Page 89 of Winter at Wishington Bay
Again, I nodded. There was no point denying anything now. ‘Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before and I’m sure you have questions, which I promise I’ll answer, but right now I—’
‘You don’t need to explain anything to me, love,’ Flora said as she pulled me into a gentle hug. ‘You’re a wonderful person and that’s the friend I love. It doesn’t matter to me what your name, or your title is. I’m sure you have your reasons to have kept it to yourself, but they’re your reasons and you should only explain them if you want to. Remember that.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, feeling the tears swim in my eyes but, with years of training behind me, I refused to let them fall in public.
She patted my hand, opened the door, and I quickly made my way to my front door, unlocked it, and bolted it behind me before dropping my bag and pelting up the stairs, barely making it to the bathroom before I threw up.
* * *
I woke to the unfamiliar sound of voices outside my flat. It usually took a while for the village to rise from slumber in the winter, and the peacefulness was something I loved about the place, having spent a great deal of time over the years in London. Shoving the covers back, I shuffled my feet into cosy slippers and moved across to the window. Peering cautiously through a gap in the curtains, I looked down to the street. Quickly I took a step back as my legs suddenly weakened. Putting my hand out blindly behind me, I felt for the end of the bed before sinking down on to it. The voices continued outside, but they were being drowned out by the clanging that now reverberated in my brain. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. I’d worked so hard on building a new life. A life away from everything that had made me unhappy before and now all that had come rushing back, careering into the present and shattering the calm, happy existence I so loved.
‘Lady Sophia! Lady Sophia!’ The shouts permeated my thoughts and I could hear the front door being thumped and banged. I put my hands up to my ears, trying to shut it out. Perhaps, if I closed my eyes and pretended it wasn’t happening, I could transport myself back into the better world I’d found. It didn’t work. Of course, it didn’t. I wasn’t bloody Dorothy trying to get home from Oz, and no matter what I’d tried to pretend, I was Lady Sophia Huntingdon-Jones and it appeared that no one was going to let me forget that.
I headed into the bathroom and proceeded with my usual routine, some part of my brain craving normality, before I made my way into the kitchen. My stomach churned at the thought of food, so I fished out a ginger and lemon teabag and dropped it in a cup while I flicked the kettle on to boil with the other hand. Having got my drink, I took it through to the living room and sat on the sofa. Part of my mind was spinning wildly, but another part of me felt numb and like I was moving through thick, cold custard. Raised voices caught my attention, bringing me out of my fog. I stepped to the window, careful to keep myself back enough to still be out of sight to the telephoto lenses attached to the gutter press circling below. Flora was out there, waving her arms and yelling at the group of them now gathered outside the frontage of her shop.
A fresh wave of sickness and guilt rolled over me. The mob were completely blocking the door of her shop, enough to put off all but the most determined visitors, while window shoppers didn’t have a hope of getting through. This was why I should have stayed in a city. I’d been foolish to think that I could just leave that life behind forever. There was always going to be someone who’d find a way to suck me back in. I’d been so careful. Even my ex-husband didn’t know where I lived – my solicitors had been given strict instructions that neither he, nor anyone else, was to be told. Obviously I’d had to do all the legal stuff in my original name and, as much as I’d been trying to distance myself from it, in that instance, it had proved useful. The name of Huntingdon-Jones was old, and well known – a fact I knew to my cost – it had been one of the most attractive things about me, as far as my ex-husband had been concerned. I’d insisted on keeping it, the one thing I refused to concede. My father was no longer around but I was determined to hold on to his name. I’d tacked Jeremy’s surname on the end of mine when we married but inevitably it sometimes got omitted in the interest of space in the press. My name carried weight, so what I requested, including utmost privacy and my mail to be addressed using my adjusted name, was immediately adhered to. No, this leak had come from the village. Serena had recognised me – how, I still hadn’t worked out – but that was a worry for a different day, and her new best friend, Corinne, had done the rest. And, by the looks of it, Flora and her business were paying the price. I knew I should ring her. Try to apologise. Offer to somehow compensate her for any business she lost because of this, but right now there was one thing I knew I needed to do, and I couldn’t put it off any more. Picking up my phone, I switched it on and waited for it do its thing. Once it had, I knew the situation was even worse than I’d imagined. Notifications poured in, beeps and pings, one after the other, lighting up my phone as bright as the Christmas lights I’d forgotten to turn off last night before falling into bed, upset and mentally exhausted, dreading the following day. But that day was now here, and as I looked down at the screen, I wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed with it.
I dropped the phone as it rang, the sound startling me out of my bad dream-like state. The number wasn’t one I recognised, and I immediately swiped ‘decline’. No sooner had I done that, it rang again, this time with a different but again unrecognised number. Decline. Ring. Decline. Ring. Decline, decline, decline. According to my log, there were already more voicemails than my inbox could hold and a plethora of texts. Clearly Corinne had not only been free with my real name and address, but also my telephone number. I switched the phone to silent, deleted the voicemails wholesale, and did the same with the texts. Then I took a deep inhale and opened the internet.
Lady of the Loo!
Lady HJ Reduced to Cleaning Toilets!
