by Bloom, Anna
“Love me now.”
His face flickers with a frown but then he moans low, his gaze hardening. Tilting his head, he moves closer, his lips grazing mine, softly at first but then harder as the hunger that exists between us takes over. His knee pushes between my legs and my fingers work the buttons of his soaked shirt, pushing it back off his shoulders. Teeth nibble up my neck and he uses a hand to lift my chin so he can press his lips all the way along my throat. His other hand undoes his trousers and I help him push them down until he’s free and we are skin on skin, nothing but flesh and water. He turns me, spreading my legs and I want him so bad the heat between my legs hurts. Running his erection between my butt cheeks, he places his hand on my hips, pulling them back towards him. I splay my hands against the tiles to balance. Then he’s in me, sliding in to the hilt, filing me with the one thing I want more than anything else. Him.
I shudder as he slips in and out, filling me deep and slow. My forehead falls against the tiles as I arch my back pushing my hips back towards him. One of his hands palms my spine and my breasts ache as they swing with the motion of him driving into me. A deep moan escapes me, followed by another, until every time he pushes deep within me I elicit a verbal response. His pace quickens and I climb higher and higher.
“Faith,” he grunts my name. “Come for me.” His hips circle faster and faster and I climb and climb unwilling for the glorious sensations to ever end.
But they do and I spiral over the edge, shuddering as I relinquish all my weight onto the wall of the shower, until his hands grab me and turn me towards him, his lips crashing into mine. Soaking wet, he sweeps me into his arms and walks us out into the bedroom where he pushes us under the covers and wraps himself tight around me.
Neither of us say a word.
We don’t have to.
Twenty-One
“We need to organise dinner, we are having people over and I simply refuse to offer them Dolmio.”
“Faith, everyone loves your pasta and a jar of sauce.” Eli is tracing gentle circles across my stomach; he’s been doing it for hours while we have a lazy Saturday morning in bed. I need it. I’m tired; pregnancy and emotional overload are wreaking havoc on me.
In the back of my head is a small voice telling me I should be creating something, up in the attic, doing what I should be doing, but I can’t find the will to make it up the stairs.
“What do you think the baby is doing in there?” He lowers himself down so his lips are below my belly button. That burn instantly kindles between my legs.
“I think it’s floating because it’s only just growing its arms and legs.”
He lifts his head and cocks an eyebrow. “Have you been researching?”
“Maybe a bit. Now can you come away from down there, you are making me want you all over again and we need to get out of bed. What will Miss Beesley say?”
A devilish spark flashes in the blues. “What will she say when she hears you screaming my name?”
“Eli,” I warn, but it’s no use. His fingers trail lower, his lips following their path and I submit myself to everything he has to give me.
Eli is in what I would call the utility room, but I’ve been assured it’s a storeroom by Miss Beesley, when my phone rings. Pulling it out of my back pocket I look at the screen.
“Tabs? You okay?”
The crying that answers my questions speaks for itself. “I’m sorry, Faith.”
“Sorry for what? Don’t sit there crying, why don’t you come over? Eli is trying to work out where to put my kiln. He has a measuring tape out and all sorts.”
She doesn’t laugh, although I think the situation’s amusing. Sexy and amusing. Who knew that could be a thing? He smirks at me as I check out his arse in low slung denim.
“She knows.”
“What? Who knows about what?”
“Mum, she knows about the baby.”
I sigh and lean a hip against the side. “Tabs, she was always going to find out. You could never have kept the fact you were pregnant a secret.”
“No, Faith. Well, yes, I let it slip about Lewis and I, but I also told her about you. She knows you and Eli are having baby.”
Well that sucks. Eli’s phone starts to ring. He’s been watching and listening, and he knows what Tabitha has said. The look on his face as he stares at the number calling would have been funny in any other circumstance. He steps out of the back door and pulls it closed behind him.
“Faith, are you cross with me?”
I sigh. “No, we would have had to tell them in a few weeks, I guess. We’ve got our twelve-week scan on Wednesday.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Listen, come over if you aren’t working. Don’t sit there on your own letting Lewis break your heart.”
“He still hasn’t called.” Her voice breaks.
“He’s been through a lot. Give him time.” It’s about all I can optimistically offer. “Anyway, Sienna and Gerard are coming over for dinner, so if you need a laugh you can come and watch Gerard flirt with Sienna all night.”
“That became unfunny years ago.”
“I still find it amusing.”
Eli steps back into the kitchen, his face as dark as oncoming thunder.
“Tabs, I’ve got to go. See you later maybe.” I hang up before she has a chance to reply. “What?” I ask Eli.
“We’ve got to go to Bowsley.”
“You can’t make me.” I laugh.
“No, really, we have to go.”
And just like that my man with his tape measure and ripped jeans disappears and the heir to the Fairclough name is back in his place.
* * *
“This is unacceptable.” Connie’s face is livid with red. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so dishevelled before. “You will not bring gossip and rumour down on this family by having a child out of wedlock.”
