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‘I can give you a lift, but I need to ring your school and ask them to contact your mum. I need her permission.’
‘Don’t bother.’ The girl turned back towards the shelter, her shoulders braced against the wind.
‘You know hitch-hiking is dangerous,’ Freya offered, wincing at words she knew would achieve nothing. ‘I might be anyone.’
The girl looked over her shoulder. ‘But you’re not. You’re Freya Anthony. I’ve seen you before.’
‘Have you?’
‘And everyone’s talking about you.’
Ah. Why did that still have the power to surprise her? ‘Do I get to know your name?’
‘Do I get a lift?’ she countered.
It was a little like looking into a mirror. Albeit one that had the ability to turn back time. There was something else, too. Some sense that she’d seen this girl somewhere before. Maybe it was nothing more than the ghosts of her youth haunting her. Reminding her.
‘It’s pouring down out here, and I’m wet.’
‘I…’ Freya was momentarily distracted by a bright light shining in her rearview mirror. She looked up and then over her shoulder as a silver estate car bore done on her.
The girl swore, and Freya turned in time to see her duck out of sight. What the—?
The lights were switched off and a car door slammed behind her. Freya swung round in her seat and she watched, amazed, as Daniel Ramsay stormed over towards the shelter.
Oh…my…goodness. She made the connection surprisingly slowly. Somehow it had never occurred to her that a man the age of Daniel Ramsay would have a daughter as old as this one. But that had to be it. Every line of his body screamed his anger.
His dark eyes met hers briefly, but his attention was on the belligerent teenager. Fascinated, she watched the confident, mouthy girl turn into a sulky, quiet one. Freya deliberately looked away, and carefully re-zipped the inner pocket of her handbag.
She felt a strange pang of envy watching the two of them. No one had ever come looking for her. Certainly not her dad. Not ever. It would have meant a lot if he had. If just once he’d put her first. Freya brushed an irritated hand across her eyes. It had been such a long time since she’d allowed herself to be so affected by thoughts like that. It didn’t matter.
Not any more.
Her parents were her parents. They’d done the best they could and that was that. One’s worth must come from inside oneself. She only wished she could believe that…on some level other than a cerebral one.
‘Ms Anthony?’
Freya looked up.
‘Is that yours or hers?’ he asked abruptly, his voice edged with anger and his eyes on the cigarette butt on the kerb.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The cigarette?’
His voice was like steel…and she instinctively reacted against it. Who did he think he was, to be talking to her like that? She glanced at his daughter, standing sullenly behind him, and caught the appeal for help in her eyes. It was fleeting. Barely there before it was gone. And Freya couldn’t do anything but respond to the sense of kinship she felt.
‘You have a problem with that?’
His brown eyes narrowed infinitesimally. ‘Actually, plenty. But if you want to sabotage your chances of living into old age so be it.’ He turned his head. ‘Mia, get in the car. Now. I said now!’
The teenager allowed herself a quick glance of gratitude towards Freya before doing as she was told. It was amazing how much ‘attitude’ she still managed to exude. Even the slam of the door spoke volumes.
Freya turned back to look at Mia’s father, feeling a little guilty.
He took a moment, seemingly trying to gain some control. ‘That wasn’t helpful. I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but—’
‘I—’
‘—if she’d actually got into your car I’d have seriously considered charging you with abduction.’
‘I—’
‘I suggest, in future, you mind your own business,’ he said, stepping back from her car and heading towards his own.
Freya sat, a little stunned at his attack. She felt as though she’d been verbally cut off at the knees. And people said she had a tongue dipped in vitriol.
She wouldn’t care to be in Mia’s shoes right now, she thought as she caught a glimpse of Daniel’s expression as he drove past. There was a price to being loved, it seemed. Because she didn’t doubt he was motivated by that.
Even so…he’d had no business talking to her like that. Slowly she reached down for the ignition to start the engine.
