The Things We Don’t Say

by Ella Carey

  Laura took a sip.

  “Anyway,” he said. “Back to your stuff.”

  “We should talk about Mark.”

  “Later. You’re urgent.”

  Laura resisted the urge to slump her head on the table.

  “What if you seduced Ewan? Then he’d confess.”

  “Shut up.” But Laura moved away, her face flushed with red.

  “You’re too much of a romantic to think like I would, darling.”

  “You have to be joking.”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh, come on—”

  “You wish you could do Emma’s free-love thing, but you never could. It’s not in your nature.”

  Laura pushed away her glass. Right now, the thought of bubbles in her stomach wasn’t sitting so well. “Stop it.”

  “You’ve said he’s handsome . . .”

  “Jasper . . .” Laura spoke through gritted teeth.

  “Listen to me.”

  She crossed her legs and folded her arms as if they were a brace.

  Jasper reached out. Gently he took her hand. “Putting aside the ghastly financial scenario for a moment—you’ve tried, religiously, to adopt Emma’s tolerant, accepting views . . . and let’s face it, we both adore each other, but Emma applied the Circle’s theories to her situation because it suited her to do so. That was her reasoning. She rejected her parents’ traditional views of love, and you have, in turn, rejected your parents’ functional approach to it as well.”

  She shot her head up.

  But he went on. “Right now, my heart is breaking; I need a romantic distraction—I really want to talk about this and about you, Laura. I think you’re attracted to Ewan, interested. In some ways, you’ve met your match, and I think from what you’ve told me, he’s starting to care about you, which is seriously good.”

  “Jasper . . . ,” she whispered. “I just don’t need that right now. It’s way too complicated. Crazy.”

  “I just don’t want you sacrificing your own life like Emma did. Over Patrick.”

  Was that what Emma had done? And yet, Jasper was her safe boat, her harbor. But was he also her way of avoiding risk? He had always been adept at voicing the things she hardly understood about herself.

  “Music puts you in touch with Emma too; it gets you away from what you see as your mother’s way of life. It brings you closer to that magic that you saw in the generation before your mother’s, in the Circle. Bach’s music, our favorite, is divine, and I cannot wait to perform the Double Violin Concerto with you at the end of your exam. But so, darling, is letting go and loving a man.”

  She usually adored this about Jasper—his ability to take a conversation somewhere she never expected it to go, along with his caring approach and the mutual, genuine affection between them that was part of what kept things so entrancing for her. But right now, he was hitting notes that she didn’t want him to play.

  Jasper reached out his hand and covered her own.

  “Playing music is the only way I can achieve anything that feels real apart from when I’m with you.” Her words were raw, honest. She looked up at him.

  “But what’s stopping you from being open about being with someone else properly? You will always have me; you have to fight for your music and . . . someone who can love you the way you deserve to be loved. I don’t know if it’s going to be Ewan, but it needs to be someone. And I have not seen you affected like this before. Not by a mile. Don’t push Ewan away if he wants to help you. Honestly, I don’t think the poor guy had any idea what he was getting into. And you did say he is an artist . . .”

  “But he’s not offering me anything.”

  “He’s dropping everything to get on Emma’s old bike and ride through Sussex with you tomorrow. He’s offered to pay off your loan. Come on, Laura.”

  “Isn’t that only guilt?”

  “The guy might be an art dealer. But I don’t think he’s evil.”

  Laura bit her lip. She needed to switch tacks, and fast. “Are you going to try and work things out with Mark?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

  She smiled at the thought that somewhere, deep down, she still half hoped he’d say no.

  “I’ll give it one last try.”

  She nodded. “Well then.”

  “I believe love exists, Laura. And the reason I know it does is that I’ve found it with you.”

  “But no one else is you,” she said.

  “No. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “And he’s wrecking my life.”

  “He’s also challenging you. It doesn’t have to be wreckage.”

  Laura couldn’t help the short laugh that escaped from her throat. “Oh, come on.”

