by Fiona Harper
I am home. At Whitehaven. And it is mine.
It’s been six months now since Jean’s death. Still too soon, I know, but at least now everything is ready. I am here. Whitehaven is here. All we are missing is Dominic.
I walked down to the boathouse this morning. It’s looking much better. After I moved in, I decided to get rid of all the shelves and ropes and cans of varnish and make it more like a summer house. I’ve moved my little writing desk down there and a few wicker chairs, even a picnic set.
I imagine us building fires on the stony beach at low tide and cooking sausages, or sitting on the veranda soaking up the sun. Making love inside in the shade of the afternoon.
And then I think that maybe it’ll be different with Dominic. Maybe I’ll be able to bear him sons and daughters. I know it’s a long shot, but I find I can’t quite give up that hope. I also think of that precious little girl of his and how she needs a mother.
Would Jean mind if I brought up her child? I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’d make her jealous. Other times I think it would be the best thing I could do to make amends.
So … I am ready. The house is ready. Even the boathouse is just about ready.
All we are waiting for now is Dominic.
And one day he will be ready, I know it.
There was a crunch of boots on the gravel outside the study window. Louise jumped up from the chair and Laura’s diary fell of her lap and onto the floor. Her heart pounded as if the noise had been a gunshot.
She walked towards the long sash window. Was she seeing things right, or had she merely wished him here? For there was Ben staring back at her from the other side of the glass, looking very serious indeed. He was supposed to be in Exeter.
She flattened a palm against the window, wanting to reach out to him, but glad the barrier was in place. She stood motionless as he raised his hand and pressed it against the outside of the window, covering the outline of her hand completely.
Believe me, his eyes said, and the last bit of doubt about that photo of him and Megan evaporated. Ben was no Toby. He would never, ever be like Toby.
She glanced down at their hands, joined yet not joined, close but not touching, and then she looked back up at him. She must have been speaking without words too, because his expression changed, became less serious … warmer. The eyes spoke again. Let me in, they said.
Wordlessly, she peeled her hand away and moved towards the study door. Ben mirrored her, and when she opened the heavy, panelled front door, he was standing there, waiting. Now, with no transparent barrier between them, they both hesitated. It was Ben who broke the silence.
‘I can explain.’
She almost didn’t need the words. His face told her everything she needed to know. The pain etched there broke her heart and she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. He gave no resistance and walked into her arms, burying his face in the hollow of her neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered against her skin. ‘She came to apologise. I was careless.’
She nodded, her chin butting into his shoulder. ‘Why are you here? Where’s Jas?’
He took a step back and steadied himself—or was it her?—by placing a hand on each of her shoulders.
‘She’s with my sister. Believe me, I’m heavily in debt in the babysitting stakes. But I had to see you, to know you were okay.’
He smoothed the hair away from her face with such tenderness. Her eyes began to tingle and fill. ‘I’m okay. We’re okay. It just … shook me for a moment.’
‘You’re sure? Because if you want me to go away I will. If you need space, you’ve got it. You know that, Louise, anything you need …’
She shook her head and her lip quavered. Nothing like Toby at all, this man. ‘No. I don’t want you to go,’ she said quietly. ‘I want you right here.’
Colour that she hadn’t realised had been missing returned to his face and his whole body seemed to exhale. It was as if that simple question had been about a whole lot more than whether he came inside or not. She didn’t understand why, but she seemed to have given him the right answer. She tried a shaky smile and it seemed to work.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s do something normal. How about a walk?’ Although the forecast had warned rain, it was still dry with bright clouds blocking out the sun. ‘We can catch up as we go.’
‘First things first,’ Ben said, his mouth hitching in a lopsided smile, and then he stepped in and kissed her as he’d never kissed her before. It wasn’t just lips and breath that mingled; there was longing and fulfilment, passion and tenderness, giving and taking. This was the Technicolor ® kiss of her daydreams.
When he pulled away, Louise swayed towards him a little, eyes still half shut.
‘Come,’ he said, tugging her hand, and Louise took a few moments to work out what he meant. Oh, yes. The walk.
‘I have something to ask you,’ he said as he set off in the direction of the top lawns, pulling her with him.
‘What?’ she replied, finding her voice a little unsteady.
Ben walked in silence for a few moments, looking straight ahead, and then he began to talk. ‘I didn’t mention it before, because we were keeping things quiet and then I expected to be at my sister’s for New Year, but now I’m here and …’
‘Ben,’ Louise said, squeezing his hand, ‘try making some sense, please?’
He turned and smiled at her. ‘Sorry. Guess I’m a little nervous. It’s been a long time since I’ve asked a woman out on a date.’
‘A date?’ she asked, her eyes wide. ‘Like dinner and a movie kind of a date?’
‘Not quite,’ he said slowly. ‘Perhaps it was fate that this all came out in the press. I’d wanted to ask you, but I didn’t think we’d be going out in public for a while.’ He paused. ‘Lord Batterham is having a New Year’s Ball at his home tonight and he sent me an invitation. I’d very much like it if you’d come with me.’
Oh.
‘A ball …? But there’ll be lots of people there … They’ll see us!’
