The Way Back Home by Freya North Read Free Book Online Page A

lump of sugar into his mug of tea and looked at his wife again. ‘It’s a good idea. It gets her out and about a bit. It’s a lovely day. We don’t want her to feel obliged to join us – on our trip to Wakefield. In the Vauxhall.’ He looked at Oriana. ‘And much as I know the Bennets would love to meet you – well, sitting around listening to us old folk gab – it’s no place for a young woman on the first Saturday in April. A fine one at that.’ He paused. Glanced from Rachel to Oriana while both women stared at him, stunned that he could be at once so subtle yet conniving.
    ‘You take your mother’s car,’ said Bernard a final time, ‘and have a nice day out.’ And, by the way he finished his tea, tapped both hands down on the table and declared
well now! the matter was resolved and no further information or discussion was required.
    Even in the car, Oriana knew she could change her plans and simply turn up at Cat’s. Or go shopping at Meadowhall. Or reacquaint herself with Bakewell. Belper. Baslow. Eyam. Anywhere. Or just turn round and go nowhere. And yet no one, apart from Ashlyn, knew she was visiting Windward. She could just go there, drive in, drive out. Never step out of the car. No one would be any the wiser. A secret journey. And so she set off, travelling south, retracing the route she’d journeyed three weeks before.
    She concentrated on the road, on the sound of the engine, the milometer racking up, the petrol gauge barely moving – dear little car. Would she turn right and go to Blenthrop? Perhaps just park in the car park and sit for a while? She drove on. Or – she could pull in just here, in the lay-by. Stretch her legs and fill her lungs and then decide whether it was really worth carrying on, all the way to Windward. But on she drove.
    Eighteen years.
    Whereas the sight of Blenthrop had disarmed her three weeks ago, this route back to Windward was as familiar as if she’d made it daily with no interval. As she neared, it seemed everything came into even sharper focus, even the coping stone still lying half hidden in goose grass at the foot of the left gate pillar. She indicated. She turned up the driveway. This was the first time she’d ever done so. She’d left Windward before she learned to drive.
    You can’t see the house yet. You have to follow the private road a little way on, she told herself; poker straight until the sudden sweep to the right reveals the house, sitting sedate and solemn and magnetic. Peach-pale stone, seen as so extravagant and modern in 1789, when the Jacobean manor house was demolished and the current Georgian mansion was built. For the first time Oriana noticed the peculiar sight of neatly parked cars either side of the expansive gravelled sweep in front of the house, the vehicles positioned like ribs, like fish bones. And suddenly memories of last night’s cod brought with it a surge of nausea and a clammy coldness swept over her. She placed her forehead on the steering wheel.
    What on earth am I doing here? This place makes me feel ill.
    A sweep of memories kept at bay for so long: the day she was made to leave, the occasions she’d tried to return. The address bold in her bubbled teenage handwriting on letters she’d never posted. That day, that terrible day when she’d been fifteen.
    Oriana wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there but suddenly she was aware of an audience, and she raised her head just enough to see two small girls peering in through the car window. They smiled and waved and she raised her hand half-heartedly. The younger girl pressed her palm against the glass and looked at Oriana earnestly, as if she felt she’d found someone trapped, waiting to be rescued. Reluctantly, she put the window down.
    ‘Hi,’ said the elder girl. ‘I’m Emma. You can call me Ems.’
    ‘And I’m Kate,’ said the smaller one. ‘I’m five.’ She splayed out one hand for emphasis.
    ‘I’m –’ Oriana thought about it. ‘Incognito’