by Lara Temple
Christina was standing at the end of the nave, looking up with her head tilted slightly to the side, mirroring a sparrow which had settled on the eaves and was looking down at her. The light from the simple stained-glass windows in the chancel haloed her like a supplicant gazing heavenwards, raising amber lights in her dark hair and striking her lower lip with gold, as if an angel had just kissed her and she was watching its ascent.
She had a way of looking utterly alive without any outward show of expression, as she had while playing the pianoforte for the Princess or working away at her herbs or riding Charis. Or in the forest clearing, her face raised as it was now, gathering the sun that filtered through the oaks. And then in her moment of climax—so deep inside some rich inner world it pushed everything else out of the way. It was almost tangible, to the point he felt if he moved forward he would be absorbed into it, like stepping through a runic arch into a faerie world.
Just look at her. Smiling at that sparrow as though it was a visitation at the very least. It was just a sparrow and few rays of sunlight, for heaven’s sake. There was no reason to look like she was a bride about to meet her groom...
The thought was unavoidable. He might not want to marry anyone else, but at some point in the future he would have to. Would he then remember this moment as he entered the church? See instead of his own bride the young woman standing there, looking up just where he would be, smiling...
He leaned his leg against the pew, letting the wood press into his flesh through his buckskins, as if that point of pain could quell the surge of queasiness. He was so used to this little church, there was no reason to feel it was suddenly a foreign place, the solid Norman structure too low and oppressive. It had stood for hundreds of years and would continue standing for probably as long. The thought should have comforted him, but it didn’t. He dragged his gaze to the aisle floor. He knew every crack in the worn and shiny flagstones, every rise and fall of the uneven surface. He shifted and the wooden bench creaked like an outraged crow, sending the sparrows fluttering again.
Her smile disappeared as she turned and saw him. Her hands were gloveless and she was holding a sprig of some plant, probably from the Dunstons’ garden. He could imagine her, her hands moving through the herbs with the vicar’s wife, touching the leaves and flowers, absorbing them with all her senses, taking possession of them as she did everything else in his world, just as she had from the day he had come across her in the library—his books, his gardens, his woodcuttings, his tenants, his life. Isn’t that what ivy did? Encroach, possess, choke...
‘Where is everyone? Outside?’ she asked, her voice a low thrum in the silence.
‘Gone.’
‘What do you mean, gone?’ She looked stunned, the colour draining from her cheeks. It was a cruel jab and he deserved the despair that welled through him at her shocked response. What had he expected? Relief that she might be forced to remain with him? He knew her loyalty and love for the Princess and King were above all else in her universe. She had told him so with absolute clarity back on Illiakos when he made his foolish proposal that she come with him and nothing had changed since. If anything the bond between her and her adopted family was stronger. She had never hidden that truth, or the fact she was using him. He should be grateful for this little reminder of their respective priorities.
It shouldn’t hurt. Not like this.
‘Don’t panic, they have just gone to find you at the vicarage. Your King and Princess would no more contemplate leaving you behind than surrendering their kingdom to pirates. But as much as you seem determined to avoid facing it, you and I have our own business to resolve. Don’t shake your head. You cannot honestly expect me to just let this go in silence. What happened yesterday...’ Heat spread outwards from some deep cave inside him, not just heat but a possessive yearning that demanded he wrap around her, claim her. ‘You gave me your innocence, Chrissie.’
‘That was my choice. It was never meant to be a burden for you.’
‘It isn’t a burden, it is a gift. You can’t just walk away from that as if we had done nothing more than shared a country dance.’
Her eyes finally rose to his and it hurt because he saw sadness and regret there. He almost raised his hands to stop her answer, as if that could stave off the inevitable. When she spoke her voice was hoarse.
‘You don’t need me. Not in any way that matters.’
He turned towards the chancel. Not in any way that matters. Not to her obviously.
‘Is it a contest between who needs you most, the King and Princess or I, then? This has nothing to do with need, only with what is right. We both made a choice yesterday in the forest. I might be a rake, but I accept the consequences of my actions. This is the only course of action that is acceptable.’
The stone walls brought back his voice, hollow and a little sullen. At least he didn’t sound terrified. She looked terrified, though, as if this were one of those tales of the wild hunt and he was bearing down on her, intent on stealing her soul. Perhaps he was. But more than anything he wanted to risk his, if only she could risk hers. Why couldn’t she just take that risk? She would for Ari. For Ari she would brave anything: pain, rejection, frustration, snowstorms. Even as the words played out in his mind he knew they were childish. But true. He didn’t merit that kind of sacrifice. Or love. He never had. It hadn’t mattered before, now it did.
His lungs felt full of fog, thick and resistant. He pressed his hand to the scar on his side. He remembered this feeling. Six years ago in the castle, her backing away from him as he stumbled over the need to keep her, not lose that essence he had barely even understood, not even certain why it was so important.
‘That isn’t fair, Alex. You kept telling me again and again to take what I wanted. It was never my intention to extract such a price. I just wanted...’
