by Beth Good
Gideon bent to kiss her on the lips, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of his body. He smelt gorgeous, of salt air and summer flowers out on the cliffs. If only she could feel less suspicious about what he was going to say come Saturday. But he was still refusing to tell her what he knew about Aunt Pansy.
When he drew back, she opened her eyes again, studying his face closely. When in doubt, she thought, talk about the weather.
‘Looks like a lovely evening out there,’ she said.
‘The sun’s gone down now. But yes, it was a fantastic sunset. Well worth the long trek out to the headland and back.’
Gideon had a habit of going for a walk on his own last thing in the evening, usually along the harbourside, but sometimes beyond, to where the rocky cliffs of Tremevissey met the Atlantic Ocean. He said it was because he liked to stretch his legs before bed, because otherwise he would have trouble sleeping. But whenever she’d offered to walk with him, Gideon always found an excellent excuse to go alone.
Charlie had watched him from the window sometimes, curious about his behaviour, and noticed that he always seemed to be on his phone. Hardly a relaxing thing to do, making phone calls while on an evening walk.
She did not like to ask who he was calling, though. No doubt if it was important, he would tell her more about his private life in his own time. But it was hard not to wonder if the mysterious Gideon Petherick had a girlfriend – or perhaps even a wife – secreted away somewhere. Hopefully a very ex-girlfriend or wife, of course.
‘Wine?’ he asked, perhaps sensing that all was not one hundred percent well.
‘God, yes, please,’ she said thankfully, and pushed away the accounts book with a sigh. ‘I don’t have a clue what I’m doing tonight.’
He took a bottle of chilled white wine from the fridge, still open from last night, and poured them a generous glassful each. ‘That’s the end of that bottle,’ he said wryly, and dropped it into the recycling box.
‘Already? Am I drinking too much?’ she wondered out loud, taking a gulp of her delicious dry white wine.
‘Of course not,’ he said, reassuring her with a smile as he sat opposite. He lifted his own glass. ‘To love.’
She almost faltered, lifting her glass to clip his in the toast. ‘To … love?’
‘Yes, why not?’ Gideon drank deeply too, and then put the wine glass down on the table, gazing across at her thoughtfully. ‘Don’t you believe in love?’
‘Passionately,’ she said.
‘Well then,’ he said calmly, his gaze steady on her face, ‘you won’t mind if I tell you a story of love.’
She stiffened, her nerves jangling, her face suddenly hot. What on earth was coming next? ‘Sorry, I … I don’t understand,’ she said, desperately searching his face for clues.
Was this about to be some burning declaration of his love for her?
Her heart sank.
She didn’t think she could bear to hear the cool, taciturn Gideon Petherick announce that he was in love with her. Not so soon after they had started sleeping together. It would feel too crazily fast, not to mention untrue, and she simply didn’t know him well enough yet to welcome that kind of declaration. Not when it was clear he was holding so much back, keeping so many secrets from her.
It couldn’t be denied that her own feelings were deeply involved, of course. Though ‘entangled’ might be a better description for it. But that was her own business, and she was not about to make such an embarrassing admission. Not to Gideon himself.
Not yet, at any rate.
Not until she could trust this man not to hurt her.
‘You keep asking what I know about your aunt Pansy,’ he began huskily, and instantly her world crashed, the heat leaving her cheeks as she realised with a rush of humiliation that Gideon was not in love with her, after all. He was merely ready to talk about Pansy at last.
You silly fool, she told herself, and hoped he had not noticed her blenching.
‘Go on,’ she said, annoyed by how breathless she sounded.
‘Well, I wanted you to hear my story with everyone else on Saturday night,’ he said, watching her, ‘but then I decided that wasn’t very fair. Not given how much it affects you personally. So I decided to tell you some of it in advance.’
‘Only some?’
His smile was lopsided. ‘I’m afraid so. I made a promise, you see, to someone I love and respect very much, that I wouldn’t reveal everything until the time was right. And I intend to honour that promise.’
