by Kate Field
I knew that I should break away; that this was a terrible idea, especially after my confusion with the hand-holding. But I had plenty of excuses ready to explain why I didn’t. It had been a tough night. I needed comfort. Ethan was here, offering it. So I relaxed against his chest, and as his heartbeat quickened beneath me, mine calmed and slowed. And it was odd, because I had never expected this from Ethan. The brothers were totally different. In my mind, Leo had always been the pair of granny shoes: comfortable, the right choice for long haul – so comfy that it was easy to forget you were wearing them. Ethan was like a pair of scarlet four-inch stilettos –fantastic-looking but impractical over any sort of distance. And yet here he was, showing his granny-shoe credentials, while Leo displayed his scarlet side with Clark. Who would have thought that Ethan was so good at this? Peace stole through my veins.
But as we sat by the water, with the sky turning ink blue over our heads and casting the trees into silhouette, and with the occasional sound floating across the lane from the cottage, peace wasn’t the only thing flowing through my veins. Only a thin wisp of cotton shirt lay between me and Ethan’s chest. His breath was warm in my hair, his arms tight around my body. The scent of jasmine was doubly bewitching in close proximity. The feelings I had resisted all night were stirring again, in a way they hadn’t done for a long time, and however much my head was shrieking that this was wrong – that this was Leo’s brother – my body was high on Prosecco and rediscovered desire and would not listen to sense.
I eased away from him, slowly, trying to give no clue that something was wrong, because he must never find out about this momentary aberration: he would either be horrified or think it so hilarious that he would tease me about it forever, and neither seemed a good option.
‘It’s getting late,’ I said, being as mundane as I could to break the atmosphere. ‘Quite nippy too,’ I added, laying it on thick. ‘I think it’s time to go.’
‘If that’s what you want.’
I stood up and looked across at the garden of Waterman’s Cottage. Not many people were still outside. Jonas and Ava were in the thick of a group of teenagers; Owen was talking to Daisy; Leo and Clark were holding hands, barely speaking, and yet it was hard to imagine a couple in closer communion. I hovered at the garden gate, wondering where I belonged in all this. Love on one side, me on the other. Who wanted or needed me?
‘What’s the matter, slowcoach, are you so cold that you’re frozen to the spot?’ Ethan poked at my shoulder. ‘Don’t stand there looking ornamental and blocking my way. I need to start turning the lights out or this lot will be expecting breakfast.’
He brushed past me to open the latch on the gate, and desire flared again. That spurred me into movement. I dashed into the garden and headed straight for Owen and Daisy.
‘Everyone’s leaving now,’ I said. Leo and Clark were rounding up the children, and I knew they were driving Audrey home too. ‘Will you walk me home?’ I asked Owen.
‘Of course. Daisy?’
‘It’s okay, I’ve cadged a lift. These heels weren’t made for walking!’
She wobbled to prove her point, but I suspected the alcohol had more to do with that than the heels. We said our goodbyes – I clung to Jonas for far too long, as if he were leaving now for two months not two nights – and I set off back up the lane towards the village with Owen. He was quiet, but I was fine with that: it was a comfortable silence. Leo and Clark weren’t worried about not speaking, were they? I reached out in the gloom and took hold of Owen’s hand, and clung on to it all the way home.
We reached the house and Owen hesitated at the top of the drive. The streetlights through the village stopped at Audrey’s, leaving the road to fade away to blackness beyond our house. We stood on the periphery of the pool of orange light, so that whilst I could see Owen’s figure, I couldn’t make out his expression.
‘Would you like to come in?’ I meant for coffee – real coffee, not euphemistic coffee – but Owen hesitated in his reply, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and generally gave off such awkward vibes that I realised I needed to be clearer. But as I opened my mouth, ready to ask if he wanted a drink, I wondered why I was still holding back. Mum’s friend was staying the night; Leo and Clark were besotted with each other; Daisy was planning an advance on Ethan. Why should I be on the wrong side of the garden gate? Owen was a good, kind man. I mustn’t lose him too.
