Jay was standing in front of the unlit fire. He was wearing city clothes and, she realised with sudden surprise, he did not, as she had imagined, look out of place in them at all. Far from it. He looked, in fact, very handsome and smart.
‘Your grandmother instructed me to come,’ he told her. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.’
‘Bad news?’ Her mind raced. What did he mean? She searched his face but there was no clue to be found there. ‘What is it? What’s happened? Is it the mill?’
He was shaking his head.
‘Greg?’ Anxiety sharpened her own voice. ‘It is Greg, isn’t it?’ she demanded when she saw the small movement he made. ‘Something’s happened to him. What, Jay? Oh, please tell me.’
‘It isn’t Greg, although in a sense it does concern him. It’s Caroline Fitton Legh.’
‘Caroline?’ Amber repeated blankly. Jay had come all the way to London to tell her something about Caroline? Her anxiety for Greg had eased back, and now she felt confused.
‘There is no easy way to tell you this, Amber. Caroline is dead.’
Of all the things she might have been dreading hearing, the death of Caroline Fitton Legh had not been one of them. She was – had been – so young and so very alive. It seemed impossible. Amber remembered how beautiful she had looked the afternoon she and Greg called on her at Fitton Hall. She had been so kind, so very friendly and warm. Amber was perplexed. How could she have died? She suddenly remembered what Cassandra had said: that Greg was in love with Lady Fitton Legh. But Greg had laughed when Amber had told him that.
Her heart was beating uncomfortably. She felt somehow afraid.
‘But how?’
‘An accident,’ Jay told her briefly.
‘Does my grandmother want me to go home for the funeral? Is that why you are here?’
Jay shook his head. ‘Lord Fitton Legh has announced that there will be only a small private family ceremony.’
‘I can hardly believe it,’ Amber admitted. ‘Everyone must have been so shocked. Especially poor Cassandra.’
There were dark shadows beneath Jay’s eyes and a certain hollowness to his face.
‘Amber.’ He stopped and exhaled. ‘Your grandmother has charged me with … that is to say, there is something she wishes me to tell you. Come and sit down.’
Obediently Amber sat down in the chair he was holding, waiting uncertainly whilst he took one opposite her. There was no fire in the grate and the room felt cold. This side of the house did not catch the sun.
‘You will know, of course, that Greg is on his way to Hong Kong.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Amber agreed. ‘He seemed pleased to be going when he wrote to me about it, although I don’t understand what that has to do—’ She broke off when Jay held up his hand to stop her.
‘There is no easy way to tell you this and I would rather not have been the one to do so, but your grandmother believes you should know, and I confess that I share her feelings. You are bound to hear of it anyway when you return to Macclesfield, and no doubt so well embroidered that you will not be able to tell truth from fiction.’
Amber’s stomach was churning nervously. She had no idea what it was that Jay had to tell her but she did know that it was something unpleasant.
Jay looked at Amber. There hadn’t been a minute on the train journey south – first class at his employer’s insistence – when he hadn’t been thinking of this meeting and what he would have to say, how much he might have to say and how he was going to say it.
It had shocked him to realise how much Amber had matured in such a short space of time; the way she had received him, her manner, her composure now as she controlled her emotions; the girl he had known had gone, and a calm and assured young woman had taken her place.
He took a deep breath. ‘The reason your grandmother sent Greg to Hong Kong was because he and Lady Fitton Legh had been involved.’
Amber absorbed the careful words and then looked at Jay. ‘Do you mean that they were having an affair?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Grandmother sent Greg away because she discovered that he was in love with Lady Fitton Legh?’
‘No. That is to say, I don’t think it was a matter of their being in love, so much as a matter of chance and circumstance, throwing them into one another’s company.’
‘Yes,’ Amber acknowledged.
Jay was amazed she seemed so calm, so unmoved by this latest news. My, but she was a world away from the girl he had known so well.
‘Unfortunately it was Lord Fitton Legh who first discovered the affair – not your grandmother – and there was some gossip about it before your grandmother was able to prevail upon him to see the wisdom of the matter being kept as private as possible. Whilst he demanded that Greg be punished by banishment from Cheshire, I think that both your grandmother and Greg himself were happy that he should distance himself from events.’
Greg had been happy about going to Hong Kong – Amber knew that from his letter to her – so obviously he hadn’t loved Caroline. She remembered now how she had sensed his discomfort the afternoon they had paid their call, and how too she had thought Lady Fitton Legh’s manner towards him more intimate than seemed proper. Had she perhaps cared for Greg more than he had for her?
‘I don’t understand. What has Greg going to Hong Kong to do with Lady Fitton Legh’s death?’
Jay sighed. He had known they would reach this point.
‘Lady Fitton Legh was to have had a child.’
Amber guessed immediately what he was not saying. ‘Greg’s child?’ she demanded.
‘I don’t know.’
‘But it is possible that it could have been Greg’s child?’
‘Yes,’ Jay admitted. What else could he do? The whole of Cheshire was thick with gossip and supposition, and Cassandra had sworn that Caroline had told her that the child was Greg’s and had accused him of abandoning her.
‘Does Lord Fitton Legh know that it could have been Greg’s baby?’
‘I should think so, yes.’
‘Oh, poor Caroline.’
‘Her situation was an unhappy one.’ Untenable was the word he should have used, Jay thought.
‘What happened?’
‘She drowned, in the lake. Cassandra found her and raised the alarm but it was too late. It is believed that she must have stepped off the path onto the grass, slipped and been unable to save herself. There had been rain, and the pathway and bank were muddy.’
Amber swallowed hard. A tragic accident, or had Lady Fitton Legh, unable to face the gossip and disgrace of bearing a child that might not be her husband’s, taken her own life? Had she perhaps loved Greg even though he had not loved her? How must it feel to love a man and be abandoned by him in such circumstances? Amber shuddered.
Seeing it, Jay wondered if he had said too much.
‘You are shocked, I know,’ he tried to comfort her. ‘But it is better that you know the truth rather than hear all manner of wild tales. I know how much Greg means to you.’
‘But what is the truth?’ Amber asked him. ‘How can we know? She must have felt so desperate and alone to take her life and that of her child.’
Jay reached for her hand and held it within his own. Caroline Fitton Legh had been shallow and selfish, much like Greg in many ways. Amber, on the other hand, felt