I bite on my bottom lip. Is she actually for real? I do think she believes she is living in the eighteen-hundreds. There is no other reasoning behind her outdated views.
“You will get married at the earliest convenience and a date shall be set right now. This will be handled in the proper manner. I will not have the Fairclough name dragged through the mud as you, Elijah, not only choose a highly inappropriate wife, but also manage to get her pregnant, all without thinking it through.”
“Grandmother!” Eli is pale. He looks like he’s about to be sick or going to commit murder. “You won’t speak of Faith like that.”
She holds up her hand like she’s the queen of the goddamn world. “No, Elijah. We’ve humoured you these last few months. We’ve let you play things your way. We’ve had her god-awful father in our house. We’ve had rampages and embarrassing public displays of anger.”
I go to interrupt, but this time it’s Eli who raises his hand to stop me. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get punched.
“The way you speak about my future wife is unacceptable.”
“Future wife,” Connie scoffs. “You won’t last longer than a year. It’s clear to everyone how damaged she is, and now you want to have a child with her? Did we not teach you to make sensible choices at all?”
Without saying a word, I turn and walk out of the room.
The last thing I hear is Eli saying, “I won’t be pressured into a wedding that neither of us want.”
“You will do what is right for the family and accept your role as heir. Do you think I don’t know about all the invites and events you have been missing? Invites your brother would never have dared to turn down.”
“I am not my brother! And I won’t live a lie.”
Well fuck.
I don’t want to go to the kitchen. Elaine’s comforting embrace will only make me feel overwhelmed. Instead, I walk out to the outhouses where we held the summer art project. It seems a lifetime ago now. It seems like a lifetime since Eli and I stayed in here the night Peter died, the day we got engaged.
Are we fooling ourselves? Can someone like El
i be with someone like me?
I sit on the ivory bed in the pink room. A princess room for a girl with ink and shadows.
The gold on my finger glitters and I spin it around. Fragile and delicate, it looks like it would bend under the slightest weight.
When the door clicks open, I’m expecting to see the furious face of Eli and for him to tell me we are leaving and never going to return. Instead it’s Jennifer.
“Can I come in?”
“If I say no will you listen?”
She walks in which is answer enough. With rigid movements she perches on the mattress next to me. “I’m sorry for the way my mother talks about you.”
I sigh and shake my head. “How have you lived like this for so long? Your own children are alienated from you; is that what you want from the next generation too?”
“How many weeks are you?”
“Eleven.” I concentrate on spinning the ring.
“That’s the horrible bit.”
“Yeah.” I don’t add that it’s not as bad as coming to this house. I guess she can work that out for herself.
“Faith, thank you for helping Tabitha with her problems over the summer.”
I meet her gaze. “Problems?”
“When she ran away and came to you.”
“She should have come to you; don’t you see that? But she didn’t because you let your own mother run the show.”
Jennifer is silent for a moment. “From my earliest memories I just have a vision of my mother. My father, he died years ago now, but he is just a faded recollection, hazy around the edges. I know I never really knew him at all. He was the Baron. My mother married into his family and she was determined to turn its fortunes around. And she did. She mingled with the best in society, pulled the Fairclough name back out from obscurity and to the forefront of English society.”
“Why are you telling me this? You know I don’t care about names or society. You know I think it’s a bunch of old-fashioned nonsense.”
“Sometimes I think the same.”
Wow.
I don’t say anything.
“I don’t want my own children to only remember me as a hazy memory. Or their father.”
My gaze meets her blue one. “You miss him?”
“I loved him.”
“So why did you let him go?”
“Because it was best for the family.”
“Jennifer, you are the Baroness now. I don’t understand much about this sort of thing, but this is you. It’s your turn to make it what you want it to be. Maybe it’s time you took control.”
“She’s my mother.”
“And are you being a good mother to your two remaining children? What sort of grandmother do you want to be?”
She opens her mouth to answer, but the door flies back, hitting the wall. And here is the entrance I was expecting Eli to make.
“I guess we are going.”
He’s holding his phone. His face bewildered. “Faith. It’s Dan, he’s in hospital. Abi has been trying to ring you.”
I stare at him blankly. “My phone is still in the main house in my bag.” I can’t make sense of what he’s saying. “What do you mean Dan is in hospital? He’s fighting fit, and anyway I’m the last person he wants to see.”
Eli steps up, dropping to his knees and holding my hand. “Faith, he’s overdosed. They don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
His words hammer in my head until they make sense. When they do, the whole world turns to black and I begin to slip away. Away from Jennifer, away from Eli, and away from a reality I don’t want to face.
* * *
“Won’t this car go any faster?” I cling onto the leather of the Range Rover's seats.
“Faith, I’m trying.”
“Try faster.”
I’m being unfair. A bitch is more to the point, but I can’t make anything in my head make sense. Dan is in hospital. My oldest friend, who I’ve hurt more than I ever thought possible, is in hospital. I can’t ignore the voice in my head; you did this.
I didn’t. I didn’t. I chant back.
