Josephine Cox Sunday Times Bestsellers Collection. Josephine Cox

back. What was he after? As far as she was concerned, the man was no good, and never would be.

      ‘He never even wrote to her, did he?’ Tillie had not forgiven him for doing that to her friend. Poor Lucy had been frantic for a long while, not knowing which way to turn, wanting to tell him about his son once Jamie was born, but with no idea how to contact him.

      Bridget didn’t answer because her thoughts were miles away. What’s he up to? she mused silently. Why is he here after all this time?

      It seemed the very same question was crossing young Tillie’s mind. ‘Why do you think he’s come back?’ she said apprehensively.

      Her employer shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ She recalled what Lynette had told her. ‘He came looking for her, that’s for sure. And he’s gone to find her as we speak.’

      She sighed. ‘I only hope Lucy has enough sense not to be taken in by him a second time.’

       Chapter 7

      UNAWARE OF DEVELOPMENTS at home, Lucy drove her energy into the last task of the day. ‘Almost done now,’ she told the curious magpie who had been watching her for the past ten minutes or so. ‘Another few good wallops, and there won’t be a speck of dust left.’

      Raising the beater, she brought it down against the rug so hard that it danced on the clothes-line; another good hard wallop, and the dust flew in all directions, not as much as when she had first brought the rug out, but enough to give her a coughing fit, and send the startled magpie off to the skies.

      ‘Cowardly creature!’ she called after it. ‘Mind, if I had wings, I’d be off too.’ Oh, and she would an’ all! Away above the chimney-tops ever so high, she would raise her head and flap her wings fast and furious until she was across the oceans, then she’d keep going until she reached some tropical paradise. But she wouldn’t go alone, oh no. Wherever she went, she would take her darling son with her.

      From the office window upstairs, the tall, elegant woman watched Lucy as she worked; the squire’s secretary could hear Lucy’s voice raised in song, but that wasn’t unusual, because during her working day, whether inside or out, Lucy’s melodious singing could be heard all over Haskell Hall. ‘You’re a good soul, Lucy Baker,’ Miss McGuire murmured, putting down her fountain-pen. ‘Hardworking and happy as the day is long.’

      As she watched Lucy hoist the rug from the line and drop it to the ground, she was taken by surprise when the girl suddenly looked up to see her there. ‘I won’t be long,’ she called out. ‘I’m finished just now.’

      Lucy quickened her steps towards the house, the hot breeze playing with the hem of her skirt, her feet bare as the day she was born; with the rug carried in her arms, like a mother might carry a bairn, she made a fetching sight.

      When a moment or two later, Lucy burst into the kitchen, Miss McGuire was waiting for her. ‘For the life of me, Lucy, I don’t know why you beat the rug when you could use that new vacuum cleaner. It was bought to suck up the dirt and dust from the floor, after all, and to save the staff here from heavy work.’

      ‘I do use it,’ Lucy protested, ‘but it’s not very good. Sometimes things get stuck in it and it won’t work, and then old Jake has to see to it, and while he’s doing that I still have to beat the rugs.’ She prodded the one in her arms. ‘This one is no good at all. It’s got long fringes and they go flying up into the workings and then it’s the devil’s own job to free them. It’s much quicker just to give it a sound beating on the clothes-line.’

      The squire’s secretary tended to agree, but did not say so. Instead she looked down at Lucy’s bare feet. Small and neat, they were covered in a film of dust, and there was the tiniest leaf sticking out between the toes. ‘Never mind the rug,’ she retorted. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me why you aren’t wearing your boots?’ Exasperated at the times she had asked the young woman to always wear her boots for fear of hurting herself on the harsh ground, she groaned. ‘Just look at your poor feet, Lucy … covered in dust and picking up all the debris from the ground. One of these days you’re bound to get an injury. I’ve asked you so many times to wear your work-boots, I’m worn out with it.’

      Lucy looked down at her feet. ‘I’m a mucky pup, I know,’ she conceded, wiggling her toes to be rid of the leaf, ‘but I feel so uncomfortable with the boots on. I’m sorry, Miss McGuire. I’ll try to wear them, I promise.’

      ‘And how many times have you said that?’ The secretary rolled her eyes. ‘And how many times have I seen you running about in your bare feet? It isn’t as though you’re a child, Lucy. You’re a grown woman of nearly thirty, for heaven’s sake, and you have a little one to think of. What would happen if something fell on your feet and broke them? How would you go on then, eh?’

      ‘I know, and I’m really sorry,’ Lucy repeated. ‘I promise I’ll try to keep the shoes on.’ Lucy hated wearing shoes of any kind, almost as much as she hated cold porridge.

      ‘Mind you do then.’ The secretary was a kindly sort. She had little to do with the housekeeper’s staff here at the Hall, but she had always had a soft spot for Lucy.

      ‘Anyway, enough of this. It’s time you went home,’ she told Lucy now. ‘There hasn’t been a day in the past fortnight when you’ve left on time.’

      ‘That’s ’cause I like to finish all my work before I go,’ Lucy explained.

      ‘I know that, all too well,’ came the reply. ‘But you must leave time for yourself … and the child.’ The secretary tried hard not to be shocked by the young woman’s situation as an unmarried mother. The squire never listened to gossip so he remained ignorant of Jamie’s existence; however, some of the other staff were aware of her status and shunned Lucy because of it.

      ‘Oh, I do!’ Lucy answered eagerly. ‘When I’m not working here, I spend every passing minute with him.’ A look of sheer joy lit her face. ‘You can’t know how much I love him. No one can.’

      Dorothy was fond enough of Lucy to tell her, ‘I’m sure I do know how much you love him. All I’m saying is this: it’s no wonder you still haven’t found a man to take care of you and the child, what with you working all hours, and here you are already twenty-nine years of age. Most young women are safely married and settled in their own home at that age.’ This didn’t apply to her either, she acknowledged sadly.

      When she saw the downcast look on Lucy’s face she was mortified. ‘I’ve spoken out of turn, my dear. I didn’t mean to be cruel. It’s just that you’re such a lovely young woman and I do care what happens to you. I’d hate to think you were destined to spend your life all alone.’

      ‘It’s all right, Miss McGuire, I don’t mind.’ But she did, and now her thoughts were filled with memories of a dark-eyed man who had quickly come into her life and filled her days with fun, and then just as quickly gone out of her life, without so much as a how’s your father!

      But she had not forgotten him. She never would. Especially when he’d left her with child, and it had caused so much trouble at home that she was made to leave in disgrace – and soon after, her mother and father split up and went their separate ways. And now she had no family at all, save for her little boy, who was everything to her.

      ‘Go on then! Be off with you, before the housekeeper finds you another job to do. And don’t worry. I’ll let her know you’ve gone.’

      The woman’s voice invaded her thoughts, and when she looked up, the kindly secretary was already on her way down the long corridor.

      Dragging the rug through the kitchen, Lucy got it to the drawing room, where she rolled it out before the big fireplace. ‘All done for another day.’ Sometimes Lucy sang, and sometimes like now, she talked to herself, and then there was the time when she got caught dancing on the sofa-table and almost got her marching