‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve read too much Brontë. If you don’t think you can bear the noise, you can head back to the other room where it is quiet, albeit colder.’
‘I don’t remember the Brontë sisters playing Hendrix,’ she quipped but Edward ignored her. ‘I’ll stay in this room, where at least I won’t get consumption, but thanks for the offer.’ This man was moodier than her younger brothers when her mum turned off the Wi-Fi until they did their jobs around the house. She turned back to her room and she heard Edward’s door close behind her.
Weathervane my arse,she thought and she got back into bed. She expected better from him considering he made up stories for a living. He could have told her they had a resident ghost – that she would have believed more than his rubbish weathervane story.
Cranberry Cross was proving to be more than she had bargained for in every way.
A morose child who buried dolls in the snow.
Her father who ran hot and cold.
Unexplained noises in the old house that sounded suspiciously like an electric guitar.
A mother who had abandoned her own child.
This really was a modern-day Brontë novel. So, who did that make her? Jane Eyre?
God she hoped not, and she rolled over and fell asleep, dreaming of the snow and being buried until Flora found her and warmed her in the kitchen in a cupboard while feeding her baked potatoes.
9
Eve’s internal alarm clock woke her at half past six in the morning, even though she had set her phone alarm for seven thirty. The room was dark but she could see a chink of light between the moss-green velvet curtains.
She had slept well, better than well actually. There wasn’t a sound in the house, unlike the sound she heard last night. Edward had looked at her as though she was drunk when she said it sounded human.
Her hand stroked the linen sheets and she pulled the heavy covers up to her chin. Could she edit the book from this divine bed?
‘Time to get up,’ she told herself, but a whistle of wind rattled the window and she closed her eyes. A little sleep-in wouldn’t hurt.
*
It was after nine thirty in the morning when a knock at the door woke her.
Hilditch’s voice came through the heavy wood, sounding muffled and somewhat peeved.
‘It’s after nine thirty. If you want breakfast you’re on your own. I’m off to Crossbourne with Flora. Mr Priest is waiting for you, has been for the past hour.’
‘Christ on a cracker,’ Eve muttered as she threw back the heavy covers. ‘Coming,’ she called, trying to sound awake but her voice came out strangled and high-pitched.
After brushing her hair and cleaning her teeth at the same time, she pulled on some clothes and ran downstairs.
‘How are we this morning?’ he asked as she walked into his study. He looked up and smiled at her politely, as though nothing had happened the night before and she wasn’t an hour late on her first day.
She felt like she had been dragged backwards through a bush but Edward looked fresh, and she could smell the scent of soap and something leathery, a cologne but very subtle.
‘Fine thank you,’ said Eve, following his lead. If he wanted to pretend everything was normal then she was well practised. Used to Serena’s outbursts one minute and then complete denial the next.
Edward gestured to his desk. ‘I turned it around as you suggested.’
‘Excellent.’ She smiled.
‘Did you get any reading done?’ he asked. Was he being sarcastic? Was he setting her up to fail? Plying her with wine so she couldn’t do the job and then he would tell Serena she had failed from the outset? Perhaps her imagination was being a little overactive. She was so used to being set up to fail by Serena that she was immediately defensive until she realised it was a natural question to ask her.
‘I did,’ she said. ‘I have read both sets of pages and I have notes on them.’
Edward seemed surprised but also pleased.
‘Well done you, even after the wine. I thought you would just go to sleep. I wasn’t expecting you to have done both of them.’
