Page 117 of The Christmas Retreat
‘I don’t see why Ginny can’t marry you right now, Daddy, and live here with us,’ Cariad said.
‘She needs to get used to the idea first, dear child,’ said Noel, who had also come for tea and was sitting next to Evie.
‘Ginny’s a creative person, Cariad, and has to figure out how to balance her work with sharing her life with someone else. Of course, it helps that Rhys is a writer and so understands that. You need to work it out, as Timon and I did,’ said Nerys.
‘Oh,’ said Cariad doubtfully. ‘Well, don’t take too long, Ginny!’
‘I’ll try not to,’ I promised.
‘Daddy, are you driving Mel home after tea?’ she said, turning her attention to Rhys. ‘If you are, can I come for the ride?’
‘Yes, and yes,’ he agreed, ‘but we’re only dropping Mel off, not staying long enough for you to announce the engagement to the entire castle!’
Mel said seriously that she would tell everyone instead.
‘Good, then they can start saving up for the wedding presents,’ joked Timon. ‘This is wonderful news. I couldn’t be more delighted.’
Everyone seemed so genuinely pleased by our engagement (except for Opal, who had said nothing at all, just kept eating) that I felt quite warmed by the goodwill as I went upstairs after tea, thinking I’d finally do some work, or maybe just sit and dream for a while.
But Evie followed me up and, to my surprise, invited me into her room to, as she put it, ‘let our hair down together’.
‘You couldn’t let yours down,’ I pointed out, sinking into one of her armchairs. ‘You could flatten the spikes a bit, but that’s about it.’
‘Figure of speech – don’t be pedantic,’ she replied, seating herself in her swivel chair and turning it to face me, and I hoped she might finally be prepared to answer some of my questions about the letters, or to tell me what else she’d found out from Milly’s sketchbook journal.
First, I told her what Rhys and I had discovered about Verity’s part in Annie’s death and what she’d said when we faced her with our knowledge.
‘So that’s why she’s hiding herself away and leaving firstthing – I wondered. Nerys said something about her having a migraine and feeling that she needed to go home early to convalesce, but she’s not a good liar. Unlike Verity herself, it would seem.’
‘No, Verity could get an Olympic medal in it, if it was a sport,’ I agreed. ‘Nerys and Timon know what I’ve just told you, and she’s probably telling Noel right now, but there didn’t seem any reason to inform the other guests.’
‘I can’t say it’s a complete surprise, Ginny, any more than the news of your engagement to Rhys was. I told you he was the serious type.’
‘Yes, well, it took me a while to realize that, after what had been between us – or not been between us – in the past,’ I said wryly. ‘And then Verity sweetly telling me, for my own good, that he was a philanderer, didn’t help.’
‘More fool you for believing her,’ Evie said unsympathetically. ‘I take it you’re staying here and moving your stuff into the lodge for a little bit?’
I nodded. ‘You were right about it being a halfway house, but Nerys put it best when she said I needed to work out how to continue my work while being married to someone and also living in a houseful of people after so long alone.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ she assured me bracingly. ‘Whatever you might have thought in the past, you weren’t cut out to become a hermit crab. And Rhys will be sensitive to what you need. I mean, we’re not talking about a Plath and Hughes situation here, are we? That really was a juggling act … although actually, because of the respect they had for each other’s writing, it so nearly worked,’ she added thoughtfully.
I dragged her back before she could explore this interesting side avenue.
‘Rhys is sensitive, kind and thoughtful, and we do seem to have so much in common to start with,’ I said, and elaborated on some of those things, until I noticed her dark blue eyes were glazing over.
I remembered that I’d meant to ask her more about what else she might have discovered in her research into Arwen.
‘I told Rhys I’d read Arwen’s letters to Milly, but not what was in them,’ I began. ‘So he doesn’t yet know what it is that Nerys isn’t going to be happy about.’
‘Well, now I’ve finished transcribing Milly’s journal and had time to think about it, and in the light of your engagement, I think it might be time I called a family conference to discuss my findings and where we’re going to bury the bodies.’
She grinned slightly wickedly but I must have looked aghast, because she added quickly, ‘Metaphorically speaking, that is.’
‘Thank goodness for that! I hope you haven’t found anything worse than we already knew about Cosmo Caradoc? I did wonder, when I read Arwen’s last notes, if Cosmo Caradoc was so vile to her when he met her coming away from her tryst with Edwin that that’s what turned her mind so firmly away from marrying.’
She eyed me thoughtfully. ‘At first Milly suspected Arwen’s change of mind about marrying was because Edwin had gone a little further than he should have done that morning – further than Arwen, who was so much younger, was happy with. But yes, her scene with Caradoc immediately afterwards was the main cause, as you will see for yourself when you read the journal.’
‘I’m dying to see it. Can I read it now?’