I stepped forward and kissed him, trying to harness those stirrings I had felt earlier, and put as much passion into it as I could. He responded, but not as emphatically as I’d hoped. I needed to be clearer, make him understand beyond doubt what I was offering. I could do this, couldn’t I? I wasn’t actually a virgin or an idiot, even though, right at this moment, I felt like both. Closing my eyes, I trailed my hand along Owen’s chest and down to the fly of his trousers.
‘You could stay, if you wanted,’ I whispered. My heart raced as the evidence that he did want to pressed against my hand. But then he pulled away so swiftly that I was left like an abandoned waxwork, with one hand in the air, where it had been round his neck, and the other in a cupped position down below.
‘I need to get back for Lucilla,’ Owen said. My hands dropped. His dog? He was rejecting me for his dog? She was a nice enough dog, but still … Humiliation settled over me like a second skin.
‘And I don’t think it would be a good idea, tonight,’ Owen added. ‘Not really what you want. Those complications haven’t gone away, have they?’ He popped a brief kiss on my cheek. ‘Goodnight, Mary.’
Chapter 16
‘Do you need a hand?’
Without waiting for a reply, Ethan hurdled the hedge between our gardens with impressive agility for a man approaching forty. I wished he would stop doing that. He could stand still and look fitter than most of the men in the village, without having to demonstrate his athleticism at every opportunity. It was exactly the sort of annoying thing he used to do as a teenager, and proved how little he’d changed since then. Although he hadn’t possessed quite so many firm muscles in those days …
‘I can manage,’ I called, turning my back on him and approaching my car. I realised my mistake at once. Obviously, in hindsight, it would have been better to unlock the car and open the boot before staggering over, laden down with a box full of books so huge that my arms felt like a chimpanzee’s
I tried to balance the box between my chest and the side of the car to free one hand, but before I could search for my keys, Ethan frisked me as if I were a criminal and extracted them from the pocket of my jeans.
‘What are you doing?’ Ethan opened the boot and whisked the box off me before my body had even started to process that his hand had been in an area reserved for intimate acquaintances. ‘Stop molesting me!’
‘Why, what will you do if I don’t stop?’ He laughed and nodded towards the open boot. ‘Bash me over the head with your shovel?’
‘It’s for the snow. You’ve probably forgotten, but we get a lot of it over here.’
‘It snows in New York too, but not in summer, and I’ve never needed to carry a shovel around.’ My head filled with a picture of New York in the winter, stolen straight from films and TV: of a whitewashed Central Park; people in bobble hats ice-skating at the Rockefeller Center; Christmas lights reflected on sidewalks covered in crisp snow. I had tried to persuade Leo that we should visit Ethan one Christmas, but it hadn’t been a good time. Now it never would be.
‘And what’s all this?’ Ethan rested the box on the lip of the boot, and rummaged in the rucksack that was next to the shovel. ‘Torch, blankets, water, snacks … All very sensible precautions.’
His smile was on the right side of amused, not mocking, but I couldn’t help wondering if he saw the bag as further proof of how colourless my life was. The girl who cartwheeled naked across the garden wouldn’t have packed an emergency severe weather bag. When had I settled for a life of efficient, capable dullness?
‘Where are you going with this?’
Ethan peered into the box. ‘Off to more bookshops to flog Leo’s book?’
‘No, it’s the annual meeting of the Alice Hornby Society today.’ Ethan looked blank. ‘Every year we hold a day of talks, discussions, and readings, and all the Society members are invited. People have been known to come from America,’ I added, when Ethan still didn’t look as interested as I thought he should. ‘It’s a big day.’
‘It sounds it. Are you giving a talk?’
‘No.’ I removed the shovel and rucksack from the boot. Perhaps it would be safe to store them in the shed for a couple of months. ‘Leo always gives a talk, and then we have a couple of guest speakers.’
‘Why not you? You know as much about Alice Hornby as he does.’
‘But Leo’s the professor. He has the name.’ Ethan opened his mouth as if to argue again, but I stopped him. ‘Do you want to stick that box in the boot? I’ve lots more to bring yet.’