Eli pulls up outside the double doors of the entrance and I jump from the car, rushing through the sliding glass to the front desk. “My friend was brought in a short while ago!” I almost shout in the woman's face.
“Name?”
“Dan Smith.” She types his name into the computer. Each key she presses takes an age.
“It’s family only at the moment, I’m afraid.”
“You don’t understand. He doesn’t have any family, I’m it.”
I’m it. I’m all he has, and I haven’t talked to him. My stomach lurches as a painful punch lands in my chest. A punch of reality that steals all my air.
I’ve been busy with TV shows and housekeepers and babies. What has he been doing?
She hesitates and for an awful moment I think she’s going to turn me away. Tears slip down my cheeks and I brush at them with my hands. “Please?”
“He’s in emergency resuscitation. You won’t be able to go in, but you can head down there and wait for someone to come out.”
I nearly fall down. My legs shake and wobble. “Thank you. My fiancé is parking the car; can you send him through?”
She nods swiftly and I head in the direction where she’s pointing. The corridors seem never-ending, but I eventually find the emergency waiting room. It’s bland and nondescript, tasteful in beige and then a nauseating peach. This is where they send people if they are expecting to give them bad news.
There are painted flowers on the walls in plain frames.
Shit art.
Shit everything.
I sit, my knees tucked up, hugging them close. Eli doesn’t come and neither do any doctors.
A decade passes by.
A hundred years.
Finally, the door opens. “For Dan Smith?” A balding short doctor comes in, pulling off gloves and throwing them into the bin by the door.
“Yes, I’m Faith Hitchin. He doesn’t have any biological family. I'm the closest person he has. Please tell me he’s okay?” I sob loudly, my throat so tight it hurts and aches.
“He was unconscious when he was brought in. He’s had his stomach pumped and we have him on a saline drip trying to flush his blood. But I’m afraid he hasn’t woken up yet. His heart stopped briefly, and we have no idea of the damage that has been done and we won’t until he wakes.”
“I don’t understand.” His words are jumbled. It’s as though someone has taken a Scrabble board and thrown it high into the air and the letters have fallen on the floor making words that no longer make sense, no longer mean anything. “What did he take?”
“That is what I wanted to ask you. Do you know how he would have gained access to morphine? The alcohol we can understand.”
“Al.” I cough and clear my throat. My right temple is banging loudly. “His father died of cancer in August; maybe Dan didn’t give back any unused medication.”
“That makes sense.”
“Is he going to wake up?”
The doctor rubs at his head. “He’s a strong lad, though it looks like he’s been putting himself through the ringer physically. I’m sorry, Faith, but it really is just a waiting game.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s covered in bruises; looks like he’s been in a fight.”
I have nothing to say to this. I don’t know what Dan has been doing. “Can I sit with him?”
“Of course.”
“Can I call my best friend Abi? The three of us have been best friends since we were children.”
He hesitates. “Normally I’d say no, but I’ll talk to the sister in charge and explain you are going to take it in turns.” He motions me out of the chair.
The Dan I find in the hospital bed, linked up to wires, battered and blue is nothing like the man I know. The man I’ve known all my life. The only man I’ve ever trusted until my heart grew and bloomed with Elijah.
I pull up the chair, gr
asping his hand, trying not to look at the plastic tube running into his veins. “What have you done?”
A loud sob echoes from my chest all around the room. I can’t hold in my terror, it flows out of me, washing me away on crests of despair.
How can this be happening? How blind have I been? I’ll never forgive myself for not trying harder.
“Dan, wake up.” I shake his arm, but he doesn’t move. “Dan, come on, I’m here. I can help you. I’ll get Abi and Adam and we can work through everything. It will just be us, the way it always was. I promise I will always be there for you. I promise.” My head falls onto his chest, my tears trickling onto the hospital gown, soaking the starched material. "We can fight together. I’m learning all about fighting.”
Lifting my head, I skim my fingers around his face, over bruises where I have no idea how they got there. “You are the only person who knows me, Dan. Who knows everything. I love you.”
I sob quietly until a shuffle from the door pulls my attention. Eli’s blues are dark and stormy, and his face tells me everything. It’s like he’s always guessed, I haven’t told him a damn thing, because even after all of this, after everything we’ve been through, I’m still running. Running from who I am, what I’ve done.
He doesn’t say a word. He nods with understanding and then closes the door. But I can’t chase after him, can’t call him down and make him wait because to do that I’d have to leave Dan, my friend who reminds me of how I looked one night in hospital when it was him who sat by my side.
Twenty-Two
I’m asleep, but wake when a gentle pressure lands against my shoulder. I sit up sharply, thinking Eli has come back; that he’s realised what I was saying wasn’t meant the way it sounded. I turn in relief, only to find Abi stood beside me. “Go and get some sleep, Faith. It won’t do you any good to get overtired; it’s not good for you or the baby.”
For a moment I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’m trapped in the past, caught up in shadowy dreams and dark secrets.
My baby. Eli’s baby.