Page 91 of The Midnight Secret

‘Oh.’

‘I think he needed a change of scene. It’s been a bleak time.’

‘Aye.’ And it was all her fault. She thought of Sibyl, manning the fort in his absence, caring for his mother like a dutiful prospective daughter-in-law. ‘I saw the countess earlier. She’s in a wheelchair?’

‘She’s very frail now, but the worst of the danger is passed. There’s still a long road ahead, but they’re quietly hopeful she’ll make a good recovery. Good enough, anyway.’

‘I hope so,’ Effie nodded. ‘That would be wonderful.’

Fanny reached a hand out to touch her arm. ‘He misses you so much. He never says anything, certainly not around any of us, but I can see it in the way he walks. And he’s so quiet now. Always polite, of course, but...it’s as if he’s had the stuffing pulled out of him. We’d none of us ever seen him so happy as when he was with you.’

Effie felt a lump stopper her throat, tears immediately pricking at her eyes. It always amazed her how quickly they could appear from one moment to the next. ‘Well...it just wasn’t supposed to be,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘A blind man could see that.’

‘But you made each other so happy.’

Effie pressed her lips together, trying to hold back her emotions. ‘We can’t always have something just because wewant it.’ Her voice sounded strangled as she made herself say words that sliced her like knives, and she knew that in spite of all the reasons they were wrong for one another, there was one overarching reason they were right: her heart spoke to his. Sholto wasn’t her perfect match, and she wasn’t his equal, but the love that bonded them was true and pure. Their differences might overwrite that truth, but they would never subsume it. She could see that now. ‘There are other things...and other people...to consider.’

The sound of voices rose on the other side of the door. Fanny’s eyes widened. ‘Y’d better go,’ she said quickly. ‘Before they catch us talking.’

Effie wiped her eyes quickly. ‘I’ll write. I’m in Lochaline now, not so very far.’

Fanny opened the door and peered out. The magnificent reception hall was still clear but the men’s voices were carrying as they came down the hallway. Fanny disappeared back down the staircase into the servants’ corridor as Effie stepped out onto the flagged stone floor, composing herself.

She was looking out of the windows across the rose garden when they turned the corner a few moments later.

‘Ah, there you are,’ Archie said with evident relief. ‘I was beginning to think we might have lost you.’

Effie looked back at him with reddened eyes and a sad smile – that told him he had.

Chapter Twenty-Six

FLORA

15 April 1931

RMSEmpress of Britain, international waters

They were sailing into the sun, chasing a golden horizon they could never quite catch. Flora stood on the middle deck, feeling the wind bring colour to her china-doll cheeks. This winter had been especially hard and cruel, leaching her world of all colour as kindness and goodness had become lost concepts. She had taken Lorna’s death badly, retreating to her bed for several weeks as she saw they had finally come to the end of the road in getting back their son. There was no consolation to be had, not even in knowing that Mary had been denied the love of her life and the promised land of her dreams.

She had still won. Flora’s baby lay inherarms, lovedherface; and with every day that passed, those facts only became more true.

James had leased a beautiful mansion on Rue Saint-Denis as they waited for the sea ice to thaw, but Flora had rattled around it, wraith-like, and eventually they had moved backinto the Frontenac. He had immersed himself in work, channelling the pain of their personal loss into business gain as he developed and refined the plans for his new transatlantic air company. She had no such diversion to occupy her mind. All she could think of now was returning home to the family and friends she had left behind.

All around her, the laughter of the leisured class tinkled like sunlight upon water; some were playing shuffleboard, tennis and even golf, others strolling the long deck as they promenaded up and down, stopping to talk to those lying out on their deckchairs.

To her relief, there was no sign of the Tuckers, although James was vigilant, scanning the dining room every night for a sighting of them.

On the deck below, the third-class passengers were taking some air too, though the sun couldn’t fill the high-sided space flanked by bulkheads and lifeboats. She watched from above, seeing how very crowded it was, with none of the activities laid on for the upper class, but people made their own amusement – playing cards, reading palms, children hopping and skipping...Scuffles would often break out, arguments erupting over a wrong look or a stolen bread roll.

She stood here every day hoping for a sighting of her son. She was rarely noticed – they never seemed to look up – and she came out, whatever the weather. She didn’t feel the cold, she didn’t care about the wind, but only yesterday James had forced her back inside, telling her there was nothing to miss: Mary wouldn’t bring the baby out in the driving rain.

She was torturing herself, she knew, but she would gladly bleed for the sabre swipe of a glimpse of his face. He was almost eight months old now and he was growing bonny and fat, with ruddy cheeks and two teeth that she could see whenhe gurgled with laughter. Flora thought perhaps he was teething, for sometimes he would drool and grizzle and Mary would give him her knuckle, as she had that night in the rooftop garden. She would watch as Mary walked in figures of eight, making wide loops around the deck as she sang to him, or else stopped to talk with the other mothers and their bairns. She actually smiled and laughed, and Flora realized she had never seen her look happy before. It pained her to think that although Mary was a bad woman, she was not necessarily a bad mother.

The door below opened and Mary herself came out at last, as she always did. She was a St Kildan – she needed to be outdoors. Flora caught her breath. She had been standing here since breakfast, waiting for her to emerge, and she strained for that first look. Mary had dressed the baby in green knitted woollens today; if the St Kildan women could do anything, it was knit, and her boy had no shortage of clothes to wear. Still, the wind was biting and could nip among the twist of the stitches, making him protest. A little arm shot out, his pink fist splaying before balling tight again as Mary hushed him, making the first of her turns.

Flora knew a proper coat was what he needed. Felted wool, perhaps a velvet collar, like the one she had bought in her excitement back in Quebec when she had still believed she could undo the past. She hadn’t had the heart to throw it – any of it – away, the clothes she couldn’t give him like the love she couldn’t give him.

She frowned as an idea came to her.

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