The opalescent lights shining in the windows of the large stone chateau were warm and inviting as the icy fingers of a northerly wind reddened her nose. Brigid shivered. Soon she would smell the salty, sea-tanged air of Ireland. Going home was always bittersweet.

So many memories. Now that she was almost eighty she might give herself some leeway. Brigid smiled wryly, knowing it was only her immense discipline and steely will that had kept her on the straight and narrow all these years as a nun. She should be proud of herself, but pride was a sin. Her younger sibling, Imelda, would tell her that quick enough.

Imelda, bitter and resentful still, after all these years. Holding a grudge that she couldn’t let go of. So many grudges.

Did I say I was looking forward to going home? she thought, amused. Perhaps I should make the most of the peace and calm silence of the Mother House while I still can, she decided, turning to walk back along the rose-wrapped wall, the thorny branches harsh and unforgiving without the glory of their blossoms. A thorny branch. A bitter briar. Her sister, Imelda.

Reverend Mother Brigid sighed. She would pray for Imelda during Vespers and Compline tonight. It was all she could do.

CHAPTER FOUR

IMELDA

‘Will I make the stuffing for you, Mrs O’Brien?’

‘You will not, thank you. I’ll make my own stuffing,’ Imelda O’Brien rebuffed her daughter-in-law’s kind offer sharply. What did they think, that she was incapable?

‘No worries,’ Felicity said drily, and Imelda knew that the younger woman was struggling to bite back a sharp answer.

‘You can make a pot of tea,’ she said, offering an olive branch. ‘Everyone likes my stuffing. I’ve a secret ingredient,’ she added in a more placatory tone. ‘I want to make enough to freeze some.’

She couldn’t afford to go alienating her daughter-in-law, Imelda reflected. Felicity and Cormac, Imelda’s son, lived down the road, and were very good to her.

The best of all her children, Cormac, was. The most easy-going. He didn’t get that from her. No one would ever call her easy-going, Imelda admitted with a rare spark of dry humour.

She wanted to make her own stuffing this Christmas Eve because she wanted to have plenty put by for when Keelin and Armand, her daughter and son-in-law, came home from France for their Christmas holiday. She supposed Reverend Mother would deign to visit as well.

Imelda’s nostrils flared, and her eyes hardened like wizened olives. There was going to be a big do for her older sister’s eightieth. A ‘surprise’ party. And they were all going to have to trek to that draughty, creaky old house by the sea in the first week of January to pay homage.