An Innocent Affair

XXXVI

"You're trying to escape from your difficulties, and there never is any escape from difficulties, never. They have to be faced and fought." Enid Blyton, Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm

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XXXVI.

"Ah, it seems it is the evening for reunions!"

Cressie's blood ran cold as she heard that voice. She froze immediately in her mother's arms as all manner of dread consumed her immediately. No. It couldn't be.

She dared to look, only so she could be wrong. She prayed to God in that very instant that her imagination, her wildest nightmares, had simply come to spook her, and that Everett was still half a country away from her.

But it wasn't to be. The moment she looked up, she was meet with the cold, calculated eyes of her husband as he dismounted Dabney, keeping a tight, wrenching hold of his bridle.

Cressie, who was still holding her mother, felt Mrs Martin begin to tremble. Despite her own fear, she stepped in front of her mother.

Everett arched one of his eyebrows for the briefest of moments before he released Dabney's bridle to a servant and made his way towards them. With every step that he drew nearer, Cressie's pulse heightened, racing at an impossible pace as it rung in her ears.

Before Everett could reach for her, however, Cressie felt herself being pulled backwards. Mrs Martin had grabbed Cressie by the waist and had switched their positions, putting herself between Cressie and her husband.

"Come now, Mrs Martin," Everett said in a condescending tone. "I, like you, am anxious to be reunited with Cressida."

"Cressie does not want to be reunited with you," Mrs Martin said fiercely, before she added, "right now," to protect themselves. "She is very clearly expected somewhere."

Everett chuckled coldly. "How fortunate is it then that I am the one who decides what Cressida wants."

Cressie wanted to run, but her legs were like lead.

Everett clicked his fingers to catch the attention of the footman on the back of the carriage. "You there. Fetch a servant to collect Mrs Martin's things and see that she is brought inside. I will attend to her later." It was an order for the servant as much as it was for Mrs Martin.

Mrs Martin looked upon Cressie with a fearful, helpless expression on her face. She didn't know what to do or say, the same as Cressie did not. Neither of them had anticipated Everett's arrival in London, and their plans were very quickly becoming impossible to achieve.

"I ... I have accommodation elsewhere," Mrs Martin announced.

"Nonsense," Everett refuted. "I will not have my mother-in-law stay anywhere but here." His tone suggested that he had wanted to add 'where I can keep an eye on you'.

Something was different. Something was off. Everett knew something, and Cressie did not know what it was. He was always controlling and patronising, but Cressie could feel it in her bones. Everett had come to London for a reason, and it was not because he had missed his wife.

Several servants emerged from the house, and Mrs Martin was ushered inside, along with her trunk. It was as though Everett now had a very convenient hostage. Cressie could not run now at all, not while her mother was inside this house.

Everett and Cressie were not standing on the footpath alone together for more than four seconds before the door to the carriage practically came off of its hinges as Zara launched herself out. She all but threw herself into her uncle's arms in a warm greeting.