Paddy knew when he was defeated, but at least he could tell Molly and Eileen the truth now. That he’d come to get her and she’d refused. A little while later, as he made his way home in the cab paid for by Briony, he realised something. For all the trouble he was having with Eileen, he’d rather that than have her thinking like his Briony, and that was a turn up because Briony was their golden goose. Yet Eileen, it seemed to him, was more of a decent girl than ever, for all she’d been through with that scumbag. Whereas Briony, who’d taken to it like a duck to water, had broken his heart.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

It was thick snow and Briony had had to brave the freezing weather to get a cab. Even in her thick coat and dress, fur hat and muff, she was still frozen. Her face was stinging with the cold and as the horse moved slowly through the icy streets she waggled her toes in her boots to stop them from going numb. It was her second Christmas at Henry Dumas’ house and she was a different girl altogether to the one who had arrived there fourteen months earlier. At eleven, she had grown. Her breasts were forming and the good food had put flesh on her bones. Her face had rounded, giving her a look of a young woman already. Her hair was still a fiery red, only now she wore it in a neat chignon pinned to her head with expert precision by Mrs Horlock.

Briony had also changed inside herself. She wasn’t as happy-go-lucky as she had been, and she was sensing a change in Henry Dumas as her body developed. She bit on her lip and watched the traffic in the streets, mainly pedestrians, a few ragamuffins running around offering to hold horses’ bridles or carry people’s shopping for a halfpenny. The majority of the people wore sacking over their clothes to try and keep the snow from freezing their bodies entirely.

As they approached Barking Broadway, the horse’s pace slowed even more. Briony pushed down the window of the cab and stared out. Then she saw him.