by Liz Fielding
And what on earth was his problem with Jamie? They had clashed that first day, but he’d said nothing Kam hadn’t deserved. The man was a sweetheart and she was lucky to have him.
As for her dream wedding, the one built on a single kiss, she should have stuck with her original plan. Style over substance, like the marriage it was meant to celebrate.
Tomorrow. They would talk tomorrow.
Tonight she had to put on a happy face for Maryram and Hani and Suz and eat the dish that Jamie had cooked especially for them. The evening was a joyful one, filled with both tears and laughter, but for her it was a bittersweet occasion.
This happiness had been given to them by Kam and he should have been there to celebrate with them.
* * *
Kam waited until she was out of sight, watching the swing of her long dark hair, her long legs. She was holding her head up high but he would have given anything to see her expression. To know what she was feeling.
He waited until she was out of sight before lifting his hand to his mouth as if to preserve the tingle where he’d kissed her. Had he imagined that she was trembling? Or had that been his own struggle to hold back?
He’d totally lost it that day outside the register office. He had intended no more than a touch of lips to convince the wretched woman that he wasn’t forcing Agnès to marry him against her will. As if anyone could force her to do anything.
But the little moan that escaped her lips had snapped his careful restraint and she had fully participated in the kiss that followed. He’d hoped it was a turning point but had she thought it was just part of the show?
She’d hadn’t wanted to wear his ring and tonight she’d raised her lips to him as if it was a duty.
He didn’t want duty; she had to show him if she wanted more from him, that she might, after all, return his feelings.
Right now, it seemed as if it was the pugnacious and protective chef she couldn’t let go, even when she was sacrificing herself on the altar of the damned castle.
Right at the moment, he could have taken a match to it himself.
Henry gave an impatient bark, standing up in the boat, urging him to come on board, but Dora leapt out and trotted over to lean against his ankle as if she understood.
‘Not so silly, are you?’ he said, scooping her up. She licked his neck, then nestled herself in the crook of his arm, like a little warm comfort blanket. ‘Am I being an idiot?’
The answer, since he was asking a dog for advice, was plainly yes and it didn’t get any better. Having found no answers in the long walk along the creek path to the quay, he went into the bar of the Ferryside to slake his thirst first with a beer, and then numb his feelings with a large Scotch.
He knew there was no solution to be found in the bottom of a glass but he was in no hurry to go back to the castle. Henry, however, had other ideas. After an hour, he stood and growled quietly at his side until the landlord gently suggested he take his dog’s advice and go home.
There was the faint scent of something spicy in the kitchen; no doubt the sainted Jamie had cooked Suz’s favourite dish for her family. He might wish the man to Hades, but his stomach was growling and, having settled the dogs in the mud room, he raided the fridge for leftovers.
Agnès, he decided, had a point. Even cold, it was the best thing he’d eaten in a week.
He knew he was behaving like a jealous oaf, for no good reason. She might not be in love with him but Agnès wouldn’t cheat. With luck she’d put his behaviour down to exhaustion. Or he could just tell her the truth. That leaving her standing on the side of the road outside the registrar’s office with the taste of her mouth on his lips had just about torn his heart out.
Maybe it was as simple telling her that he loved her.
Smiling to himself, he unhooked his key from its place behind the reception desk and made his way up to the Captain’s Suite.
He’d just slid it into the lock when he heard a tap on a door out of sight, around the corner. No doubt Suz and her family still finding things to talk about. He turned the key, opened the door then stopped as he heard a man’s voice, then a soft laugh from Agnès...
There was only one man around here with an accent like that. The pair of them were in her room and in a blind rage he strode down the corridor to see Agnès with her arms around Jamie.
He was already swinging his fist when he saw a movement in the room behind them.
Suzanne?
Confused, he hesitated and the next moment found himself flat on the floor, looking up at Agnès. She was standing over him, hands on hips, glaring at him with an expression that had pretty much the same power to sober him up as Jamie’s fist.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’
‘Making a fool of myself?’ he suggested, hoping that she might smile.
He felt as if he’d been hit by a half-brick but still had enough sense to realise that it was Suzanna fussing over Jamie, kissing his knuckles, putting her arm around him, doing the there, there bit that if he wasn’t such an idiot Agnès would be doing for him.
‘I love you,’ he said, because right at that moment nothing less would do.
‘Have you been drinking?’
Her hair was loose around her face, she’d taken off every scrap of make-up and was wearing something loose and baggy with a cartoon mouse on the front that didn’t quite make it to her knees.
‘Not enough, because I’m stone-cold sober.’
‘Sober as a newt. Jamie, help me to get him up.’
Jamie looked as if he was ready to help him over the tower battlements.
‘I can manage,’ he said quickly and made it to his feet unaided, despite the fact that his head was still swimming from the blow. He eased his jaw, gingerly testing to make sure it was all in one piece.
‘Okay, drama over,’ Agnès said. ‘Suzanna, you’d better put some ice on Jamie’s hand.’
‘Y-yes...’
