by Eve Devon
Jake caught Emma’s eye. She didn’t look in the least tired, insulted or jaded.
Which was okay, he supposed, because he was feeling enough of all that for the both of them.
Emma was the forever-romantic type, wasn’t she? He’d seen it in the way her eyes lit-up in the library when she’d tried convincing him that Jane Austen was all about true love, not social commentary.
And here was his brother, drunk and about to bitch about his wife, basically doing his best to prove how very unromantic the Knightleys could be.
‘Is there a bedroom made-up that he can sleep it off in, tonight?’ Emma asked, nudging the coffee closer to his brother.
Jake nodded. ‘He can use his old room. He’s stayed here before.’
‘I am here, you know,’ Seth bellowed, reaching for the wine glass instead of the coffee and knocking it over so that the dregs of red wine splashed over the white candle like a special effect in a gothic horror movie. ‘Ouch, damn it.’
It took Jake a couple of seconds to register the red wine on Seth’s hand wasn’t wine but blood.
He stared transfixed. Completely unable to move as the ribbon of red oozed down his brother’s arm to drip onto the table.
Chapter 26
Village of Stars
Emma
‘Jake?’
As Emma reached over to hold Seth’s hand up to help stop the flow of blood, she couldn’t help but notice that as red as the trickle of blood dripping onto the table, Jake’s face was grey. Really, completely, alarmingly, grey.
‘Jake,’ she called his name sharply again, and when that didn’t produce a reaction she shouted, ‘Hey, Commander Dixon! Eyes on me!’
That seemed to get his attention.
‘You’re not going to faint on me, are you?’ she asked him.
His gaze swung from hers to his brother’s arm but seemed to realise that wasn’t the best idea in the world, so bounced back up to lock onto hers again. Slowly he swallowed, then shook his head.
‘Good. Because I need you to find a first aid kit.’
He nodded but still didn’t move.
‘It’s really not that bad. Look,’ she said, pulling on Seth’s arm, ‘it’s stopped bleeding already.’
‘Ow,’ Seth grumbled. ‘Have a care, Nurse Ratched.’
‘You want your brother doing this?’ she asked Seth. ‘Because I’m happy to swap.’
‘Definitely not. Carry on Nurse.’ He looked perplexed for a moment and then said, ‘Hey, you’re not a nurse, aren’t you an actress?’
She shook her head, grinned and answered, ‘Maybe I’m a wrestler.’
‘Seriously?’ Seth looked particularly interested in this news.
‘Did you come down with the last Delorean? No, not seriously,’ Jake groaned, finally snapping out of it and moving to the cupboard under the sink and withdrawing a Tupperware box. ‘Does she look all a-GLOW to you?’
‘No, but then I sort of interrupted your moment, didn’t I?’ Seth said looking cheekily from Jake to Emma.
Emma laughed. ‘I’m an ex-actress,’ she confessed, not even thinking about how easy and natural it felt to admit. ‘Nice to meet you, Seth – I’m Emma and I’ll be running Cocktails & Chai when The Clock House opens.’
‘Well, you can play nurse for me anytime,’ Seth said.
‘Leave Emma alone,’ Jake advised, ‘And don’t even think about being sick in my kitchen.’
Seth nodded and then groaned. ‘Can’t make it work with Joanne, Jake. I’ve really tried. Just can’t make it work.’
There was such sadness in his voice that Emma’s heart went out to him. She let him talk as she gently cleaned the cut, making sure there was no glass in it, before applying antiseptic cream.
‘Even with this place off my back, she doesn’t want me,’ Seth rasped out. ‘Maybe she really wanted this place? How would that be for karma? Your one didn’t and my one did. If we didn’t have dumb luck we’d have no luck at all. Although,’ he smiled up at Emma as she popped a plaster over his cut, ‘Looks like your luck’s changed for the better.’
‘Shut up, Seth,’ Jake said, but his admonishment lacked heat as he cleared up the broken glass and stuck it in the rubbish.
