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Thrilled to finally meet you. After whatever we discuss today I am sure there is little else for me to say other than to give the advice not to permit love to slip by you. Sometimes it’s easier to simply resign oneself to loneliness and its sorrows than fight it but had I not kept hope burning in my heart for Harry, I would never have known the joy of this last year or more of being his wife. He has been a loyal and affectionate husband but I know his heart resides elsewhere. I want him to know the same joy I have known after I’ve gone and I realise he can only experience that with you. So, my friend – and I’m sure we shall be friends by this evening – put pride, disappointments and the past aside to embrace the future and its potential happiness in the arms of one who has never stopped loving you.

I wish you years of love and laughter together.

Think of me kindly. Bethany x

Wondering if she would ever match up to the honour of Bethany, Alex Frobisher put the note from her former nemesis into the safe alongside the paperwork of her divorce and as she clicked the brass handle closed, she felt closure on her past. It was as though she’d spent these first twenty-six years of her life in training, gaining wisdom and experience in how to cope with adversity and setback.

If Bethany could face her impending death with such grace and generosity, then she would not allow any obstacle to make her cower. She would blaze a trail, in fact, for women business owners in this new quarter of her life ahead as Britain entered another decade, a fresh era of peace and prosperity.

Harry would be with her in that future and she would mark this new age of her life with a sophisticated new chocolate to sum up all that had gone before. She began to scribble it down so the inspiration of this enlightened moment would not be lost. It would be made from plain bitter chocolate, sweetened decadently with a rich, darkly cooked caramel, and as a defiance to all that had caused sorrow previously, Alex decided she would add salt to the caramel.

It would shock and delight customers.

And as she scribbled down her recipe and design Alex Frobisher knew she would never fear the taste of salted tears again.

EPILOGUE

SEPTEMBER 1921

The funeral for Bethany had been held in the final days of March, during the thaw of the previously frozen ground sensing new life as the first inkling of warmth caressed its uppermost layers. She’d defied her illness to hold on to life for longer than those who loved her had dared hope, not only seeing the previous year out but being bright enough still to celebrate her husband’s January birthday and her own in February. Towards the end, when they all sensed her days were counting down, she had jested with Harry that the gods of the underworld would have to remain patient until she alone decided when to take her last breath. Persephone, the queen, came looking for Bethany in the early hours of a spring morning, before dawn began to lighten the heavens. She whispered her welcome, took her hand and stole her away from the embrace of her husband, which had held her close from an hour previous when they had both unexpectedly stirred.

Harry recalled how Bethany had smiled sleepily at him, her blue eyes dark and shiny in the small pool of light from the lamp they kept on permanently in the corner of their bedroom.

‘Are you all right?’ he’d murmured, blinking awake at her turn and slipping his arms around her.

‘I am now.’ She had snuggled into him. ‘I’m not scared.’

‘Beth . . .’ he’d begun, sensing from her tone that she was not speaking dreamily simply from her sleepy state.

‘Hush, Harry . . . there’s no pain,’ she assured, stroking his face as she flattened herself still closer to him. ‘This is precisely where I want to be . . . inhaling you for my last breath.’

‘What can I —?’

Again she made a soothing sound. ‘Nothing. You have done all I need. I have everything I could ever want and I promise you I face this next journey at ease. Just lie here with me until I breathe no more.’

Harry felt a guilty sob lurching in his chest; it came out as a shudder.

‘Don’t, darling Harry. I promise you there is nothing to weep for. You’ve made me so happy. Now you have a chance to be happy.’

‘I’m sorry it was never perfect, Beth,’ he choked out, needing to admit the truth that had stood between them. It felt important to say the words aloud in this nakedly brutal moment as death was tugging at her.

‘There’s no blame,’ she said gently in her ever-generous way. ‘I chose this life and I knew it was never going to be perfect but you’ll hear no complaint from me.’ The chest she leaned against rose and fell sharply as Harry struggled to keep his sorrow contained.

Harry was reminded of Matthew Britten-Jones, fully appreciating the tightrope he too had walked between loving someone his heart cleaved to helplessly and one he felt simply fond of. And so, dark, heavy guilt now would accompany him as he let the woman in his arms go on without him. She had deserved a man who adored her rather than this dutiful husband.

