told himself in answer to the voices. She needed to be on her guard.
Since she was not, he would be on guard for her. That and no other would be the duty which he would embrace.
Chapter Three
HER NAME WAS GINA DICKENS, MEREDITH LEARNED, AND it seemed that she was Gordon Jossie's new partner, although she didn't actually refer to herself as that. She didn't use new because, as things turned out, she had no idea there was an old partner or a former partner or whatever one wanted to call Jemima Hastings. She also didn't use partner as such, as she didn't quite live there in the cottage although she "had hopes," she said with a smile. She was there on the holding more than she was at her own place, she confided, which was a tiny bed-sit above the Mad Hatter Tea Rooms. They were in Lyndhurst High Street, she said, where, frankly, the noise from dawn to dusk was appalling. And, come to think of it, the noise went on far beyond dusk because it was summer and there were several hotels, a pub, restaurants ...and with all the tourists at this time of year ...she was lucky to average four hours of sleep a night when she was there. Which, to be honest, she tried not to be.
They'd gone inside the cottage. It had, Meredith quickly saw, been stripped of all things Jemima, at least as far as the kitchen went, which was as far as Meredith herself went and was also as far as she wanted to go. Alarm bells were ringing in her head, her palms were wet, and her underarms were dripping straight down her sides. Part of this was due to the day's ever-increasing heat, but the rest was due to everything being absolutely wrong.
Outside the cottage, Meredith's throat had instantly dried to a desert. As if knowing this, Gina Dickens had ushered her within, sat her down at the old oak table, and brought from the fridge designer water in a frosty bottle, just the sort of thing Jemima would have scoffed at. She poured them both a glass and said, "You look as if you've ...I don't know what to call it."
Meredith said stupidly, "It's our birthday."
"Yours and Jemima's? Who is she?"
Meredith couldn't believe at first that Gina Dickens didn't know a thing about Jemima.
How could one live with a woman for as long as Gordon had lived with Jemima and somehow manage to keep the knowledge of her existence from his ...Was Gina his next lover? Or was she one in a line of his lovers? And where were the rest of them? Where was Jemima? Oh, Meredith had known from the first that Gordon Jossie was bad news on legs.
"...at Boldre Gardens," Gina was saying. "Near Minstead? D'you know it? He was thatching a building there and I'd got myself lost. I had a map, but I'm completely useless even with a map. Spacially hopeless. North, west, whatever. None of them mean a thing to me."
Meredith roused herself. Gina was telling her how she and Gordon Jossie had met, but she didn't care about that. She cared about Jemima Hastings. She said, "He never mentioned Jemima? Or the Cupcake Queen? The shop she opened in Ringwood?"
"Cup cakes?"
"It's what she does. She had a business she ran from this cottage and it'd grown so much and ...bakeries and hotels and catering for parties like children's birthdays and ...he never mentioned ... ?"
"I'm afraid he didn't. He hasn't."
"What about her brother? Robbie Hastings? He's an agister. This - " She waved her arm to indicate the entire holding. "This is part of his area. It was part of his father's area as well.
And his grandfather's. And his great-grandfather's. There've been agisters in their family so long that all this part of the New Forest is actually called the Hastings. You didn't know that?"
Gina shook her head. She looked mystified and, now, a little bit frightened. She moved her chair a few inches away from the table and she glanced from Meredith to the cake she'd brought, which, ridiculously, she'd carried into the cottage. Seeing this, it came to Meredith that Gina wasn't afraid of Gordon Jossie - as she damn well should have been - but of Meredith herself who was talking rather like a madwoman.
"You must think I'm barking," Meredith said.
"No, no. I don't. It's just ..." Gina's words were quick, marginally breathless, and she seemed to stop herself