Contents ( 57)
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Also by Sharon Gosling
Alan Crosswick nodded. ‘And you, Rachel,’ he said. ‘May I ask what you’re going to do? Will you stay in Newton Dunbar?’
‘I’m not sure. Bernie Stuart did say something about finding me a job at the brewery. Perhaps I’ll see if he’s serious about that.’
The solicitor smiled. ‘That sounds like a good outcome. If you find you need a reference, do let me know. I have very much appreciated having you to rely on. I’d like to help you in any way I can.’
They locked up the empty gatehouse and said goodbye at the bottom of the hill. Rachel walked back to the lighthouse alone, thinking about the task ahead and how it would feel to clear out the bookshop. She thought about the camera obscura room and how it would look with nothing inside it. An empty dome, an attic with no ulterior motives. A blank space that could tell nothing of the secrets it had held, because they had all been erased. She wondered what Eveline MacDonald would have made of this alternative, and thought that actually, two hundred years later, with her own self forgotten so successfully, she would probably think it the best of all possible outcomes.
Rachel wished she could do the same with her own past – wipe it clean, remove all trace of what she had been and where she had come from so that no one could discover it unexpectedly to dredge up bad things best left far behind. Yes, she could see that being a perfect solution.
Forty-Nine
‘Shall we check in at the deli?’ Edie asked, as she and Ezra strolled together along the banks of the Dun in Great Dunbar. ‘Make sure the plans for the picnic don’t need any last-minute adjustments?’
Given how little time they’d had to arrange the wedding, and the fact that she really didn’t want a huge fuss, Edie had come up with the idea of an indoor picnic for the catering. She’d asked one of the delicatessens in Great Dunbar to provide a hamper for each table, full of pies, cheeses, cold meats, salads and pickles for the guests to share. Dessert would be a buffet table of cakes and patisserie, crowned by a small tower of macarons that would stand in for the traditional wedding cake.
‘Great idea, but we should have lunch first,’ Ezra said. ‘All this dashing about like a youngster is making me hungry.’
They had reached the centre of the bridge that crossed the Dun, looking downstream as the sun glinted on water. Spread along the bank below them was the Wheelhouse Inn, its terrace and upstairs balcony already half-full with patrons enjoying the warmth of the season. Edie hadn’t been inside the place for years – not since an awful night many years before when the man who now stood beside her had left her to sit, alone, at a table in candlelight, while all around her, couples murmured. For a long time Edie hadn’t even been able to look at the place. Now, though, she wondered if it were finally time to set her demons to rest. After all, if not now, a week before her wedding – their wedding – then when?