The Runaway Wife

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The Runaway Wife Page 29

by Rowan Coleman


  “A John Grasmere watercolor,” he said, pointing to a tiny painting that hung on the back wall of the house, which Rose could see as she peered over his shoulder. “I’d have to take it down and really inspect it, but it looks too good to be a copy and he did spend a lot of time around here. Could even be worth a few hundred pounds . . . thank you.” He took the glass of red wine that Rose offered him and, taking a sip, tried hard not to make a face.

  “Not exactly the caliber of grape you are used to,” Rose said, smiling as Frasier seated himself in Brian’s armchair.

  “It’s perfectly awful,” Frasier admitted. “But luckily the company is sufficiently distracting to make it bearable. I’m glad I decided to stay here tonight. We have spent so little time alone together and I find that . . . I rather miss you when you’re not there.”

  There was an awkward silence, Frasier looking as if he regretted saying those words as soon as he’d spoken them and Rose at a loss as to how to react.

  “Frasier, I’ve got something to tell you,” she said eventually, deciding to press on despite the moment of uncertainty, knotting her fingers together as she braced herself. “It’s going to sound a bit mad, but please just listen and let me tell you, because it’s the story behind this.” Rose took the parcel from where she’d propped it up against the sideboard and placed it on Frasier’s lap, kneeling on the floor in front of him. He watched her for what seemed like an age in the lamplight, looking as if there were a thousand words on the tip of his tongue, none of which he could find a way to articulate.

  “Go on,” he said eventually, making an effort to keep the tone light. “How intriguing.”

  “Right, well.” Rose took a breath. “That day, the day you came to my house, the day you wanted to track down that painting of me as a girl? You could tell that something was very wrong, and you were right.” Rose shifted a little, taking a deep breath, steadying her nerves for this moment that she had longed for and that now terrified her more than she could imagine. Never be frightened again was her promise, she reminded herself, lifting her chin to complete these last few steps on her journey.

  “I was so afraid. I was terrified for every single second that you were there. I was afraid that my husband would come back before you had gone and find you there, and I knew that if he did, it would make him very, very angry, because even then, he didn’t like me talking to anyone unless he was present, but especially not men. Even then he kept me in the house as much as he could, made me feel worthless and pointless, and that I wouldn’t—couldn’t—even exist if it weren’t for his approval. He’d never hit me at that point—that didn’t come until much later—but he could terrify me without ever having to lay a finger on me. He had control over my mind, you see. And I believed him, I believed him because my father had walked out on me and my mother, well, once Dad left her, she’d faded away day by day until she ceased to exist. And on that day, the day that you arrived, all I had was my unborn child. I was so scared about bringing her into a marriage and a home that didn’t have any love in them, or any hope. And I thought you might think I was a little standoffish, closed off and unfriendly. But you sensed that something was wrong, and the truth was I was scared.”

  “Oh, Rose.” Frasier leant forward in his chair. “I knew it. I knew when I saw you how much pain you were in. The first moment I set eyes on you, I wanted to scoop you up and carry you out of there, like some sort of ridiculous knight in shining armor. But you were married, and pregnant, living in a nice home, wife of a doctor. I thought I was being a fool, that of course you must be happy. If only I’d asked you, if only I’d been able to help.”

  “You did help,” Rose said. “You were kind to me, you saw me as a person, someone who was interesting and important, a person with a history, a life and a value. And I . . . I have been so grateful for that hour I spent with you ever since, because as things between Richard and me got worse—and they got a lot worse—I could think back on that time we had together, and the way you smiled at me, and how you looked at me, and I would know that whatever Richard told me about how useless and pointless and stupid I was, he was wrong. I would take out the postcard you sent me and read it and reread it and it would keep me going. From the day I met you I gradually became a stronger and stronger person, until I finally had the strength to leave him. And I promised myself that one day I would find you and thank you in person.”

  Rose laid her palm flat on the package. “And now that moment has finally come.”

  Frasier shook his head, and Rose wondered if it was because he knew what she was going to say and didn’t want her to say it out loud.

