‘You seem very sure that she can hurt us… you surprise me. I thought you had prepared for every eventuality… including Emma Grady’s possible return?’ Agnes Crowther smiled knowingly, and with contempt.

It was a gesture that infuriated him. ‘There’ll be nothing for any of us to smile about if she succeeds in her little game,’ he reminded her angrily, ‘and make no mistake about it… she means to beggar us. We underestimated her once. We’d be downright idiots not to see her for the dangerous enemy she’s become. Emma Grady went away a young, naive creature who could be easily manipulated… she’s returned an influential and powerful woman with a curiosity for certain answers and a thirst for revenge. Mark my words, she won’t rest until she has us at her mercy!’

‘Strange, don’t you think… how the tables turn?’ There was cynicism in her voice, and a trace of fear. With calm deliberation, Agnes Crowther came forward from the casement window where she had been gazing across the beautifully tended lawns, quietly indulging in memories of long ago. Her troubled thoughts had carried her back some twenty-five years to when Emma Grady had played and walked on these same lawns; a young girl tormented by the fact that her beloved father, Thadius Grady, was wasting away. With his eventual passing, Emma’s torment had not ceased. So many bad experiences had assailed her; so much tragedy and heartache that might have destroyed a lesser soul. ‘What makes this letter frighten you so?’ Agnes Crowther kept her unflinching gaze on his face. ‘There have been others… and always you’ve satisfactorily dealt with them. Why should this one be any different?’

‘Because it touches on deeper issues… deeds and titles regarding the mills that Thadius left to her. Up to now, her solicitor has been cleverly laying the groundwork… probing… making sure of his case regarding his client’s claims. Now he’s digging to the real issues, making demands… requesting certain documents. Uprooting things that go back too many years.’

‘These… “documents”… surely you can supply them?’ She let her gaze remain on his face a moment longer. Only now did she fear the worst. ‘Or is there something there to incriminate you… to incriminate all of us?’ She had always trusted his judgement in these matters; after all, he was a man of the law and well versed in such legalities. With a jolt, she was reminded of how he had cunningly secreted Emma’s inheritance and almost lost it in the recession. It was true however that he had then salvaged enough to sell off the derelict cotton mills and to buy a considerable share in the Lassater Shipping Line. If that enviable income were now denied them, it would be nothing short of disaster. Certainly, her husband’s comparative pittance, as Justice of the Peace, would not sustain their pampered lifestyle. Suddenly incensed by the prospect of losing everything she valued, she rounded on him. ‘This is your problem,’ she told him in a cold voice. ‘It was not me who chose to marry Emma off to an employee of my brother’s, a man who was socially inferior to Emma Grady. Is it any wonder that it ended in tragedy? Though I must admit I never really believed that she had a hand in murdering the unfortunate fellow.’ In her deepest heart, Agnes Crowther could never see her brother’s daughter committing such a foul and cold-blooded crime; the girl was too loving, too warm and sensitive to ever deliberately hurt another soul. Yet it had been these very qualities which had alienated her from Emma. She had seen in her brother’s child all of those admirable traits that were sadly lacking in her own daughter, Martha, who was almost the same age as Emma. She could not suppress her bitter resentment of the fact that while Emma was strong and forthright, Martha was weak and deceitful.