The Girl in the Cottage by the Sea: An absolutely gorgeous and emotional page-turner filled with family secrets (The Island Cottage) by Rebecca Alexander

Author:Rebecca Alexander [Alexander, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2024-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

24

NOVEMBER 1943

Georgie used the excuse of returning neat, archived folders back to the office to ask Hugo if he knew any more about the other half of the letter about Jago, the drowned child. She hoped that the other pages were in one of the piles of records she had to sort through. She took the sheet she had found to show him, but he didn’t have any idea.

‘I know who might be able to help,’ he said, then sneezed. ‘You should go home. I’m not fit for company. I seem to have picked up a cold; my landlady is making me stay here overnight. Her husband’s an invalid, she doesn’t want him to get it. I’ll box up some more work for you.’

‘There must be somewhere else you can stay,’ Georgie said indignantly, once she saw the pile of newspapers and blankets he was sleeping on, in the tiny back room.

‘A sickly foreigner?’ he asked, half smiling before sneezing again. ‘I doubt it. And I’m broke, even the few shillings I pay my hosts wouldn’t get me a proper room in the town. Let me put a kettle on the paraffin stove.’

She stood by the door, listening to him cough. ‘You might get worse,’ she said dubiously.

‘I might get better. It’s just a cold.’ He looked ivory pale, so she stepped forward and felt his forehead. He shut his eyes, like a child. He was hot, too hot. She snatched her hand back at the odd feeling the contact gave her.

‘I have a better idea,’ she said. This would all have been so much easier in London when they always kept a spare room for visitors. ‘Come home with me, and I’ll look after you. No one could think anything odd about it, you’re really ill. You need plenty of liquids and rest.’

He managed a tired smile. ‘No one in London would think anything of it, but here the locals will be deeply suspicious of my motives.’

She watched him struggle to his feet, then fall back into his chair. He swore – she assumed it was an oath – in Breton. ‘My husband would be the first to say, look after the poor man,’ she said. ‘We had refugees in London all the time.’ They had mostly welcomed Jewish refugees but also fleeing Dutch and French families, until the authorities had found them places to stay in the early months of the war. ‘I will explain to my neighbours.’

‘Very well, but don’t blame me if they decide you are harbouring a spy,’ he said, looking too tired to argue. ‘When’s the boat?’

‘Mr Ellis is already here. I think he went straight in the pub when I arrived. I’ll ask when he’s able to take us back. Why don’t you pack your things?’

While he filled a small rucksack, she packed another box with loose papers, her eyes catching something unexpected.

On the edge of one of the carefully typed documents from the 1930s she noticed a word and date written in pencil just along one edge.

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