Page 40 of The Housekeeper's Secret
She rolled the bottle-stopper between her fingers. ‘Something happened…’ She swallowed. ‘A body was found in the harbour. It was so b-badly beaten they couldn’t confirm his identity, but I knew as soon as I heard. Alec had gone off to meet this… person a few days earlier—someone who’d sold him short in one of his illegal deals. The next morning two men turned up at the back door—rough men—and I heard enough of their conversation to piece it together when I read the report in the newspaper. That was the day before the coronation. I confronted him… I wanted him to realise he’d gone too far—to encourage him to tell the police everything in the hope of being treated leniently because he’d been cheated, but he—’
A muted crack, like the sound of a gunshot, made her start and jump to her feet, her head whipping round in panic. Jem stood up too, closing the gap between them and taking hold of her shoulders.
‘It’s all right. It’s only the fireworks starting. See?’
Very gently, he turned her around. Across the shadowy park, above the dark treetops, a starburst of white lit up the sky, quickly followed by another and another.
The sense of alarm dissipated, and she was left with the tingling awareness of his touch, the warm solidity of his body at her back. It was cooler now, and she longed to lean into him, but the irony of recounting the disaster that had blighted her past while stumbling into one that would jeopardise her future wasn’t lost on her. She forced herself to step away.
‘Go on. What did he do?’
‘He hit me, of course…’ She heard his low curse as she sat on the edge of the parapet again, watching scarlet splash the sky. ‘But it was different that time. Before, it had always been a flash of temper, but that night I thought he was going to kill me.’ She gave a choked laugh. ‘Perhaps he would have if he hadn’t realised already how hard it is to dispose of the dead. He pulled himself back, made the usual excuses, promised me it wouldn’t happen again. I promised myself the same thing. I knew if it did, it might well be the last.’
‘And so you left…’
‘Yes.’ It was almost a whisper. ‘In the evening of coronation day, when he was at the dinner I was supposed to have attended with him. I knew the city would be crowded and I wouldn’t get another chance like that. The maid was out at the celebrations; I’m not proud of myself, but I went up to the attic and put on her clothes. A well-dressed lady with a blacked eye would attract concern and attention, but a poorly clothed woman would be overlooked. No one would notice her in the crush of the station, nor remark which train she boarded.’ She met his eye with a small smile. ‘A female servant is an invisible creature.’
The fireworks were like shooting stars, trailing light over the inky sky and exploding into constellations of brilliance. They both watched in silence as red, white, and blue glittered across the darkness, and then he said softly, ‘Where did you go?’
‘London. Where everyone goes to disappear. I’d asked my parents for help before, but they didn’t want to know. They’d never really forgiven me for marrying him in the first place. As far as they were concerned, I had made my choice, which was shaming enough. They certainly didn’t want me back under their roof when it all went wrong. And what could they have done anyway? He would have found a way to get me back, or shut me up for good.’
The fact that her options were so limited had made it easier to decide what to do. With only the small amount of jewellery not yet reclaimed by Alec to sell, she had to find a means of supporting herself quickly. Entering domestic service was more favourable than the other path available.
‘I went to a servants’ registry on Tottenham Court Road. I needed somewhere cheap to stay and they had a boarding house where you could lodge while seeking employment. I made up a story about my previous employer making inappropriate advances, which was why I’d had to leave without a character. They made one up for me.’ She attempted a smile. ‘To go with the name I had made up.’
She had been Katherine before, sometimes Kitty to her parents and friends, but never Kate. Her new surname had come from an enamel sign advertising biscuits on the wall of the refreshment room at Bristol station. Furniss’s Original Cornish Fairings. She remembered staring at it from her seat in the third-class carriage in the endless minutes before the train pulled away, hardly daring to breathe; keeping her eyes fixed to it as the engine gave a hiss and heaved into motion.
‘Kate Furniss,’ he murmured, and on his lips, it sounded like a caress.
Her sudden shiver was only partly caused by the evening chill. She stood up, so their eyes were almost level, and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this—all my dark secrets. I’ve never spoken about it before.’
‘Why shouldn’t you?’ The eyes that held hers were like spilled ink. ‘They aren’t so dark. Any shame belongs to him. You’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘And yet it’s as if I’m serving a prison sentence,’ she said with quiet bitterness. ‘I’m not free of him, am I? I’ll never be free.’
The fireworks had stopped, and it seemed much darker with nothing but the empty sky above them. In the quiet she heard the rasp of stubble as he dragged a hand over his face.
‘Do you think he’s still looking for you?’
‘I can’t afford to assume he’s not. Alec Ross is not the sort of man to let things go—not wives nor grudges. That’s why I was so unsettled by the idea of someone watching the house, breaking in…’
‘You thought it might be him, or people sent by him?’
She nodded, swaying a little, and wondered how strong the beer had been. She wasn’t used to it anymore.
Afterwards she would go over it in her mind, replaying the moment when he had put his hand to her waist to steady her, then gently taken her face between his palms and stroked his thumbs across her cheeks.
‘I’m glad you told me. You’ve carried it all yourself, all this time. You don’t have to do that anymore.’
A hesitation. A breath. A heartbeat. And then his lips on hers, warm and full of tenderness, kissing her in a way she had only been kissed in her most secret imaginings.
He pulled away almost immediately, shaking his head.
‘Oh, God, Kate, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—’
But it was too late.
It had been too late when she’d circled her arms around his chest in the servants’ hall the other morning. When she’d touched his cheek on his first night at Coldwell, when she’d seen him washing in the kitchen yard. It had been too late from the moment their eyes had met as he’d stood at the top of the hill.