Ben gave her a wry smile. ‘Half the country knows our secret anyway,’ he said, ‘and we’ve got nothing to be ashamed about. Maybe by just going out, by just being honest about what’s going on, we can stop all the madness. We can’t hide away at Whitehaven for ever.’
Hiding. Yes, she’d done lots of that since her split with Toby. Hadn’t she already reprimanded herself for the same thing? Hadn’t she told herself to be more outward-facing than inward-looking?
Ben stopped and turned, looking very serious. ‘I don’t want to be your dirty little secret, Louise. I don’t want to have to hide away. I want to be the man who everyone knows is by your side—the man who wants to stay by your side.’
Who wouldn’t weaken at such words, at that intense look he was giving her? She drew her bottom lip in under her teeth and released it again before grabbing his hand and walking past him back towards the house. He didn’t budge when their arms stretched to the limit. Louise turned and found him looking very confused.
‘No time for a walk,’ she said with an apologetic smile. ‘Do you know how long it takes a woman like me to get ready?’
Ben slowed his car to a crawl in the narrow lane that led him to Whitehaven. He’d jumped back in his dinghy a few hours ago, rushed home to change, and was now heading back to Louise in a suitable mode of transport. In places only an ancient stone wall separated the road from a steep hill that fell away into the river. Tall pines and beeches towered overhead and, even if the moon had deigned to glimpse from behind a cloud, it wouldn’t have illuminated much.
The road dipped halfway down the hill, signalling the descent that led to Whitehaven’s main gate, and Ben’s stomach dipped with it. The last week had been an emotional roller coaster ride, yet those seven short days now felt like a lifetime.
Cold swirled around him—not from the vents; they were blasting warm air. It was just the physical reaction he seemed to have every time he thought about how those stories in the
paper might have ruined things for him and Louise. He never wanted to feel that way again.
In the drive from Exeter to see her, he’d felt completely unhitched from any point in reality. She turned him inside out and upside down. And, a couple of months ago, he would have thought that a bad thing.
Perhaps he was going insane. That would certainly account for the small, satin-covered box in his pocket. It would make sense of the square-cut diamond nestled within. Just like a magpie, he hadn’t been able to resist it when he’d seen it in the jeweller’s window. Not that he was going to do anything with it yet. It was far too soon. It was just with him for safekeeping. For luck.
Amidst the shifting shapes of the wind-blown branches, his headlights fell upon the thick, vertical posts of Whitehaven’s gates. The level drive traversed the hill with only a slight curve. He squeezed his foot on the accelerator. Not that he was late; just because he needed to.
He parked right outside the front door. The gravel drive was probably murder to negotiate in high heels. Feeling as nervous as a sixteen-year-old on his first proper date, he eased himself from the car and rang the bell. No one came. It was only as he reached for it a second time that he noticed the small note taped underneath it. ‘Come inside. L x.’
Now his heart really started to race. He entered the flagstone hallway and paused. ‘Louise?’
‘Up here.’ Her voice drifted down through the crystals in the hanging chandelier. ‘I’ll be one more minute.’
Now, the untrained observer would have expected a woman like Louise to keep him waiting, but it didn’t surprise him in the least when, almost exactly sixty seconds later, he heard a door open upstairs and the swish of expensive fabric on the landing.
At first he couldn’t see her properly. The glittering crystals in the chandelier distorted his view. But, as she reached the top of the stairs and started to descend, he got the whole picture.
He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t smile. He couldn’t even breathe.
The dress was long—the shade of midnight—in some heavy, shiny fabric that flared slightly as it fell to her ankles. And her hair … it was held in glossy waves and pinned up in the back, just like a nineteen-twenties silent movie star.
‘You look stunning,’ he managed to mutter as she reached the foot of the stairs and smiled at him. Just as well he got that out before she turned round and revealed the impossibly low back.
Unfortunately, he needed to go to this party to keep Lord Batterham sweet, otherwise he’d have been tempted to see if that satin was a soft as it looked, if it would fall off her shoulders easily and ripple as it slid to her feet.
She gave him a sweet, sexy smile as she wound a wrap around her shoulders. She walked towards him and picked up a little bag from the hall table. ‘And you don’t look too bad yourself, either. I must say, for the gardener, you scrub up pretty good.’
Pretty good? He’d show her.
Before she could back away, he caught her in his arms, pressed his lips to hers and showed her just how good he could be.
That horrible, scratchy feeling that had plagued her since the argument with Tara had finally disappeared. She hadn’t noticed when it had subsided, all she knew was that standing here, in the grand ballroom of Batterham Hall, with Ben at her side, and the magic was alive and spinning again.
As the minute hand on the ridiculously ornate clock crept towards midnight, she felt as if she’d emerged from under a huge cloud. Finally, the past was behind her and she could look forward again. And not just to tomorrow, but beyond and beyond and beyond.
She’d been quite relieved to discover that half of Lord Batterham’s guests had no idea who she was. Apparently, Buzz magazine wasn’t popular reading amongst the upper crust. And, although she’d thought she’d find some of the guests stuffy and aloof, she’d warmed to many of the people she’d met.
