Zelda’s jaw loosened, and she let out a short laugh. “I suppose I don’t. Well, only against male chefs and the likes of Sir Strickland.”

There was a pause, and then Gwendoline asked, “Did you know Chef James, before the contest? I saw you speaking to him.”

    “He’s the father,” she said simply, nodding at her bump. “Not that it’s important. He doesn’t want to see me again now. He said we would be together forever—that we were meant for each other—but then he left me.” She made a little shrug, and Gwendoline suddenly saw how hurt she’d been. “I gather you two, well—”

Gwendoline grimaced. “What a schemer! But I suppose he gave me a bit of much-needed affection and, without knowing it, helped me realize that my marriage was an utter farce.” She shrugged. “I have to confess that I was a bit put out at you stealing him away after the contest, but it seems that neither of us was destined to get what we wanted.” She gave a small, sad laugh.

Zelda smoothed a hand over her bump. She wasn’t laughing. “He was a bastard,” she said bluntly. “Dismissing me and the baby—making me feel like an unwanted scrounger.”

“You’re too good for him, Zelda. We both are.”

From the hallway came the ominous sound of the postwoman delivering a letter.

“I’ll fetch Audrey.” Gwendoline went out into the garden to tell her, and before long, letter in hand, Audrey had summoned the four women to the kitchen table for a meeting.

“I need you all here because of this letter.” Audrey, looking anxious, waved around an official, typed letter.

Gwendoline instantly recognized the crest: It was from Fenley Hall. “What does Sir Strickland want now?”

Audrey pursed her lips. “He wants the house.”

“What?” Gwendoline raged, striding over to take a look, quickly joined by the others. “What a vile, resentful, vindictive—”

Audrey handed her the letter, and she read it out to the others.

    Dear Mrs. Landon,

Re: Repossession of Willow Lodge, Fenley

As a result of your failure to pay the rents and arrears owed to the Fenley Hall estate, we regret that Willow Lodge will be repossessed by the owner in accordance with the contract drawn up at the outset of the loan.

     We hereby give you a period of two weeks’ notice to find alternative arrangements.

Yours sincerely,

The Fenley Hall Estate

“He’s reaping his revenge the only way he knows.” Gwendoline stormed over to the back door, wrenching it open and glaring up the hill to Fenley Hall. “We’ll never get enough money to pay the arrears in time. I can’t get my hands on any of my money or jewelry as he always insisted it was kept in the safe—safe from me, more like it! He won’t let me touch it until the divorce is settled, and even after that, I doubt I’ll ever see it again.”

“What about your silver wristwatch?” Audrey said. “I know you love that thing, but if we need—”

Her eyes went to the space on Gwendoline’s wrist.

“You already sold it?”

“It was part of my old life—Lady Gwendoline’s life. We needed the money, and a pawnbroker in Middleton was willing to give me some much-needed funds for it.”

“But not enough.”

“Not nearly enough.”

“What about your upper-class friends? Can’t one of them lend us the money?” Audrey suggested.

Gwendoline huffed. “Do you think any of them will have anything to do with me now that I’m no longer Lady Gwendoline? And I’ll soon be a divorced woman, too, a social pariah.”

Everyone slouched back into their seats.

Zelda made a frustrated groan. “What we need is something to pin against him. He’s as crooked as a ferret’s eye. If only I’d had the forethought to pinch some documents from the factory office proving he bypassed safety regulations. Did you know that the women regularly had food poisoning from the meat for the pies?”

Gwendoline winced. “How dreadful. It doesn’t surprise me, though. I have no idea how we could catch him. He’s meticulous about covering his tracks, obsessed with it. The estate farm is churning out far more food than is being officially recorded. He’s earning thousands funneling it through to the black market.”

    “Can we find a way to prove it?” Audrey said.

“Barlow’s in it, too,” Gwendoline said. “I’m sure they have a double accounting system—one for the officials, one for them. But heaven only knows where they keep it.”

Suddenly, Nell sat forward. “I know where it is.”