She remained standing, staring straight ahead though there was nothing to see but the dull surface of the great wooden door. He touched his fingers to the line of her jaw, turning her face towards him. There wasn’t much light at this end of the church, only two narrow windows forced into the thick stone walls on either side of the door, and her face was a study of shadows and sombre illumination, an oil painting in a room descending into dusk. Before she had looked like a supplicant painted on to the shimmering glass, now she looked the image of a young martyr. The tears hadn’t fallen yet, but they were gathering. Any moment now that tear balanced there would reach a critical weight and escape, skim down the soft sweep of her cheek, perhaps catch on the edge of the parting between her lips... He was vengeful enough to want to see them fall. He wanted to hate her, find the force to crush the link binding him to her. He wanted it crumbling to dust and careening into a chasm. He wanted her never to have existed.
As he watched the tear spill and slide downwards he knew all his brave protestations were as useful as a teaspoon against a mountain. He didn’t want to hurt her; he wanted something very different from her. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t want to give it.
‘Chrissie, I’m sorry. You are right—about everything. I have no right to punish you for my mistakes.’
‘Please let me go. I can’t bear this.’
She sounded as defeated as he felt. He should never have started down this path with her. That she was as poisonous to him as he had been to Vera. It was time to do as she asked and end this.
Another tear slid down and he grasped her wrist as her hand rose to brush it away. When it reached her mouth it curved over her upper lip, settling like a pearl at the corner of her mouth, and he touched his thumb to it just as her lips parted. The bead of moisture burst and spread, warm on his skin. He could almost taste its salty heat, he could already taste her. He kept his thumb just there, where her breath shivered on the now-damp pad of his thumb, and pressed his palm to her cheek, his fingers slipping over the ridges of her ear, into the warmth of her hair. She closed her eyes and two more tears cou
rsed down, one catching on the valley between his finger and thumb. He was within a whisper of breaking, of completely losing his footing.
This was how avalanches began, with a shudder and whisper. And then destruction followed. If she had to leave, it should be now.
‘Oh, God.’
The irony of those words, spoken while standing in the Stanton church, dragged him back to sanity.
He pulled away. ‘It is time for you to leave. You have made your choice.’
The squeal of the iron doorknob as it opened was so loud, or his senses were at such a pitch of sensitivity, the sound hurt.
‘I must do something about those hinges,’ Mr Dunston said as he entered, his ridged forehead puckered. ‘Ah, good, there you are, Miss James, we must have just missed you at the vicarage. The landaulet is waiting outside, my dear, and you had best hurry; his Majesty does not wish to miss the tides.’
‘Thank you, Mr Dunston,’ Alex replied, surprised how steady and commonplace his voice sounded.
‘Yes,’ Christina murmured as her fingers secured the ribbons of her bonnet. ‘Pray thank your wife again for me, Mr Dunston. Goodbye. Goodbye, Lord Stanton. Farewell.’
She didn’t look up as they stepped outside and he helped her into the landaulet, the rim of her straw bonnet obscuring her face. The King was talking and he forced himself to turn to the man.
‘You needn’t see us back, Stanton. I never liked elaborate farewells and no doubt Stavros is already champing at the bit in the carriages for us to be off to make the tide. Suffice it to say that I will never forget what we have achieved here and I hope you will come one day soon to Illiakos so we can return your gracious hospitality...’
There was more, but though Alex said everything that was proper to the King and Princess it all faded away from him. He didn’t look again at Christina and when the landaulet disappeared down the lane he turned and walked slowly back into the church. It was empty again and he sat down in his old seat, watching the sparrows pecking at the floor.
One day his child might sit there and scatter crumbs for them. His children. And there would be a dog. Boy. Or whatever they wanted to call it. By that time all this would be a distant memory. Everything would be in equilibrium again and he would look back and commend himself on refraining from succumbing to the need to lay himself open to a woman whom he would never be able to control and who didn’t need him.
Eventually it was Thunder’s whinny outside that recalled him to his surroundings and he stood up, feeling as stiff as an old man.
The driveway before the Hall was empty of carriages and the building stood mute and solemn under gathering clouds. This was his home. This was where he would eventually bring his family, his wife, raise his children.
He stared at the blank windows, hardly noticing when the door opened and Alby stepped outside.
‘They left, Alexander.’
I know they left.
‘I wish they could have stayed just a little longer. We needed more time.’ She added.
He quieted Thunder. He could think of nothing to say. His chest and shoulders ached as if after an illness. The thought of getting off his horse, going inside, something so mundane he never gave it a thought, appeared impossible, beyond him. What would happen if he just sat there?
Predictably the skies began to leak and Thunder shook his mane, but Alex still didn’t move.
More time. What difference would it have made? He would still be the same person and so would she.
But she would be there.
‘Go inside, Alby. You will get wet.’
She clasped her hands together, hesitating, and then went back up the stairs.