She felt despondent. ‘I take it the time isn’t right, then?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I see.’
She took another over-fast glug of her wine, and managed to dribble some down her chin. She wiped it away hurriedly, hoping he had not noticed.
Wordlessly, Gideon handed her a tissue from the tissue box at his elbow.
He had noticed.
Her cheeks hot again, Charlie dabbed at her wet chin, then balled the tissue in an angry fist and hid it under the table. Why couldn’t she be cool like him? It was so unfair.
‘Well, go ahead, then,’ she said, trying to hide her impatience by playing with the stem of her wine glass. ‘What can you tell me?’
He studied her. ‘It’s going to shock you.’
‘Okay.’
‘Really shock you.’
‘For God’s sake, just tell me!’
Gideon half-laughed at her outburst, then nodded and took another deep swallow of wine. As though he needed some courage, which she could not believe.
‘Pansy isn’t dead,’ he said.
Charlie put down her wine glass and stared. ‘What?’
Had Mrs Trevellyan told him the story she’d told her about Pansy’s faked death? She had been holding onto that possibility for days, unsure if it was true or not, and unwilling to say anything to Gideon when he seemed so full of secrets himself.
‘I said you’d be shocked.’
‘What do you know?’ she demanded.
‘I know she walked out into the sea that night, like the story goes, and did originally intend to end her life,’ he continued, watching her. ‘But then she changed her mind. She’d told a friend of hers what she was planning, and when she saw the friend driving down to the harbour at top speed to stop her, she … Well, she swam back to land and got into her friend’s car, and decided instead to simply leave Tremevissey and never come back.’
Benjamin suddenly uncurled himself from his wicker basket and strolled out from under the table in search of a snack, his fluffy tail deliberately brushing both their legs like some kind of hint.
Gideon stopped talking and bent to stroke the cat for a moment, then went over to drop a handful of dried cat food into Benjamin’s bowl as it was empty.
‘There you go, Benji,’ he murmured, patting the cat’s head, then glanced round at her, his gaze curious. ‘You’re not saying much.’
‘I’m not sure what to say, frankly. I … I’m shocked.’ Charlie sat back, only belatedly realising that her mouth was gaping. How on earth did he know about Pansy’s faked death? She shut her mouth, and tried to appear less at a loss. Dumbfoundedness wasn’t a sexy look, she reminded herself, wishing she could be as cool about all this as Gideon seemed. ‘Can I ask, who told you that? Was it Mrs Trevellyan?’
‘Who?’
‘The old lady who lives in the Muddle. You know, the really ancient one who’s nearly a hundred or something?’
‘Lives in a muddle?’ he echoed, bemused.
‘Not in a muddle,’ Charlie corrected him, shaking her head in disbelief at his lack of local knowledge, ‘in the Muddle.’ She pointed out of the window towards the start of the old cobbled maze of lanes in the centre of the village. ‘That’s what all those tiny village lanes are called. The Muddle.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘She’s really old,’ she repeated patiently. ‘Has a walking stick. Lots of white hair. Bit cranky. Mrs Trevellyan … No?’
‘Sorry, I
don’t think I’ve ever met a woman of that description. So no, it wasn’t her who told me about Pansy.’
‘Well, she’s vetoed the tea rooms, so I guess it couldn’t have been.’
‘Vetoed the tea rooms?’ Now he was really puzzled.
‘Because of the curse.’
‘Christ, that bloody curse. What a farrago of nonsense.’
‘There’s no such thing, of course,’ Charlie agreed, nodding. ‘But plenty of the villagers believe in it, all the same. Why do you think it’s mainly only tourists who come into the tea rooms? Because they don’t know about the so-called curse on this place. But once the season’s over, I doubt we’ll have a single visitor from one day to the next. I probably won’t be able to afford to stay open much after September. Not unless local trade picks up.’ She paused, frowning. ‘Hold on, if it wasn’t Mrs Trevellyan who told you that story about Pansy not drowning, then who was it?’
He considered her for a moment, then said reluctantly, ‘You’ll keep it to yourself until I say otherwise? I promised it would be a secret, you see.’
