‘It’s too late. I found Mum and she’s been ill and it’s almost too late.’
‘Almost? Almost too late?’
‘She had cancer but she got the all-clear a few weeks ago and she saw my interview on telly.’ She glanced up at him. ‘Oh God, my boobs were hanging out.’
He chuckled softly. ‘No wonder she remembered you.’
‘She did remember me and she came for me and I don’t want to lose her again.’
‘You won’t. I’ll make sure of that.’
How could he? she thought. He wouldn’t be around. But she was too deep in the pleasure and comfort of his embrace to break the moment. She didn’t ever want to let him go but she knew she had to. For now she let him hold her, as he breathed into her hair and pressed her to him as if he was another half of the same person.
Finally, her sobs grew quieter and she became aware of the wind on her face, the waves on the beach and the voices of other people on the sands. And Jago.
‘How did you find me?’ she whispered.
‘Ronnie told me you might be here.’
She glanced up at him in surprise. ‘She couldn’t have known about this place.’
‘Ronnie said you talked of a caravan site your gran brought you to a few times and we narrowed it down to this place. I saw the Land Rover in the car park and walked down here.’
‘You’ve been before?’
‘Once or twice when I was young. I’m a Cornishman, as you’re only too keen to remind me. It’s the sort of place I’d choose too, if I wanted to escape and think.’
‘I wasn’t there at the meeting,’ she said. ‘I saw your announcement to the staff. I promised I’d be there to support them and you. I let everyone down and ran away.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I survived you see, without being lynched. Ronnie hasn’t clapped me in irons yet either.’
‘It is too late. It’s over.’
‘You just worry about your mother. There’s no need to worry about the Mount.’
‘But I do. I have to.’
‘Let me do that.’
Her eyes sought his. ‘You? You don’t want to worry about the place. That’s why you’re getting rid of it. You said you don’t want the burden any more and you just want to be free.’
‘Read my lips. I love you and I’m not selling.’
Love. That word again. ‘You love me?’
‘Yes.’ He shook his head trying to look annoyed but his eyes gave everything away. They were full of a light she’d never seen before.
‘Yes, I do. But did you not hear the other thing I said?’
‘Which one?’
‘The thing about not selling the Mount.’
‘What? But you wanted to sell. You called the meeting in the Hall to tell everyone about the sale to Southcastle. You’ve just come from there, haven’t you?’
‘I have, but I didn’t tell them I was selling, I told them I was staying. I couldn’t do it in the end. It meant too much to me.’
‘I don’t understand! Wild horses wouldn’t have stopped you from selling. I couldn’t stop you …’ A horrible thought struck her. ‘You haven’t decided to stay for my sake? I don’t want that. I don’t want to force you to take that place on against your will.’
He laughed. ‘You could have fooled me. Time was when you’d have chained me to the bloody place like Prometheus and watched the eagles peck my heart out.’
‘I wouldn’t have done that!’
‘Yes, you would.’
‘OK. I would, but that was then and this is now. All I wanted was for you to do what gives you peace and happiness.’
‘And that’s exactly what I have done. Staying at the Mount, making a success of it – an even bigger success – is what I want. Facing the music will make me feel I’m alive, not handing my responsibilities over to some faceless corporation who don’t give a shit about anything.’
As she listened, her face ached with smiling and astonishment. ‘And you won’t regret it?’
‘On the contrary, I’m sure I will regret taking on the place, many times, but not now. Not today.’
‘And you’re not just saying that?’
He threw up his hands in frustration. ‘Miranda Marshall, if you tell me what I want one more time, I won’t be responsible for my actions, and they won’t be noble, I can tell you that.’
The evening sun shone through the great cleft in the rock, the late rays dappling the green pool with sun sparkles. Her heart was so full, she thought it might burst.
‘I want stability, I want a heritage, heirs, kids.’ He stopped, suddenly embarrassed. ‘But maybe you don’t want to stay any longer. I’m sorry, but I’ve been in your house and I’ve seen the application packs. You really were leaving, weren’t you? I didn’t think you’d actually go.’
‘I couldn’t stay and work with Southcastle, Jago. I’m a coward too, in a way. I was ready to leave the people. I needed to make my own way, not stay and be at their rule, doing what I know I believe in. I …’ She shook her head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
‘And now?’ he asked. ‘Are you staying or going?’
Epilogue
Three months later – Heathrow Airport
Miranda sipped her champagne cocktail and sank back into her seat in the business class lounge at Heathrow Airport. It was her second cocktail of the day and it was barely lunch-time. What was it they said about avoiding alcohol when you were flying?
Sod that, she thought with a smile. She wasn’t the one who was about to jet off to San Francisco. She and Jago had travelled to the airport with Lady St Merryn to see her off on her trip to the States and she had now found herself, briefly, alone.