‘I know what you’re thinking, Harry, and I want you to stop. Don’t dare believe for a moment that I didn’t make all my own choices. My love was all that mattered to me and my heart wanted you, only you. You have given me no cause to grieve, to feel anything but your fondness. Let the guilt go. I’m moving on and it’s your turn to be selfish. Go claim your heart from the person who has it . . . and tell her she can only keep it if she becomes the next Mrs Blakeney and loves you until death parts you . . . the same oath I gratefully swore.’

‘Don’t, Beth,’ he pleaded.

‘This is my wish, Harry.’ She had sounded so weak then, her tone wispy.

Harry leaned in to kiss his wife in the warmth of life one last time. It was tenderly delivered and it spoke of friendship and respect, but especially of gratitude.

When he pulled back she didn’t open her eyes. ‘I wish everyone could pass from life with such a delicious farewell,’ she whispered and exhaled a final, gentle sigh.

__________

Harry sat at the same table in King’s Cross Station that he’d used on his first trip to York. That was when he was running away from his duty to Bethany; now he was escaping all the well-meaning expressions of sympathy for her passing as much as keeping his promise to her. He was headed north again; it had been more than six months since her burial.

Her interment, at St Nicholas’s Church in Brighton, had gathered her family at the grand western extension of its cemetery, which included a terrace of Tudor-Gothic stone vaults. The Porters owned one of these recessed vaults but had hoped they would not be used for many decades. They showed their dismay at having to accompany their daughter here by insisting the burial remain private, limited to themselves and the two surviving Blakeneys whom Bethany had adored.

Bethany’s wish had been that she be buried in the exquisite yet modest and wartime-conscious ecru silk Eden Valentine wedding gown that she had worn with such joy in the late winter of 1919.

Harry gave no outward sign of his inner turmoil, grief mixing with guilt like a silvery blade that cut him dozens of times in the days leading up to the burial. He covered it with a distant manner and a blankly sombre expression as he laid an all-white bouquet of irises, lily of the valley, violets, freesias and snowdrops on her polished, cinder toffee-coloured coffin. He was the last to farewell his wife and, after laying a hand on the casket, had whispered a few words that no one else shared, before he caught up with the shuffling line of mourners to comfort his still shocked but stoic mother with an arm around her narrow shoulders.

Harry realised he’d been reflecting on the past few months, immune to the sounds of life, and as someone brushed past him and accidentally knocked his elbow he returned to the present.

‘So sorry,’ the offender said, pausing briefly to look over her shoulder at him.

‘Don’t mention it,’ he replied, finding a polite smile that warmed to genuine because the woman reminded him – in the briefest of ways – of Alex. It may have been the way in which she held herself, or the more obvious dark hair. He wondered if Alex had cut hers. He knew she’d learned the truth behind Matthew’s escape to safety; Matthew had written to him and explained this. She also knew of the rushed marriage to Bethany, of her fate too, but still he’d kept his distance. He didn’t so much as write or pick up the telephone to hear her voice, especially after reading her note following her visit to Ockenden. This resistance had felt important in order to remain loyal to Bethany, to keep that promise he’d made, and while every day away from Alex had hurt like an old wound that refused to fully heal, the pain had lessened. But his desire for her had not.

So now it was time. Bethany had been right and she’d given him the permission he needed to go in search of the calm his restless soul needed. Only with Alex could he be truly at peace – they were meant to be together . . . two halves that needed one another to be whole.

Would she be at the station? It had been a long time and it may have an awkward quality – he was ready for that – but deep down he hoped they would simply ignore the time apart and their harsh farewell. He’d sent a telegram ahead last night. If she were not standing at York Railway Station, anxiously searching him out, he’d have his answer.

‘Be there, Alex,’ he murmured, and as he made his way to the train he began the pleasurable daydream of seeing her emerging from the cloud of steam on the platform, running towards him and flinging herself into his arms.

‘You must be Kitty,’ he would murmur with a smile and a sense of completeness.