‘You,’ she said, taking his elbow in an iron grip, ‘will come with me.’
‘It’s Jamie and Suzanna?’ he said, as she frogmarched him back to his suite. ‘But you were hugging him.’
‘Because they came to tell me, wanted me to be the first to know, that they’re engaged to be married.’
He let slip an expletive. ‘Sorry...’
She stopped at his door. ‘You asked me if there was anyone, Kam. Do you honestly think I would take everything that you are offering and then...?’ Words apparently failed her. ‘Does that hurt?’
‘Not much,’ he lied. Nowhere near as much as he deserved.
‘That’s a pity. Do you need to go to A & E?’
‘No,’ he said, trying not to wince as she ran soft, cool fingers lightly over his jaw, checking to make sure. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll apologise to Jamie and Suzanna in the morning, but I don’t know what I can ever say—’
‘Don’t!’ She held up a warning finger. ‘Not another word. Go and sit down before you fall down while I fetch something to put on that.’
He knew that voice. His mother had used exactly that tone when he’d fallen out of a tree and his new jacket had been torn and covered in blood. As a boy he’d thought it was anger at the damage to his clothes. Having lived a little longer, seen a lot more, he knew that the anger was driven by fear of how much worse it could have been. By love.
He had yet to discover how much worse this was going to be. Whether he could ever put it right. Agnès’s anger was the only thing that gave him hope.
Suzanna had Jamie’s hand in a bowl of crushed ice by the time Agnès made it to the kitchen.
‘I’m so sorry, Jamie.’
‘No worries,’ he said, grinning. ‘I thought he was a cold fish, that you were making a mistake, Agnès, but you’ve got to like a guy who’ll go in fighting for his lassie.’
‘He just lay there on
the floor and said he loved you,’ Suzanna said, with a sigh. ‘That’s so romantic.’
It was barbaric, she thought, but he had shown his feelings in the clearest way possible. And he’d said the only words that mattered, not in some clichéd I love you moment when she wouldn’t have known whether he meant it or was just saying what he thought she wanted to hear.
That declaration had had an undeniable ring of truth.
She gave both Suzanna and Jamie a hug. ‘Name the day and your wedding will be my—our—gift to you both.’
* * *
‘Hold that.’
Kam was lying propped up on the bed, only half awake, when something hard and wet was slapped against his jaw.
‘Agnès—’
‘Take these.’
He gritted his teeth and took bag of frozen peas and the painkillers she offered, washing the pills down with the bottle of water she handed him.
‘He was in your room,’ he said, as she turned away, desperate for her to understand how that had made him feel. ‘You had your arms around him.’
‘Tomorrow, Kam. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.’
‘Please... Just let me say this.’ He shook his head, wished he hadn’t, but this wasn’t the moment to let a thumping headache get in the way of what he had to say. Because if ever there was a moment for honesty, openness, this was it. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got it so wrong—’
‘I don’t understand how you could even think I’d do that.’
‘Because I was being vile to you,’ he said. ‘He was being protective, standing up for you. I refused to admit it then, but that was the moment that I knew...’
‘What? What did you know, Kam?’
‘It was the moment that I knew why I’d come back. I thought it was all about showing everyone that they were wrong about me but today, coming across the creek on the ferry, knowing that you’d be there, waiting for me, the sun was shining.’
‘It’s rained nearly all day,’ she pointed out.
‘It was a metaphorical sun.’
‘Oh.’ She looked down so that he shouldn’t see that she was trying not to smile.
‘It was raining the day I left,’ he said, ‘and it has been raining ever since. That’s metaphorical rain,’ he added, hoping to make her laugh, but when she looked up there was no trace of the smile.
She was marrying him because she felt he deserved his legacy, but he didn’t want a convenient marriage, he wanted a real one; he wanted her in his arms, in his life, in his bed.
‘It was raining the day I came back,’ he said, going for broke, ‘but it’s been getting brighter, warmer each day and today I knew that I was coming home and if it had been throwing down thunder, lightning and hail, the sun would still have been shining for me.’
‘Metaphorically.’
‘I’m not making much sense, am I?’
‘Home?’ she prompted.
‘Not to Priddy Castle, Agnès. I thought it mattered, that taking it would put everything right, but we can’t go back, we can’t change what happened. We can only go on and live better lives. That’s what I’ve discovered since I came back. That I wanted to stay here and make a good life with you. I just didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘You’re telling me now,’ she said, sitting on the bed beside him.
‘Clearly it took Jamie to knock some sense into me.’
‘You said you loved me. Did you mean it?’
‘I was prepared to do anything to prove that to you.’ He tossed the peas aside and took her hand. ‘Save the castle. Help Suzanna’s family, even have a damn turkey-baster baby if that’s what it took to win you back...’
‘No.’
The word hit him as hard as Jamie’s fist. He physically recoiled, groaned. ‘I’ve done it again,’ he said, wanting to draw her into his arms and hold her, but unsure how she would react. ‘I’ve made you cry.’
