Snowbound in the Earl's Castle
Page 17
But she was. She was a coward. Too scared to stay and fight for the man she loved. Even when he’d given her a second chance she’d just stood there, frozen to the spot, too much of a jellyfish to think, let alone speak.
But Evie hadn’t got off lightly. She’d paid a high price for her freedom. Bertie had, too. Marcus had been right about that as well, damn him. And she suspected he’d hit the nail on the head when he’d told her running away didn’t solve anything—that you just left others to foot the bill for you. Had she done that to her family? Had she hurt them in ways she hadn’t even realised?
She thought of Gram, of her sweet lilac letters and how she ached for her girls to come home...
Yes. The Earl had been right about that, too.
And about what Gram had said about her being a wandering soul? Well, she could see now that she had taken as much as she could from her family, and then had just...checked out. For so long she’d tried to play peacemaker, felt the responsibility for keeping them all together, but once she’d found out the truth she’d shut down, and she’d never really woken up again.
She put her wine glass down. ‘Oh, Basil,’ she said, standing up and moving over to place a hand on his rough, patchy fur. ‘I’ve been such a fool.’
How could anyone get close if she was keeping them at arm’s length? And how could they include her if she walled herself up in her own little tower like Rapunzel and refused to come down?
She’d made herself an outsider, hadn’t she?
She grabbed the wine bottle and sloshed some more Merlot into her glass, because the thoughts that followed really had her shaking.
* * *
There was only so much time a woman and a badger could spend cooped up together in a tiny little fake New England cottage without one of them going stark staring mad. Faith suspected the badger might be doing the better job of staying sane and so, despite the driving wind that lifted her hair by its roots and made it dance, she ventured out into the cold winter morning.
It was a Sunday, but plenty of cute little coffee shops and art galleries and nice little boutiques were open. She didn’t stop at any of them, but when she passed a little florist’s shop she paused at the window. It wasn’t even a trendy one, with big bouquets in bulbs of cellophane keeping the flowers hydrated. It was the sort of shop you’d go to get your elderly aunt a pot plant, but a little white ceramic planter in the window drew her attention.
She stared at it for a second, then stepped inside the shop and looked around. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the woman behind the counter. ‘What is that plant in the window? The little shrub with the yellow flowers.’
The woman looked skyward for a second. ‘Hypericum calycinum,’ she said, with the air of a woman who knew what she was talking about. ‘One of the plants also known as the Rose of Sharon. Pretty, isn’t it? Make a nice Christmas present,’ she added hopefully.
‘I’ll take it,’ Faith said, surprising herself. There was no way she could take it home on the plane—especially as she already had an unwieldy badger-shaped bit of hand luggage to deal with.
The woman fetched the plant. ‘A hundred years ago someone who planted this in their garden would have known what it meant,’ she said as she put it in a thin blue-and-white-striped carrier bag.
Faith got the idea the shop had been quiet for days and its owner was in desperate need of someone to chat to. ‘What does it mean?’ she asked almost absently as she rummaged for some cash.
‘Love never fails,’ the woman said, sighing. ‘It’s sad no one understands the language of flowers any more... Some of these avant-garde things that florist up the high street does! She has no idea of all the horrible things she’s wishing her customers.’
Faith stood open-mouthed, staring at the plastic bag. She felt as if she’d been slapped upside the head with her grandmother’s iron skillet.
A florist.
Evie Groggins had been a florist’s daughter!
* * *
Once again a stranger was sitting nervously in the corner of the sofa in the yellow drawing room. The middle-aged woman was squeezing her handbag ever so tightly, Marcus thought. She looked as if she might jump like a frightened rabbit if either he or his grandfather even breathed hard.
‘It’s very kind of you to come, Donna,’ Bertie said, smiling as he stirred his cup of tea.
Donna nodded, but her eyes were wide. ‘I can’t get over it,’ she mumbled. ‘The likes of you and me being related... I always knew Granny was a bit of a lady, but...’ She shook her head again. ‘I can’t get over it,’ she repeated faintly.
‘And you’re a florist?’ Marcus asked, trying to draw her out, to make her feel more comfortable.
‘That’s right. Third generation. I run the shop that Granny and Grandpa started before the war—’ She looked nervously at Bertie, then back at Marcus. ‘Sorry... I didn’t mean to mention him.’ She squeezed the handbag harder.
‘That’s quite all right, my dear,’ his grandfather said. ‘I’m just glad to know a little bit about what happened to her.’
Donna looked up and smiled. ‘She was a nice lady. Gentle...quiet... She had a lovely way about her—like you do, if you don’t mind me saying, sir.’
‘Was she happy?’ his grandfather said, doing a good job of hiding his pain behind his smile.
‘I think so.’ Donna looked across at Marcus. ‘At least she didn’t seem unhappy.’ She stopped abruptly, as if a thought had just popped into her head. ‘Except at Christmas,’ she said, smiling faintly. ‘Which is odd, isn’t it? Because that’s normally a happy time.’
‘How so?’
