“What’s going to happen to them?”
Jace shrugged. “They’ll be all right, feral like her. She’ll abandon them, most likely, when they’re a bit older, to fend for themselves.”
“Abandon them!” Emily couldn’t keep a note of horrified dismay from her voice. “But they’re so little. Surely you can do something?”
Jace shrugged again. “What can I do? They’re not tame. They won’t be caught or trained. Most likely they’ll fend for themselves…or not.”
“But they’re only small.” Emily heard the tremble of emotion in her voice and wondered at it. She was just talking about a kitten, right? She had to be. “They need care.”
“They’re pretty adept at taking care of themselves. But feel free to help yourself to one, if you like. Try to tame it, if you can.”
A pet of her own? Emily drew back. “Oh, I couldn’t.”
Jace nodded. “I wouldn’t worry too much about them, at any rate. They’ll do all right.”
“So…you just have cats wandering around the property?”
“Well, we’re not flooded with the creatures, if that’s your worry,” he answered with a laugh. “Truth be told, if Ava gets wind of the kittens, she’ll probably want one herself. Olivia too, maybe, and Alice, as well. Although I reckon it won’t be easy to catch the little blighters.” He nodded towards the spot where Emily had spied the kitten. “He’s gone back into hiding already.”
The kitten was nowhere to be seen, and Emily struggled to suppress the little pang of loss that caused. “I suppose we should get back,” she said slowly, and Jace started to pull the door shut. Emily ducked out before he’d closed it, giving one last glance to the shadowy piles of furniture. “Can the cats get out of the barn if you lock it?” she asked a bit anxiously, and Jace gave her one of his slow, sure smiles.
“Don’t you worry. They can get in and out of just about anywhere.”
Back at Willoughby Close, Jace brought the rocking chair, dust and all, into Emily’s cottage, making her wince. She needed to clean it immediately.
“While I’m here,” he said as he was about to leave, “Ava wanted to invite you to dinner next weekend. We’re having a few locals over—Olivia and Simon, maybe one or two others. Seven o’clock, Sunday night.”
“Oh…” There was no way, Emily realised, she could make an excuse. Jace wasn’t even waiting for a reply; he’d just assumed she’d show up.
“We live in the caretaker’s cottage, through the woods on the right, off the main drive up to the manor. Follow the path till it ends. Bring a torch. And you might want to wear wellies. It’s rained a fair bit.”
“Oh. Right.” He nodded and turned to leave, and belatedly Emily blurted, “Thank you. For everything.”
“No trouble.”
And then he was gone, and Emily was alone again, but this time with a dusty, dirty rocking chair. She glanced at it, wondering why she’d been so taken with it, and why she’d allowed Jace to bring it back for her. It really wasn’t her style at all, and the dust and dirt alone would normally have her shuddering. And yet…
Goodnight mittens. And goodnight kittens…
That little marmalade-striped kitten had been cute. She hoped it would be okay on its own. It was so little to have to fend for itself, its mother obviously not interested…
She was making this way too personal, Emily realised. It was a kitten. And she needed to clean up this chair.
She dusted it first, wiping it down with damp paper towel, admiring the gleam of wood revealed once the dust had been removed. What the chair really needed was a good polish, maybe with some beeswax… The prospect of restoring the chair to its former glory made her smile. She could put it upstairs, by her bedroom window. She pictured herself sitting in it in the evening, watching the stars come out like diamond pinpricks, and was cheered, even as the image filled her with a restless melancholy.
Goodnight mush…
Emily bundled all the dirty paper towels into the bin, and then washed her hands and arms up to the elbows before she decided to ring her mother, just to check in. But when she called Fiona’s number, it rang on and on, as it often did, and Emily tried not to let it feed her anxiety. They were most likely just out…
Outside the sky was a dank grey, a few raindrops spattering indifferently against the window. Impulsively in a way she normally wasn’t, Emily dialled her father’s number.
“Em? Everything all right?” He sounded worried, which was understandable, since she normally only called him when something had happened with her mum.
“Yes, everything’s fine. I think. Mum’s still living in Camden Town, with Fiona.”
“Oh, right…” This was said vaguely, because her father did not keep tabs on his ex-wife the way Emily did, something else that was understandable since they’d been divorced for nineteen years. Yet it still made Emily feel a stirring of resentment, a kernel of bitterness that had rooted right down in her soul nearly twenty years ago and kept growing, little by little, with every tired sigh or disinterested remark.
“I am concerned that she’s not taking her medication, though, Dad.”
Her father sighed, predictably. “It’s up to her whether to take it or not, Emily. You know that. She’s a grown woman.”
“Yes, I do know that, of course.” They’d had this conversation, or one like it, too many times. “But she doesn’t do well off her medication. You know that.” Although perhaps he didn’t—not really. Her father had been almost completely uninvolved three years ago, when Naomi had gone off her medication, had a psychotic episode, and been sectioned for eight weeks. Geoff David hadn’t even rung Emily once, to check how she was coping, never mind Naomi. She’d left him a voicemail and he’d