‘More time for what?’ he asked and she paused.
‘For you.’
He didn’t stop her again. The rain was pearling on Thunder’s mane, gathering into rivulets snaking down the short black hair of his neck.
More time.
What had he expected from her? For her to throw herself at his feet and beg to stay? Tell him he mattered more than her family? More than anything. To take a risk he was too afraid to take himself? He hadn’t even risked telling her how much he needed her. How impossible it was to imagine his life emptied of her again. No, not emptied—gouged. Her not being with him wasn’t an absence, it was a gaping, throbbing wound.
He hadn’t even risked telling her he loved her.
She might be a coward, but so was he. They deserved one another.
‘Sorry for this, Thunder. It can’t be helped. I have to do it.’
Thunder stamped his hoof, but gave no protest as Alex set him at a gallop down the drive.
Chapter Sixteen
‘The captain says the storm is moving inland and that the Channel is quite calm. We will embark in an hour so come into the parlour and eat something before we must leave.’
Christina didn’t turn from her contemplation of the darkening port and it was Ari who answered.
‘In a moment, Papa. I need to tidy up.’
‘What is there to tidy? Never mind, join me when you are done.’
‘Tina?’ Ari asked as the door to the private parlour of the inn closed behind him.
‘You go, Ari,’ Christina answered. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘I didn’t want to say anything in the carriage, Tina, but please talk to me. What is wrong?’
Christina pressed her fingertips to her eyes.
‘Please, Ari. I need a moment alone. Please.’
She held herself for a moment longer as Ari’s arms came around her, but it was too much. She was tired and miserable and she ached and ached and ached. When the sobs and words came they were a child’s, but she didn’t know how to stop them.
‘I can’t bear it. I don’t know how I will do this. I keep telling myself it will go away, but I don’t believe it and I don’t want it to. I want to be with him even if it is wrong for him and that makes me a horrible person, but I don’t care, I can’t bear the thought that I won’t see him again. I can’t.’
When it finally stopped it was because she was exhausted, not because the pain had washed away. It sat inside her, a great ugly lump, mashed together with anger at herself, at him, at Ari and the King, but mostly at herself for being too scared to demand something for herself. She groped in her reticule for a handkerchief and wiped her eyes and blew her nose and tried to dislodge Ari’s arms, but Ari didn’t move and so she just sat there.
‘It isn’t like you to run away, Tina,’ Ari said after a while. ‘You never run from Papa though everyone else does. You’ve never turned your back on me and goodness knows I have sometimes given you reason. If he wants you, you should have stayed.’
‘It isn’t that simple. Besides, I couldn’t leave you, you are my family.’
Ari’s arms tightened.
‘But you could never lose me, Tina. I want your happiness as much as you want mine. Don’t hide behind me.’
‘Oh, Ari, you are so dear to me, thank you for that. But it isn’t just you. I am all wrong for him.’
‘How could you be? You are the most wonderful woman I know—he won’t find another like you, that is certain.’
Christina laughed.
‘He doesn’t want someone like me. He wants someone like his stepmother, solid and undemanding and reliable. He told me so himself. What happened between us was a mistake. For him I am a mistake, from the very beginning, except that this time it was all my fault.’
‘Well, I don’t know what happened between you and I probably shouldn’t ask, though I am dreadfully curious, but do you know, you are painting a rather different picture of Lord Stanton than the one I have in mind. None of this sounds like him at all. None of this sounds like either of you. Love is a very strange thing. What shall you do?’
What could she do?
He hadn’t told her he loved
her, not even that he needed her. He had just stood there, his hand pressed to her cheek while she fought to keep her heart from spilling on to the church flagstones along with her tears.
She pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes, trying to think. But all she could see was Alex standing in front of her in the church, trying to do what he thought was right. Intense. Demanding. Cynical.
Hurt...
She couldn’t bear it. She needed to see him, to speak with him. Tell him the truth, everything that was burning inside her even if it was a mistake. Even if she lost everything in the end.
‘Ari, I need your help.’
‘Anything. You know that. Tell me what I must do.’
Chapter Seventeen
Alex knew the depth of King Richard’s desperation when he had offered his kingdom for a horse. He stared through the sheets of rain at the rolling fields, his hand on Thunder’s streaming black coat, and cursed the fates. But if they were trying to tell him something, he wasn’t listening—it would take more than a thrown horseshoe for him to turn tail. At least the fates were kind enough for it to happen within sight of a farmhouse.
‘It’s not your fault, Thunder. This is just a temporary setback. I might be a blind, obstinate, cowardly fool, but it will take more than a storm to stop me. Come, don’t take it ill, but I might have to leave you to rusticate for a while. I just hope they have a mount I can buy.’
* * *
‘Two hours ago, sir. They were already delayed, but she had to leave before the tide turned.’ The harbour master wiped away the rain from his gingery beard and stared longingly at the lights of the Green Dragon, but he waited as Alex stared into the darkness at the ships rising and falling on the frothing swells.