the repercussions should it come to light, but now she had nothing to lose, had she? And there was no one here to witness her intrusion. As long as she left the room exactly as she had found it, no one would be any the wiser. Except herself if she was fortunate enough to find the information she was seeking.
Leaving the kitchen, Cait went upstairs and along the landing to stand outside her parents’ bedroom door. She reached out to take hold of the knob but withdrew her hand in a flash as a vision of her mother’s face swam before her, a look of severe reprimand on her face, reminding Cait this room she was about to enter was forbidden to her. Nerys was hundreds of miles away by now, but regardless her grip on Cait was still an iron one. Nevertheless, Cait’s need to fill in the blanks of her past spurred her on. Defiantly she grabbed the knob, turned it and walked purposefully inside the room.
The moonless evening was dark. Light from the street lamps did not reach the house as it was set well back from the road. Despite the fact there was no one to witness her intrusion into her parents’ private sanctum, Cait still felt guilty and went to pull the curtains tight across before she dare switch on the light, blinking to accustom her eyes as light flooded the room.
Then she cast her gaze around. It was a large room, the size of two bedrooms in most people’s houses. The paper on the wall behind the bed was of roses in shades of pink. The rest of the walls had been lined in heavy Anaglypta paper painted cream. The thick carpet on the floor was cream also. The furniture was all of matching light oak. A big solid wooden-framed bed dominated the back wall. To each side of it stood a small table with a lamp, the shades the exact colour of the heavy green satin counterpane covering the mattress. Two large wardrobes stood against one of the side walls. Obviously one was her mother’s, the other her father’s. Under the wide window on the wall opposite was a large mirrored dressing table with an assortment of jars of face cream and several perfume bottles arranged on top. It had three deep drawers down each side and a pink covered stool tucked into the gap in the middle.
Cait imagined her mother sitting at it every morning, applying her make-up and attending to her hair before she came down; cleaning her face and brushing her hair before she retired to bed at night. For a moment she wondered what it would have been like to have been allowed to sit and watch her mother, learn tips from her on how to look after her skin, instead of having to glean information for herself by looking through her mother’s discarded magazines.
She gave herself a mental shake. She had intruded into this room for a purpose, and moping over things that might have been would not help her achieve that aim.
The dressing table was the obvious first choice.
Cait worked her way through the drawers. Two were devoted to silk underwear, a third filled with scarves of every colour and pattern a woman could possibly need. Another held unopened bottles of perfume, face cream, make-up and hair products. It was apparent her mother didn’t like to run out of anything. Of the last two drawers, one was filled with packets of seamed stockings in every colour that was made. The last drawer was devoted to jewellery . . . rings, necklaces, bracelets, brooches, hair slides. Not all of it was gold but the costume pieces were so well made they would have been taken for real.
The dressing-table drawers did not contain what Cait was seeking.
After checking each drawer to make sure not one thing looked as if it had been disturbed, she went over to the wardrobes. One was slightly shorter than the other and only had one large door; the other side held drawers, eight in all. It was a man’s wardrobe. The larger one had double doors and no drawers. A woman’s wardrobe. Opening that one, she stared in shock at the number of clothes hanging inside. There was an item for any occasion. Cait was aware her mother had an extensive range of clothes, judging by those she’d seen, but not on this scale. Flicking through them, it struck her that more than half