Page 30 of Coming Home to Roseford Villas
‘Exactly!’ Stella met Rory’s eyes triumphantly. ‘There’s no way Francesca wrote this letter, and yet here’s the doodle in the corner.’
‘So, who’s the recipient, then?’ Rory asked, but even as she did, the penny dropped and she felt a fierce, emotional excitement that, for a moment at least, made her forget everything that was worrying her. ‘Oh…’ she said softly. ‘It all makes sense now.’ The theory that had been percolating in the back of her mind since she’d seen the two photographs taken out the front of Halstead House, and read the letters that had beenreturned with Edmund’s possessions after his death, suddenly gained traction.
‘Stella,’ she said, eventually, realising her friend was waiting for her to elaborate. ‘I think the letters in the Roseford Hall collection weren’t intended for Francesca Middleton, but were actually written to her brother Frederick.’
Stella raised an eyebrow. ‘Then I wonder why the archivist hadn’t made that connection already. Or if they had, why this hadn’t become public knowledge. I mean, times have changed since the Great War.’
‘I know it seems a little unlikely that I’m the first to be picking up on this,’ Rory said, ‘and for my purposes, fictionalising the story is perfectly fine, but I’m pretty sure that I’m right. I don’t think Edmund ever had any intention of marrying Francesca. I’m pretty sure his heart lay elsewhere. Thousands of miles away, in fact, in the Congo.’
Stella’s eyes gleamed. ‘Well, if you’re right, that means Roseford Hall has another intriguing legacy, and one that Simon would be really interested to find out about, I’m sure.’ She carefully reached into the archive box in front of her and pulled out another sheaf of letters. ‘I’ve got a few hours free while the guests settle in. This week it’s mainly artists in the retreat, and we’ve got a couple of external tutors coming in, so that frees me up a bit. How do you fancy a research buddy?’
‘You’re on!’ Rory grinned. She and Stella had often collaborated on projects when they were at university, and they made an excellent team. She felt sure that, with both of them sifting through the Halstead House letters, they’d soon get to the bottom of the mystery.
32
Rory reeled back to the chalet, giddy with excitement. She and Stella had spent another couple of hours looking through the correspondence, and by the end of it they were in no doubt: Francesca and Edmund hadn’t ever been more than friends. The letters that Edmund had written, the last, passionate letters he’d written in his life, were to his lover, but that lover wasn’t Francesca. In fact, the ‘F’ that Edmund had expressed such love and adoration for was none other than Francesca’s brother, the male heir to Halstead House, Frederick.
The more they’d looked into it, the surer they’d become. Even more tellingly, through the lens of that particular reading, it had become clear that Francesca had been the keeper of their secret, and she’d kept it to the grave. She’d obviously adored her brother, and felt equally strongly about Edmund, and the news of Edmund’s death had affected her greatly. Francesca’s diaries had revealed her great affection for Edmund, and she’d written passionately about him, but, alongside the letters between Edmund and Frederick, all of the puzzle pieces had revealed the true nature of the relationship the three of them had shared.
Rory’s excitement at finding all of this out had been tempered with a depth of sadness. In the early years of the twentieth century, Edmund and Frederick would have been forced to hide their love, and most likely would both have lived clandestine lives. If they had maintained their relationship as lovers, it would have been at enormous risk to themselves. Who knew what would have happened if they’d been discovered? Edmund’s loss at the Somme was heart-breaking, and the knowledge that Frederick would have returned to Roseford and would have had to have lived with that grief was even more so.
Musing on this lost love, and the risks that the two men must have taken before their deployment, Rory let herself into the chalet. Theirs was a lesson in taking chances, in following your heart despite what the rest of the world might think. She wondered, given the fact that the two men had been sent to completely different parts of the world, whether someone had had suspicions about the true nature of their relationship, and aimed to put a stop to it by separating them for the duration of the Great War. Edmund, as the heir to Roseford Hall, would have been expected to marry and continue the line. While his death could never have been said to be a release, it did make her wonder if, had he lived, Edmund would have ended up returning to the cells of some other kind of prison. Where was the freedom and liberation for someone who couldn’t be free to love who they wanted to? What would have awaited Edmund Treloar back in Roseford other than the need to hide his true self, and conceal the love he so passionately felt for Frederick? At least for a short time before the war, and while they wrote their impassioned letters to one another, they’d found some sort of solace. What would have awaited them back home other than separation, frustration and the pain of a broken heart?
