the cold water soaked their clothes. They sat in restaurants, holding hands across the table, forgetting to pick up their forks and actually eat anything. They walked along the pier, watching the waves pulling back and forth in the gaps between the wooden slats beneath their feet. When the sun went down they looked out at the ocean as the horizon turned pink, orange and red. They walked hand in hand back to the cottage, their faces lit by the flashing lights of fairground rides and casinos, and made love until morning.
That night Albert pretended Elizabeth was his, that he could let her go and she’d come back to him. He lay in the dark and stroked every inch of her as if he had all the time in the world. He gave her soft kisses, whispered her name until it was all he could say, until his mouth couldn’t make sense of the word anymore. Usually, in their stolen afternoons together, she napped afterward and he loved to look at her. But that night he slept when Elizabeth did, pretending that they could take their time for granted. If he’d known that it would be their last night together, he would have stayed awake. But of course he didn’t.
When they met again after that weekend it was always during the day and only for a few hours at a time. Elizabeth quickly started to show and had to begin telling the great lie, a lie that included sleeping once more with her husband. Secretly Albert hoped that Charles wouldn’t be fooled, that he’d divorce his wife and allow them to be together. Sadly, and rather surprisingly, when he was given the news Lord Ashby experienced a sudden surge of devotion brought on by impending fatherhood and hardly let her out of his sight. So, in the snatched hours Albert shared with Elizabeth after that, he could only close his eyes and remember what it had once been like to hold her as though she was his forever.
—
Peggy kneels in her garden, plucking dead flowers off plants and pulling out weeds. It’s the eighth of July. The sun is high in the sky and hot on her back. Perhaps she should put on sunscreen, but what does it really matter now? In the corner of her eye she catches sight of her beloved black roses. The day they first blossomed, nearly twenty years ago, Peggy felt overjoyed to have created something so beautiful. Now she focuses on the dusky velvet petals until all she can see is darkness, death, suicide and murder, which reminds her of that mystery writer, the one who enjoyed extolling the virtues of matrimonial bliss. But, being as yet untouched by love and filled with the ignorance of youth, Peggy hadn’t listened.
Agatha Christie had stayed in the house for a week back when Esme was in charge. Years later she returned for a surprise visit, interrupting Peggy having afternoon tea in the downstairs kitchen. So they sat together, eating chocolate cake and sipping Earl Grey tea.
“Oh dear, I’m sorry,” Agatha said after her cup slipped out of her fingers and spilled tea across the table. “Old age is embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry.” Peggy mopped it up and poured her another cup.
“If you get a chance you should marry an archaeologist. I don’t suppose there are too many to go around, but it’s the best sort of husband to have. The older a woman gets, the more he’s interested in her.” Agatha laughed.
“I’ll remember that when I’m in my seventies and looking for a lover.” Peggy smiled obligingly. “Cream?”
“Absolutely, thank you.”
“So,” Peggy said, “why are you back?”
“Well . . . my days in this house were some of the most significant of my life, I appreciated every one of them.” Agatha glanced down at her plate. “I think I’m starting to lose my grip. Words often escape me, plots are more difficult to remember. I’m starting to wonder how many more books I’ll be able to complete before I lose . . .”
“I see.” Peggy nodded. “And what are you working on now?”
“I don’t know yet.” Agatha tapped the side of her head and her helmeted coiffure of curls quivered. “These little gray cells, it’s up to them.”
Regarding the old woman carefully, Peggy dipped her finger into the cream and slowly licked it off. “You’ll be fine for another fifteen years,” she said. “You’ll write another ten books or thereabouts. I’d have to check upstairs to be certain, but