‘Thank you,’ said Nessa, stroking her fingers across the rough leather and wondering what the box held. She’d been expecting a lost earring or mislaid paperwork, not this.
‘I thought it might be important. I didn’t look inside, obviously.’
Mr Aston cleared his throat and stared at his feet. He had looked inside, realised Nessa, clasping the box to her chest. And somehow that seemed worse than turfing her and Lily out of the cottage. He’d snooped into something that her grandmother had kept private.
‘Obviously,’ said Nessa levelly. ‘I appreciate you returning it to me.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He was still staring at the floor. ‘And if I come across any other hidden treasures, I’ll be in touch. Anyway, I’m terribly sorry about your grandmother. She was a nice woman and a good tenant, and I’m sure you’ll miss her.’
‘I will,’ gulped Nessa. ‘Lily, too.’
‘Hmm.’ He pushed a finger beneath the collar of his polo shirt and pulled it away from his neck. ‘I have to sell the place, you know. Well, I don’t have to, obviously, but the housing market has gone crazy around here and selling makes more sense than renting right now. I have to think of my pension. Maybe you’d be interested in purchasing the place?’
‘I’d love to but I’m not in a position to buy right now.’
Not now. Not ever. Nessa knew there was no way she’d be able to afford to buy locally. Even renting was proving impossible, but she couldn’t impose on Rosie and stay at Driftwood House for much longer.
Mr Aston tilted his head again, sympathetically. ‘I see.’ He shuffled his feet as though he had somewhere else to be. ‘Well, I wish you and your daughter the best of luck.’
‘Thank you,’ said Nessa. They were going to need it.
After Mr Aston had shut the door, Nessa walked briskly to the garden gate, keen to be away. She’d never come back to this cottage or to Heaven’s Brook. The last vestige of her grandmother’s life in this hamlet – a mysterious leather box – was under her arm, and there was nothing left for her here.