THE POSY RING by Ellen Farrell

Following the death of her mother Claire South is cared for by her aunt Fiona.  When Claire’s father also dies Fiona is left destitute, and Claire agrees to marry Grant Wilding, her profligate father’s employer, purely to settle Fiona’s financial future.  Claire, who will be studying abroad, will also have all her college expenses paid.  She will have no further contact with Grant. 

Some years later Fiona, a stained glass specialist, is killed in a traffic accident, and when Claire arrives to settle her affairs she is astonished to meet Grant at a dinner party.  She finds him attractive, intriguing, and he explains their separation in a fashion which satisfies their hosts’ curiosity.  They agree not to talk to others about what had happened between them while Claire attends to Fiona’s business matters with Brian Phillips, Fiona’s assistant, who had escaped the accident with his life.  From his hospital bed Brian instructs Claire on what should be done.

Grant calls by the workshop to leave a list of contact numbers, and Claire, who over the years has come to believe he must have been involved with Fiona, is overcome by a desire to know more about him and decides to find out where he is living even though she does not intend to maintain contact.  It is during a fruitless visit to his house in the village of Kirkham that she finds a posy ring. 

Claire runs Fiona’s business, and comes home one night to Fiona’s small apartment to  find Grant waiting. He IS interested in Claire’s situation, tells her that he was never involved with Fiona in any way other than by helping her just after the death of Claire’s father. He has found being married useful in keeping his own freedom - an idea which upsets Claire who, becoming increasingly involved, agrees to accompany him to a dinner party arranged by Jane, the daughter of Fiona’s friend Margaret Thompson.           

With Brian still in hospital, it seems that the workshop may fail. Concerned that Grant should know what is happening Claire visits Kirkham once again, this time successfully finding his house. He tells had she should do whatever she wishes with the workshop, and arranges to collect her the next day to take her to Jane’s dinner party. On their return from the dinner party their car skids dangerously.  In the aftermath of the near disaster Grant tells Claire the full story of his involvement in the events immediately her father’s death, for which he feels overwhelmingly responsible.  Claire, distraught, asks him to leave. It is Margaret Thompson’s concern about Claire’s state of health that brings them together once again. With Fiona’s lease to be sold, he suggests that Claire move out to Kirkham - he will not be there himself.  He is, however, still at the house when she finds on an upstairs window another instance of the verse written inside the posy ring.  Convinced that the ring must belong to him she tells him of her find, but he dismisses her story and insists that the ring is now hers.

Alone at the Kirkham house she is visited by John Carroll, the lawyer who had arranged the legal framework surrounding her marriage to Grant.  He assumes that they are happily reunited and tells her what he remembers about her ring. When Grant returns he fills in the final details of what happened and they are, at last, re-united.