I’d intended to dismiss him, but instead of taking the hint, Ethan followed me into the house, where a stack of bags and boxes waited in the hall.
‘All this?’ I nodded. There was a lot more than usual, because of the new book, and Leo was normally here to help shift it all. ‘I’ll help. And I’d better come with you to unpack at the other end. We’ll take my car; there’s more room.’
‘You can’t.’ I wasn’t used to dominant behaviour in this house; Leo had nominally worn the trousers, but only those I’d chosen and put out for him. ‘It’s by ticket only.’
‘Then I’ll have to gatecrash.’ He laughed. ‘If the Misses Tippett can get away with it, I’m sure I can. I’ll bring the car round.’
He strode off, but then stopped in the doorway and turned back.
‘I didn’t think. Is your teacher friend coming to help?’
‘No.’ I bent over and made some quite unnecessary changes to the contents of a bag so that he wouldn’t see my face.
‘How are things going with him?’
‘I’m really not comfortable discussing my sex life.’
‘You have a sex life with him?’
‘No!’ Since my sexual wiles had crashed and burned on the night of the party a couple of weeks ago, I had barely seen Owen. I had been a coward and deliberately changed my routine for walking Dotty so that I was unlikely to bump into him. What was I meant to say to him now? Apologise for groping his private parts? I wasn’t clear whether I still had any sort of relationship with him, let alone a sexual one. Or what he had meant by complications. My life couldn’t be more straightforward. More beige.
I glanced at Ethan, hoping he wasn’t giving me a sympathetic look; I doubted if his sexual wiles had ever been rejected. But it wasn’t sympathy hovering over his face. I didn’t know what it was, but he certainly wasn’t feeling sorry for me.
‘Is it still too soon?’ he asked. ‘After Leo?’
‘Maybe.’ Or maybe not. After all, Owen had turned me down this time, despite explicitly clear signals that I was willing to move on.
‘Or maybe he was your rebound. Now you’ve got it out of the way, and you can move on to a proper relationship, one that might last. What do you think?’
‘I think you should spare me the pop psychology.’ I picked up a handful of bags and approached the door. ‘When you’ve tried to live without someone you’ve loved for over twenty years, I might listen to your advice. Until then, stick to what you’re good at and move those boxes.’
The meeting of the Alice Hornby Society took place in the grounds of the beautiful Georgian house where she had been born, and had spent all her life save for the four years staying with her sister’s family. We were lucky: the house still belonged to her sister’s descendants, and they were enthusiastic patrons of the Society, generous with their money, time, and property. I had first approached them ten years ago, when the Society was newly formed as a charity and had no more than two dozen local members. At that point, they had allowed us to meet in their drawing room, an extraordinary treat to be surrounded by walls that had once sheltered Alice, and to stand in the window and see the same view that she had so evocatively described in her diary.
As the Society had grown, our annual meeting had expanded to include lectures on Alice, her work, and life in Victorian times: today a culinary historian was attending with explanations and samples of the type of food that Alice would have eaten. We now met in a marquee in the garden, all paid for by Alice’s family, but every year a lucky few were allowed inside the house. This year I had bent the rules and allowed non-members to attend, and to enjoy the house tour: the Archers had been the obvious choice, and I had been thrilled when Bridie had finally accepted the invitation.
I had an ulterior motive, of course. I hoped that if they saw how committed we were to celebrating and respecting Alice, and if Leo could charm them with his expertise and enthusiasm, they might agree to show me what was in the secret blue box. I’d wasted hours wondering what it might be, and what could be valuable enough to need locking up, and I could only think of one thing: it had to be the diary for the years that were missing, and that would tell us more about Alice’s final book, and maybe even what had happened to the manuscript.
My grand plan started badly. As soon as I arrived with Ethan, I could tell that Leo was in one of his rare bad moods, the sort that usually only surfaced when something Brontë related came out at the cinema or on TV, or made it onto the book bestseller lists. He pottered around the garden like a teddy bear with a sore head, showing none of the gentle charm that had made him such a popular speaker in previous years. I’d told him that the Archers were attending, and primed him to do a five-star job of making them welcome, but when they eventually arrived he was nowhere to be seen.