‘I won’t breathe a word.’
‘Thank you. Well, okay, it was my uncle who told me.’
‘Your … Bloody hell.’
Totally confused, Charlie got up and grabbed a fresh bottle of chilled white wine from the fridge, rapidly opening it and pouring them both another drink. She didn’t ask if he wanted one. It seemed pointless, the way he was knocking the stuff back at the same speed she was.
‘Okay, so your uncle told you.’ Charlie screwed up her face. ‘Sorry, who is your uncle and where does he come into this? Is he a local? You never mentioned him before.’
She sat down again opposite him, trying not to think about how attractive he was or how springy his hair looked tonight, and how her fingers itched to run through it. She needed to concentrate on what he was saying, not let her body dictate her every move. Though it did seem pretty good at taking dictation, she had to admit it.
Broodingly, Gideon stared down into his fresh glass of wine. ‘That’s because he asked me not to,’ he admitted. ‘Uncle Treve was a Tremevissey local … once upon a time.’
‘But not anymore?’
‘He lives in Australia now. He emigrated there a few years ago, in fact. Because his best friend was already living out there, married to a big sheep rancher, and she promised him a job and a house on their land.’
‘His best friend lives in Australia?’
Gideon nodded slowly, then lifted his troubled gaze to her face. ‘I think you can guess the name of my uncle’s best friend.’
She sucked in a breath, hardly daring to move. ‘P-Pansy?’
‘That’s right.’ He reached across the table and took her hand, his thumb stroking her knuckles. ‘Look, I know this must be a huge shock, Charlie. You’ve grown up thinking she died about two decades ago. That she took her own life right here in Tremevissey. But I’ve got to tell you,’ he finished, ‘that your aunt Pansy is alive and well, and living in Southern Australia.’
She met his eyes, not sure what to say. It wasn’t such a huge shock, thanks to Mrs Trevellyan already spilling the beans over what she’d seen that night. But it was certainly bewildering.
‘So Pansy is still alive? Really, truly alive?’
He nodded sombrely.
‘But why did she have to run away? Why pretend to kill herself and then just … just leave like that without saying a word to anyone.’ She saw his mouth open and hurriedly pre-empted what he was going to say. ‘Except your uncle Treve, of course. But other than that, she seems to have told nobody. Which means my poor old grandmother thought … Well, she thought what everybody thought. That Pansy had taken all her clothes off, and walked out into the sea in a fit of despair, and never come back.’
‘Yes,’ he said heavily, ‘that was very cruel of her.’
‘Then tell me, if you know, why do that? Why did Pansy have to hurt her mum like that? It was an appalling thing to do.’
He hesitated, still stroking her hand, then let go. ‘I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry, I just can’t. Not yet. But at least you know that she’s alive.’
Charlie stared at him. ‘Is that what you’re going to reveal on Saturday night?’
‘Mostly, yes.’
She did not understand him. But she was quite angry.
‘You’ve known all this time about my aunt, haven’t you? You’ve known she was alive. That she ought to have been running this place, not me. Yet you haven’t said a word.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated, frowning.
She left her seat and stalked about the kitchen in the evening heat, catching her own reflection in the windows that overlooked the street. Her face seemed tired and drawn, her eyes strained. Behind her, she could see a sexy, attractive male watching her without moving, his own face lean and wary.
How had she caught such a glorious specimen of a man?
She had thought herself lucky to have found him. Standing outside the tea rooms that first morning after the fire, Gideon Petherick had seemed like a godsend at a time of terrible crisis. But now she looked back with hindsight, and saw nothing but coincidence piled upon coincidence. And she did not believe in coincidence.
‘So is that why you came here in the first place?’ Charlie demanded with a sudden frisson of horror. ‘Because my aunt asked you to? Is that why … why you came to Tremevissey that day? To the Cornish Tea Rooms?’
He said nothing, but his gaze never left her.