  “Are you attracted to him?”

  Laura rolled her eyes.

  “Do you think he’s attracted to you?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “All you have to do is convince him that the love that existed between Patrick and Emma cannot ever be broken—that Patrick’s memory can’t be broken for her. You need to make him see that Patrick and Emma were ultimately about something purer and better than so many people ever get . . . and that he would not have lied to her. But I think the two of you need to sort out what’s also going on right now. Between you as well. He’s not behaving in the way I thought some dealer out for a quick gain would.”

  Laura let go of his hand. “I want my old life back.”

  “No, you don’t. You can’t go back.”

  “I don’t know why I invited him to Summerfield!” Laura stared at Jasper, her eyes feeling huge.

  Jasper stood up. “I’ll be at your place at eight thirty,” he said. “You know I love you, darling. Consider me backup, a place to rest your weary head, as Patrick told Emma. But you have to live your life, you know.”

  Laura smiled at his quotation of Patrick’s famous declaration to Emma.

  The pub had filled around them, and yet she hadn’t noticed people arriving. Jasper, as usual, had gotten under her skin. But that gave her no answers as to how she was supposed to convince Ewan that it was enough, that Emma’s and Patrick’s honest love for each other and their relationship, something intangible, was enough reason to explain that the portrait of Emma couldn’t be anyone else’s work.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Provence, 1922

  Jerome Douglas moved into Mas d’Aurore on precisely the same day that Patrick began working on the canvas of Emma. He’d chosen it with care, bringing it all the way from London, rolled up and tucked under his arm. He would not allow it to travel with the rest of their luggage. He told everyone that even blank, it was too precious to pack away. And yet in Emma’s mind, the day that he started to put his brush to it would always be far more linked with Jerome than with any memory of Patrick starting her portrait. Jerome’s arrival was etched into her as if rendered in dark ink.

  The sound of his footsteps coming up the driveway to the house was what started it. Emma sat, sketching alone at her easel under the vines. The first thing that struck her as odd was that the person approaching seemed to be stopping over and over again—his movements erratic, stilted, as if he was distracted at every turn.

  She looked up once the footsteps came closer, thinking this must be someone from the village who was looking for Colonel Bird but had taken a wrong turn instead. But Emma felt a frown ripening across her features at the sight of the man in front of her. She laid down her brush and did not move from underneath the cool protection of the vines. For some reason, she wanted to be able to observe the newcomer before he saw her.

  Because Emma had a slow, ghastly sense that she knew exactly who he was.

  He looked to be somewhat younger than Patrick and Emma—a fine figure of a man, stunningly handsome. The young man stopped just before he reached the vine-clad terrace, removing his hat and waving it in front of his face like a fan. Emma narrowed her eyes, her artist’s gaze taking in the detail of him. He was at least six feet tall, well proportioned, chocolate-col
ored hair and eyes, tanned skin. And it struck her that he looked as if he could be Patrick’s brother. Except he definitely was not.

  Emma laid down her brush and ran a hand through her too-far-gone hair. She stood up, straightening out her painting smock. The man’s lazy smile morphed into an inscrutable expression as she moved toward him. If Emma were pressed, she’d say that she detected insolence in his look.

  “Bonjour,” he said, drawing out the last syllable as if he were a Frenchman, but Emma could tell he was not. She didn’t have to dig very far into his accent to tell that he sounded, most definitely, American.

  “Hello,” Emma said, fighting with irritation at his interruption of her work. She’d come here to paint, not to entertain what she was certain was one of Patrick’s lovers.

  She cast about for Lydia or Elise, knowing full well that Lydia was out with Calum and the local French girl, Elise, tended to sing while she cooked in the kitchen, so there was no chance she would have heard such a thing as footsteps on gravel out here.

  Emma glanced back at her easel and heaved out a sigh.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Up for a gate-crasher, Mrs. Grundy?” His accent was pure New York. “I am ab-so-lute-ly certain that my crush is sitting pretty here.”

