Wren hit the limestone hard enough to lose her breath.
The scrub brush shot out of her hands and spun across the conservatory floor, leaving a wet crescent of soap behind it. For one suspended second she did not feel pain at all, only shock. Then both knees lit up at once, hot and blinding, and her palms slapped the floor to stop herself from falling all the way over.
She bit down on the inside of her lip before any sound could escape.
Crying had rules in that house now. Cry quietly. Cry facing away. Cry where Sonia could call it drama.
Across the bright glass room, Sonia Mercer sat in a wicker lounge chair near the fig tree, one ankle crossed neatly over the other, a crystal bowl of candied pecans resting on her lap. Rain tapped the ceiling panes above her. The room smelled of lemon polish, wet earth, and the berry punch that had spread in a dark red fan across the floor fifteen minutes earlier.
Sonia did not rise.
She popped another pecan into her mouth and looked at Wren as if she were a spill instead of a child.
‘Don’t make a mess of yourself on top of the mess you already made,’ she said.
Wren pushed up on shaking hands. Her cream cardigan sleeve was soaked through. Soap clung to the hem of her blue school dress. One knee had already gone pink, the other an angry mottled red. She reached for the brush and tried to stand.
Her legs would not hold.
So she stayed on her knees and scrubbed.
Sonia’s smile was small and cool. ‘Under the table this time. And faster. Your father is tired enough without you putting on one of your scenes.’
That sentence was what finally made Wren stop.
By the pantry door, set into the wall beside the light switch, the brushed-steel intercom panel was still glowing green.
Earlier, before Sonia had knocked the punch bowl over with her elbow while talking on the phone and then turned on Wren as if the child had done it, Wren had pressed the call button. She had only wanted to ask her father when he would be home. Sonia had slapped her hand away and said the line was dead.
It was not dead.
A faint rush of road noise breathed through the tiny speaker.
Sonia heard it at the same moment Wren did.
Her expression changed so fast it looked like a mask cracking.
Then the gate chimed. The side door opened with a hard bang. Rain-cold air rushed into the conservatory, and Adrian Vale stepped inside with his coat damp at the shoulders and fury carved across his face.
‘Get away from her,’ he said.
Wren had imagined rescue often enough to know the first moment never felt heroic. It felt confusing. She did not run to him. She did not burst into tears. She only tightened both hands around the scrub brush and looked up as if waiting for someone to say this was another trick.
Sonia rose so quickly the bowl slid off her lap and shattered on the floor. ‘Mr. Vale, it is not what it looks like.’
Adrian crossed the room without looking at her. He crouched in front of Wren, and
