‘It won’t stop us bein’ friends, will it? If me an’ my Billy decide not to accept yer offer, I mean.’
‘Of course it won’t.’ Amy shook her head. ‘Nothing would ever stop me thinking of you as my friend, ever.’
Nancy skipped back to give her young mistress a quick hug before leaving the room, her mind a whirl. She would certainly have somethin’ to tell Billy tonight, that was for sure.
‘So, this is it then. Au revoir, ma chère fiancée.’ François took Amy’s hands in his. ‘The next time I see you will be when I return to England for our wedding in May.’
She nodded numbly. It still seemed unbelievable that in a few short months’ time they would be married.
He had arrived back very late the evening before and when she had heard him on the landing outside her room she had gone out to bid him good night. He had started guiltily when he saw her and, as she had leaned towards him to kiss him, she had thought for a moment that she had caught the scent of a woman’s perfume on his coat. But then, tucked up in bed again, she had convinced herself that she must have been mistaken.
Now, he leaned to kiss her gently on her unmarked cheek and she realised then with a little shock that he had barely kissed her a handful of times during his entire stay. And then it had only been to peck her chastely on the cheek as he was doing now.
‘Goodbye, have a safe journey,’ she whispered, and then he was striding away to the carriage that was waiting outside and she waved until it was swallowed up by the smog.
Sighing, she hurried away to pack her own small valise. It would be time for her and her grandfather to leave in less than an hour if they were to catch their train home.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Seth snapped his braces into place and slapped his wife’s bottom soundly as she stepped past him with a large pan of porridge in her hands.
‘Do that again an’ yer might find yerself wearin’ this,’ Winifred warned him as she plonked it on to the table, but for all her harsh words her voice was soft. Seth seemed to have been happier these last few months than she had known him to be for years. But then as she thought of the terrible secret that he had been forced to keep for Master Adam she wasn’t surprised. She just wished Master Adam would snap out of his melancholy now. The way she saw it, poor Miss Jessica was gone an’ there could be no bringin’ her back. The sooner Master Adam realised it and put the past behind him, the sooner he could get on with his life. After all, how could he have known, all those years ago, that refusing to speak to the master on his sister’s behalf would have such tragic consequences? It was common knowledge that Adam had adored his sister and no one believed that he would willingly have done her any harm. He had just had his head turned by that minx, Eugenie – who, word had it, was now in the final stages of her illness in an asylum in Leicestershire.
‘The master an’ Miss Amy are due back from London today,’ Seth informed her as she ladled some porridge into his bowl.
‘Will you be takin’ the carriage to pick ’em up from the station?’ Winifred enquired, pulling her thoughts sharply back to the present.
He nodded as he looked across at her, considering himself to be a very fortunate man indeed. Winifred was a good woman and they had barely had a cross word in all their long married life. An’ she were still a bit of a looker, an’ all. A bit on the plump side now, admittedly, but he weren’t complainin’.
When they had finished their breakfast, Seth stood up and yawned lazily as he stretched. ‘I could just fall back into bed,’ he told her meaningfully, but she wagged a finger at him.
‘Yer wouldn’t be able to, ’cos I’m just about to strip the sheets off it. So get yerself off an’ get some work done. I’ve got a pile o’ dirty laundry to tackle an’ I don’t want to see yer ugly face again till dinnertime.’
‘Yer a tartar, so you are, woman,’ he teased, and snatching his coat from the hook on the back of the door he slid his arms into it and