Page 109 of The Christmas Retreat
Could we overcome the past and make a happy future together? I couldn’t deny it any more: I was in love with Rhys, and I now believed he truly loved me, in return.
I’d probably have admitted it to myself long before now, if Verity’s barbs about his being a womanizer hadn’t hit home, because what had happened after our first meeting so many years ago had made me mistrust him.
Once I’d realized that Verity was not a sweet, well-meaning person but intentionally cruel and manipulative, everything that had happened since I came here, and everything Rhys had said to me, changed into a truer pattern, one we might build on for the future.
If, of course, Rhys still wanted a future for us both, once he knew what Evie had dug out! And it would mean my moving into Triskelion and becoming part of the family – a far remove from the semi-detached household I’d grown up in.
After Will, I’d really thought I was destined to be a solitary creature, happiest alone. But then, since coming here, I’d found it surprisingly easy to settle in – although always with that escape hatch, a room of my own, to retire to.
I’d always need that, to think and work in – but then so would Rhys. We were alike in so many ways.
The house would not always be full of guests – there would be many quiet times, I supposed – and I knew from talking to Bronwen that the family mostly looked after themselves between retreats, while Tudor worked in the kitchen garden.
Could the house and the family absorb me into it? I thought perhaps they could … if Evie didn’t throw an enormous spanner into the works!
And that brought me round full circle because I really needed to talk to Evie.
I got up stiffly from my cold rock seat and stamped my feet to restore some circulation.
The sun had begun its slow decline. A bird let fall a few sweet liquid notes into the chilly air and the leaves rustled in the slight breeze as I began to follow the path down out of the wood. As I went, I realized that there was something else that had been niggling at the back of my mind ever since I’d talked to Rhys about the accident, and I tried to work out what it was: something he’d said in his sitting room, about Annie and her lover, Flint. There had been something Verity had told Rhys that didn’t – no, it justdidn’tmake sense!
34
The Hand of Fate
I tapped on Evie’s door when I got back but she wouldn’t open it more than a crack and merely told me to come back before tea to help her carry down Arwen’s paintings, because she was working and not ready to discuss things with me just yet.
This was frustrating. However, as we went downstairs later, I told her that Rhys now knew all about my having been on the scene of Annie’s accident.
‘Good, that’s one less secret to come out.’
‘We’re not going to tell Cariad yet, but when she’s a bit older she needs to know that her mother was thinking of her at the end.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Evie agreed.
We spread out the morning’s treasure trove from the attic on some of the small tables in the refectory, Evie propping the paintings up with boxes of jigsaws and board games from the shelves.
The little seascapes were wonderfully atmospheric. They reminded me in a way of Turner. Of course, they were not at all in his style, it was just the magical way the elements were portrayed.
There were also the drawings and watercolours in the big sketchbook. I remembered that there had been pocket-sized sketchbooks in one of the trunks belonging to Arwen, so she must have managed to carry those away with her.
The others began to drift in for tea and, as they did, they came over to have a look at the impromptu art show.
‘They’re all amazingly mature for her age,’ said Evie. ‘This oil painting that I bought on eBay is obviously one of a series of sunrises. Arwen’s habit of noting the time, date, place and even weather conditions on the back of her work is really helpful.’
Nerys and Rhys were the last to come in, with Cariad, who had been excavating her own treasure trove in the family sitting room since Rhys had brought her back from the castle. She wasn’t interested in the paintings, instead taking my hand and insisting I go and see what she’d got.
‘They’re things that were my mummy’s. Auntie Nerys put them away for me and Daddy found them in the attic earlier,’ she said, and I duly admired the Wemyss pottery piggy bank, which was white with pink roses painted on his back; a music box, which, when you opened the lid, had a mirror on which revolved a tiny ballerina in time to the tinkling music. There was a small carved wooden bear, too, which Kate said, rather enviously, was a Black Forest one and was quite collectable.
‘Auntie Nerys is keeping most of the jewellery till I’m grown up, but I’m having this now because I like it,’ Cariad said, pulling a gold filigree pendant on a chain out of a small box. ‘Auntie Nerys says it’s a Hand of Fatima and good luck.’
‘It’s very pretty,’ I said.
‘It’s real gold, so I’ll have to look after it,’ she said importantly. ‘I’ll just wear it for special occasions.’
Verity had arrived last and I didn’t even know she was thereuntil she gave a small exclamation and said, ‘Oh, that pendant does bring back memories of your mummy, Cariad! She used to wear it all the time, because she said it was lucky … though in the end, it didn’t bring her much luck, did it? I suppose she was wearing it when—’
Catching Rhys’s eye she abruptly broke off in seeming confusion, but luckily Cariad hadn’t heard, because she’d already darted off into the kitchen to show it to Bronwen and Tudor.