The three women stared at her.

“I do! Paolo, an Italian POW who used to work at the farm under Barlow, he told me about the other account book. We’d gone to the old shooting hut to get ducks for a dinner party, and it was filled with illegally caught fowl. He explained what Barlow was doing with all the extra produce. He said he’d seen the book. Barlow keeps it beneath the floorboards under the desk in the farm office. Apparently, they’re doing big business.”

Everyone looked from Nell to Gwendoline.

There was a pause, and then with decisiveness, Gwendoline got to her feet, picked up Audrey’s cloth bag, and headed for the door. “I’ll see if it’s there. If we find it, we can take it up to my Ministry of Food supervisor in London, Mr. Alloway. I bet he would be eager to see something like this.”

Audrey reached the back door before her. “I’m coming with you. It’ll be easier with the two of us.”

Together they headed briskly up the hill, and soon they were peering around the edge of the barn into the farmyard. In it were two Italian POWs, but they were walking lazily into one of the stables, and soon the place was deserted.

Silently counting to three, the two sisters dashed through the yard to the farm office. It only took them a few minutes to move the desk and lift the loose floorboards, hearts racing, ears alert.

Crouching on the floor together, they pulled out the large, slightly tattered black book.

“This is it.” Gwendoline paused for a brief moment, feeling the weight of what she had beneath her fingers. This was the hard evidence they needed. A shiver ran down her spine. Was she really prepared to put her soon-to-be ex-husband in prison?

    “I’m not sure I can do this,” she whispered to Audrey, feeling fear well up inside her. “He’s so powerful, Aude. He’ll find a way to get out of it—buy his way out like he always does. Then he’ll come looking for me.”

Audrey’s eyes, wide with alarm, looked at hers. “Perhaps we should leave it, put the book back, pretend to the others it wasn’t there. Look Gwen, I know that you’re doing this for me. But if he comes after you—”

Anger welled up in her. “I’m not just doing it for you, Aude. I’m doing it for me. I’m doing it for every time he’s put me down, for every time he’s hit me or treated me like a possession of his that isn’t quite up to scratch.”

“Shh,” Audrey said with alarm, taking the book and shoving it into the bag. “After what you’ve just said, I’m taking the book whether you like it or not.”

Gwendoline opened her mouth to protest.

“Shh,” Audrey ordered again. “We can talk about this later. Put the floorboard back and move the desk into place. We don’t want them finding out it’s gone before we’re safely home.”

Looking both ways to make sure it was clear, they tore across the yard, around the bottom of the barn, then headed out onto the open path through the meadow.

Sprinting for all she was worth, Gwendoline tried to keep up with Audrey, who was taller and fitter, and suddenly she was taken back in time to a memory of them as girls, running through the meadow, playing games, Aude looking after her, in charge.

Now it was both of them helping each other. Together their strengths evened them out.

Once they were over the crest of the hill, they stopped for breath.

“This will be it, you know,” Gwendoline sputtered, glancing back over the farm. “After this there will be no more going back. Whether he’s put in prison or not, it’s the end of our marriage.”

    “The best thing for it! You shouldn’t have put up with it for so long, Gwen.”

“I was afraid of him—still am. It wouldn’t surprise me if a few people have ‘disappeared’ under his watch. I don’t want to be the next.”

Their eyes met, a full understanding of the situation—of what kind of a man Sir Strickland really was—seemed to dawn on Audrey. “So, he’s not just a black marketeer, is he? He’s a full-blown criminal.” She went pale. “We have to help the police put him away. Don’t you see how dangerous it could be for you?”

A little shiver of fear ran up Gwendoline’s spine. “But what happens if they let him go? What if he truly is above the law?”

Audrey patted the account book. “We go to newspapers. They would love to know what’s in this book, and then the police will have to do something.”

“I just wish we didn’t have to go this far.” Gwendoline let out a huff of frustration, then added in a small voice, “I’ll be ruining my own reputation as well. I’ll be the former wife of a criminal.”