Kylie looked at the beautiful paintings hanging on the great hall wall. Some of the portraits were interesting to Kylie because she could see Jasper in some of them. It was the eyes, very blue, sincere. It was a pity that these people in the paintings weren't smiling, it seemed that nobody smiled in portraits in those far off days, but, she could bet if they were, they would look exactly like Jasper. There was one man, dressed in some uniform, lovely red coat, big sword and lots of gold braids, if that man smiled it could be Jasper in fancy dress.She wondered what Richie's family were like. They probably wouldn't be very impressed with her, an unmarried mother at nineteen. It had been hard to leave Richie and the beautiful apartment last night, but she knew he understood and she had received several texts this morning. Kylie had switched off her phone while they were on the coach, she didn't want Grant asking who was texting when he was sitting next to her. When they got to th

Kylie was so happy that it was Tuesday, she had told Grant that she was taking Suki to her mum's and staying the night. He didn't seem to have a problem with that, although, "Why are you taking all that stuff?" he asked, looking at the large holdall."Oh its stuff Suki has grown out of, my mum says she has a friend who collects things for refugees. Besides it's filling all the drawers, best get rid of it."Grant grunted his assent. He went back to watching the traffic from the window. Kylie went back into the bedroom and grabbed a couple of tops and another pair of jeans. She shoved them into her holdall. Was there anything else that she should take? She looked around the bedroom, seeing the memories of the past eight months. She and Grant had such fun when they first moved in here, he'd painted the room for her, made it as lovely as he could for, and the baby. She had tried hard to be an excellent partner to him. Kylie cooked him his favourite meals, made sure she ironed

Jasper stretched out in a reclining chair in Ellie's hospital room. He'd pulled it right up to her bed so that he could hold her hand. Gus had given her painkillers, and for the moment, she was sleeping."What are you going to do, Jasper?" asked Gus as he checked the IV drip going into her arm. "Do you want me to call the police?""I'm not sure what to do; this is such a mess. I don't want to subject Ellie to the press, but Thwaite needs sorting out." Jasper heaved a sigh and told Gus of the previous intervention that Tom Thwaite had tried."He needs to be stopped Jasp, look at her she's in a dreadful state. She's lucky that she hasn't sustained some permanent damage. If he's done this now; how do we know he hasn't done this before? How do we know he's not going to do this again?" Gus asked.The injuries Ellie sustained looked even worse in this light, and Jasper could hardly bear to look at her. Her beautiful face swollen and discoloured. Black spider leg

Kylie sighed in relief when she arrived back at the flat. Her palms had been damp when she though that Grant may have seen her if he had been watching out of the window, and the last thing she wanted was to explain why she was getting out of the Duke of Shettleham's car.Oh, that would have been something, if Grant had seen that! She looked at her phone, nothing from Richie yet, still he was probably saving his millions, and that took concentration. Where was Grant, she could text him and find out?"Hi, I'm home, where are you?"Kylie put her phone on the windowsill. They had worked out when they first came to live here that there was better signal reception at that end of the room. She filled the kettle and began to clean the kitchen. Grant had not washed up after his burgers the night before,

Richie sat in his car across the road from the chip shop over which Kylie had her flat. He could see the window of the living room was open at the top. The net curtain was blowing in the breeze. He knew what was behind that curtain; the dull cream walls and drab brown carpet. She had done her best with what she had—the oblong coffee table with ring marks from long finished mugs of coffee. The square glass coasters sitting on it were Kylie's attempt at saving the rest of the table. He remembered that she had polished it at a recent time with lavender beeswax polish, the smell competing with old chip fat and damp walls.Richie pulled his phone out and stared at all the messages Kylie had sent him. Her happiness and excitement were so apparent in everything she had written to him. He had no idea why he had asked that stupid question. She had no idea about that fucking letter, and he was just a fuc