by Erica James
Arthur tutted and went to pour himself a drink.
Upstairs, and going in search of Julia, before his father got to her first, he went to warn her to be on her guard.
‘Will you really leave in the morning?’ she asked.
He heard the despair in her voice. ‘If I have to, I will.’
‘Where will you go? Back to London?’
‘No, I shall try my luck at Island House. Romily’s a good sort, she’ll take me in with a bit of luck. You should come with me. Charlie too.’
Julia visibly trembled.
It was then that he reminded her of what they’d discussed in the garden, that she had to stay strong.
‘You can do this,’ he said. ‘Because you’re doing it for your son’s sake.’
‘You’re right,’ she murmured. ‘I must keep reminding myself of that.’
He left her and went to run himself a hot bath. His father being too tight with his money to install central heating, the house was bloody freezing, apart from the few rooms where fires were lit.
Lying in the bath with the water as hot as he could bear, Ralph thought of Julia asking him why he wanted to help her, and his answer about him having had a Road to Damascus change of heart. And who would have ever thought that would happen? But he was determined to do better with his life. He’d frittered away too much of it already. It was partly because he had devoted the last ten years or more to provoking his father. His every action had been calculated with revenge in mind, to get his own back on the bastard for the way he had treated Ralph as a child. And how he still enjoyed humiliating him.
The beatings began when his father discovered that Ralph had been secretly receiving letters from his mother in France. He had always known his father had a temper and a streak of cruelty running through him, but overnight it was transformed into something far more dangerous. A straightforward punishment of being whacked with a cane or shoe, like they were at school, wasn’t enough for Arthur Devereux. For him it had to be more of a sadistic performance, a show of his strength and power. To this day, Ralph could still see the sick gleam in his father’s eye when he summoned Ralph to his study, and then when he locked the door and opened the drawer of his desk where he kept the cat o’ nine tails. The ordeal would last as long as it took for his father to satiate his appetite for violence. The look on his face afterwards would be one of iron-cold indifference.
Not a word did Ralph say to anyone about the punishments. Instead he vowed that one day he would pay his father back. And with what Julia had now told him, he was pretty sure he was close to doing just that.
But he wasn’t doing it only for himself, to honour the promise he’d made. He now had a better cause: he wanted to save young Charlie-Boy from experiencing what he had. It made him feel physically ill to think of the boy going through what he had suffered.
Out of the bath now, he dried himself as quickly as he could and dressed even faster. Pulling on his warmest sweater, a black polo neck, he thought how much he’d enjoyed being around his little brother. In the past he had not wanted anything to do with him, which seemed petty now. But then nor had he been interested in getting to know Julia. He hadn’t seen any point in doing so. But he could honestly say he enjoyed being around the kid; he was fun and full of childish innocence. Had Ralph been like that once upon a time? Before his father had crushed and poisoned him?
Miss Casey, her brooding presence casting a gloom over the proceedings and adding to the chill of the room, served dinner. The joyless atmosphere could not have been worse, and given how many excruciating meals Ralph had eaten with his father, that was saying something.
From the moment they sat down, Arthur kept up a steady barrage of reprimands for Charles, criticising him for eating too noisily or too quickly, or for putting his elbows on the table.
‘Charles,’ he said now, ‘how many times do I have to tell you not to scrape your knife and fork against your plate?’
‘Sorry Father.’
‘If you can’t behave like a gentleman, you’ll have to eat in the kitchen with the servants. Is that what you want?’
‘No Father.’
‘Julia,’ he snapped, turning his attention to her, ‘what on earth is the matter with you? Why aren’t you eating?’
‘Sorry, Arthur, I don’t seem to be very hungry.’
‘Then I shall have to call for Dr Monk from London again. I’m sure he’ll make a special visit on Boxing Day if I ask him to.’
‘I doubt that,’ muttered Ralph, ‘not if this weather keeps up.’
‘Did I ask for your opinion?’
‘No, but you can have it for free. Miss Casey, I’ll have another potato, please, if it’s not too much trouble for you?’
The woman actually looked to Arthur for permission and after he’d acquiesced, she dropped a potato onto his plate.
After she’d left the room, and in a valiant attempt to jolly things along for his stepbrother’s sake, Ralph suggested a game of cards after dinner. ‘Or better still, how about a game of Monopoly?’
‘Out of the question,’ said Arthur before the boy had a chance to reply. ‘Charles needs to go to bed early tonight. From what Miss Casey tells me, he’s been having far too many late nights since coming home from school.’
‘But it’s Christmas Eve,’ said Ralph. ‘Let the lad have some fun.’
Arthur crashed his fists down on the table, making them all jump. ‘Enough! You will not interfere in how this house is run. Charles, go to your room now.’
Julia’s lower lip wobbled as the boy did as he was told. He was probably only too happy to escape.
‘I think I’ll go to my room as well,’ Ralph said, tossing his napkin onto his plate.