‘You’re a good man, Jake.’ Seth grabbed Emma’s arm to get her attention. ‘My brother’s a good man,’ he repeated.
‘Yes he is,’ Emma said, smiling at Jake, wondering why he looked uncomfortable with the compliment. ‘So you’d better be up for listening to his lecture in the morning.’
‘God, yes. The Jake Knightley lectures – if only they were as interesting as the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures,’ he said, rising from the table on wobbly legs.
Quietly she passed Jake the mug of coffee in the hope he’d get Seth to drink some before he passed out.
With ease, Jake took the coffee in one hand and slipped his other under Seth’s arms to help him out of the kitchen. ‘Come on, then. Let’s get you upstairs to your room.’
‘Bloody hate being on my own, Jake. Maybe Emma will let me pitch a tent under the chandelier and I’ll wake up Christmas morning with Joanne dressed in a sexy little Santa cosie.’
‘Really don’t need to hear about any Christmas cos-play scenario between you and your wife.’
‘Soon to be ex,’ Seth mumbled, ‘Commander Dixon!’
There was a small thud, presumably as Seth steered him and his brother into a wall.
‘Sorry. Might be a little hammered,’ Seth slurred. ‘Maybe I’ll tell Joanne about the chandelier being up at Christmas. Rekindle the magic. Do you think it works twice?’
‘It didn’t even work once, Seth.’
‘Course it did. Hope you fixed the hole in the roof coz you know this means the magic’s already started.’
‘It’s a light fitting, Seth. It’s not bloody magic.’
‘Seriously, you know snow’s coming, right?’
Emma heard Jake’s deep sigh before he muttered, ‘Et tu, Brute?’
Shaking her head at their weird conversation, Emma decided she may as well do a bit of bring-her-back-down-to-earth washing-up.
As her hands delved into the hot sudsy water, she allowed herself to think – to feel, for the first time since Seth had literally come crashing in on her and Jake.
Her kissing Jake had been pure supplication followed by holy-hell mortification.
Jake kissing her had been…
So good.
One touch of his lips against hers and, KAPOW.
A couple more kisses later and she’d been lost in him … in them.
And then Seth had entered centre-stage and the moment had been lost.
From the instant Seth cut his hand and Jake’s gaze had purposefully kept missing hers or only sticking for a second or two, she’d known he wasn’t going to come searching for that moment again.
His loss!
A couple of soap bubbles exploded out of the bowl to hit her nose as she dumped the next pile of plates into the water with more force than strictly necessary.
Okay, she and Jake had gone from talking to library table in smooth and seductively scary-quick time.
And, okay, with all those journals under her, she’d practically lain on the history of the Knightleys not being ‘great at love’.
But hadn’t she assured him she hadn’t had time for falling in love?
He probably thought she was feeding him a line.
She sighed.
She was so tired of people hearing her lines and not believing them.
No matter, she thought, as she scrubbed at a stain on a plate before realising it was part of the pattern.
She was hardly a stranger to rejection.
She’d do what she did after a failed audition. Smile and keep things light.
Should be simple enough to do and besides, she had enough going on with The Clock House and Jake had one foot out of the village already anyway.
‘I can’t apologise enough,’ Jake said standing in the doorway watching
her.
With only a little jump of surprise and a fierce warning to her insides to keep from curling at the sound of his voice, she turned around, reached for a towel and dried her hands. ‘Don’t worry about it. Family, huh?’ she joked, hoping to lighten the mood.
He gave a grim nod and she noticed his hair was mussed.
Had that been from her hands earlier?
Or his hands when he’d realised his brother wasn’t going anywhere tonight.
And that neither were he and Emma.
‘Did you manage to get him into bed before he passed out?’ she asked.
‘Mmmn. I’m sorry he was so drunk. And he’s the world’s biggest flirt—’ he broke off, and with a shake of his head, sighed. ‘Sarah tried to tell me the separation was serious this time but I didn’t want to hear it.’
