very clear about the secrecy required. She wondered what he would have to say about Cat’s attacker. He would have to say something, for the woman hadn’t been after Cat’s wallet. She had reached for the envelope.
Cat thought of Thomas Charles. He had said, ‘She won’t be back.’ How had he known that the attacker was a woman? He hadn’t been close enough to see her features clearly. How had he known that she wouldn’t come back? The time had come for Reginald to be honest with her. If he wouldn’t trust her, she would have to make other arrangements. What other arrangements? Cat nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity of that statement. She had no power in her relationship with Reginald. Until today she assumed she was doing menial courier work, a job thrown to her out of pity. Working for Reginald gave her the promise of independence. She wanted to cry out with frustration.
Cat started walking with no particular destination in mind. She couldn’t bear the thought of explaining her swollen face to Isobel, who would be quick with questions and even hastier with judgement. Rather than head towards the Carlisle house, she turned the opposite direction, grabbed a taxi, and gave her aunt’s address in Bloomsbury.
Aunt Lydia’s flat – one of four in a neat row, all brick, with a black front door and a half-moon window above – was two streets away from Bedford Square, a wooded park with ample benches to while away a summer day.
This neighbourhood wasn’t as posh as Kensington, but Cat preferred its utter lack of pretence. The front stoops weren’t scrubbed every day, nor were the pedestrians dressed in finery and jewels, but Cat had been happy here. She considered Bloomsbury her home. She walked up the steps to the front and rang the bell. When no one answered, she went down the steps to what used to be the service entrance to the below-street-level kitchen. She lifted a loose piece of flagstone and took the key that lay hidden there. She let herself into the kitchen.
She stood for a moment, taking in the familiarity of the house, letting the comfortable surroundings soothe her. Oh, how she wished she could escape back to this house, with its happy memories of her young adult life, to the time before she so naively married Benton Carlisle. Aunt Lydia had taken Cat under her protective wing after the motor-vehicle crash that killed her parents. Cat’s father was on leave for a week from some secret location where he served as a cryptographer. Her mother had gone to meet his train, and they planned to spend the week at home, together. Cat stayed behind to finish her schoolwork, so she could spend as much time with her father as possible. Until the knock on the door, the policeman with the sad eyes, and the news that changed Cat for ever.
Aunt Lydia had swept in, like an angel, and took Cat under her strong and capable wing. She had stayed with Cat just long enough to arrange the funeral and to see to the handling of the house. There was a small allowance that Cat would receive each quarter, enough money to live on if she stayed in Rivenby, the small northern village where she had lived so happily with her parents. But Lydia had other plans for Cat.
‘You need to figure out what you want to do with your life, darling. There’s no future for you here. Come to London and get yourself sorted out. You need to be around young people, darling. Rivenby will always be here, but you need to see a bit of the world before you settle.’
Cat, too shocked to make any decision on her own, capitulated without question and moved to London with her aunt. Now she stood in the foyer of their home, letting the familiarity sink in. It had been twenty years since her parents died. Once again Cat marvelled at the passage of time. She placed her palm flat on the wall, as if touching it like this would allow her to commit the comfort of the place to memory, as if the memory in turn would become a tangible thing she could keep with her.
She put the key back in its hiding place and went upstairs to the living room that overlooked the street. Now an old sofa covered with a sheet rested against the far wall. The big window flooded the room with light so vivid that its brightness jumped out from both of Aunt Lydia’s works in progress. One of the canvases portrayed Hector the Horse, the beloved character of the children’s books Aunt Lydia illustrated. The other was a still life depicting a large bouquet of flowers arranged haphazardly in an old milk jug that had at one time belonged to Cat’s mother.
The bunch of foxgloves, sunflowers, a stray imperfect rose, along with a handful of desiccated stems and twigs, didn’t appeal in their natural state. The flowers were on their last legs and the design of the arrangement was flawed. But Aunt Lydia used these flaws as the theme of her painting. Cat saw it right away. It gave the work an emotional pull that had successfully marvelled critics and enticed collectors for decades.
A large piece of wood positioned across two sawhorses served as her aunt’s work table. A cup of unfinished tea sat near a jar full of brushes and a box of paints. An open sketchpad lay on the table, revealing a pencil rendering of Hector the Horse arguing with a milkman. Next to it, a mock-up of the book was covered with Lydia’s unique angular scrawl.
An unbidden tear, hot and wet, spilled onto Cat’s cheek. Surprised, she wiped it away. She moved to the window and looked up and down the street before she went to the upstairs bathroom for a cool cloth.
Upstairs, Cat moved down the corridor to the room that used to be her own until her marriage to Benton. It was a dear room, situated in the back corner of the house, with a cosy bed, a dresser, and a case full of books. She and Aunt Lydia had painted the walls sky blue. On a whim, Lydia had painted the sun, with puffy white clouds floating by. She shook her head to clear the nostalgia. The motion caused her eye to throb.
In the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face before she stared at herself in the mirror. The glass was old and warped, but Cat was accustomed to the waves and distortions. When she moved in, she asked Lydia to replace the mirror with a newer one that portrayed an accurate reflection. Her aunt had refused. She explained that looking in the mirror was a stupid way to spend time. Cat remembered laughing at that. The memories didn’t do a thing to lift her mood.
Her eye was nearly swollen shut now and had turned a vivid red. Cat rifled through drawers for something with which to cover it, but Aunt Lydia didn’t wear cosmetics. Cat sighed. Nothing to be done except go home and lie down with a cool cloth on her eye. She would try to disguise the bruising with make-up before dinner.
Aunt Lydia arrived home just as Cat went down the stairs. She carried a large basket of groceries, a bottle of champagne sticking out the top.
‘Cat? What are you doing here? My God, what’s happened to your eye?’
‘Hello, Aunt Lydia,’ Cat said.
‘Catherine, tell me that Benton didn’t do that to you. I swear, if he so much as laid a finger on you, I’ll throttle him myself.’
Lydia Paxton’s hair was once as thick and curly as Cat’s. Now, at sixty-nine years old, the vivid locks had turned a burnished ginger spun with silver threads. She was shorter than Cat, and paid no attention to fashion. Today she wore baggy trousers – probably purchased at the men’s stall at some jumble sale – which were too long. Lydia rolled them up just enough to reveal the bright purple socks and the pink ballet slippers that adorned her feet. She wore a long-sleeved button-up shirt, another reject from some jumble sale, which was now splattered with paint. A network of fine lines sprayed out from the corners of her eyes, the result of a thousand smiles.
‘He did not,’ Cat said. ‘Promise.’
‘Come keep me company while I put away this lot.’ Aunt Lydia held up the grocery bags.
‘Let me help you,’ Cat said. She took one of the bags out of Lydia’s hand.
Cat followed her aunt into the kitchen, trying to concoct a story as she walked, knowing full well that if she told Lydia the truth about being attacked, Lydia would know that Cat was holding something back. She always knew. Cat learned at a young age there was no keeping secrets from Aunt Lydia. Neither spoke while Cat took the items from the wicker grocery bags and put them away. Lydia tended to the kettle. While she waited for it to boil, she turned her attention to Cat and studied her face, letting her gaze linger on Cat’s eye and cheek, which throbbed with pain.
‘What’s happened, Cat? You’re in some sort