from her mother up so tightly he could never touch them and some of his passion died.
While Emma wandered the Continent in Henry’s wake, Jane wrote sometimes, and they even saw each other once when the Ramsays were touring Italy. They were not completely estranged, but Jane would never give in when it came to the money. ‘It is yours, Emma, when you need it,’ she insisted and so Henry cut Emma off from the Ramsays.
But when Emma wrote after Henry’s death, Jane immediately sent money and servants to fetch her home, since Jane herself was too pregnant to travel. Jane would never abandon her, Emma knew that. Only her own embarrassment and shame had kept her away from Barton until now, had kept her from leaving Henry and seeking the shelter of her childhood home. She wondered what she would find beyond those gates.
Murray whined louder and leaned against her. Emma laughed and patted his head with her black-gloved hand.
‘I’m sorry, old friend,’ she said. ‘I know it’s cold out here. We’ll go inside now.’
He trotted behind her down the hill and climbed back into the carriage at her side. For some months, Murray had seemed to be getting older, with rheumatic joints and a greying muzzle, but he wagged his plumy tail eagerly as they bounced past the gates. He seemed to realise they were almost home.
The drive to Barton was a long, picturesquely winding one, meandering gently between groves of trees, old statues and teasing glimpses of chimneys and walls. In the distance, Emma could see the old maze, the white, peaked rooftops of the rebuilt summerhouse at its centre peeking up above the hedges. In the other direction were the fields and meadows of Rose Hill, the Marton estate, and its picturesque ruins of the old medieval castle, which she had long wanted to explore.
Then the carriage came to a V in the drive. One way led to a cluster of old cottages, once used for retired estate retainers, and old orchards. The other way led to the house itself.
Emma leaned out of the window next to Murray and watched as Barton itself came into view. Built soon after the return of Charles II for one of his Royalist supporters, Emma’s ancestor, its red-brick walls, trimmed with white stonework and softened by skeins of climbing ivy, were warm and welcoming.
When Emma and Jane had lived there before Jane reconciled with Hayden, the walls had been slowly crumbling and the gardens overgrown. Now everything was fresh and pretty, the flowerbeds just turning green, the low hedge borders neatly trimmed, new statues brought from Italy gleaming white. Emma glimpsed gardeners on the pathways at the side of the house, busy with their trowels and shears.
So much had changed. So much was the same.
As the carriage rolled to a halt, the front door to the house flew open just as a footman hurried to help Emma alight. Jane came hurrying out, as quickly as she could with her pregnant belly impeding her usual graceful speed. Her hazel eyes sparkled and she was laughing as she clapped her hands.
‘Emma, my darling! Here you are at last,’ Jane cried. As soon as Emma’s half-boots touched the gravelled drive, Jane swept her into her arms and kissed her cheek. ‘Welcome home.’
Home. As Emma hugged her sister back, felt her warmth and breathed in the soft, flowery scent of her lilac perfume, she could almost feel at home again. In sanctuary. Safe.
But wandering anchorless around Europe, seeing the dark depths all sorts of people were capable of, had taught her there was really no place safe. And even as she wanted to hold tight to Jane now, the guilty memory of how she had hurt her sister by eloping, of Jane’s disappointment, still stung.
Emma stepped back and forced a bright smile as Jane examined her closely. Emma had learned the art of hiding her true feelings with Henry, but still it was difficult to do. ‘Barton is looking splendid. And so are you, Jane. Positively blooming.’
Jane laughed ruefully as she gently smoothed her hand over her belly. ‘I’m as big as a barouche now, I fear, and twice as lumbering. But I’ve felt much better this time than I did with the twins, hardly any morning sickness at all. I’ll feel all the better now with you here, Emma. I’ve missed you so much.’
‘And I’ve missed you.’ More even than Emma had realised all those lonely months. ‘And Barton.’
Jane took her arm and led her into the hall. Emma saw the changes to Barton were not just on the outside. The old, scarred parquet floor was replaced with fashionable black-and-white marble tiles. A newly regilded balustrade curved up along the staircase, which was laid with a thick blue-and-gold carpet runner. A marble-topped table held a large arrangement of hothouse roses and blue satin chairs lined up along the silk-striped walls.
But Emma didn’t have much time to examine the refurbishments.
‘Is that our Aunt Emma?’ a tiny, fluting voice called out, echoing down the stairs. Emma glanced up to find two little faces, with two matching sets of hazel eyes and mops of blond curls, peering down at her from the landing.
‘I am your Aunt Emma,’ she said, her heart feeling as if it would burst at this sight of the twins, who she hadn’t seen in so very long. ‘You must be William and Eleanor. You are much bigger than when I last saw you. Back then you were about as large as a loaf of bread.’
The two of them giggled and quickly came dashing and tumbling down the stairs to land at her feet. They peered up at her with curiosity shining from their eyes, eyes that were so much like their mother’s.
‘You’re much younger than we imagined,’ William said.
‘And thinner,’ Eleanor added. ‘You should eat some cream cakes.’
‘Children!’ Jane admonished. ‘Manners, please.’
They curtsied and bowed with murmured ‘How do you do’s’ before Jane sent them off to find tea in the drawing room.
‘I am so sorry, Emma,’ Jane said as they turned to follow the children. ‘Hayden and I, and their nannies, work so hard to teach them how to be a viscount and a lady, but they are at such an outspoken age.’
Emma laughed. ‘Rather like we were back then? Though I fear I have not quite outgrown it, whereas you are the perfect countess.’ Suddenly she glimpsed a pile of travel trunks near the drawing-room doors. ‘Are you going somewhere?’
‘We were planning to go to London for my confinement,’ Jane said. ‘Hayden thinks I should be near the doctors there. But now that you are here...’
‘You must still go,’ Emma said firmly, a bit relieved she might have a few days to find her feet without Jane worrying over her as well as the new baby. ‘Your health comes first. You can’t worry about me now.’
‘But you can’t rattle around Barton all alone! You could come with us to London.’
London was the last place Emma wanted to be. All those watching eyes and gossiping tongues, all too ready to stir up the old scandal-broth of her elopement and disastrous marriage. ‘Actually, I was thinking I could use one of the old cottages. They are so small and cosy, a perfect place for me to decide what I should do next.’
‘Live in one of the cottages,’ Jane exclaimed. ‘Oh, Emma dear, no. This is your house.’
‘But you said yourself, it is too big for one person. And I can’t go to London now. Not yet. You wrote that Hayden was seeing about releasing my small inheritance from Mama