Aristo’s Fall From Grace
From Being Waited On Hand and Foot to Becoming the Waitress!
Lady Sophia – Cleaning Loos and Finding Comfort in the Arms of a Married Man.
On and on they went, all in the same vein. ‘Inside sources’ and someone ‘close to Lady Sophia’ gave all manner of information, the majority of it incorrect. I’d long since learned that such sources were often just the muck-rakers themselves, making up gossip to help sell their rags and boost their website hits. Not that it made it any easier. People believed it, and that was all they cared about. Facts were way down the list of things that such people held any concern for.
The whoop-whoop of a siren outside caught my attention. I dropped the phone and returned to my stealthy spot by the window. A police car had now pulled up outside and two officers got out, placing their hats on their head as they did so. The gaggle of press glanced towards them then back towards the windows of my flat as Flora bustled her way through to get to the policemen. I stood in the shadows and watched as she spoke to them, her arms flailing about as she did so. A tear crept down one cheek. Flora had been so kind to me, and this was how I repaid her. Even if I hadn’t intended it, I’d always known it was a possibility and now she was paying the price. One of the policemen stayed with Flora as the older one moved towards the assortment of press. I couldn’t hear exactly what he said but guessed he was asking them to move on. A car was now sitting in the narrow road, trying to get past the group that took up half of it as well as the pavement. It gave a beep and received a couple of rude hand gestures in reply. I recognised the car as belonging to a lovely couple who lived on the edge of the village as you walked up to it from Holly and Gabe’s place. They owned the beautiful garden Nate and I had walked past and we’d had many a pleasant chat when I’d seen them working away in it. They didn’t deserve that kind of treatment any more than Flora did. The policeman was doing his best, but the paparazzi weren’t in any mood to listen to reason. I wasn’t sure people like that ever were. They had their eye on the prize. And that prize was me.
Fine. If that’s what they wanted, that’s what they’d get. This village had been kind to me. I knew now my life here was over but the time I’d spent in this little community had helped me heal in more ways than I ever realised I needed. They didn’t deserve this, and it was going to stop. I was going to make it stop.
26
Heading back into the bathroom, I yanked the shower pull switch on with a little more force than was probably necessary and stripped off my nightclothes as the water warmed. Fresh and clean, I quickly dried my hair and left it loose. Next, I pulled on jeans and a cosy Liberty sweatshirt before sitting down at the tiny dressing table. Since I’d moved here, I no longer wore the ‘full face’ I’d done day in, day out in my previous life. It never did to be caught without your make-up, and the thought of sitting around in jogging bottoms would have had my mother clutching her heart. My ex-husband definitely wouldn’t have approved either – assuming he even noticed my presence, which in itself was pretty hit and miss. As strange as it seemed, curling up in front of the television or with a book in cosy lounge pants had been yet another revelation in my new life. But right now, I had to deal with fallout from my old life and, for that, I needed a bit of armour. I unzipped my make-up bag and went to work.
I sat back and studied myself for a moment. Better. I still looked like me, rather than who I’d had to be back then, but the magic of make-up had hidden the dark circles I’d woken up with after my fitful night, as well as disguising the slightly green pallor my skin still held thanks to this latest turn of events. Slipping my feet into my favourite pair of ankle boots, I grabbed my phone, shoved it in my back pocket and slid my arms into my long tan cashmere coat. I turned to the full-length mirror that hung on the wall in my tiny hallway. If I was going to face the wolves, I was going to do it looking pretty damn fabulous. Taking a couple of deep breaths, I focused, calming my racing pulse, then I grabbed my keys and walked purposefully down the stairs to my front door. A couple more deep breaths here and then I twisted the lock, pulled the door open and stepped out.
The noise assaulted my ears as much as the flashes firing in the dull gloom of the winter’s day attacked my eyes. I didn’t address any of them but kept my eyes focused on my initial goal – to find Flora. I knew that whether I said anything or not, the photos being taken right now would be all over the internet within hours, and in the papers and gossip magazines before the end of the week. There was nothing I could do about that, so I focused on getting to my friend instead. Stood at her doorway, Flora was still trying to do battle with the motley bunch blocking her shop. Shoving my way through, I reached for her outstretched hand and took it gratefully as she hauled me inside before closing the door and giving the lock a definitive twist.
‘The police got another call. He said they’d come back after if they can.’
Leaning back against the door, I met her eyes, preparing to launch into the speech I’d had running through my head ever since I’d made my decision. As I opened my mouth, Flora stopped me.
‘Whatever it is you’re going to say, you don’t need to.’
‘But—’
She shook her head. ‘Nope. I don’t want to hear it. I can see from your face, and the way you’ve battled through that pack of blood-thirsty lowlifes out there that you feel you need to explain something to me, but you don’t.’
I let out a sigh. ‘I really do, Flora. Not to mention apologising for all this happening quite literally on your doorstep and disrupting your business.’
She waved the apology away, the handful of bracelets on her wrist making a gentle tinkling noise as she did so.
‘Oh, they’ll be off soon enough, and don’t you worry about that in the meantime. The main thing is, how are you?’
