‘No, come on. I’d like to hear it. Something about me being led astray, wasn’t it?’

‘I said, it’ll keep,’ Mrs Church bit out.

Edward smiled slowly. ‘I’m sure it will,’ he said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Anna went up to bed but, exhausted though she was, could not sleep. Mrs Church had planted all kinds of ideas in her head that had left her feeling deeply unsettled.

Despite what she had said to Mrs Church, she didn’t like the idea of Edward going off the way he had. She certainly couldn’t imagine her father abandoning his work at the bakery to go off and play cards. He would never leave his apprentice to open up the shop, either. Friedrich Beck made sure he was the first to arrive every morning and the last to leave at night.

And that was when Edward had been his apprentice. If he’d had someone like Charlie Atkins working for him, Papa would never have trusted him to wash up a baking tray on his own, let alone run the kitchen. And he certainly wouldn’t have given him a key to the place. It made Anna uneasy, knowing that Charlie could come and go as he pleased. How often did he go upstairs and poke around in their belongings while she and Edward were both out?

And as for this business with Edward’s friends … Even though Anna had tried to pretend she wasn’t concerned, her chest fluttered with anxiety whenever she thought about them.

She trusted Edward, of course. But she couldn’t forget how he had almost been led into a life of crime before. He’d told her himself how he had got involved with the Franklin brothers when he was a boy, and had almost gone to jail for robbery.

He was a lot younger then. But Anna was still uneasy about the idea of him falling in with another bad crowd.

She wished she could have written to Tom and asked his advice. Tom was a Franklin himself, had grown up in that dark underworld and understood it better than she ever could. He would have been able to help her, to put her mind at ease about this Billy Willis character and his friends.

But she hadn’t written to Tom since the day after her wedding, when she had sent her final letter to him. And she had heard nothing from him since, either. She knew she had done the right thing, but she still missed him.

At midday Anna went downstairs to find Edward shutting up the shop for dinner.

‘Where’s Mrs Church?’ she asked.

‘She had some errands to do, so I sent her off early.’ Edward held out his arms to her. ‘Are you all right, sweetheart? You still look tired.’

‘So do you.’ Anna hugged him, pressing her face into his chest.

Edward’s laughter rumbled against her cheek. ‘That’s my own fault for staying out all night playing cards with the boys!’ He held her closer. ‘You’re not upset about that, are you, love?’