  “Rose,” he said earnestly, “if I had had any idea that you felt this way, you know I would have come back, don’t you? You realize that I would never, never have left you there. For so long I’ve worried about how I let you down, how I didn’t do enough. When I didn’t hear from you, the time I tried to tell you that I’d found John, I thought, I hoped, that you must be happy, that you must have moved on. I made myself think that way over and over again. I can’t forgive myself if I—”

  “Frasier,” Rose interrupted him, knowing that if she waited much longer she’d lose the courage to say what she wanted to, “let me finish what I have to say, please.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that I am really rather overwhelmed. And once you’ve started to say something that you’ve been thinking and feeling for such a long time, it’s hard to stop it coming out.”

  “I know,” Rose said, taking a shuddering breath. “Which is why I have to tell you—Frasier, I didn’t come here to find my father. I had no idea he would be here. I came here because it’s the painting on the postcard, my only connection to you. I came here to find you, to thank you and to give you this.” She nodded at the blanket. “I wasn’t entirely honest with you that first day. I don’t know why, it was the only thing I had of him, I suppose. The one thing I protected from Richard, hid away from him right at the back of my dad’s old studio. And now it’s yours.”

  Frowning, Frasier said nothing as she untied the string that held the blanket in place, and then carefully unwrapped what lay beneath. He gasped when he saw the contents, unable to tear his eyes away from what he was looking at.

  “Dearest Rose!” he whispered. “You had it, you had Dearest Rose, the original painting, all along.” He looked up at her, his eyes shining with delight. “Oh, Rose, you don’t know how long I’ve waited to set eyes on this. It’s beautiful, just as I imagined it, if not better. I never thought I’d see the day.” When he looked back up at her he had tears in his eyes. “Thank you, Rose, thank you so much for letting me see it, hold it.”

  “It’s for you,” Rose said happily, flooded with pleasure at delighting him so much. “It’s a gift, for you, to say thank you for saving me. Even if you weren’t there, you still saved me. You saved my life.”

  Frasier was speechless for a moment, and then slowly, ever so carefully, he got to his feet and, placing the painting flat on the tabletop, he knelt on the floor next to Rose.

  “This is not a gift I can accept,” he told her gently. “This painting is more than just a work of art, it’s the link between you and your father that has kept you united all these years. It’s the one thing you wouldn’t part with, not for your husband, not for me or for money, and it’s the image that he never let go of. I could never take this, Rose. It belongs to you and John, and that’s where it must stay. Besides,” he said as he reached into his pocket, “there is something I want to show you.”

  Frasier took a square of folded paper out of his inner jacket pocket and handed it to her. Her hands trembled as she carefully unfolded it. Rose gasped as she realized what she was looking at. It was the copy of the sketch of Dearest Rose. The very same one Frasier had shown her on that first day, the day they had met.

  “You see?” Frasier said. “You don’t need to give me your painting. I’ve been carrying you next to my heart for all these years.”

&
nbsp; Rose looked away, uncertain what to say or even think. The hope that Frasier might feel even a little of what she felt for him was so excruciatingly fragile that now, at this critical moment, she almost wanted to turn away from knowing.

  “But . . . but I wanted to say thank you,” Rose said, “and I can’t think of how else to do it. I’ve planned to give it to you for a very long time.”

  “I know,” Frasier replied, reaching out to cup her face in the palm of his hand. “But I am certain that in your heart you don’t want to part with it. And you don’t have to. Just to see it with my own eyes is enough. And to know you is more than enough.”

  Rose leant her cheek into his touch, unable to look him in the eye as she felt him examining her, terrified.

