stock and red wine, with thyme and bay leaves, the baguette is already sliced, the Gruyère grated, waiting to melt sumptuously on the top.
The beans, olives, tomatoes and anchovies are cooking gently, the monkfish is washed and seasoned, ready to be roasted quickly at the end. The apple crisp, now prepared and in the fridge, will be placed in the oven just when Kit pulls out the monkfish.
The whole house smells delicious. She has scented candles, but nothing is quite so enticing as the buttery, garlicky scent wafting from the kitchen. Nevertheless, the candles are lit, as is the fire, and the music is coming from the iPod.
Kit is in the bathroom, getting ready. Tonight is probably the night, she realizes, thinking about their kiss. Tonight is the night she will go to bed with him. So many years since she has slept with anyone other than Adam. So many years that she has forgotten what this feels like, this anticipation, this cross between excitement and nerves.
And yet in a flash it all comes back, making her feel like a teenager again, her eyes alight, her skin glowing.
She has new underwear on, nothing too sexy—she is a woman in her forties, for God’s sake, not a twenty-something—and her legs are newly shaved and moisturized with a lemon jasmine moisturizer she uses only on special occasions.
The doorbell rings and she feels her heart catch in her mouth as she runs down the stairs to answer it. After all these years you would expect to feel less nervous, she thinks, feeling ever so slightly sick as she opens the door.
“Hi.” Steve, looking almost stupidly handsome, smiles at her.
“Hi. Come in.” She steps back, suddenly wishing she hadn’t been quite so obvious in turning her home into a seduction set. Why did she have to go so overboard with the candles?
“Oh, this was on the mat outside the door.” He hands her an envelope with her name on it.
“Thanks.” She takes it and leads him into the kitchen. “Can I get you some wine? ”
He puts a bottle of red on the table. “I brought some. God, it smells great in here. You must be some cook.”
“I try.” She is distracted as she looks at the handwritten envelope. “Let me just look at this.”
As she reads, she frowns, deeper and deeper, then freezes, the color draining from her face.
“What is it? ” Steve asks, concerned.
“It’s from a woman who says she needs to talk to me,” Kit says slowly.
“About what? ”
“She says she’s my sister.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I thought you didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“I don’t,” whispers Kit, as a photograph drops out of the envelope. She picks it up, in slow motion. It is the woman Kit saw out of the window, standing on the street this morning, looking at the house. She isn’t surprised. It feels as if there is a part of her that has known, a part of her that knew there was more to her than met the eye.
Of course there is a sense of familiarity. This girl looks just like Ginny, Kit’s mother. Granted, she isn’t groomed, overly made up, dressed in couture and climbing out of a town car, but look at her eyes. They are the same. The bone structure is the same. Her skin is much paler, but her mouth is the same as Kit’s.
“Do you think she’s lying? ” Steve asks awkwardly, not knowing quite what to say.
“It doesn’t look like it, does it?” Kit gives a short bark of laughter.
“What does she say? ”
“Here.” She hands him the piece of paper while shaking her head. “I need to sit down.”
Dear Kit,
I landed in Highfield a few days ago, and have been trying to work up the courage to contact you ever since, and now I am taking the coward’s way out and writing you a letter instead of doing what I had planned and ringing your doorbell.
I imagine you will have no idea who I am. My name is Annabel Plowman, and I live in Hampstead, London. My father lives around the corner from me. His name is John Plowman. He runs a successful landscape business here in London, but many years ago he worked as a full-time gardener for Virginia Clayton (as she was then), just after you turned twelve.
The way my father tells it, she was the love of his life. She got pregnant, with me, and when her husband found out about the affair, he demanded she give me up