Lady St Merryn had gone to powder her nose and Jago had disappeared off to take a phone call from his lawyers. Southcastle had threatened legal proceedings but nothing had happened yet and his solicitor had assured Jago that they had no grounds to pursue any kind of claim. Nonetheless, Miranda had seen the light burning in his study until the small hours many nights and many times she’d been in there with him, sharing the burden.
If she’d hoped for a quiet life at the Mount, the past months since Jago had arrived there had proved her spectacularly and wonderfully wrong. When they’d returned from meeting her mother, she and Jago had come clean about their relationship and if a few people had raised eyebrows and mentioned the words ‘gold’ and ‘digger’, Miranda didn’t care. Most of the staff just wanted to get on with their own lives, and once the initial gossip had died down, they’d accepted that she and Jago were an item.
Theo wasn’t one them, of course. She’d known he’d take it badly and he did. She’d met him in person to tell him she was seeing Jago and he’d left her in no doubt that he thought she was a fool to get involved. She’d stung at the memory of his bitter words, but bit her tongue and wished him well. Miranda had half hoped Theo would get together with Louise Dixon but knew that was way too much to expect. Instead, Louise was dating one of the paramedics from the ambulance service and Theo had been seeing a crew member of the Porth Ivo lifeboat. Miranda doubted that he would ever reconcile himself to the St Merryns’ existence but she had to look after her own relationships.
At least, things were going better with her mother, considering how long they’d been estranged. Jago had met Teresa twice and Miranda had seen her half a dozen times, both in Exeter and at the Mount. Teresa was still healthy and, although their meetings were awkward, they were gradually coming to something like an understanding. Miranda liked Kev just as her mum had promised; in fact, she got on far better with him than her mother, not that she would ever let on.
She glanced up to see Lady St Merryn making her way back from the ladies’ washroom, a colourful galleon sailing through the travellers in the minimalist business lounge. Now that Jago was staying, she was free and happy to continue with her plans to ‘see the world’ as scheduled.
Jago followed his mother into the lounge and headed straight for the bar. He wore a d
ark-blue suit and looked heart-stoppingly gorgeous and the bar staff almost fell over themselves to serve him.
‘Ah. That’s better. One should never get on a flight looking less than glamorous, though God knows what state I’ll be in after twelve hours in transit,’ said Lady St Merryn, settling down into the leather club chair. Clad in a new kaftan in a leopard-skin print, her hair loose and silvery, she looked years younger and happier than Miranda could ever remember seeing her. Miranda decided to take the plunge.
‘Tell me to mind my own business, if you want to, but can I ask a very personal question?’
‘Personal? Of course. I’m sure there can be few things you can ask me that I would want to hide from you.’
There was little that Miranda had to hide from Lady St Merryn too. She knew about Miranda’s mother. Miranda caught sight of Jago leaning on the bar, his suit trousers tightening over his backside and almost blushed. On the other hand, maybe there was quite a bit she couldn’t share with his mother.
‘I’ve wanted to ask you this for a long time but felt it was intruding. Why are you going to the US now? I know your arthritis is painful but you’re not ill in any other way, are you?’
Lady St Merryn regarded her with a steely eye and Miranda was afraid she’d said the wrong thing. ‘Do I look it?’
‘Oh no. Quite the opposite, in fact, you look really well, but I have been worried about you and, when I first found out you were going to San Francisco, I’ll admit it wasn’t what I expected.’
‘It wasn’t what I expected until last Christmas but you needn’t be worried about me. I’m going to see a very old and very dear friend.’ She smiled. ‘I think you know that my marriage to Patrick was not a happy one. Oh, don’t try to deny, you knew. Everyone at the Mount is well aware he had mistresses all over the place. In fact, he dropped dead outside the flat of one of them, poor girl. He left her without a penny, you know, but that’s the way it went with Patrick. I’m not sure he ever loved anyone, except himself and possibly his son, though he made it his mission never to show it. Even before I produced Jago, we’d certainly ceased to love each other.’
It was upsetting to hear; mostly, Miranda thought, for the misery and unhappiness Lady St Merryn must have endured. But there was no point pretending she hadn’t heard the rumours. She wouldn’t patronise Lady St Merryn like that. ‘I’m sorry you weren’t happy,’ she said.
‘Don’t be too sorry for me, because I’m not blameless in the whole debacle, either. After the initial euphoria of the wedding, I quickly realised that Patrick had other women and always would. I put up with it because that’s what wives did back then.’
The loud pop of a cork drew their eyes to the bar. Jago laughed with the bar staff as they popped the cork of a bottle of champagne. Lady St Merryn’s hand flew to her mouth and, for a horrible moment, Miranda thought she might be about to burst into tears.
