Page 99 of The Christmas Retreat
‘I think Liv is a one-off,’ I said, but my thoughts were already turning to tomorrow’s search, and I felt a tingle of excitement in my stomach. Who doesn’t love a treasure hunt?
*
Evie paid me one of her late-night visits and when I complained that she hadn’t divulged any more details of what she’d found in the Memory Box to me than to anyone else, she said to my surprise that she’d come to the conclusion that I ought to at least read Arwen’s letters.
‘So I’ll ping them over when I get back to my room. There are a few hand-delivered notes to Milly that she sent when her friend was staying in Seren Bach as well, but Liv hasn’t quite finished those and is sending them over some time tomorrow morning so you can have them then.’
‘Well … thank you, and I can’t wait!’ I said, surprised but pleased.
‘I’m only letting you read them on the strict understanding that you don’t share them with anyone at present,’ she said warningly. ‘There are some … troubling elements, and at somepoint we will need to have a family discussion about what I’ve discovered.’
I looked nervously at her. ‘I assume you’ve found something a bit nasty in the Caradoc family woodshed?’
‘Let’s just say for the moment that Cosmo Caradoc doesn’t come out of it smelling of roses. But the real dynamite from the family viewpoint comes in a sort of journal that Milly kept for a few months.’
‘You didn’t mention a journal!’
‘I didn’t find it at once. Milly wrote it in fine pencil on the back of the drawings in one of her sketchbooks. Her handwriting is so spiky, it looks like lines on a seismic graph and I’m having to transcribe those myself, which is slow work. Noel lent me a magnifying glass.’
‘So what does she say?’ I demanded eagerly.
‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ Evie said in her usual maddening way.
‘I hope it’s nothing too awful, Ma. I’ve got sort of fond of the family.’
‘One in particular? You and Rhys—’
‘Are just friends, as I told you. That’s all I want,’ I said firmly.
‘From the way he looks at you sometimes, I’m surehe’dlike to be a lot more than just friends, and I’d say he’s serious.’
‘He … looks at me?’
‘Youbothlook at each other, when you think the other one won’t notice,’ she said, grinning. ‘You can’t deny you’re very attracted to him.’
I sighed. ‘No, but … I mean, I don’t think he is serious, and I don’t want an affair. It’s better to just be friends.’
‘I don’t know why you think he isn’t serious, Ginny.’
So I finally confessed to her about our first meeting, whenwe’d seemed to click, except that he’d never rung me afterwards. Then I went on to tell her the explanation he’d given me for that, on the night of the Winter Solstice.
‘That seems reasonable enough,’ she said. ‘But it obviously didn’t work out and they divorced soon after Cariad was born, didn’t they?’
‘Yes, but according to Verity, his wife was the most fascinating woman on earth and she was certainly beautiful – not an easy act to follow.’
‘Also, capricious and unfaithful, from whatI’veheard,’ Evie said.
‘From who?’ I demanded.
‘Oh, just gleaned from various things people have let drop. Nerys and Noel, for a start. I think I’d take anything Verity told you with more than a pinch of salt,’ she added.
‘I’ve been coming to that conclusion myself,’ I admitted. ‘I thought she was just a sweet person with a propensity for saying the wrong thing, but now—’
‘Oh, I’ve had her down as the Iago of the piece ever since I met her,’ Evie said.
‘Iago?’
‘FromOthello. Iago seemed to be Othello’s friend, but all the time he was spinning lies and planting barbs in people’s minds, till at last Othello killed Desdemona.’
