She reached for the chain around her neck and squeezed the points of a star hard between her finger and thumb, using the pain to help her focus on the road ahead. Eventually she saw the gates through the driving rain. As soon as she found a safe spot she pulled over and switched off the engine. The rain drummed on the car roof and Imelda sat very still and listened for a moment, before reaching into her bag and retrieving the envelope. She ripped it open, sick with fear that she would see the face of the man whom she would always love. And there he was, smiling. But he wasn’t alone, and Imelda knew now that she’d been played.

Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Now

Imelda had retrieved the magazine from a pile waiting to go into the recycling bin. She was curious as to how it had got there. It didn’t look like Billie’s type of reading material and it certainly wasn’t hers. She had flicked idly through the pages with little interest until she had come across the feature on Beaumont Hall. The house and its mistress were a perfect match; both elegant bastions of upper-class smugness and cold convention. This morning when they had arrived at the booth, Imelda had finally asked Billie about the magazine and Billie had told her all about Clive and his undercover work for the police and how he was absolutely sure that Lady Longhorn was Billie’s mother.

‘It’s a good thing that I rescued it from the bin, then,’ was Imelda’s only reply. Billie had gone off with Mabel to see if she could find Clive and buy him a morning coffee and a pastry as part of her mission to recompense him for the fact that she had doubted his word.

‘But he doesn’t even know that you did,’ Imelda had reminded her with a smile.

‘Maybe not, but I do,’ Billie had replied.

Imelda sat in the doorway of the booth watching the promenade slowly come to life like an emerging colony of ants under the canopy of a perfect blue summer sky.

‘Good morning, Madame Burova. It’s wonderful to see you again.’

Imelda shielded her eyes from the sun. The woman standing in front of her looked as though she had just walked off a film set. Her dark hair was styled into perfect curls pulled back on one side and fastened behind her ear with a silk rose. Her dress had a fitted bodice and a nipped-in waist with a generously flared skirt, and her shoes were sling-back kitten heels with scarlet bows. But for all this, it was her voice that truly caught Imelda’s attention; rich and smoky like a fine malt whiskey. It was familiar too, but a memory from long ago that took a while to surface. As the woman waited patiently, her smile grew broader.

‘Jeanie! Jeanie Rogers! Well, look at you!’