‘You can’t blame yourself for your brother’s marriage problems,’ she said carefully, beginning to wonder if the whole family thought they were cursed in love or something?
‘But I can blame myself for being too focussed on my own stuff and for making him feel he couldn’t come to me unless he was so wasted I wouldn’t turn him away.’
‘He’s going to feel rubbish tomorrow, but I expect he’ll also feel grateful you didn’t throw him out. Maybe he’ll tell you more about what’s going on then.’
‘Maybe.’ Folding his arms, he leant against the French dresser. ‘So this evening didn’t exactly go to plan.’
Embarrassed and needing to avoid picking it all apart, she said, ‘Let’s simply say it unfolded.’
As if aware he was leaning against furniture again and that last time he had she’d launched herself at him, he straightened and said, ‘Unravelled more like.’
‘No. Just unfolded. The more we make it into a thing…’
He nodded. ‘I’ll grab our coats.’
‘And you really don’t have to walk me home.’
‘Of course I do. What if the bovine beast of Whispers Wood is on the prowl?’ His smile was bigger this time as he attempted to match her light tone.
‘My hero,’ she called out as he disappeared to get their coats.
Left alone in the kitchen she stared down at her hands.
Don’t go thinking of him in terms of a real hero, Ems. He might look after his family like he was one. He might be giving this house a heroic new lease of life. And he might kiss like the leading man in a Nicholas Sparks adaptation. But the way he’s bringing this evening to an end? You were right. He’s warning you good and proper he doesn’t want to be placed in that role. And you need to show him you’ve received the message. That you’re not one of those women who says one thing but wants another.
Like Alice?
Seth had said something about her not wanting this place.
Emma wanted to know if that was the only thing that had gone wrong between them… and she didn’t.
Because she wasn’t going to do this to herself.
Forget about the way he talked about the gardens. The way he’d cooked for her. The library. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be so charmed. So romanced. She suspected it had shown on her face just enough to have Jake dwelling on that now that he wasn’t caught up in the moment.
Keep it light, she reminded herself.
She didn’t need the complication.
And Jake?
Complicated in bold Times New Roman, 72 pt!
‘I’m nearly used to seeing the bovine beast wander about the village now,’ she said, joining him in idle conversation. ‘Somehow knowing she’s called Gertrude doesn’t make her so frightening.’
‘Gertrude just gets lonely sometimes,’ he told her, coming back into the kitchen already wearing his coat.
As he held her coat open for her she bit back a laugh that they could go from deep discussion, to rolling across a library table, to mending his brother and tucking him up in bed, to talking about cows.
It had been quite the evening.
She shoved her arms through the sleeves of her coat and tried not to notice the warmth of his hands lingering on her as he closed the material around her.
‘Emma—’
She thought she felt his head rest against the top of hers for a fraction of a second before he pulled away and as she turned she witnessed the conflict in him and only wanted to soothe. ‘It’s okay, Jake. As dates go, this isn’t the worst one I’ve been on.’
‘You’re trying to be kind, and I’m making a hash of the end of a really nice evening.’
Nice? Nice?
He cleared his throat. ‘If Seth hadn’t walked in—’
‘We probably would have come to our senses, anyway?’ she finished for him.
He hesitated, looking like he might want to say something else, but then nodded. ‘Right.’
‘So tell me your worst date ever and I’ll tell you mine,’ she said, walking through the kitchen to the hall, now just wanting to get home in as un-mortified condition as possible.
‘Easy. I took Monica Drummond out for sushi and ended up in the hospital.’
‘You got food poisoning?’
‘Nope. The restaurant had a really great area set up for eating outside. I leant over a glass partition to see if the ophiopogons were real and sort of fell off the decking.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘Needed three stitches.’
‘Three. Wow. I guess you fainted and woke up in hospital with Monica beside you mopping your brow?’
‘Fainted? No. Why would you think that?’
