‘You must know that if I genuinely thought staying here would have put you, or anyone else – let alone Hope – in danger, I would have left. I’d told Brenda everything, and she didn’t think there was anything to worry about. We thought we knew who it was, and the police were tracing them. I’m so sorry! I’m so,sosorry. If I could undo any of it, I would. I was scared, and lost, and alone. Then you gave me a bed, and a place to stay… A home. You gave me a second chance, a new start. I didn’t want to blow it.’
‘But you have blown it.’ Daniel blew out an exasperated sigh. ‘I feel like a total fool. I trusted you, with everything that means anything to me. My farm. My child… my heart. And you took that trust and smashed it to smithereens. You’re not who I thought you were.’
‘I am!’ I was trying not to cry because how dare I feel sorry for myself? ‘I have never been more myself than when I was here, with you. This farm, the retreat, being your girlfriend. Baking and cleaning and walking through the fields with Charlie’s daughter on my back. This is who I really am.’
He looked away, shaking his head. It was then that I knew I’d lost him.
‘Daniel. Please…’
His face was like a castle. Drawbridge up, portcullis slammed shut.
‘You can’t believe what Lucy said about me. You have to let me explain.’
‘Don’t you see, it doesn’t matter?’ He ran a hand through his hair, the anger rippling through his bicep. ‘It doesn’t matter if you spent every day saving lives instead of wrecking them. You lied to me.’
‘I never lied…’
He simply stared at the floor.
‘So that’s it?’
One nod.
‘Can I say goodbye to Hope?’
‘She’s with Mum. I thought it best for her not to be around.’
I couldn’t reply, my throat too swollen with regret and self-loathing.
‘I’ll take your bags out to the taxi when it gets here.’
He left the room, unable to even look at me. I didn’t blame him.
By the time I’d shuffled outside to the taxi my bags were already in the boot.
‘That everything?’ the taxi driver asked, clearly wondering why a man had dumped my bags and left me to limp to the car myself, but knowing better than to ask. It was all I could do to nod in response. Yes. That was everything. My heart. My home. This place, these people, they were everything. But it was my own idiotic fault I’d lost it all. No more than I deserved. No less than the hurt I had done to countless others.
37
I have to confess, there were fleeting, desolate, dark moments in the days that followed when I wished that I hadn’t screamed that night. That Daniel had been a few seconds too slow, or Lucy that bit stronger. Waking up each day and having to face myself, I couldn’t help wondering if it would have been easier not to have to bother.
I had lost everything except the one thing I had tried to get rid of – myself.
Thank goodness for practical, straight-talking, no-nonsense parents. That, and my wonderful, on-the-brink-of-bonkers grandma.
Together, over the next few weeks, they got me up and gave me something else to think about. Wholesome, nurturing food that was impossible to resist no matter how scrunched up and tender my stomach. Simple, satisfying tasks that were impossible not to take a teensy bit of pleasure from accomplishing – scouring the grill, ironing sweet-scented sheets or snipping sprigs of flowers from the garden and arranging them in pretty vases.
Even better, they only ever asked me once, that first evening, what on earth had happened and they never asked me how long I would be staying, or whether I would be going back to Ferrington.
It was the beginning of June, nearly a month since I’d arrived back home when I found out they were even more remarkable than I’d given them credit for. My knee was still stiff, the scar red and gnarly, although the other abrasions had faded, and when I looked in the mirror, I was starting to appear slightly less like a bedraggled zombie. I’d had a call from Brenda, filling me in on what was happening with the case against Lucy (not a great deal yet, these things took time). I’d spoken to Becky the day before about the business, and was painfully aware that she was running retreats without me, and the next few months were jam-packed with guests.
Even worse, she’d told me that my old editor had been trying to get in touch with me about something important. When I called Miles, he’d warned me that the story of Lucy’s arrest was about to break in the tabloids. It was inevitable that my name would be printed along with it. My dad found me, sitting at the kitchen table where I’d been peeling potatoes for hash browns, head in my hands.
‘Eleanor, is there something wrong?’ He stopped by the table, and even went so far as to put one hand on my shoulder.
‘Yes. Yes, there is.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Dad, there’s something I need to tell you.’
‘Oh?’ He took a seat opposite me.