  “Rose . . .” Frasier said, struggling to form the words that he himself was unsure of, “. . . I don’t understand the way I’m feeling right now. I thought I had everything sorted out and settled in my life. I thought that I knew where I was going, what I was doing, and that I’d put a single hour with a woman I barely knew but could never forget behind me at long last.” Frasier moved his hand just a little, lifting Rose’s chin so she couldn’t help but look at him, and the expression she saw in his face made her catch her breath. “But since I’ve met you again, all that’s turned on its head and I’m back in your house, sitting at your kitchen table, looking at you and believing that, as incredible as it seems, for the first time in my life I’ve fallen in love. And it’s true. I can’t hide from it anymore, Rose. I love you. I loved you then, I love you now. I think I always have.”

  Rose couldn’t speak, so she simply nodded, her whole body trembling.

  “I’m sorry,” Frasier said. “This is the last thing you need now. Me declaring my heart to you when you have so much to face, with your husband, your father. I just had to speak out, Rose, because it’s so damn obvious to everyone in the world except you. Even Cecily noticed it. I was doing such a damn terrible job of pretending otherwise, and much as I don’t want to hurt her, I’m too tired to pretend any longer.” Reluctantly Frasier took his hand away from her face, smiling ruefully. “Please don’t feel that you have to do anything to reciprocate.”

  “Reciprocate?” Rose said, reaching out to touch his arm with the tips of her fingers. “You idiot, how can you possibly not know that I feel just exactly the same? That I’ve hoped and longed just to be in the same room as you for years and years, and now I just can’t believe that it’s true. I feel the same way, Frasier, of course I do. I always have, I have always loved you too.”

  There was a moment, the briefest moment, of separation between them and then Frasier reached out, picked up her hand in his own, and drew her close to him.

  Softly, slowly and with infinite care, he kissed her, so lightly that the embrace was barely there, and yet Rose felt it with every particle of her body, years of repressed longing surging through her like a tidal wave. There was no uncertainty here, no fear. This was nothing like the reckless experimental kissing she had tried with Ted. All Rose felt now was the overwhelming sense that finally she was where she belonged. For so long she had thought herself in love with a fairy-tale prince, a perfect creation of her starved imagination, but now, now she knew that the love she felt for Frasier was real, because finally she knew the real man behind her dreams, and he was more wonderful in reality than she could ever have dreamt of.

  “I feel like you might break in my hands, you are so delicate,” Frasier whispered, breathless with love for her.

  “I’m not so delicate that you can’t kiss me again,” Rose whispered, leaning into his embrace, this time their kisses a little bolder, a little more insistent. Then Frasier withdrew.

  “There’s no need to hurry this,” he said. “Not after we’ve waited so long.”

  “Have you changed your mind?” Rose asked him anxiously, always prepared for the worst.

  “No, no . . . God, Rose, not at all. There’s nothing I’d like more than to take you to bed right now. But you, you’ve been through so much, and me, I’ve waited almost eight years to have this moment, this lifetime with you. I don’t want to rush it. Everything has to be just right before we are truly together. There are people who deserve our honorable treatment: Cecily, your father, Maddie. And, most important, you. You are like a flower, a rose, too easily crushed, and I won’t let either one of us putting a foot wrong in a rush to be together endanger you or what we might have here.” He smiled, drawing her into his arms and holding her tight, kissing her hair. “It’s too wonderful, too miraculous, to be able to love you at last and for you to love me back, for me to let any little detail spoil it. So I’m going to kiss you once more, dearest Rose, and then we will say good night, and if I sleep tonight, which is unlikely, it will be knowing that I’ve fallen in love with the woman I’ve always been in love with, and in the morning I can start making everything right so that we can be together for the rest of our lives.”

  “Really? Do you really mean it? Richard will make it difficult, you know. He will still want to hurt me, punish me for leaving him.”

  “He can try,” Frasier said, “but with me at your side he won’t have a chance. And besides, you are much stronger than you realize, Rose. Look at all you’ve conquered so far just to be here. I would say that makes you positively formidable.”

  Frasier climbed to his feet and took Rose’s hand to help her up.

  “Good night, Rose,” he said, escorting her up the first flight of stairs.

  “I feel happy,” Rose said, her brow wrinkling as she took the first step up to her room. “I always worry when I feel happy, something always goes wrong.”

