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didn’t have something sorted out by the time Ben and his family arrived back in the country, she might have to take him up on his offer.
    Ben was visiting their mother, who had moved to France six years ago. Annie had been out twice to see her and it was twice too much: they just didn’t get on. Annie had never forgiven her for leaving her dad when they were young.
    Annie had loved her dad so much. He had always been the one to tuck her in and read her bedtime stories and then one day she had come home from school and her mum and Ben had been waiting in the hall for her with two large suitcases and three black bin bags of toys. Annie had begged her mum to let her stay with her dad but she wouldn’t, insisting that Annie had to go with her. A black car had pulled up with a man driving she had never seen before, and her mum had loaded the cases, bags and then her children into a car with her and the mystery man and driven away.
    Annie had never forgotten the look of hurt on her dad’s face. He died not long after that and Annie blamed her mum for breaking his heart. Ben on the other hand was the golden child, or so she had nicknamed him. He would laugh it off but Annie knew he was their mother’s favourite and it didn’t bother her, well, not now she was an adult. It had when she was a kid because Ben could just about do whatever he wanted yet whenever Annie asked it was always ‘no’.
    She had been so desperate to escape her family home that when Mike had asked her to move in with him she didn’t even think about it. She packed her bags and that was it. And now look at how that had ended. She sat back down at the kitchen table to read some more of the diary, anything to take her mind off Jake and Will.
6 th April 1887
    Edward is coming home for the Easter holidays. The house has been so happy these last few months without him that I feel my stomach filling with butterflies at the thought of it. I have been able to practise my reading and writing in the schoolroom in solitude.
    Lady Hannah came in one day when I was writing and told me that I was creating memories for the days when I am older and my memory may not serve me as well as it does now. I try to write every day but there is so much to do around this big house that I sometimes forget.
    Today I feel as if a black cloud is descending upon me. I am so scared of Edward and what he may have been dreaming of to do to me whilst in London that I am finding it hard to concentrate on anything. I know that I am being foolish thinking this way and that Lady Hannah would not stand back and let him treat me so cruelly but she is not always around and his Lordship is far too busy with work to notice what goes on in this house. I will just have to do my best to keep out of his way and hope for the best. I would tell Alfie how I feel but I fear he would step in to defend me and then he would lose his position in the house and also his home and I do not want anyone to suffer because of me. I know that Alfie likes me a lot, more than just as a friend, because he stole a kiss from me two days ago out in the woodshed, when he was helping me carry wood in for the fire. I pretended to be angry and pushed him away but I was not really and I think he knows this because he grinned at me and winked.
8 th April 1887
    So far Edward has been very polite and courteous towards me. He has not hidden in any dark corners to jump out and scare me yet. I think that London is changing him for the best. There must be lots of young ladies he can be mean to in the city. He has taken to wearing smart suits with a clean pressed handkerchief tucked into his pocket. Alfie told me that Edward insists on a clean one every day and he had to go into town to purchase some more to make sure Edward did not run out on his visit home.
    Today I had to clean out all the fire grates. His Lordship took Edward to the town hall to a meeting today leaving Alfie at a loose end. Harold told him he could help me. Alfie