‘Please go on, Jago can’t hear,’ said Miranda gently.
‘A few years after we’d been married I still hadn’t produced an heir, let alone a spare and Patrick made it clear that I wasn’t doing my duty and had no function in our marriage. He went to the Far East – “on business” – he said and told me to get myself sorted out, whatever that meant. I needed a break so I decided to visit an old school friend in San Francisco. She was married to a professor at the university there and I stayed with them for a few weeks. The professor had a research student, an Italian-American boy called David Minnelli. He was so beautiful.’
Miranda was transfixed by Jago’s rear view, at the dark, almost black, hair brushing his suit collar, at the olive-skinned hand holding out notes to the barman. He was a beautiful boy too.
‘You’re not saying?’
St Merryn gave a small secretive smile. ‘I’m not saying anything. I was only in SF for a few weeks. When I got home, Patrick was back at the Mount and insisting on his conjugal rights again. In those days, he was legally entitled to take them so I lay back, gritted my teeth and thought of England. Nine months later, I obliged by producing Jago. You have to admit, I went beyond the call of duty.’
‘Does Jago know about David?’
‘He knows that I met a man on holiday years ago and that we’ve been in touch, but what conclusions he’s come to, I don’t know. It’s of no relevance in the long run. Jago might be David’s or he might be Patrick’s. I have no desire to know and it doesn’t matter. He’s my flesh and blood and he’s the rightful person – with you, my dear – to take over the Mount. I tell myself this: over the centuries, how many of the St Merryn heirs have truly known their parentage with any certainty?’
And, Miranda thought, how many St Merryn heirs had actually been fathered by the owners of the Mount, all unrecognised because they’d been born out of wedlock? Being a parent had very little to do with blood or birth, but what you did and felt.
‘I won’t say anything to him.’
‘Jago probably worked out long ago that things aren’t quite what they seem. I think it’s been the least of his concerns in the past few years and the least of them now.’
‘But he knows you’re going to meet this man again?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve been perfectly open about that and he’s happy for me. David is a professor now and he’s been a widower for the past two years. My friend emailed to tell me at Christmas and said he wanted to get in touch. As soon as Jago agreed to come home, I didn’t hesitate. I’d hoped he would take over at the Mount and I must admit I was horrified that he wanted to sell, but I just kept on crossing my fingers and trusting that the place would work its magic on him.’
Thank goodness it did, thought Miranda, shuddering to think how close she’d come to losing everything. ‘So have you seen David since your … holiday?’
‘My affair, dear. Call a spade a spade. You don’t have to be coy. We were at it like rabbits for the whole three weeks and I have seen him, if not in the flesh. I’m not as inept on the computer as I let Jago believe. We’ve talked on Skype and he’s still a beautiful man. I feel the same about him as I always did, and he says he feels the same about me. I don’t have forever at my time of life but I hope I have long enough. I’m not prepared to waste a single moment from now on.’
Lady St Merryn’s face was luminous, her eyes a young woman of twenty-one, full of hope and excitement and passion. Miranda did something she’d never done before. She put her arms around her hugged her. ‘I’m so happy for you, Lady St Merryn.’
Lady St Merryn patted her back warmly. ‘My dear, if you’re going to marry Jago, you’ll really have to stop calling me Lady St Merryn. Hilary will be perfectly acceptable.’
Hilary? Miranda didn’t think she could and as for marrying Jago … ‘He hasn’t actually asked me yet,’ she said.
‘Oh he will, I know him. He’s not like his father. He’s a serial monogamist, which is his downfall. He cares too much about people and that’s why he will get hurt and already has been. It’s also why he’s ten times the man his father was, or perhaps … that’s why he is the good man he is.’
She took Miranda’s hand in hers and, touched, Miranda didn’t know how to reply.
‘Will you come back and see us at the Mount, um, Hilary?’ she asked, the name feeling very strange on her lips.
‘Of course, and you will come and see David and me?’
‘Try to stop us.’
Moments later, Jago stood in front of their table, with a tray of glasses, looking at them with amusement and a definite trace of suspicion.
‘What am I missing?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ said Miranda.
Hilary took a flute from the tray and toasted them both. ‘Champagne, excellent. To all our futures, the Mount included.’
A few hours later, with Hilary soaring somewhere over the Atlantic, Jago stowed Miranda’s overnight bag in the rack of their couchette on the night train back to Penzance. Miranda watched the lights of London slip by as the train pulled out of Paddington. She thought she might go pop with h
appiness. ‘It’s going to be a long journey back to Cornwall,’ she said as Jago took off his jacket and hung it on the door.
He slipped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her hair. ‘And this is a very small cabin. So you can’t get away from me.’
‘I don’t want to,’ she whispered. ‘Not ever.’
‘In that case, Miss Whiplash, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.’
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