Page 42 of The Clifftop Cottage

A rock jutted slightly from the wall, half buried beneath ivy and windblown leaves. The ivy clung tight, as though it had been growing there on purpose. Erica grabbed hold of the slick vines and pulled. They came away in her hands, leaving the stone bare.

She stilled.

There was something there.

A shallow dent. A mark that didn’t belong to nature.

She ran back inside, rain streaking down the windows as she grabbed the nearest scrap of paper and a pencil from the kitchen drawer. Lucky lifted his head from beside the stove, watching her with sleepy curiosity as she hurried out again.

Kneeling in the wet grass, Erica pressed the paper against the stone and rubbed the pencil gently over it, just as she’d been taught at school. The rain pattered against her hood as she worked, careful not to tear the thin sheet.

At first, nothing showed. Just pale smudges.

Then, slowly lines began to form, faint shapes, edges and curves.

Her heart picked up as the marks darkened.

Letters.

Two of them, side by side.

I. G.

Isobel Grant.

Her breath caught, a quiet, startled sound in her throat.

She stared at the paper, then at the stone beneath it. Margery hadn’t mentioned initials. Only stories. Only rumours.

And yet⁠—

Something else was there.

Not as clear. Not as deep. But beneath the first marks, just enough to catch the pencil again … more lines began to appear.

Another shape.

Another curve.

Erica leaned closer, shielding the paper from the wind as the graphite revealed it.

C. G.

She stared.

Slowly, she pulled off her gloves and traced the grooves with her bare fingertips. The stone was cold and slick beneath her skin, the cuts softened by years of weather and moss – but still deliberate.

Someone had carved these, carefully and intentionally.

Two names, bound together in a place no one was meant to notice.

Her lover? Her husband? Someone who had stood beside Isobel … or someone who had betrayed her?

Don’t romanticise the past, a voice in her head warned – her old university lecturer, brisk and unimpressed. Look at the evidence first.

Erica swallowed. The stone was cold beneath her fingers, the grooves shallow but unmistakeable.

Even he wouldn’t have dismissed this.