Louisa George - The Secret Art of Forgiveness - A feel good romance about coming home and moving on

So many times she’d wished she could rewind the clock and be with her mum right here again. Just once. She’d tell her everything she wished she’d told her then instead of taking her for granted – because in Emily’s youthful, innocent eyes no one would ever be unlucky enough to lose both parents. She’d thought she’d have her mum for ever.

Her throat filled with a rush of sadness – she’d loved her mum; her mother had doted on her until her marriage to The Judge and Emily knew she’d tried after that, too. Their hours in here together had been filled with laughter and shared jokes but they would never have that again.

She swallowed hard and looked round the room. It was a pity that while she’d been in here all those times she’d never actually paid any attention to how to cook anything.

Or how to use the ancient Aga. What the heck was that about? There were no instructions so she’d had to work it out – switching it on was the first problem, then a long, slow wait for it to heat. Now she was starving and had only managed just-about-cooked, but too-hungry-to-care food.

God, she’d taken the New York twenty-four-hour culture for granted. Pizza at four in the morning? No problem. Cheesecake for breakfast? Be our guest . Here, it was a case of rummaging around to see what scraps she could find.

The Judge glanced up at her, pale-blue eyes wide. ‘They let you eat in the dining room? With them? What kind of people were they? Letting the cook eat with the family? I’ve never heard such a thing.’

‘Oh, but I’m not…’ A cook. She pressed her lips together. He’d been brought up in a different time and with different expectations and they’d never breached that gap of class or age. Looking at the aged decor it felt like she was living in an episode of Downton Abbey . Unfortunately, without the intrigue or sex.

‘So what’s this meant to be?’ He looked down at his plate and prodded the eggs with the tip of his knife.

‘Scrambled eggs on toast. It was all I could rustle up from the empty cupboards. We need to go shopping.’

‘Eggs? Are you sure? Aren’t eggs supposed to be yellow? You’re a cook, you say? How can a cook make eggs that are green? Are you in training, is that it? Have they sent me the wrong person?’

Whoa. Not wanting to show she was in any way intimidated by him – even though she still was – she met his straightforward talking with some of her own. ‘The eggs are yellow, Judge. I just added some herbs from the garden for flavour. Try them. Go on, have a mouthful. If you don’t like them we’ll have to go out for breakfast because there isn’t anything else.’

He reluctantly loaded his fork, sniffed, peered, then tentatively ate a mouthful. She waited with bated breath for a reaction. ‘And…?’

‘Edible. Just. Now, tell me where you were working before. How did you come to be here?’

‘Well, I did a few years in London, then I was head-hunted and moved to New York. I’ve been there just over five years, working for quite a prestigious agency called Baddermans.’

‘New York, eh? You like it there?’

‘I love it. It’s… wonderful. It has everything I could ever want.’ She paused. There was something niggling at the back of her mind, like a word she was trying to remember but that was just too far out of reach… a feeling that didn’t quite sit right with her when she thought about New York.

No matter how much she tried to force it she couldn’t make it tangible, real. It was an itch, or… something she couldn’t put her finger on. ‘Anyway, Tamara called and said you needed some help for a few days, so here I am. Is there anything you particularly need help with? Should we make a list or have a chat about your routine?’

‘Someone’s always interfering. Do this, don’t do that, go there. A man isn’t in charge of his own life these days. I don’t need any help, I’m perfectly fine.’ For someone who didn’t like the look of the food he was certainly managing to demolish it. He smacked his lips together. Took a slurp of Earl Grey. Scooped up more eggs. ‘Tastes like soap, but I’ll let you off this time. One more slip-up, though, and I’m afraid we might have to let you go.’

A smile hit her lips. Good Lord, he was curmudgeonly. ‘And yet somehow you’ve managed to eat it all.’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers. A man needs to eat. Now I have to go to work.’ He scraped the chair back and pushed himself upright, uncurling slowly, as if all the bones in his body were creaking awake one by one after a very long hibernation. ‘I’ll be in the library.’

She scooped up his plate and popped it into the dishwasher along with hers, wiped her hands and turned as he was shuffling towards the door. ‘Wait… Work? Are you still working?’ Because, God help the poor client, if there was one. ‘I thought you’d retired. Aren’t you retired?’

‘Actually… I don’t know… Maybe I am. Retired, eh? Already?’ He looked down at his veiny hands as if the answer were there in the curl of arthritic fingers. His shoulders slumped forward. When he looked back at her his eyes were clouded with confusion. ‘What am I meant to do now?’

‘Oh, Judge.’ Surprisingly, her heart contracted at the thought of a once highly respected and very busy man being so utterly lost. Where she’d expected to feel anger she now just felt sorry for him. ‘Hey, we’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.’

‘Good.’ He nodded, and even though his voice was barely audible she caught his words. ‘Thank you.’

‘Right, then. Next thing…’ There wasn’t any point getting emotional about this; it wasn’t going to help. She had to hold herself together and fix things. Write a list. Make a plan. Action. That was what she needed.

No point in sitting around ruminating.

Emily looked round for another job to fill her time. In the cold, early-morning hours after Jacob Taylor, the International Man of Mystery, had gone back home, she’d scrubbed every surface in here clean. Washed their bedding and hung it outside to dry on the saggy line in the walled kitchen garden. Emptied and replaced the buckets under the suspicious-looking ceiling cracks.

Then she’d run around The Hall, opening all the doors and windows to let some fresh air in, and reacquainted herself with the place – which had clearly gone to rack and ruin in the time she’d been away. It needed a complete decoration overhaul and a lot of cosmetic fixing; of broken door handles, cracked wooden frames and blown light bulbs. But now she didn’t feel like staying in the place a second longer, especially if The Judge needed entertaining. ‘You know what, Judge? There’s a wee bit of sunshine out there. Get your coat on, we’re going for a walk.’

He looked grateful to have been given a task. ‘Right you are, then. Give me a minute.’

It was humbling the way he did as he was told and it felt wrong giving him orders, but if she didn’t keep him going he’d just sit and stare into space. In fact, the more he sat the more confused he seemed to get.

So, tempting as it was to just sit in her room, too, and try to get some 3G signal on her phone – she harboured no illusions that 4G might be available in this forgotten part of the twenty-first century – she couldn’t let him stagnate. He needed stimulation and company. ‘We need to buy some groceries and hopefully find somewhere in the Land That Time Forgot that has Wi-Fi.’

Maybe then she could actually reach Tamara or Tilda and start solving all these problems she’d only just discovered she had.

Chapter Four

From their vantage point at the top of the hill Emily could see the rolling green hills surrounding the village that spread out towards Greater Duxbury and beyond; the many different colours of grass punctuated by stone walls and bright blooms of red and yellow. She’d forgotten how pretty it could be – or had she never even looked? She’d forgotten, too, about the sheep and the quaint noises they made. And the lambs! She grinned as she walked by them, and then laughed at herself. She was supposed to be a sophisticated city dweller now, entranced by the bustle and vibrancy of urban life, not by fluffy lambs.