Surely it had been a tad disproportionate? She’d known from his reaction to her name earlier that he’d heard something of her history, but what exactly did he think she’d want with a truanting teenager? Did he honestly imagine she went around the country finding disaffected girls to turn into mini versions of her?
After starting the engine, Freya pulled away from the kerb. The sooner she got out of this spiteful little place the happier she’d be.
CHAPTER THREE
‘IS YOUR granddaughter here?’ Daniel asked, shaking the rain from his coat. ‘I’d like a word with her if I may?’
‘Through there.’ Margaret nodded towards the door to the dining room. ‘I don’t think you’re Freya’s favourite person right now.’
‘I don’t imagine I am. May I—?’
‘Go through,’ she said with a smile, giving every appearance of thoroughly enjoying herself. ‘I’ll put on the kettle. Call if you need rescuing.’
Daniel walked down the hallway, but he didn’t venture further than the doorway. Freya was there. Wrapping china and seemingly absorbed in her task.
He stood with one hand on the doorjamb, searching for the words he knew he needed to say—and trying to whip up some anger towards Mia for having placed him in this embarrassing situation.
But he knew this was about him. He’d spent long enough over the past few months talking about personal responsibility to know he’d no one to blame but himself for the way he’d spoken to Freya.
He’d done it because he could, he supposed. Because he’d needed someone to blame. Someone to take out his anger and frustration on.
Only…
Only—and this was the damnable part—he’d seen the slight widening of her blue eyes and caught the hurt in them. A fleeting expression. Swiftly controlled. But he’d seen it—and it felt as he imagined he would feel if he kicked a puppy.
There were enough people round and about who were ready to stick the knife into Freya Anthony, and he didn’t intend to be one of them. She was here now. That was wonderful, as far as Margaret was concerned, and if she was happy he had no business making it hard for her granddaughter to stay.
Which meant he had to put things right.
Try to. This wasn’t going to be easy. The slight tilt of her head told him Freya knew he was there, but that she’d no intention of meeting him halfway.
And why should she? He thrust his right hand deep in his jeans pocket. ‘I owe you an apology.’
Freya looked up momentarily from the bubble-wrap she was cutting. ‘Yes, you do.’ She reached for the top saucer from a pile to her left and placed it carefully in the centre of the bubble-wrap.
‘What I said to you…’
One perfectly shaped eyebrow flicked upwards.
‘…was…was out of line, and I apologise. I was unfair…and…’
‘Rude?’ she offered, her voice like a shiver.
Yes, damn it! He’d been rude. Completely unreasonable. Daniel pulled his hand out of his pocket and thrust it through his hair. ‘I took my anger out on you and I’m sorry. I had no right to do that.’
He’d done it. Made his apology. The best he could do without going into his relationship with his daughter.
‘No.’
His mind stuttered. No, his apology wasn’t accepted? Or no—
‘No right,’ she clarified, her fingers moving for a second saucer. ‘Would you pass me the sticky tape, please?’
Daniel walked further into the room and picked it up from the far end of the dining table. Stepping closer to her, he caught the waft of her perfume, light and citrus. Saw the pulse beating at the base of her neck…
And suddenly it mattered, really mattered, that she should believe him. He’d hurt her, and he had the uncanny sense that far too many people had done that.
He kept hold of the sticky tape as she reached for it and forced her to look up at him. ‘I’d like to have shouted at Mia, and since I couldn’t I took out my anger on you. Made you my whipping boy, if you like.’ His mouth twisted into a wry smile as he saw the flicker of understanding. ‘I really am sorry for the way I spoke to you.’
There was a moment’s hesitation, then, ‘I know that.’
Just three words, but her voice had lost its hard edge, and the underlying huskiness of it seemed to hold him frozen. A small tug on the roll of sticky tape pulled him back to the present. He swallowed, watching as she ripped off a few centimetres and taped it across the top of the pile.
‘I can understand why you were angry. I just don’t think I deserved—’
‘No, you didn’t.’ She really didn’t.
She moistened her lips. ‘What happened to…Mia? Did you get her back to school?’