‘Hello! I’m so glad you could come! Isn’t it a gorgeous day!’ My voice was too high, my smile too bright, and my exclamation marks were like thrusts of a knife, so it was no wonder that Mrs Archer recoiled in her chair.
‘It’ll rain by nightfall,’ she said. She lifted her chin and sniffed. ‘It’s in the air.’
‘Is it?’ I sniffed too, but all I could detect was an overpowering smell of mothballs and peppermint, which I suspected was due to Mrs Archer rather than impending rain. ‘Would you like to come over to the marquee? There should be time to grab a cup of tea before the talks begin.’
‘I’m here to see the house,’ Mrs Archer said.
‘I thought we could show you around the house during the first break …’
‘I want to see the house.’
I looked at Bridie, but she shrugged and offered no support. She was probably glad to have a breather while her mother ran someone else ragged.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll just need to find Leo … Oh, here he is!’
‘Do you have my welcome speech, Mary?’
‘I emailed it to you on Wednesday.’
‘I can’t find it. Have you brought a spare?’
Of course I had, and I pulled it out of my handbag.
‘Leo, this is …’
But he didn’t wait for me to make the introduction. He snatched the speech from my hand and headed back to the marquee. Mrs Archer gave a loud sniff, which I could tell by the expression on her face had nothing to do with the weather.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Leo’s about to give the welcoming address, so he’s preoccupied. Would you like to come and listen and then we’ll do the tour?’
This didn’t turn out to be my brightest idea. Talking about Alice usually transformed Leo, but something was off today. His beautiful voice sounded flat, he fluffed lines and ruined a joke with poor timing, and he showed as much enthusiasm as he might have done for yet another adaptation of Jane Eyre. I wanted to push him out of the way and give the speech myself; either that or torture him slowly. Perhaps even both. How many hours had I wasted, telling him how important it was that today went well? Half the audience were fidgeting, including Bridie and Mrs Archer.
‘Shall we do the house tour now?’ I grabbed the handles of the wheelchair
and slipped out of the marquee, ignoring the alarmed squawk that came from amid the blankets. I pushed it all the way to the front door of the house, then stopped. Three stone steps led up to the front door. How had I overlooked that? I’d wanted this day to be a Rolls-Royce job. As things stood, we were barely scraping the level of a Reliant Robin.
I glanced around the garden. Everyone else was inside the marquee, enduring Leo’s talk – everyone except for Ethan, who was lolling about on a tree stump, laughing into his phone. It didn’t look important laughter. I ran across the lawn.
‘I need you! It’s an emergency!’
‘You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that, Mary Black.’
He switched off his phone. I thumped him.
‘Stop being an idiot. We’ve no time for all your nonsense. I need to get Mrs Archer and her wheelchair into the house. Will you help?’
‘Two ladies need me? How can I resist?’
Between us we managed to lift the wheelchair up the steps and into the house, where the owner showed us round; luckily the spacious Georgian proportions allowed the wheelchair to go through doorways and turn around without difficulty. Ethan tagged along on the tour, and helped lift the wheelchair down a couple of steps into the kitchen, where Mrs Archer gave a few more of her infamous sniffs: approving ones this time, I was sure, as it must have been incredible to be in the room where her great-great-grandmother would have spent so much time.
Usually the tour continued upstairs, to see the room that had belonged to Alice, but I doubted that even four of us would manage to lift the wheelchair so far. Ethan caught me looking up the stairs.
‘Do you need to go up?’ he asked.
‘We can’t.’
‘Didn’t your mum ever tell you there’s no such word as can’t?’ He smiled and in one smooth move, bent down and scooped Mrs Archer into his arms, and carried her up the stairs.
‘I’ve got legs! I can stand!’ she squawked as we all reached the landing. Ethan put her down.
‘She could have mentioned that before,’ he whispered to me.