‘Oh my God,’ she said, breathing fast. ‘I thought it was luck. Sheer dumb luck. But it was all planned, wasn’t it? That’s why you were so keen to work here, Gideon, even without much money on offer, with only a sofa to sleep on, and … ’ Her eyes narrowed on his face. How could she have been such a fool? Such a blind, love-struck fool? ‘You came here to spy on me for Aunt Pansy. To report back on what was going on at the tea rooms. Didn’t you?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said. But he hesitated just long enough to convince her that she’d hit on the truth. And she could see the guilt in his eyes. ‘Though Pansy did ask your uncle to give me a Skype call. He told me she wanted to know how you were getting on with reopening the tea rooms, yes.’ His tone is very careful and measured. ‘But it was never a question of spying. Nothing so sensational.’
‘What was it, then?’ Her voice sounded shrill to her ears.
‘I offered to keep an eye on your progress, that’s all. Look,’ he said impatiently when she made an angry noise, ‘Pansy knew about the curse. My uncle had told her what the locals thought. Then when her mum died, she considered revealing to the world that she was still alive. But … ’
‘Yes?’
He struggled, then shook his head. ‘I can’t say anymore. Not right now. All you need to know at the moment is that Pansy was worried for you. She didn’t want you to suffer because of her choices. So I came along to see how things were going.’
‘And when you saw that everything had turned to shit, you decided to stay on and give the little idiot a helping hand?’
‘Now you’re just being melodramatic.’
‘Melodramatic? Melodramatic?’ She stared at him blindly, her eyes pricking with sudden tears. Then she swallowed hard, and snatched up the bottle of white wine, heading unsteadily to her room with it. Who needed a glass, anyway? ‘Goodnight, Gideon Petherick. I’m going to my bedroom now, to be melodramatic on my own. You can take the bloody sofa, mate.’
If Gideon made any reply, she did not hear it over the loud, ‘melodramatic,’ slamming of her bedroom door.
Too late, she realised she had not changed Benjamin’s cat litter as she had planned to do before bed.
Oh well, she would just have to hope he didn’t turn up his nose at the dirty litter tray and do his business behind the sofa like last time she’d forgotten.
Bloody hell, though.
There were so many things she wanted to tell Gideon. To scream them at him, if necessary. But she could not have staye
d there a moment longer, because she could not bear for Gideon to witness her crying. Crying for the thought of her lovely old grandmother dying without ever knowing that her daughter was still alive. Crying for the loss of her wonderful romance with a mysterious stranger who had appeared out of nowhere …
Only Gideon Petherick had not appeared out of nowhere. He had been given a Skype call from Australia and instructed to appear on her doorstep. Hell, he had been practically hired to appear. To act his way into her life and report back on how she was coping. Which was pretty damn badly right now.
She had gone and fallen in love with him, that was the worst of it, Charlie thought wildly, stumbling over her own shoes in the darkness of her bedroom.
Fallen in love with an actor.
With a liar.
Because, like Pansy’s tragic ‘drowning’ that turned out to be a disappearing act, their whole affair had been a lie from start to finish.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The crowd was eating out of Gideon’s hand, Charlie thought on Saturday night, heading out of the kitchen with a fresh tray of drinks. Not literally eating out of his hand, of course. That would have been weird. But they were sitting in rapt silence as Gideon told the assembled villagers – and there were some hundred or more people crammed into the tea rooms, defying the fire regulations – the long and often complicated tale of how Pansy had not taken her own life that night in Tremevissey, but gradually made her way east across continental Europe, then took a boat, eventually ending up in Australia.
‘Such a romantic story,’ Maisy whispered to her in passing, heading back into the kitchens with an empty tray to collect more food. Empty except for dozens of cocktail sticks, that is, where people had eaten the pretty little canapés Gideon had been making all afternoon, and thrown back the stick holding his pungent cheese and gherkin concoctions together, or his red pepper sails on his focaccia sailboats. ‘I wish I’d known Pansy when she lived here. She sounds like an amazing woman.’
‘Hmm,’ Charlie said, and moved on with her tray of drinks.