She pulled a face. ‘It’s nothing, really. Something silly... It’s just that every Christmas morning, when everyone was laughing and shouting and opening presents, she’d put on her hat and coat and go for a walk—no matter what the weather. She’d be gone for a few hours and then she’d come back again, smile, say she was ready now and then she’d cook the Christmas dinner. Did it every year like clockwork.’
Bertie’s tea cup rattled on its saucer and Marcus raced forward to take it out of his hand.
‘Oh, dear!’ Donna said, standing up so quickly she almost knocked her own cup over. ‘I haven’t said something out of turn, have I?’
Bertie shook his head. ‘No, my dear. Quite the opposite, in fact.’
Marcus picked up Donna’s tea, handed it to her and motioned for her to sit down again. ‘Christmas Day was my grandfather’s birthday, you see...’
‘Anyway,’ Bertie said, and placed his hands on the arms of his chair to push himself to standing, ‘no matter, my dear. Now...let’s go and take a look at this window that started all the fuss...’
* * *
All three of them were standing in front of the window, admiring it, when there was a crash at the other end of the chapel. Marcus turned to see something come flying through the door.
It took him a second to realise that something was Faith.
She waved a couple of crumpled sheets of paper at them as she kept running towards them. They looked like something that had been printed out from the internet and then chewed up and spat out by a dog.
‘The window! It’s been there all along!’ she said breathlessly. ‘The message has been there all along—right under our noses!’ She was standing in front of them now, and she paused to rest her hands on her knees, hunched over, and dragged in some much-needed oxygen. ‘Flowers...’ she said weakly. ‘The language of flowers...’
Donna turned to look at the stained glass again. ‘Oh, yes! I can see what you mean! There’s ivy and daisies, lemon blossom and lavender...even roses...’
Faith stood up so fast Marcus guessed she was seeing stars. ‘You mean you know about this stuff?’
Bertie, who was looking far from displeased at Faith’s sudden and unscheduled interruption, smiled at her. ‘Faith, I’d like to introduce you to my niece—well, my half-niece—Donna.’
Faith’s eyes grew wide. She reached forward a
nd shook the other woman’s hand. ‘Lovely to meet you.’ She waved the sheets of paper again. ‘There was only so much I could find on the web, and I wasn’t sure what some of them were...’
Donna was touching some of the flowers lower down on the window, frowning.
‘Do you know what they all mean?’ Faith asked. ‘Would the words fit together to form a sentence or a phrase?’
The other woman smiled softly at her. ‘Much simpler than that. Some of these flowers represent the same things.’ She looked at Bertie. ‘Did you say your father made this for Granny?’
His grandfather nodded.
Donna’s smiled warmed further. ‘She would have liked this if she’d seen it.’
‘What does it all mean?’ Bertie asked.
Donna turned back to the window. ‘Well, the roses symbolise love, with each colour and type meaning something slightly different. The daisies and lemon blossom mean fidelity and loyal love, and the others...they all have meanings to do with ardent devotion and marriage. Oh, how odd...’ Donna tipped her head on one side. ‘That woman in the middle of them...she looks like photos of Granny when she was younger.’
That made the other three stop and stare at the window again.
* * *
Faith couldn’t stop looking at Marcus all the way through high tea, while Donna and Bertie chatted away like old friends in the background. It wasn’t that he looked any different, just that she felt different—just like the window. Now she was looking at him in the right way she could suddenly see all the things she’d been blind to.
She desperately wanted to find some time to be alone with him, to tell him Rapunzel had finally hired a bulldozer and done some much-needed demolition work. But after tea it was time for the Carol Service, and everybody wanted to talk to Bertie and Marcus about the chapel, about how perfect it looked and how excited they were it was going to be used again.
Faith stood beside Marcus, singing softly in the candlelight. All around her songs of hope and faith and love swirled in the air, and she started to understand just how intricately those three things were connected—just how they fed and supported each other—and she saw how poor she’d been in each until she’d met Marcus.
Heart pounding, she looked at his hand down by his side. It seemed to be waiting for something. Missing something. Slowly, keeping her breath in her throat, she slid her fingers into his. They fitted perfectly.
He started a little, but he caught her hand and held it firmly before she could react and pull away again. It felt so good it was all she could do to stop the tears sliding down her face. Finally that thing inside her that had always fluttered around like a trapped bird, making her restless, came to rest.
He didn’t let go after the service. He kept her hand in his even though she knew she could have pulled away if she’d wanted to. People came up to congratulate him on resurrecting the old tradition, to tell him what a great time they’d had at the ball, and he smiled and chatted, all the time still holding her hand. She suspected he didn’t want to let go in case she disappeared again.
Eventually the last person went out through the door and they were alone in the candlelit space.
She turned towards him and wound her other hand into his free one, tugged downwards to pull him towards her. He obliged, but stopped just short of kissing her, his lips hovering millimetres above hers. She closed her eyes and bridged the gap, softly exploring. In some ways it was like kissing him for the first time.
Even though she’d felt his skin beneath her fingers before, felt the touch of his lips on hers, part of her had been guilty of seeing him like a figure in her storybook—or in the windows she repaired. A noble knight or a prince. Beautiful, but not real. Not something she could have or hold. Or keep.