‘Is that why the world’s gone blurry?’ Her voice was thick with emotion, but her fingers closed around his hand, holding him close. ‘I was afraid, Kam. Afraid that you would take what you wanted, get your heir and then leave me. That would have been your perfect revenge.’
‘You thought I could do that?’ Even as he said it, he could see why she might believe it.
‘It would have given you everything.’
‘Everything I thought I wanted. Nothing of any worth. Revenge is a wild justice, Agnès. You lose a lot more than you think you’ve gained.’
‘You say that and yet you thought I could take everything you were offering and still cheat on you with Jamie.’
‘My heart said no, but everywhere I turned he was there and you were standing up for him.’
‘I didn’t realise... I knew you didn’t like him but I thought your problem with him was all about that first day when he challenged you.’
‘It didn’t help. It’s a long time since anyone did that. Except you. But then you always did.’
‘You can never say that you didn’t know what you were getting.’
‘I’m not your grandfather. I want an equal as a wife, a woman who will stand toe to toe with me when she has to, by my side always. I should have told you how I felt when I asked you to marry me, but I thought, after the way I behaved when I arrived, that you’d think I was just saying what I thought you wanted to hear.’
‘Instead you acted.’
‘I wanted to show you—’
‘I’m not talking about the castle, or about Suzanna’s family. I’m talking about when you tried to hit Jamie.’ Her eyes were sparkling through the tears. ‘In vino veritas.’
‘I would have hit him if Suzanna hadn’t distracted me. And for the record I would have done the same if I’d been stone-cold sober. But you’re right about him. He is a damn fine chef.’
‘Tell him that and he’ll forgive you anything.’
‘The only person I care about forgiving me is you. If I could go back to the day I arrived and do things differently...’
‘What would you do, Kam?’
‘Stand in your office doorway and watch you for a while and then, when you looked around, I’d smile and say I’ve missed you. Because that’s the honest truth. Whenever something unusual caught my eye my first thought was Agnès will love this... It was infuriating, but it was so much a part of who I was that I couldn’t stop myself.’
She laid a hand against his face. ‘Do you think I don’t know? A dolphin swam up the creek last summer and I actually turned to call you.’
He wiped his fingers across her wet cheeks then across his own, anointing himself with her tears in a primeval gesture that bound them together as no vow ever could.
‘I love you, Agnès Prideaux. I always have, always will.’ He stood up and she put out a hand to steady him as the room swung.
‘Are you all right, Kam?’
‘Never better,’ he said, and then he went down on his knees and, taking her hand in his, he said, ‘Ignore everything we have said until this moment, wipe the slate clean. I love you, Agnès Prideaux. Will you honour me by becoming my wife?’
Kam Faulkner was the proudest man that Agnès had ever known and he was on his knees in front of her but, like him, she wanted an equal partnership and she sank to her knees in front of him.
‘On the first of June, I will be in the chapel waiting for you and I will give you my whole heart. No reservations. No limits.’ And then she took his face in both hands and kissed him.
The heartbeat before his lips answered hers felt like an eternity, as if the world were holding its breath, then he gathered her in, kissing her with a tender sweetness that melted all lingering doubts.
The warmth, his scent, was so familiar that it felt like coming home; thrilling, and yet at the same time it was so new that she shivered.
He drew back a little, asking the silent question.
Did she want this? Had he misread the moment? Beyond words, she uttered a shameless little moan. She had waited a lifetime for this moment and she reached up, tangling her fingers in Kam’s hair, drawing him back to her, deepening the kiss.
They were so close that she could feel his heart pounding next to hers as the silk of his tongue claimed her mouth, lighting up the long smouldering touchpaper of desire, and for a moment everything was perfect.
After a while he drew back a little.
‘I have something for you. I was going to give it to you on the beach but now I’m glad I totally messed that up because this is the perfect moment.’ He reached into his pocket and produced a small velvet box. ‘I listened to everything you said, and I described what you wanted to a jewellery designer who came highly recommended. This is what she created for you.’
Agnès held her breath as Kam opened the box, but there, nestling against pale blue velvet, was the ring she would have designed for herself. A simple, plain band of white gold into which three large diamonds had been flush set. They caught the lamplight and flashed back a rainbow of colours.
‘It’s apparently called a gypsy setting,’ Kam said, lifting it out. ‘The diamonds don’t sparkle as much as in other settings, but it’s hard-wearing and easy to clean.’ Then, clearly realising that wasn’t quite how it was meant to be, he said, ‘That came out all wrong.’
She would have laughed, but as she looked up she saw uncertainty in his eyes, the hunted look of a man who had tried to do something wonderful but found the result ashes in his hands.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It came out exactly right. It’s absolutely perfect.’
‘You’re not just saying that? Maybe you’d like to talk to her yourself.’
‘It’s as if you read my mind and then created something way beyond my imagination.’ He still looked doubtful and she held out her hand. ‘Will you put it on? To make sure it fits?’
Of course it fitted. She wiggled her fingers and the diamonds sparkled back at her.
‘I love it.’ She looked up. ‘I love you.’
He swayed slightly and she suddenly realised how grey he looked.