Mulling all this over, she couldn’t help thinking about her own situation, and while the risks she might take with herown heart paled in comparison to those taken by Edmund and Frederick, she felt the parallel with herself and Leo. She wondered what he was doing tonight, and whether she’d see him. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about the way things were moving between them. Years ago, they’d had the recklessness of youth and inexperience on their side, and nothing to lose. Now, she didn’t feel so confident. This might just turn out to be a nostalgic holiday fling, but her heart was already beginning to tell her that she felt more than that. But what was the point when they were going to be separated again at the end of the summer? She wished she didn’t feel so confused, and spending the afternoon musing on another doomed relationship hadn’t helped.
She was overthinking things, she knew it. What did it matter if it was all just for the summer? After all, they’d been having fun so far, and who said that it needed to stop?
Smiling at her train of thought, she decided to head up the garden to Roseford Villas and see what he was up to. Maybe they could have dinner together, or, if he’d already eaten, she could nip back and grab a sandwich and they could meet again later. Spontaneity wasn’t really in her nature, but she could learn, she was sure of it, and after their nights together recently she was aching to feel his arms around her again. They’d still just played around, but she really wanted to take things to the next level…
These thoughts took her to the French windows, and as she breathed in the sweet evening air, she pushed them open and walked into the dining room. She was just about to call out to him when she heard the laughter. Rory froze in her tracks. Peering through the interior door of the dining room down the hall towards the kitchen at the back of the house, she caught sight of Leo, glass of water in his hand, smiling across at someone who was seated just out of Rory’s field of vision.
It was the smile that really did her in. She never could resist him when he’d looked at her that way, and it hit her like a bolt between the eyes: whoever he was talking to, and giving that smile to, meant a lot to him.
‘You really didn’t need to get on a plane, you know,’ he was saying. ‘I mean, FedEx would have done the job just as effectively, and you’d have had them back in a couple of days, too.’
‘I couldn’t trust something as important as this to the postal service,’ the voice, a woman’s, emanated from the kitchen. ‘I mean, knowing you, you’d have sent them to the wrong address anyway.’
Leo gave another laugh. ‘I’m sure they’d have got to you eventually.’
‘This is too important, Leo.’ The voice, mellow, Australian and very obviously female, continued. ‘This is the future.Ourfuture. I had to make sure you took it seriously. Why do you think I came here otherwise?’
In rising confusion and horror, Rory watched as Leo crossed the kitchen and disappeared from sight. As his voice came to her again, her heart gave a painful thud in her chest.
‘I wouldn’t do anything to put the future at risk, Corinne, you know that. We’ve both been through too much.’
Turning away again, tears threatening, Rory stumbled back to the dining room and hurried out of the French windows. Corinne was here. Corinne, Leo’s ex-wife. But from what Rory had just overheard, ‘ex’ was the last thing Corinne was. No one spoke with that amount of affection about the future to someone who was meant to be a part of the past. It was clear, from what she’d heard, that Leo had been less than honest with her than she’d believed. Who travelled all the way across the world to see someone when the relationship was over?
As she let herself into the chalet, the thought of everything that Leo had told her made her even more confused. Perhaps he’d decided to forgive Corinne after all for her part in the accident. He’d said they were getting on better than they had in years. But if that was the case, why had he been so willing to start something with her? Had she just been a stop-gap? Someone to break the sexual drought he’d faced since the car accident? Switching off her phone, pulling a bottle of Cava out of the fridge and firmly closing the curtains of the chalet, Rory tried her best to make it all disappear.
33
Rory didn’t know, in the end, if Leo made the walk across the garden to the chalet that evening. She’d taken the bottle of Cava and a glass to the bedroom, propped her laptop up on a pillow and fallen asleep with her headphones on watching the new series ofBridgerton. It was approximately halfway through the fourth episode when she’d drifted off, and she awoke several hours later with an empty bottle, a dry mouth and a thumping headache.
Swearing under her breath at her own stupidity, she staggered off the bed, necked a couple of painkillers, drank a pint of water, brushed her teeth and crashed out again. Her last thought was irritation and disappointment that she’d reacted so badly to what she’d overheard. Gaining a hangover was hardly going to help.
When Rory next awoke, the sun was streaming through her bedroom window and she felt somewhat more human. Sleep, while induced by the alcohol in her bloodstream, had calmed her racing thoughts, and she felt as though she was able to put things into perspective a little more. Perhaps what she’d heard last night wasn’t Corinne and Leo getting back together? Perhaps‘our future’ was just a figure of speech? She washed the night out of her hair, threw on some clothes and forced down a bowl of cornflakes. There was only one way to find out.
She was due back at Roseford Hall at midday, but she wanted to make time to talk to Leo first. She knew if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on her manuscript. So, taking a deep breath, she headed out across the garden and made her way towards the dining room, a now familiar route.