And there was Ben. Always there. Always anticipating what she needed before she opened her mouth to express it. Not in the annoying, sycophantic way some people did, but just in his own unique, matter-of-fact, I knew you needed it, so I got it kind of a way. His impeccable manners were making him a huge hit—she half-suspected there were a couple of elderly countesses who were plotting to steal him away.
The small orchestra finished their piece and paused while the master of ceremonies announced a waltz to take them up to midnight, now only five minutes away.
Ben, who had cleverly managed to be otherwise engaged for most of the dancing, now swung her into his arms and struck the appropriate pose.
‘Ben, I know you’re wonderful, but do mind this dress with those great feet of yours. It’s vintage Chanel.’
‘My feet will behave themselves impeccably,’ he said without a trace of irony, even though he’d managed to stamp on her toes at least ten times already this evening. Gardening, yes. Dancing, no. But somehow that just made him all the more adorable.
‘I’ve been practising this one,’ he said proudly. ‘I wanted to learn more but Gaby, Luke’s wife, refused to teach me anything else. She said this was all I’d be able to handle.’
God bless Gaby, thought Louise, as they started to move around the floor.
But, as they continued to move, he surprised her. Okay, he wouldn’t win any competitions, but she stopped being terrified for her dress and started to enjoy herself. Round and round they went, circling the vast ballroom. Is this what it felt like—to have all your dreams come true? Because right at this moment she was living in a fairy tale.
The music began to fade and it took her a couple of seconds to realise that the musicians were actually ending the waltz, not that everything was melting away into a dream world but Ben and herself.
The first shout made her jump. ‘Ten …’
She looked at Ben, who was grinning at her, looking very pleased about something.
‘Nine … eight …’ the chant around them continued.
‘What?’ she asked, starting to smile back.
‘Seven … six … five …’
He nodded upwards and bent his head back to look towards the ceiling. They were standing directly underneath a large display of greenery, dripping with bright white lights and, tied at the bottom with a sumptuous red bow, was a generous sprig of mistletoe.
She laughed, then silenced quickly as a very serious look appeared in Ben’s eyes—one that made her knees tremble and her heart rate double.
‘Four … three … two …’
‘One,’ he said, then delivered a kiss that shook her to the toes of her sparkly shoes. The cheering and clapping and congratulating carried on around them, but it was if she and Ben were in their own separate bubble.
Were you allowed to make wishes at New Year, or was that only on birthdays and when stars fell? Because she wished that it could always be like this—total perfection, just like her dreams.
When Ben ended the kiss, she couldn’t bear to open her eyes. Instead, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight enough to make her arm muscles shake. Pressed right up against his chest, she could feel his heart beating, racing even faster than her own.
He kissed the tip of her earlobe and a shudder ran through her. Then he whispered in her ear. ‘I love you, Louise.’
She froze. All around her the dream began to splinter. And she had no idea why, because those words should have been the perfect prelude to a happy ever after. She only knew she this was too real, too … much.
‘Louise?’ There was a shake in his voice and she hated the fact that she’d put it there. She pulled away from him and smoothed down the antique satin of her dress. ‘I think we should leave,’ she said, unable to look at him. She was angry with herself for hurting him and, perhaps a little unreasonably, angry with him, too.
Ben ran after her as she marched off to the cloakroom and retrieved her wrap. She could tell he was itching to talk to her, but there were too many people around. And, coward that she was, she was glad.
Within five minutes they were in the
warm of his car, pulling out of the gates of Batterham Hall and weaving down the country lanes back towards home.
‘It’s too fast, isn’t it?’ Ben finally said grimly. ‘I got carried away.’
‘Are you saying you didn’t mean it?’
‘No! I mean … no’ he said in a quieter tone. ‘I would never play with your feelings that way.’
Not intentionally. But men were apt to promise the world when they were swept up in the first flush of love. Toby had been the same. It didn’t mean it was going to last a lifetime. Just at the hint of the possibility it wouldn’t, her stomach turned to ice. Oh, she really didn’t understand what was going on inside her head this evening!
She did her best to explain it to Ben, staring at her lap mostly and only risking the odd glance across at him as he drove. ‘It’s all so new. How can we possibly tell what we are really feeling? We’re riding the first wave of infatuation and we need to leave ourselves time to get past it.’ There. That sounded much more reasonable.
He took his eyes off the road and turned his head sharply to look at her. ‘You think I’m just infatuated with you?’
She’d made him angry. That hadn’t been her intention at all. He glared at her for a hard second, then returned his attention to the road. An instant denial should have popped out of her mouth by now, shouldn’t it?
‘No,’ she said slowly.
‘I’m not infatuated with you, Louise.’
Suddenly, he swung into a passing place on the narrow road and wrenched the handbrake on. He reached upwards and flicked a switch for a small light in the ceiling of the car. She swallowed. She’d always sensed that beneath the down-to-earth, practical exterior, Ben was a man who cared passionately and felt deeply. She just hadn’t expected it all to burst to the surface tonight.
He turned to stare out of the windscreen. ‘Okay, maybe I am a little bit infatuated, if I think that everything about you is amazing, if I want to be with you all the time, if all I want to do is make you happy …’