Late that night, unable to sleep, and regretting he hadn’t finished his dinner, Ralph went in search of something to eat from the larder. Wrapped in his dressing gown, his slippers on, he padded down the wide staircase as quietly as he could. The wall to his left was covered with heavy, gold-framed oil paintings of hunting and moorland scenes, grazing Highland cattle, and noble stags. His father had bought the paintings from country house sales, the owners no longer able to afford to run their once great houses. From the same sales Arthur had bought most of the furniture and rugs to furnish the Hall, along with a plethora of stuffed animals’ heads and bronze statues. He would have taken enormous delight in every single purchase, gloating that he could afford to snap up these family heirlooms, as though they were cheap trinkets in a penny bazaar.
Ralph was back upstairs with a tray of cold meats and pickles as well as a bottle of wine from the cellar, when he heard noises coming from the floor above him – where Miss Casey had her rooms. Curious, he abandoned the tray and crept as stealthily as a cat burglar up the narrow flight of stairs.
On the top landing, he pressed his ear to the door of Miss Casey’s room. Holding his breath, he quietly bent down to see if he could look through the keyhole. But he was out of luck; his view was obscured by the key in the lock.
But he didn’t need to see what was going on inside the room. He knew. More importantly, he knew who was in there with Miss Casey.
His father.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Island House, Melstead St Mary
December 1962
Romily
Yet to go to bed, Romily was alone and sitting at her desk in the library. Behind her, the carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half hour, signalling that it was half-past twelve and thirty minutes of Christmas Day had already passed.
Time was a strange phenomenon. As a child one thinks it passes with inexorable slowness and that there’s simply too much of it wafting around. But as an adult, time is an altogether different commodity, there isn’t enough of it and it slips away faster than water gushing down a plughole.
‘I’ve spent too much time dwelling on the past .
. .’
Those were the words Red had used this afternoon when he’d answered Isabella’s question about his visit here not being a trip down memory lane. He had said what he did for Romily’s benefit, giving her a clear message; why else the look he’d given her?
With a fire burning in the grate, she had been sitting here for the last forty-five minutes, long after everyone else had retired to bed. She had been reflecting on what Red had said, knowing that there was a part of her that remained locked in the past.
In front of her was the wooden box which for all these years had contained Matteo’s letters. She lifted the lid, once more allowing the summery scent of lavender to escape. Was it now time to get rid of the letters? She would never be able to eradicate entirely that painful episode in her life, but would destroying them be a symbolic gesture, her way of finally laying that time to rest?
It was, she understood, part of the human condition to fall into the trap of looking back too much, no matter how hard one tried to look to the future. The trouble was, one was saddled with being the sum of one’s parts. It meant that everything a person did or experienced was thrown into the mix and affected one’s behaviour. But had Romily allowed the past, even unwittingly, to influence her too much?
Look how she had reacted at seeing Max with Isabella. The moment she set eyes on him, she had regarded him as the man she had known all those years ago; an inveterate womaniser. The thought of him playing fast and loose with Isabella’s affections appalled her. But as Isabella had rightly pointed out, Romily’s relationship with Jack proved that a person could change. The right person, as Jack had said, could actually change someone, so they became a better and happier person. She had done that for him, he had claimed. ‘You have transformed me,’ he’d said the day they married.
But how often did that happen? How many leopards were really capable of changing their spots? Was Max capable of undergoing such a transformation? Or was she doing him a disservice, had he already put his past behind him?
The bigger question she had to ask was far more difficult to answer – was she capable of changing? Could she shake off her own spots sufficiently in order to trust her feelings for Red?
If she thought only of the smaller picture, she could happily throw herself into a relationship with Red, but the moment she panned out to see the whole picture, she lost focus. Perhaps that was her mistake, trying too hard to gaze into the crystal ball of life. Why not simply enjoy the moment? It was what they had all done during the war. They had made whatever fun they could, and whenever they could.
There was no getting away from it, she had enjoyed herself immensely today going out into the village with Red and throwing herself into a snowball fight with him. Not since Isabella, Annelise, and Stanley had been children had she done anything like that. Nor, in a long time, had she kissed a man in the way she had Red.
They had been on their way to the village with the sledge when, and with no one else around, he had swept her up in his arms and kissed her, pressing her against the snow-covered tree. It had been the most delicious kiss, full of breathless passion, just as when they had kissed the night before. There was no mistaking the desire that existed between them. But could she trust it?
Since when had she been so distrustful of her feelings? Did it go back to that awful day – a day she had tried so hard to forget – when she lost her child?
Her mind instantly dodged answering the question by thinking of Annelise. Poor Annelise suffering just what Romily had all those years ago. What would she decide to do?
It was easy to think that in 1962 they lived in more enlightened times, but an illegitimate baby was still frowned upon. Just as it was when Romily discovered she was carrying a child who would never know its father.
She could have cast herself as a victim, but what good would that have done? It would only have been a lie. She had made love with Matteo with her eyes wide open, somehow believing that the worst couldn’t happen. Not to her. Why would it, when she saw herself as practically invincible? She had survived the crash in the Walrus, and any number of near misses, before and after, why would her luck run out and she fall pregnant?
