The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,30

find Lottie first. She would have to find a plan B.

I turned the door knob and stepped inside to find the shutters closed and her bedroom shrouded in darkness. Lottie’s frame was highlighted from the light of the hallway. She was laying on her bed, her back to the door. I didn’t turn on the light but crossed to the bed and shook Lottie gently.

‘Lottie,’ I whispered. ‘Lottie … there’s something I need to talk to you about. Something I need to tell you.’

Lottie stirred.

‘Juliet?’ she murmured, in that confused, barely awake state. ‘You’ve been gone all day. Where on earth have you been? Ma is starting to get a bit cross with you disappearing off all of the time, you know.’

‘Never mind that now. Listen, about Edward Nancarrow. How well do you know him?’

Lottie raised herself up and rubbed her eyes. She turned to plump a pillow against the wooden headboard.

‘Well, let’s say I know him well enough to wish I wasn’t pregnant so I could persuade him to take me out to dinner sometime. Why?’

‘He’s a good man, then?’ I pressed.

‘He seems so, yes, although no one seems to know much about him. He’s rented that old cottage by the beach from Pa for about a year now. Pa knows him quite well, I think. He’s quite old, though. At least thirty! But sexy as anything!’ She giggled. ‘But he’s a bit of a charmer if you ask me, not that Edward Nancarrow could ever be in the running if you’re thinking of pairing us up’ – she glanced down at her belly – ‘even if I wasn’t in this damn pickle …’

‘Why not?’

She sat up further, more animated now.

‘There’s rumour that the American accent is fake. That he’s actually German!’

‘German?! No, not really?’

Lottie nodded.

‘Really! And he’s married, too. But it’s an odd carry on if you ask me.’

And at that moment, with Lottie’s words bouncing around the room like a stray bullet, my world fell apart.

Edward. Married.

Spend the day with me. No promises. Today, right now, that’s all that matters …

And then I turned to see Charles standing in the doorway, and when I saw the desperate expression on his face, I felt certain he knew about Edward. That’s it then, Juliet, I thought. The game is up. You’re left with nothing and you deserve it.

But Charles didn’t know about Edward. His anguished expression concerned another issue entirely.

Charles walked into the bedroom with his arms outstretched and directly behind him, Pa Lanyon appeared at the door, his face wet with tears.

Ma Lanyon, Charles explained, was in hospital, fighting for her life, and so was Katie. A car crash returning from Penzance, they said.

Taking in the scene as if watching from above, I saw my new family gathered around me in the darkness. They were people who had supported me through the worst news a young woman could ever have, the premature loss of her parents. I saw Lottie, too, asking frantic questions about her beloved Ma. Lottie, who was being forced into hiding in Yorkshire after Christmas because her illegitimate baby was beginning to show. And I saw Charles, trying to be brave standing side by side with Pa Lanyon, who was driven half-crazy with the worry of how to financially maintain an estate that since the end of the First World War had been unable to support its tenant farmers and staff. This family needed me as much as I had once needed them.

Which was why, on Christmas Eve, while Ma Lanyon and Katie fought for their lives, I stood with Charles, Pa and Lottie outside a nondescript room in Penzance Town Hall, in my old tweed suit, waiting for a clerk to come and escort us in.

The clerk appeared at the door. ‘It’s time,’ he said with an encouraging smile.

With no other friends or relatives around me, through silent tears I listened vaguely to the registrar as he talked us through the vows and eventually whispered the only words that were left for me to say … ‘I do.’

Chapter 12

Katherine

Finding Fenella

With the bubble caption of ‘Don’t marry him, Juliet!’ floating above my head, I decided that I really did need to put down the manuscript and spend a part of the day out of bed. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I noticed vaguely that a note had been pushed under the door. I meandered into the kitchen with the note in my hand and smiled at the elf – at least I still had