Champagne has made her bold. What if she talks to Rhys now, when he’s softened by alcohol? She’s not asking to be let off the loan – although obviously she wouldn’t say no. Imagine! She’s simply asking to stick to their original agreement. Their gentleman’s agreement.
‘Gentlewoman’s agree—’ Clemmie frowns. Has she made that joke already? She weaves unsteadily through the party. Rhys went out of the front door. This is good: they can talk in private. No one else knows about the loan, and Clemmie’s keen to keep it that way.
As she leaves the Charltons’ lodge, she sees Rhys at the other end of the drive. He bends over and throws up into the flowerbeds, then opens his front door. He’s clearly decided to call it a night. Clemmie scurries after him. He’s left the door open, and she doesn’t knock, just steps inside and calls, ‘Hello? Rhys?’ There’s no sign of him downstairs, so she pops up the stairs, tripping over her own toes in her effort to get upstairs before Rhys starts getting into his pyjamas. She hears a small sound – like someone swallowing – and she calls out again as she rounds the corner and takes the last few steps into the study.
‘It’s only me. Clemmie. I was hoping we could—’
Clemmie wonders momentarily if she’s hallucinating. She has drunk an awful lot. But then Glynis makes that sound again – a sort of strangled gurgle – and the blood rushes to Clemmie’s head. Rhys is lying face-down, a smear of blood on the wooden floor beneath his face. Next to him lies a golden trophy, its base a block of marble.
‘Oh, my God,’ Clemmie says. She drops to her knees beside Rhys, rolling him over and checking frantically for a pulse. A deep gash runs down the middle of his face, blood filling his mouth. He isn’t moving.
‘He made my husband write a will.’ Glynis speaks so quietly Clemmie can hardly hear her. She feels a strong pulse, beating fast and furious, then realises it’s her own and changes position. ‘Jac would never have left the land to Rhys if he’d been well.’
Clemmie doesn’t know what Glynis is talking about, but she has a terrible feeling she knows what it implies. She sits back on her heels for a second and stares at the older woman. ‘Did you do this deliberately?’
‘No!’
‘Well, thank goodness for—’ Clemmie resumes her search for a pulse.
‘I mean, not entirely.’
Clemmie looks at her, appalled by what she’s hearing.
‘I just saw red. I was so angry and . . .’ Glynis covers her face. ‘Oh, my God, what have I done?’
Clemmie’s heart is pounding. She fights to keep her breathing in check, trying to speak calmly. ‘We have to get rid of him.’
‘Rid of – what do you mean? We need to call an ambulance. Do you have a mobile? I don’t have one and there’s no landline here, I don’t know why they don’t—’
‘Glynis!’
She stops talking, her face ashen and her lips pinched with panic.
Clemmie speaks slowly. ‘They’ll arrest you, Glynis. You’ll go to prison.’
‘No, no, no. He’ll be okay, we just need to get him to a hospital.’
‘I’ll help you.’ Clemmie sounds stronger than she feels. ‘Protect you.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Glynis is crying.
‘It’s too late, Glynis.’ Clemmie’s fingers are slippery with blood. She presses them to Rhys’s neck again, even though she knows what she’ll find. ‘A doctor won’t be able to help him.’
Clemmie’s head is spinning. She came to Rhys’s lodge to talk to him about their loan agreement. An agreement no one else knows about. She knows this is awful, that Glynis is in shock – may never recover – but, inside, Clemmie’s heart is leaping. She thinks of the money she won’t have to pay back, and the future she can promise her son.
‘Are you—’ Glynis chokes back a sob. ‘Are you sure?’
Clemmie leans over Rhys, shielding Glynis from the terrible sight of her son, lying motionless on the floor. ‘Quite sure.’ She feels once more for a pulse, willing things to be different, but nothing has changed. Nausea rises in her throat, but Clemmie thinks of the freedom she can have, now she doesn’t have to pay Rhys back. Everything happens for a reason, she tells herself.
‘I’m afraid you’ve killed him,’ she tells Glynis.
As Glynis collapses into a chair, sobbing, Clemmie remains motionless, her fingers on Rhys’s pulse. Slow and weak, but unmistakably present.