You hardly ventured outside your room on the first day home.'
'I was tired.'
'Well, you are not tired now. And you have had ample time to get over whatever it was that upset you in London. Are you ready to tell me about it now?' Penelope bit her lip and lowered her head. 'Why not?'
'Because I still do not understand it myself.'
'Understand what?'
'Why I feel this way, Mother. So hurt. So melancholy. So lonely.'
'Lonely? In your own home?'
'I cannot explain it.'
'Grief takes strange forms sometimes,' said the other softly. 'I know that from personal experience. In the sudden excitement of rushing off to London, you were not able to mourn your father's death properly. You put it out of your mind. Now that you are back in Priestfield Place, all your memories of him come flooding back.'
'Unhappy memories.'
'Some of them, perhaps, but not all. You may have reservations about him - we both have - but he was still your father, Penelope.'
'I know that.'
'Then you are bound to grieve.'
Her daughter raised her head and gazed straight in front of her.
'I am still very unsettled by what happened to Father,' she said quietly, 'and by the things which we discovered after his death. It is like an open wound which will not heal. But there is another side to my grief. I have been trying to make sense of it.'
'Does it concern George?'
'Yes.'
'Did you have an argument?'
'Several.'
'Did you patch up your differences before you came home?'
'Not really, Mother.'
'Was he unkind to you, Penelope?'
'No,' sighed the other. 'Not exactly unkind.'
'Then what? Aggressive? Domineering?'
'He was George.'
'Why did you come back to Kent alone?'
'He had business in London.'
'When he left here,' recalled her mother, 'he was furious. He told me that he was going to bring you straight back. Yet you stayed on in London for a few days. Why?'
'I did not like the way he ordered me about.'
'You have always tolerated it before, Penelope.'
'It was different then. He used persuasion and charm. I was content to agree with what he suggested.' She pursed her lips in irritation. 'I blame myself for being so naive. George is a domineering man, and I have allowed him to govern all my decisions.'
'He was not the only one.'
'What do you mean?'
'Many of his decisions were influenced by your father.'
'I know. George admired him so much.'
'Does he still admire him?'
'Yes, but not in quite the same way.' She turned to her mother. 'He swore to me that he knew nothing about Father's secret life with... that other person. I believe him. George has always been honest with me.'
'Has he?'
'You know he has.'
'I have always had my doubts about George Strype.'
'He is a wonderful man,' said Penelope defensively. 'Strong and loving and everything I could wish for in a husband. He has many fine qualities when you get to know him. He is dependable. I keep reminding myself of that. But...'
Her mother waited. 'Go on,' she coaxed at length.
'I had not realised that he could be so jealous.'
'He loves you, Penelope. He is very possessive.'
'It was more than that.'
'Was it?'
'He became almost demented when I told him that I had given those letters to Mr Redmayne. He insisted on getting them back. I tried to stop him but it was no use. George ignored me. The next thing I knew, he had taken my coach and gone to demand the letters from Mr Redmayne.'
'Did he get them?'
'No, and that made his temper fouler than ever.'
'You must have been very angry yourself.'
'I was, Mother,' said Penelope. 'It cost me a lot to show those letters to Mr Redmayne and he was most discreet and understanding. George was quite the opposite and I told him so. I was incensed at the way that he commandeered our coach as if it were his own.'
'What did he say?'
'That everything in a marriage should be shared.'
'But you are not yet married to him.'
'According to George, I am. He kept telling me that I must do as I was told. That was when the argument really flared up.'
'How was it resolved?'
'It was not. He stormed out of the house.'
'Did he not come back the next day to apologise?'
'No, he was still sulking somewhere.' 'So you did not actually see him before you left?'
'Not in person,' said Penelope. 'But he sent a servant with a basket of flowers from his gardens to sweeten the carriage for my journey. They arrived on the morning that I was leaving.'
'What did you do with them?'
'I left them at the house.'
'Oh, I see.'
'I wish I had brought them with me now.'
'Why?'
'George was trying to make peace.'
'Was he?'
'It was his way of saying that he was in the wrong, Mother. And they were beautiful flowers. You would have appreciated them. I should at least have sent him a note to thank him.'
'Why didn't you?'
Penelope shrugged. 'I don't know.'
'Do you miss him?'
'Of course.'
'And do you still love him?'
'I think so.'
'What made him leave the house in Westminster in such an ill temper?'
Penelope winced at the memory. 'Something I said to him. I was so angry when he told me where he had been. I pointed out just how much Mr Redmayne was doing to catch the man responsible for Father's death. He has gone all the way to Paris on our behalf. I asked George why he could not act more like Mr Redmayne and actually search for the killer.'
Frances made no comment. She could see the doubt and anguish in her daughter's face and did not wish to
