Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman Read Free Book Online

Her pulse was hot and thunderous. She dared not speak.
    “Run away with me,” he said. Was she imagining it, or did his breath smell like gin?
    “What do you mean?” But it was already too late. He’d said the words she longed to hear, had not even dared to imagine.
    “I’ve telegraphed Billy, in Australia. He’s going to find me a job.”
    A wave of dizziness.
    “We can be together.”
    “Your wife . . .” she said, struggling for air.
    “I don’t love her. I love you. I love our child. She’ll never find us. I’ve organized a berth for us on a cargo liner leaving from London in eight days. I’ve forty pounds in my pocket. Will you go with me? Now? To London?”
    Outside the squally rain eased. Beattie gazed at him, thoughts flitting across her mind: of letting Cora down after she had done so much to help, of moving so far from her home, of never seeing her parents again . . . But none of these thoughts settled because, in the deepest well of her spirit, she wanted to go with Henry. And that desire overrode everything.
    “Yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”
    Evening closed in on the windows of the little hotel room in Bayswater. Beattie watched the street for Henry; he was late. And every moment he was late, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. It was not right, surely, for her to lose faith in him the moment he was out of her sight.
    In the next room, through the thin walls, she could hear someone whistling “Bye Bye Blackbird.” The cheerful tunewas at odds with the chill of the room, the approaching dark, the pressing sense of caution in her heart.
    Tomorrow they were off on a cargo ship that had enough space for two passengers and not even a steward to tend to them. Henry would have to do some cleaning to pay for their passage. They were to travel via India and would not be in Hobart for eight weeks.
    Eight weeks at sea. In the moments when she wasn’t tired and overwhelmed with doubt, it seemed an adventure. But now it was hugely, horribly daunting.
    The promises Henry had made her! Eternal love. Raising their son together (he was sure it was a boy, a little Henry). A new life in a new world. They would pose as husband and wife. She would cease to call herself Beattie Blaxland and would henceforth be known as Mrs. Henry MacConnell. She would bear babies; he would work hard and bring home money. They would have a little place of their own and grow old together.
    But there were too many false notes in this symphony of his imagining. He would be working with Billy Wilder. His wife may track them down. And he hadn’t found himself able to make love to her pregnant body.
    “It’s nothing,” he’d muttered, gently turning away her advances. “You look different, that’s all. Not my Beattie. When you’ve had the child, it will be the same again.”
    Had Henry not come for her, she would still be in Morecombe House, waiting like all the other girls to give birth and give away the child. She curled her hand around her belly. Why could she not escape this terrifying ambivalence? Onemoment she wanted Henry, the baby, the new life. The next moment she did not. She simply wanted this to have never happened.
    But it
had
happened.
    There he was, striding casually along the street. He’d been finalizing the arrangements for their journey and picking up a bag full of roomy dresses for her from a friend of Teddy’s in Paddington. Beattie had nothing but what she had fled the beach in, and it wouldn’t fit for much longer.
    He glanced up at the window, saw her watching for him, and lifted his hand in a greeting. No smile. That wasn’t Henry’s way.
    She simply couldn’t doubt herself, not now. She had made her decision, or rather, her heart had made it for her.
    Tomorrow the journey would begin. Tomorrow there was no looking back.

FIVE
     
    Emma: London, 2009
     
    I was running late, but I supposed by now that Josh was used to it. The rehearsal had ended right on time; I’d dressed and grabbed