Hearing the library door creak open, she looked up and was surprised to see Red peering in at her. He had gone to bed the same time as Isabella and Max, and she had assumed he would be out for the count like last night.
‘Waiting for Santa to arrive?’ he asked.
‘Just thinking over a few things,’ she said, closing the lid on the box.
‘May I come in?’
‘Of course.’
She motioned for him to sit in the comfortable chair to one side of the fire, which was still glowing and throwing out plenty of warmth.
‘So why aren’t you fast asleep?’ she asked, moving away from the desk to sit opposite him.
‘I was thinking about you and how much I’d enjoyed today.’
She smiled. ‘I enjoyed it too.’
‘That’s good to know.’
‘Is it?’
He leaned forward, his dressing gown opening slightly to reveal the blue silk of his pyjama top. ‘And what sort of a question is that?’
‘A fairly straightforward one, I’d say.’
‘The hell it is,’ he said with an easy laugh. ‘Everything with you is loaded with complicated significance. Do you ever just trust your gut and act on impulse?’
‘Not as much as I once did.’ Without meaning to, her gaze slid towards the box on her desk. ‘But since many years ago, it hasn’t been so easy for me to be quite so impulsive.’
His own gaze followed hers. ‘Did somebody let you down?’ he asked.
She shook her head at the leap of thought he’d made. ‘Yes. But I let myself down more. It’s perhaps the only thing I’ve done in my life that I regret.’
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
She thought of all that he had shared with her about his time in France, and of Sophie. But she couldn’t bring herself to be as honest in return. ‘Another time maybe,’ she said evasively.
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘You look and sound like you have a lot on your mind,’ he said.
‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘I do.’
‘Are you very bothered about Isabella and that fellow, Max?’
She smiled. ‘Does it show very much?’
‘You don’t approve of him, do you?’
‘I have my reasons.’
His elbows resting on the arms of the chair, he laced his hands together in front of him. ‘Were you and he, well . . . you know, an item some time ago?’
Her smile widened. ‘No. Max loved to charm and flirt, but it was no more than a game between us.’
‘No harm in that when you’re young and the sap is rising. But you know, he seems sincere enough around Isabella. To a complete stranger, that is. And I don’t regard myself as being too gullible when it comes to these things.’
‘I agree with you, he does seem to be genuinely concerned about Isabella.’
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour; it was one o’clock.
‘It’s late,’ she said, ‘I suppose we really should go up.’
‘Suddenly I’m not in the least bit tired. Are you?’
‘Not in the slightest,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you put some more coal on the fire, and I’ll pour us some brandy?’
‘I shouldn’t have anything to drink, not given my resolve to keep a cool head around you.’
‘I’m prepared to risk the consequences if you are.’
He smiled. ‘Go on then.’
She fetched two generous measures of brandy from the cabinet where she kept a selection of drinks. They stood in front of the fire and he raised his balloon glass to hers. ‘Happy Christmas to you, Mrs Devereux-Temple,’ he said softly.
‘And a Happy Christmas to you, too, Mr St Clair.’
‘I have a confession to make,’ he said, after they’d both taken a long sip of their drinks.
She eyed him warily. ‘You’re full of confessions, aren’t you?’
‘I’m afraid I’m about to break another promise I made to myself.’
She looked at his face in the soft light cast from the lamp on her desk as well as the glow of the firelight. How handsome he was, and how mesmerising his brilliantly dark eyes were. She put a hand to his cheek, something she had longed to do all evening. But with Isabella and Max around, she had kept herself in check. Now though, just the two of them, her desire for him raged through her.
‘What promise is that?’ she asked. She could see a vein pulsing in his neck and feel the sudden tautness in his body.
He turned his head into the palm of her hand and kissed it, his soft lips against her skin making her heart thud. ‘The one I made last night,’ he said slowly, now taking hold of her hand in his. ‘About not rushing things. But you see, I’d give anything to wake up in the morning with you by my side. It would be the perfect Christmas present. One I would always treasure.’
‘The thing about some promises,’ she said, transfixed by the yearning in his face, ‘is they’re just like parking meters.’
He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. ‘Whatever response I was expecting, or hoping for, it certainly wasn’t that!’
She smiled. ‘It’s really quite simple,’ she said. ‘The promise you made was the sort that wasn’t meant to last longer than twenty-four hours.’
‘It was?’
‘Oh yes. And,’ she pointed to the carriage clock, ‘by my reckoning it ran out a few hours ago.’
He stared at her, then threw back his head and laughed. ‘Now she tells me!’
When he fell silent, he drank the rest of his brandy, as did Romily. They each placed their empty glasses on the mantelpiece, and then, as one, moved into each other’s arms and kissed. Her hands pressed into his shoulder blades, he moved against her, strong and sure, his right hand holding the nape of her neck. Locked together, they kissed as they had before, passionate and with the need for more from the other.