere, that wasn’t Burrington Stoke.

Philip and Virginia were first to the dance floor and the spotlight was on them, and it was touching. Together, the disparity in their age was obvious. She looked almost a child in his arms. He hobbled, supported by his stick and his wife. They gazed at one another like the young people they once were, with unconditional adoration. I felt sorry for them. Virginia and Philip looked into one another’s eyes, but I supposed neither was seeing the other; each would be looking at Genevieve.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

THE NEXT MORNING
there was no opportunity to talk about leaving because we had invited Claudia, Bill and the girls to Avalon for lunch. I got up early to ramp up the heat in the Rayburn’s oven and to lay the table in the dining room. In my mind I was severe with myself. It was imperative I acted normally, not like somebody who was making plans to escape. I had to be charming, cheerful – a good hostess.

It was the first time, and now I knew it would also be the last, that Alexander and I entertained anyone at Avalon. I wanted to make it special to thank Claudia for her friendship and loyalty over the past months. She was not to know, but I intended it to be my farewell gift to her; something pleasant to remember me by when we were gone.

I put down a clean cloth, and the mats I’d found in the old dresser, and I laid out the best cutlery and glassware. I filled a vase with mistletoe and I put my homemade horseradish sauce into a little silver pot I’d found at the back of a cupboard. Jamie had a cough, but was better than he had been. He sloped around helping me. Alexander, who was hungover, lay in.

The Lefarge family arrived punctually at 12 o’clock. I guessed that they had come straight from church, only stopping to pick up the dogs and their wellingtons.

As I worked in the kitchen, I heard the other adults in the living room talking about this and that, and soon enough the conversation turned to the fact that Alexander had paid off his debt to Philip, and their voices dropped, as if this was not a subject that should be discussed within earshot of me.