  “Not this time,” Frasier said. “I swear it to you. Good night, my love.”

  “Good night, Frasier,” Rose said.

  When, at last, she slipped under her covers, feeling the cool sheets against her skin and knowing that Frasier was only one floor beneath, and Maddie was sleeping peacefully at her side, Rose did indeed feel happy. Happier than she could ever remember feeling before in her entire adult life, because for the first time, at last, she had a future she could truly look forward to.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  “You are humming, Mum,” Maddie said as Rose did her best to brush her hair into some sort of style before breakfast. “Why are you humming?”

  “I don’t know,” Rose said happily, thinking of the last few seconds when the tips of her fingers had touched Frasier’s on the banister last night. “It’s a beautiful morning, we’ve moving up to Storm Cottage, you are a wonderful daughter. I feel happy, I suppose.”

  “Me too,” Maddie said thoughtfully. “I feel happy too, although I will miss Jenny’s cooking.”

  “Come on, then,” Rose said, holding her hand out to Maddie. “Let’s go and get one last Jenny special breakfast.”

  Rose and Maddie were chattering happily away to each other as they walked into the dining room to find Frasier already sitting at a table. Seated opposite, much to Rose’s surprise and dismay, was Ted. Instantly Rose’s quiet contentment transformed into repressed anxiety. What was Ted doing here? What did he want and, more important, what was he planning to say and to whom?

  Keep calm, Rose told herself. This, after all, is where Ted’s mum lives. He’s got every right to be here and probably it’s got nothing at all to do with you.

  Both men looked up when they saw Rose and Maddie, smiles breaking across their faces.

  “Rose,” Frasier said simply, keeping his promise to keep their attachment a secret until all obstacles had been resolved, not that he needed to say a word: it was in his eyes and as clear as day. It was rather thrilling, Rose thought, like being in an Austen novel, two secret lovers exchanging nothing more than longing looks and the occasional touch. However, Ted sitting right across the table from Frasier did rather put a dampener on the thrill. Rose could sense that he had come with a purpose, and that it had something very much to do with her. It would be all right, Rose told herself. Ted was h
er friend, he wouldn’t set out to hurt her.

  “Hi, Rose,” Ted said, half getting out of his chair as she approached. She would have sat at another table but Maddie went straight over and sat next to Frasier. “I’m glad I caught you before you left the B and B to move in with your dad.”

  “Oh?” Rose said, doing her best to appear unconcerned about why that might be.

  “Did your girlfriend kill you?” Maddie interrupted Ted, talking to Frasier with genuine curiosity.

  “Not yet,” Frasier said, glancing at Rose and smiling. “Perhaps later. Almost certainly later.”

  “I hope not,” Maddie said. “I quite like you.”

  “I was hoping for a quick word,” Ted said, as Rose sat down reluctantly next to him, instantly drawing Frasier’s interest away from his bacon. “In private, please?”

  “And what have you got to talk to Rose about in private, young man?” Jenny asked him mistrustfully as she appeared with a pot of fresh tea.

  “Well, if I told you it wouldn’t be private, would it?” Ted told her, winking at Maddie, who giggled. “Have you got a minute, Rose? Maybe we could have a quick chat in the annex.”

  “In the annex?” Jenny exclaimed, irritated. “In the annex? You know what you are, Ted? You are no better than you should be.”

  “Yeah, right, Mum. Still got no idea what you mean by that,” Ted said, clearly keen to say whatever it was he had come here to say. “Rose? If you don’t mind?”

  “Um, OK . . . well, just for a minute,” Rose said, smiling weakly at a concerned-looking Frasier, whose brow furrowed as he watched Rose disappear with Ted.

  “Mum’s always going off with Ted,” Rose heard Maddie say as Ted followed her out of the room, indulging in her habit of saying things just for the dramatic sake of it. “It’s like they’ve got a secret or something.”

  • • •

  “Ted, look . . .” Rose began as soon as they were alone, eager to get this sorted and to return to Frasier. “It’s fine. You don’t have to say anything.”

 

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