  Emma gasped.

  “Patty told me he was sitting pretty with some swanky folk in the sun.” The man smirked. “I was a bit grummy up in Paris. Whole place empties out in August, did you know that? Pat told me I’d be welcome here anytime. So I took him up on it.”

  “I think he’s working . . . I’m Emma Temple.”

  “He mentioned some dame.”

  Emma’s heart sank as he put down his suitcase.

  “Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?” she asked.

  She gathered the sides of her skirt in her fists.

  “Hasn’t he told you?” the man said, something unpleasant creeping into his voice again. “What a darned double-crosser. We studied art together in Paris. Among other things.” Another smirk ran across his face.

  Emma closed her eyes. Right now, she’d give her left arm for blond, bearded, insufferable Rupert to appear out of the past and declare his unbound affection for Patrick if it meant she never had to have a conversation with this guy again.

  “Do you have a name?” she asked.

  “I can’t believe Pat hasn’t told you about me!” He laughed, throwing back his head, impressed enough with his own joke. There was no need for congratulations from anyone else.

  Emma heaved out a sigh.

  “Name’s Jerome Douglas, Emma,” he said, languishing on her name.

  The screen door clattered open behind her. Patrick brought his hand up to shade his face, his pale-blue cotton shirt hanging loose over his trousers. He ran his other hand through his shock of curly hair in a sexy, slow sort of way. A broad grin spread across his face as his eyes alighted on Jerome.

  Emma switched her gaze, hawklike, to the other man.

  But Jerome was too quick. He strode straight on past her and embraced Patrick, kissing him on the cheek, his lithe arm lingering too long on Patrick’s shoulders.

  Emma’s breathing quickened, and she focused on the flagstones under her feet. Her shoes, her smock, her hair, everything about her seemed dowdy now. She wished she’d dressed in some wildly fashionable way today.

  It was as if Jerome had changed the dynamics of everything in one second flat, thrown out and threatened the contentment that she and Patrick had been enjoying since they’d arrived in France.

  Emma hovered like the third wheel in an unbalanced cart.

  “Patrick, old boy. You look like a ragamuffin.” He punched Patrick on the shoulder. “Come on, I’m only razzing you.”

  A bashful grin spread across Patrick’s face.

  “But seriously, how can you stand it out here? I reckon I’ve arrived just at the right time. You and I need to go on the toot down in Cassis. Get you away from these live wires around here.”

  Emma clutched at her smock.

  “Jem, Emma is a very dear friend.”

  “Yeah, we’ve met already,” Jerome said.

  Emma simply did not have the words.

  “Tell you what,” Patrick said. “Why don’t you leave your suitcase here, and we will go down to Cassis for the morning? That way, Em, you can get on with your work uninterrupted.” Patrick placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder now, and they moved away into the house.

  Emma stood there, alone on the terrace, trying to fight her own revulsion and failing hard.

  “Em.”

  She jumped at the sound of Patrick’s voice again right behind her. She didn’t turn around when the screen door opened again.

  “I told Jerome before we came here that if he was getting sick of Paris in the heat and needed a change of scene . . .” His voice trailed off. “The point is, I assumed he’d let me know if he’d accepted my vague invitation. Sorry. I didn’t think for a moment he’d come all the way down here. Okay with you, Em?”

  Emma nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Yes, I’m delighted.”

  She returned to her easel, picked up her brush, and got back to work. And fought the dreaded certainty that this man was going to be different from all the rest.

  Two weeks later, Emma wandered down the stairs at Mas d’Aurore and out onto the veranda, her eyes drawn to the green vines that glistened in the early morning sun. She stopped, taking in the serene hills that sat beyond the vineyards. They were already shimmering in the heat.

  She’d woken in a sweat, nausea pulsing through her system. For two weeks she’d known, and now, the knowledge seemed to spread through her until she was taken over by it entirely.

