She turned around and Joely was unsettled by the disturbing mix of bitterness and sadness in her eyes. ‘I want you to hate her too,’ she said, making it an instruction. ‘As my ghostwriter I will rely on you to make sure it’s the same for every reader. We will publish the truth and the real punishment for the terrible crime committed against an innocent person will begin.
‘Now Edward is here, so I must go to greet him.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Joely had been in the writing room for almost three hours by now committing the trip to Paris to her laptop, doing her best to conjure both the heady romance Sir and young Freda had enjoyed, and the sublime location. The task might have been easier if she didn’t already know that something awful was to follow, if she could actually stop herself creating scenarios in her head for what it could be. Actually, just as much of a challenge, if the truth were told, was containing her irritation at being sent off to do this now. It was like being ordered to bed so the grown-ups could talk in peace.
‘We have a lot of things to discuss,’ Freda had announced as her nephew’s car had pulled up outside the front door, ‘so it would be a good time for you to go and transcribe our little chat this morning.’
And so, without even being introduced, Joely had climbed the tower staircase, propped open the library door with a well-thumbed Gibbon’s Roman Empire, and settled herself down to the task at hand.
Now it was more or less finished, and she was feeling absurdly reluctant to go downstairs in case showing up unannounced angered Freda. If there were another way out of the tower she’d happily take it, for it was a beautiful day, almost spring-like, and she hadn’t yet taken a walk down to the beach. Or she could take the section of coast path that fronted the Valley of Rocks. From there she could make her way into town for a cup of tea in the inviting-looking tea shop at the top of the funicular ride and have a private chat with her mother or Andee on the phone.
Had Freda really been listening in to her call earlier? If so, what on earth had she hoped to hear?
Anyway, her host’s peculiarities aside, good manners – or something like that – had her trapped up here like she was some embarrassing guest who had to be kept out of the way in case she disgraced herself.
Well, the heck with that.
Sending her afternoon’s work to the printer, she picked up her phone and bag and descended as far as the library before coming to a cautious stop at the sound of raised voices down in the kitchen. Certainly one of them belonged to a man, and the other, though quieter was unquestionably Freda’s.
Reminding herself that it was outrageous to eavesdrop, she tiptoed to the top of the next staircase where she could hear much better.
‘… tell me the truth, Freda. I’ll find out anyway, you know that so …’
‘Edward, please stop bullying me …’
‘… let’s be sensible about this. I care about you, for heaven’s sake, you’re the only family I have now that …’
‘You have a mother,’ Freda cut in sharply.
‘… who we haven’t seen in decades. Freda, if you’re as …’
‘Stop, I know what you’re going to say, you think I’m about to die and that’s why I’m trying to finish this memoir. Well, I’m not that sick, Edward, and I’ll thank you for not calling my doctor again to find out when I last saw him.’
‘If I hadn’t I wouldn’t know that you’d been, and you never go unless it’s serious.’
‘Well it turned out not to be. I’m fine, or better than you seem to think, and this memoir is something I’ve been planning for a very long time, so you could say I’ve been working on it for years. So there’s no urgency about it, it’s just … time to get it out of my head and onto the page.’
‘OK, then explain to me why you won’t tell me anything about it. Why do I have to wait until it’s published to find out whatever the big secret is? If it concerns Dad, surely I have a right to know.’
‘It doesn’t concern him, or Doddoe. It’s something that happened a long time ago and it’s time I set the record straight.’
‘About what?’
‘We’re going round in circles. Let’s stop and have some tea.’
Joely stayed where she was, listening to the sound of the kettle filling with water and a chair being dragged from the table.
‘So how’s the ghostwriter working out?’ Edward asked, his tone less stringent now, more conciliatory.
‘She’s good,’ Freda replied. ‘Better even than I expected, but we still have a way to go.’
‘Where is she?’
‘In the writing room. I know you want to meet her, and I’m sure she wants to meet you too, but if I allow it you are not to bully her for information. She’s signed an NDA and I’m sure you don’t want her to be in breach of her contract.’
With a laugh, Edward said, ‘Who did you get to draw that up for you? I know it wasn’t anyone in my office or they’d have told me.’
‘Precisely, which is why I went to a firm in Taunton.’
‘Did she mind signing it?’
‘I don’t think so.’
His voice lowered in a teasing, conspiratorial way, ‘Were you a spy, back in the day? Are you revealing some sort of government secrets in this tell-all of yours?’
‘That’s it,’ she gasped in mock horror. ‘You’ve guessed. Now let’s talk about you. Are you planning to stay tonight?’
‘If I’m allowed to.’
‘Good, a room’s been made up for you, but you’ll have to eat in town. I was planning to come with you, but I have a few things to do here so perhaps you’ll be kind enough to take the ghostwriter with you. Before you answer, I want your word that you won’t fall for her, or try to make her fall for you.’
Sounding amused, Edward said, ‘Do you always call her the ghostwriter? Isn’t her name Jodie Something-or-Other.’
‘Joely Foster. She’s very attractive, smart and she’s on the rebound, so she really doesn’t need to be discombobulated by a playboy like you.’
As he gave a shout of laughter Joely’s eyebrows arched. This was a different tune to the one Freda had played earlier when she’d announced that her nephew was single and not gay. She’d sounded then as if she wanted to push them together, but apparently not.
And playboy?
Deciding she ought to go down before the mood changed against her, she resisted the urge to check herself in a mirror – easy since she didn’t have one – and then promptly made an idiot of herself as she slipped three steps from the bottom and thumped into the kitchen door.
Luckily there wasn’t enough room for her to go all the way down to her knees, and by the time Freda came to investigate the thump she was fully upright and ready to say,
‘Sorry, just a little advance warning of my arrival.’
Freda regarded her curiously and stood aside for her to enter. ‘Joely, my nephew, Edward,’ she said, smoothly. ‘Edward this is Joely.’
Since she’d already seen a photograph of him Joely wasn’t as affected by his good looks as she might have been, although she did find herself warming to the easy charm he seemed to emanate as he rose to greet her. Definitely not my type, she was thinking as she said, ‘It’s lovely to meet you.’