‘There must have been blood. I assumed from earlier—’
He tensed. ‘No—that was—I was reminded of something else.’ Grabbing the torch from the shelf above the umbrella stand and checking it worked, he shoved it in his pocket and opened the front door. ‘So come on, tell me about your worst date, then?’
She wondered what he’d been reminded of to turn him grey but one small glance told her he wasn’t going to expand. Looping her scarf three times around her neck, she followed him outside.
It was freezing. The temperature had dropped dramatically and the path was hard and sparkly with frost under her feet.
‘So my worst date,’ she said, matching his hurried walking pace, ‘would have to be getting stuck half-in, half-out of The Fluffy Duck’s restroom window and having to call my flatmates for help. Only instead of arriving and pulling me out, they told the manager who then called the fire service.’
‘Your date must have been really bad to try the old fleeing-out-the-bathroom-window trick.’
Emma shuddered dramatically. ‘Ate with his mouth open. Anyway he finished his meal and decided to see what all the fuss was about, and without even giving me time to squinch, took a photo and popped it on Instagram with the hash-tags #Avoid #SerialDateEscapee.’
‘What?’
‘I know. He didn’t even have the manners to use a flattering filter!’
They walked a few steps in silence and then Jake shook his head again at the absurdity of her date and said, ‘I should be thankful you didn’t feel the need to escape Knightley Hall that badly.’
‘And me already in my cat-burglar suit.’
‘Next time—’ he stopped. ‘What I mean is—’
‘What you mean is there’s not going to be a next time and that’s okay.’
He shoved his hands into his coat pockets. ‘I’m going to have to keep an eye on Seth before I leave for Cornwall and, more importantly, Whispers Wood isn’t anonymous like LA.’
‘I guess,’ she said, biting back the sigh that came with the truth. Whispers Wood wasn’t a big city it was a small cosy village, where everyone knew your business. She wouldn’t really be surprised if Trudie McTravers was phoning Cheryl Brown right this very minute to tell her the bartender had visited the garden designer, whereupon she’d taken a turn about the room, impressing him so much that he was now taking her on a perambulation through the woods.
‘My family are already convinced that every woman I speak to for more than five
minutes is going to be the one to help me run Knightley Hall.’
‘Whereas you just want to be left alone to run it.’
‘Right. Plus, you also have—’
‘Too much going on,’ she agreed.
‘To start something—’
‘That will only end up finishing,’ she answered.
‘Friends, then?’
‘Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love,’ she quoted Jane Austen under her breath.
‘What’s that?’
‘I said, oh absolutely.’
‘Great. Nice and uncomplicated.’
‘Yes. Nice.’ She stopped at the edge of the green to look up at the stars and hopefully stem the silly tears that threatened. Focusing on the way they lit up the sky she was reminded that in the grand scheme of things she was really very small indeed. Her embarrassment would fade. In her experience friends stuck around for longer than lovers, anyway. And she needed friends if she was going to make her home in Whispers Wood.
‘I keep getting caught out with how bright the stars shine over here,’ she whispered, watching the trail of mist her breath made as it merged with the night air. ‘Something about the lack of city lights, I suppose.’
‘It is satisfying,’ Jake murmured, tilting his head to look up at the sky too.
‘Satisfying? It’s sublime.’
‘You’re not going to burst into song are you?’
‘Maybe …’ She met his gaze. ‘Can you play the piano? Are you secretly really into jazz?’
‘No and no.’
‘Then I’m pretty sure we’re not in La La Land anymore, Toto, so nope … no bursting into song.’
At the beginning of the woods, Jake switched on the torch. There was light from the streetlamps at either end of the cut-through but the torch’s beam shone on the bark of the silver birch, and the white trunks, so stark against the dark night gave the area an ethereal quality.
There was a special stillness to the night, and then it happened.
So soft she might have imagined it.
Until one landed on her cheek and nearly made her swallow her tongue at the wonder of it.
‘Snow,’ she squealed.