  But unlike her previous pregnancy, when she had been ecstatically in lust both with Oscar and the idea of their marriage, the joy that she should feel at this new life stirring inside her was eclipsed entirely by the irrational yet constant fear that Patrick would leave her for Jerome. She’d tried talking to herself firmly, admonishing herself that it was only pregnancy making her feel so unsure. But at three o’clock in the morning, when she’d woken and been sick, the idea of Patrick’s leaving her for a carefree existence with his lover did not seem so unlikely at all. Patrick was besotted with Jerome, and he, in turn, was magnetic, charming, amusing—everything Emma was not capable of being in any way right now.

  The local doctor in Cassis expressed no emotion as he told her that everything appeared to be in order while Emma carried on a normal conversation with him about returning to London to give birth. Inside, panic ripped through her, while she focused hard on the joy she should feel and did not.

  Emma padded back through the cool, silent house, diverting her eyes as she passed the bedroom that Patrick shared with Jerome. Patrick used the interconnecting room to his bedroom as a studio, where he was working on his portrait of Emma while Jerome flounced down to Cassis most days, going on excursions to the cinema, often bringing a troupe of bewildered locals home for drinks, where he entertained them on the veranda, painting, wildly, only when he felt like it and when his muse struck—which seemed rare.

  Emma worked alone in her bedroom when Jerome was about, and on the veranda when he was out, missing the company of Patrick painting alongside her now that his secretive work on her portrait had begun. The portrait seemed like the only link she shared with him while he was in the full flush of his relationship with Jerome. As if it were some lifeboat, Emma clung to the idea of it, to the fact that he was still doing it, to the way she caught him watching her sometimes.

  She made her way into the cool, early morning, silent farmhouse kitchen and hovered a moment by the door. She should try and eat something, for the sake of the baby—as secret from Patrick as the portrait seemed to be from her—but even the sight of the bowl of crisp red apples on the scrubbed table caused her stomach to turn. If she were to step in any farther and smell food, she knew she would be sick. Elise would be here in a couple of hours with fresh baguettes and cr
oissants. That thought, and imagining the smell of buttery pastries, made Emma want to retch.

  She wrapped her shawl tight around her still slim body and went back out to the blessed relief of the veranda, where her easel was set up under the vines. Emma retrieved her latest painting from the stack of canvases that rested inside the dining room doors, sat down on her stool, sorted her paints, and looked after herself in the way she knew best. She started to paint.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Emma.”

  Emma smiled at the sound of Lydia’s voice. The teenage girl had become indispensable to the running of the household since they’d arrived in France. She’d taken the youthful Calum in hand, accompanying him to French classes and to the beach with either Jerome and Patrick or some of the other young people he’d met at French school. Lydia was adept at allowing Emma to work. The understanding sat like some unspoken knowledge between the two women. What was more, Lydia ran everything, upset nobody, and was entirely devoid of any oddities of character that would make things awkward given the delicate balance under which Emma’s “family” usually worked.

  “Lydia.” Emma smiled. She looked up from her easel, placing her paintbrush on its ledge. “Are you planning on going with Calum to the beach today?”

  “Oh, yes.” Lydia nodded. “Mr. Patrick and Mr. Jerome are thinking of coming with us later on. Calum adores Mr. Patrick. He is full of antics. I think he views him as an older brother these days.”

  Emma gazed at her work in progress, a view of the veranda with a woman on a wicker chair under the wisteria that would have been so verdant and beautiful in the spring . . .

  “I’ll get to work,” Lydia said.

  Emma stood up and wandered out to the lawn to stand in the sun for a moment.

  The creak of Jerome and Patrick’s shutter sounded in the still air. Jerome leaned out of the window, his bare torso glistening in the sun. Emma slipped back to the shelter of the veranda.

  She picked up a piece of sketching paper and fanned her sweating face, forcing herself to think of practical matters: she’d heard Lawrence rising early for his walk down into Cassis; Oscar took ages to appear in the mornings, as he insisted on taking a daily morning grooming ritual without which he was absolutely no use; Coco would not be up until noon.