Freya’s concern merely added to his confusion about her. People asked about his daughter all the time, but none of them managed to imbue it with real concern. Why would she care? By all accounts empathy wasn’t one of her strong suits, and she’d not been anywhere near Margaret all the time he’d lived in Fellingham. She had to know her grandmother had desperately wanted her to.
‘Do you mind my asking?’
‘No. No, not at all. I drove her straight there.’ Daniel watched as Freya carefully folded over the end of the Sellotape and replaced it on the dining table.
He’d love to know what had made Freya visit now. She didn’t look like someone who’d want to spend days on end packing up someone else’s possessions. Maybe Sophy was right in thinking she had nowhere else to go?
Her hands moved to cocoon another teacup in bubble-wrap. She made even that mundane task seem faintly exotic. As was her dress ring. Whilst the thumb ring she wore was more bohemian. And she had tiny wrists that reminded him of Anna’s.
But that was where the similarities stopped. He looked up at Freya’s oval face, with her perfectly shaped eyebrows and carefully accentuated lip colour. The two women couldn’t have been more different.
His Anna had been a woman without artifice, whereas Freya couldn’t have exerted more care over her appearance. She was beautiful, but he fancied she’d look more beautiful first thing in the morning—before she’d hidden herself away behind her make-up.
He stopped. Maybe she was hiding. Maybe that was exactly what she was doing. Maybe Freya Anthony was less spoiled and more scared.
God only knew why that bothered him so much. She was nothing to him. But…
There’d been something unpleasant about the gossip swirling around the village over the last few days. Something in it he didn’t like.
‘The school picked up on her absence very quickly,’ Freya remarked, placing the saucers into a cardboard box by the wall. ‘That was good.’
Daniel put his hands deep in his jeans pockets and determinedly focused on her question. ‘They register her at the start of each lesson.’ She glanced up at him and he added, ‘Unusual, I know, but Mia skips off so often we’ve got a fairly established routine going now.’
‘Is she being bullied?’
‘Nothing like that.’ If only it were that simple. ‘There’s no real reason. At least not one she’s prepared to tell us about. We’ve got an excellent Educational Welfare Officer assigned to us now, but nothing anyone says to Mia seems to make any difference. She can’t see the point of school and that’s that.’
‘Tea?’ Margaret said, coming in behind him with a tray.
Daniel turned to take the tray from her, and she sat herself down in the nearest chair with something like a sigh. ‘My hip…The sooner I get that operation the better.’
‘If you’d go private,’ Freya said, rolling the bubble-wrap back on the roll and standing it in the corner, ‘you wouldn’t have to wait. I keep telling you that.’
‘I’m not paying.’
‘You wouldn’t have to. I would.’
Daniel set the tray on the table as another preconception bit the dust. From everything he’d heard he hadn’t expected there to be any kind of emotional connection between Margaret and her granddaughter…but there undoubtedly was.
How come? Freya Anthony had shaken the Fellingham dust from her shoes a long time ago, and hadn’t looked back. Before that she’d been nothing but trouble. But what he was watching wasn’t a new reconciliation. There was familiarity in the way they talked to each other. Love.
‘I’ve paid into the National Health Service for nearly fifty years, and I don’t see why I should have to pay extra now.’
Freya sat down opposite Margaret, but her blue eyes flicked over in his direction as she picked up the milk jug. ‘I assume you take milk?’
‘I do. Thank you.’
She poured some in the bone china teacup, and then lifted the matching teapot, steadying the lid with her finger. ‘We’ve been arguing about this for months, and I don’t think we’re ever going to agree.’
‘No, we aren’t!’
‘It’s crazy to go on in pain when there’s an alternative.’ She passed across her grandmother’s tea. ‘Just think—when you’ve had your operation you might not feel the same need to move from here—’
‘No one will want this place after I’m gone,’ Margaret said, setting the cup down in front of her and reaching for the sugar bowl. ‘This is a family home. I should have sold it a long time ago.’
‘I don’t see why.’
