Catching the Wind(78)

Chapter 46




London, February 1953

The girl clung to her mummy’s hand as they skipped over puddles on the pathway that threaded through Kensington Gardens. Rosalind watched them closely, mesmerized by their camaraderie. It was an anomaly to her—a mother and daughter who actually enjoyed one another’s company. Not once, in her memory, had Lady Ricker wanted to be with her.

Rosalind visited the garden nearly every Sunday and sat on a bench by the Long Water, even on days like this when the clouds drizzled a winter rain. Her umbrella and Burberry trench coat were the stoic color of stone, though she longed for a brash red, emerald, or sapphire to pierce through the gray.

But neither she nor her coat could stand out in London or anywhere else in England. Her role for the moment was to be like everyone else, one of a thousand raindrops blending smoothly into the lake before her. Not making any waves. Even her string of boyfriends had been as bland as the autumn sky.

The narrow stretch of water, dividing the gardens from Hyde Park, transported her back a decade, to that fateful spring afternoon when she’d jumped out of the blue Wolseley and watched her old life plunge over a cliff. It was so surreal that sometimes she thought she’d dreamed it.

But it had been no dream. Eddie Terrell, the fool, had left a bag of banknotes behind in the car. She’d discovered it before they left the Mill House, when she was throwing her suitcase into the boot. The moment Brigitte had leapt from the car, the baby in her arms, Rosalind knew exactly what she was going to do.

She’d stopped the car before the edge of the bluff, removed the money. Then she’d snapped her life in two.

The past behind her, she opted to embrace her new existence in shadows of her making. Lady Ricker, she felt certain, would want her dead, even in this decade after the war. Rosalind knew far too much about her mum’s dealings with the Nazi dreck. The secrets she had to keep.

If her mum was able to change her colors, acting as the loyal wife of a British MP even as she supported Fascism, then Rosalind figured she could be a chameleon as well. Changing her colors until Lady Ricker died—from a vibrant modern woman into the drudgery of browns and grays.

She didn’t regret what she’d done all those years ago. Brigitte might have thought she was much older, more mature, but Rosalind had only been sixteen when she’d parachuted into Breydon Court. And she’d known little about how to survive on her own.

Brigitte was three years younger, but she already knew how to care for herself and for someone else.

The mother and child in the park drew closer, both laughing as their umbrella bobbed overhead. Her eyes should remain on the lake water—staring was akin to making waves—but she couldn’t seem to help herself. The woman with her short brown hair brushed back over her ears, wearing an olive jumper over her plain dress, looked like an older housewife version of Brigitte. If it was Brigitte, the girl clinging to her hand might be Rosalind’s daughter.

Rosalind stayed frozen on the bench, squeezing the wooden crook of her umbrella as the two walked by her, seemingly unaware of the stone lady on the bench.

It wasn’t Brigitte—or at least, she didn’t think so. Nor was it Rosalind’s child. Baby would be nearly ten now, and this girl looked to be no more than five or six.

Almost every week, she spotted a mother who reminded her of Brigitte, though she never pursued her inquiries. If she ever did find Brigitte, she wasn’t sure what she’d say. Probably she would do exactly what she’d done long ago and walk away.

Just because Rosalind had carried the baby in her womb didn’t mean she was the right one to care for her into adulthood. The baby had deserved a fresh life where no one would try to harm her. And a mum who knew how to mother well.

When the rain clouds took a respite, Rosalind closed her umbrella and propped it beside her. A boy stopped by her bench, a stack of newspapers tied up in a cord under his arm. He eyed her plain coat. “Two pennies for a paper?”

She studied his plain clothes in return. “I’ll take one,” she said, wanting to contribute to the boy’s welfare more than read the words on his paper. The world and its news moved rapidly around her, but Rosalind didn’t—couldn’t—waver.

The woman and girl were near the reeds around the water now, feeding something to the ducks. She turned her attention to the Times in her lap.

February 8, 1953.

Then she read the headline near the bottom of the page. Twice.

The paper boldly announced what she’d been waiting for. Lady Ricker was finally dead, the enemy of influenza taking her life.

According to the writer, Mum had left behind two children in London—a boy named Anthony and a girl named Louise. There was no mention of Lady Ricker turning traitor during the war. And more importantly, no mention of her oldest child.

Rosalind slowly lowered the paper, her hands trembling as a shell of stone seemed to crack near the top of her head, shooting down the seam and crumbling in a thousand pieces at her feet. Then she smiled.

She’d thought it would be many more years before she was free, but finally her life was about to begin.





CHAPTER 47





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A chauffeur sped Quenby and Lucas toward the tearoom to meet Alexander. Quenby had suggested Lucas rent a car at the Jacksonville airport, but he’d refused to drive in the States. And he insisted that she rest.