Marcus groaned and drew her close to him, kissed her both deeply and tenderly. This time she saw everything she’d missed before—the evidence of things she’d been too scared to hope for.
She pulled away and smiled at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
He just smiled back, making her knees feel like half-melted chocolate.
‘You were right. I was running away. I was being a coward.’
He shook his head. ‘I pushed too hard. I made you run.’
She wished she could let him take the blame, but she couldn’t. ‘No,’ she said, looking into his eyes with frankness, making sure every last barrier had been smashed to the floor. ‘You might have been right about the other stuff, but I said it was my choice, my mistake, and I was right about that.’
Marcus let out a soft little laugh. ‘Okay. No arguing about that one.’ He dipped his head and kissed her again. ‘What matters is that you’re back.’
‘And I’m staying,’ she added. ‘If that’s okay with you?’
Marcus growled, then kissed her soundly. She could have sworn she’d heard him mutter ‘impossible woman’ at some point.
‘Oh...but I still need to go home for the holidays,’ she said. ‘I have things I need to say—to my sisters and to my mother...to my dad. Especially to my grandmother!’
He nodded. ‘Of course you do,’ he said. ‘And I know it’s not going to be an easy visit. That’s why I’m coming with you—no arguments.’ He reached for her hand. ‘You don’t have to do this on your own, Faith. Let me be the outsider for once.’
‘I love you!’ The words burst out of her before she could even think about stopping herself, but then she realised she didn’t want to. ‘Don’t ever stop believing in me—even when I’m stupid enough to stop believing in myself.’
Marcus smiled that wolf-like smile of his before setting her down and stepping back. He gave her a look that sent a million volts charging through her, before dipping one hand in his pocket and pulling it out again. Faith couldn’t see what he was holding. It was too dark in the candlelit chapel, and his fingers almost covered the small object.
It was only when he brought it up right in front of her face that she realised it was a box, and only when he eased it open and she saw a flash of candlelight reflected in its contents that she guessed its contents.
‘That’s...that’s a...ring,’ she stammered.
‘I know,’ Marcus said. ‘Straight to the point, as always. That’s my Faith.’
He took the ring from the box and held it out to her. It was stunning. An antique, she guessed. Art Deco, with a large square cut diamond.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
He blinked slowly. ‘It was my grandmother’s. I thought about giving you Evie’s ring, but it has too much of a sad past. I wanted something connected with a lifetime of happy memories.’
She looked at the ring in its cushion. ‘Marcus, I can’t take this! It’s a family heirloom! Some day somebody in your family might need to give it to the woman they want to marry.’
He stared at her, his eyebrows raised and an off-centre smile twisting one side of his mouth.
Oh.
Oh!
He just had.
* * *
The next day Faith woke in her turret room again. The light was so bright that she wondered if they’d another significant snowfall, but then she looked at the clock and realised it was halfway through the morning. She leapt out of bed and started getting dressed in so much of a flurry that she put her panties on the wrong way round. Twice.
Her flight was in less than two hours. They were never going to get to the airport in time!
Not bothering with socks and shoes, she bolted out of her room and ran down the large stone staircase, looking for someone. Anyone.
She found Bertie, sitting as usual in his armchair in the yellow drawing room.
‘Plane!’ she said breathlessly. ‘Airport...’
‘Do sit down, my dear,’ he said, hardly looking up from his paper. ‘Don’t worry. Marcus has got it all under control.’
Faith did nothing of the sort. ‘But—’
‘And congratulations. I’m very much looking forward to having you as part of the family.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, glancing out of the window. ‘But about the plane...’
Bertie waved her away. ‘Just go and finish getting dressed. Marcus will be back soon. And tell that boy I want a few great-
grandchildren before I pop my clogs.’
She made herself take a deep breath before leaning over and kissing Bertie again.
‘You’re a meddling old man,’ she said, smiling at him, ‘and if I didn’t know any better I’d think you and Gram had cooked this whole thing up together.’
That stopped her in her tracks. They hadn’t, had they...?
But before she could interrogate him further Bertie flicked his newspaper, making it stand up straight.
‘Didn’t you say something about catching a plane?’ he said, smiling like a cat. ‘You might want to go and finish getting dressed.’
The plane! Gram was going to kill her if she didn’t make it home for Christmas.
She ran back up to her turret bedroom and got herself packed as fast as she could. When she had just put her toothbrush back in her overnight bag the door opened.
‘Ready?’ Marcus said, but he didn’t let her pick up her bag or leave the room. Instead he crossed the room and kissed her thoroughly.
Faith didn’t resist at first, but then she started softly nudging his arm.
‘What?’ he said, as he bent to kiss one eyelid and then the other.
‘We haven’t got time for this!’ she said. ‘We’ve got to go. As it is I might miss the flight, and any chances of getting a standby at Christmas are practically non-existent!’
Marcus said as he reluctantly set her free, ‘You mean we might miss the flight. I booked a ticket last night. I meant what I said about coming with you. Besides, I need to talk to your father about something while I’m there.’
And then he led an open-mouthed Faith out through the castle and onto the large oval lawn. Faith gasped when she saw what was sitting there.