‘It’s legal. You were under anaesthetic and we made the choice for the baby and for you to have the best life you can.’
Diana tasted blood in her mouth as the first nurse from earlier came rushing in.
‘Be quiet – you’re upsetting all the mothers,’ she said before leaving the room again.
Diana’s head was spinning and she pulled at the bedclothes, trying to get out, but her body was too weak.
‘She’s been taken home, Diana, to the home where she belongs,’ her father said. ‘Now you can get married and have your own family and raise them at Moongate one day.’
Diana had never felt hate before but now she knew it tasted like blood. She looked at her weak, pathetic mother, her overbearing, cruel father and she laughed at them.
‘I will never have a family of my own. I will never marry and I will never have another child. That was my child and you stole her from me,’ Diana said. ‘The Moongate legacy finishes with me and you only have yourselves to blame.’
30
Amanda
The doorbell rang, and Amanda jumped in surprise.
She hadn’t heard the bell ring before and she had been in deep concentration when it reverberated through the house.
Amanda stood up from the dining table, which she had turned into temporary art studio, and went to the front door and opened it to see Diana.
‘Diana, you don’t need to ring the bell. Just come in,’ she said.
Diana was clutching a small silk bag, but it was still bigger than her thin hands. She was wearing a pair of linen pants and a pink-and-white-striped cotton top. It was unlike anything Amanda had seen her wear before.
‘I love your outfit,’ she said. ‘You look so fresh. Come in.’ She opened the door wider.
‘I went shopping with Carole, and she chose this for me. I thought it far too young but apparently there are no rules on what you should wear at any age now.’
Amanda laughed. ‘Good job, Carole. Are you coming in?’
Diana shook her head. ‘No, I can’t. I’m off to lunch with Shelley and Frank and then to a gallery in Alnwick.’ She handed Amanda the silk bag.
‘What’s this?’ she asked, pulling the drawstring open.
‘They’re the pearls. They’re a part of the house. They belong to you,’ said Diana.
Amanda looked into the bag in shock. ‘I can’t take these,’ she said, but Diana shook her head.
‘They belong to you. They came with the house,’ she repeated sternly.
Before Amanda could say anything else, she saw Frank’s car pull up to the gatehouse. When she turned back to Diana the older woman stared her down.
‘Don’t argue with me about this or I will put them in the rubbish – you know I will,’ she said firmly but with a smile. ‘Have a lovely day.’
She turned and then was off down the driveway to her waiting ride to her lunch.
Amanda closed the door and went back to her artwork, putting the pearls on the table.
They were worth tens of thousands of pounds and Diana was handing them out as though they were a mere trinket.
Something wasn’t right about this and Diana, for all her secrecy, was not playing it as subtly as she thought she was.
Amanda took her laptop from the table and typed into the search bar:finding your biological family as an adoptee.
*
