by Rose Amberly
BW.
Beatrice.
“No,” he said.
“Are you going to take the blanket, or are you waiting for my arm to cramp?”
“You’re an impossibly stubborn woman.” The phone went on ringing. Which battle do I want to win? Which battle do I want to lose? His body had made its choice already. “Fine, we’ll share the blanket.”
Finally the phone stopped ringing as he lowered himself to sit behind Millie. He could have sat next to her—there was enough room, just, on the narrowing slates—but sharing the blanket would press them together like lovers. He really didn’t need to see her from the front, or let her see him. With his legs on either side of her, he pulled the blanket around his back and wrapped the ends over both his legs and hers.
She passed his phone to him over her shoulder. He took it from her, pressed the off button, and held it down, waiting for it to turn off. Before the screen went dark, a text message came through with a ping-ping.
Darling, I got the lovely flowers. So happy we straightened everything out between us. Can’t wait for Friday night. Xxx
Then the phone powered off.
As always, Beatrice had perfect timing.
* * *
Later the same night. Blue Sage Cottage
The storm raged outside, but here in front of the fire, the two of them sat in a bubble of silence. Not awkward but not comfortable. As if they were both afraid of breaking the fragile balance.
Millie brought her knees up and put her arms around her shins; she could still feel George’s chest a few heat-filled inches behind her back. His knees were bent level with her elbows.
A strange kind of embrace.
“Try to go to sleep,” he said. “We have a long night.”
Sleep how? Sitting like this? Then sliding into his arms? “What time is it?” she asked.
His left hand was on his knee, holding the blanket. He raised his wrist with his watch facing her. Eleven. Daybreak wasn’t until nearly four.
Long night indeed. Heat radiated from the fire but much more from his body. She tried to shrink into her own skin, not to torment herself. “When does the tide go down?”
“Not sure, but we’ll check when it’s daylight again.” He, too, seemed careful not to touch her.
She watched the flames. Useless to pretend he wasn’t there, behind her, almost naked. She could feel the hairs on his thighs, his chest. She had to be a masochist, allowing herself to sit enveloped by him like this. Knowing he wasn’t hers.
Who was BW? Was it a woman? One who wouldn’t like it if she knew where George was spending the night? Is that why he didn’t take the call? Jealousy crawled like a viper from the back of her mind, down her spine and into her heart, an intolerable sensation that wouldn’t stay quiet. “George?”
“Yes?” His voice, warm dark velvet, was a breath away from her ear.
“Have you ever cheated?” she asked softly, still gazing into the fire.
She could feel his heartbeat thud across the inch of air behind her, but he was silent for a long time.
“I’m sorry, it’s none of my business, I shouldn’t have asked.”
George felt himself flush like a schoolboy caught stealing.
A few hours, that’s all. He’d been single—to all intents and purposes—until a few hours ago.
If he hadn’t sent the flowers, if he hadn’t called Beatrice, if, if, if.
The bitterness was galling; he almost gagged. He couldn’t speak. He could hardly breathe.
He tried to remind himself why Millie was off limits. Because… he struggled to pull his scattered thoughts back together. Because a relationship with Millie would only end like all the others, suspicion and resentment followed by coldness and hurt feelings.
Except in Millie’s case, she would lose her job, and after her bastard husband had walked away with everything, she didn’t need bastard George to take the rest.
“George?” Millie spoke again in that slow bedroom voice.
His name sounded like a caress when she said it; his resolve wobbled a little.
“What?” he whispered. No, don’t flirt. He cleared the huskiness from his throat and said it again louder. “What?”
“I’m sorry.” She started to twist towards him.
He caught her elbows and pulled her forwards. “Don’t turn around, please, Millie.” He didn’t need to see her front. Christ, that thin strappy vest thing stretched over her—he could do without seeing that.
“Sorry.”
“About what?”
“Making you miss your flight. I seem to keep doing that.”
He smiled. The unexpected answer broke the spell. Thank God.
“Well, you’ve only done it twice.” His smile widened. “Strictly speaking, only once because tonight wasn’t your fault. You weren’t to know about the tide, city girl like you.”
“No, but I should have called. I just forgot myself.”
Oh, good, someone else who enjoyed guilt as much as he did. “Have you been here all day?”
“Yes. I got here early this morning.”
“What did you find to do on this God-forsaken hill of rock and weed?”
She leaned forward, pushing the blanket aside to reach her bag, and started pulling out what looked like twigs and grasses and leaves.
“Hungry?” she asked him.
And this time he laughed.
Apparently, she wasn’t joking. She got up on her knees and laid some of her cuttings on the embers at the edge of the fire.
He watched her, fascinated. “You must be very hungry if you are going to eat—green and purple sticks. What is this?”
“Wild asparagus. It should be delicious.” She was laying more brambly things on the fire. “Green mallow and pig’s-foot—”
“A witch’s barbeque,” he teased.
“O ye of little faith.” Millie laughed and his heart felt so much lighter.
Ten minutes later, she handed him a charred twiggy thing wrapped in fat leaves.
“No, thank you.”
“Shut up and eat.”
“What is it?” he said taking it from her, though only out of politeness.
“Try it and I’ll tell you.” The shaky little girl voice was gone. She really could be very assertive when she wanted.
And she knew what she was talking about; the food was tasty in a mild, greeny, crunchy kind of way, the leaves slightly lemony.
“Wild marrow and raw vine leaves.” Millie looked over her shoulder at him.
“And for dessert…?” He winked.
“Wild berries and sweet leaves.”
She explained a little more about her weeds, but mostly, they ate in companionable silence. Millie leaning slightly against his left leg, their earlier strangeness and physical tension seemed to have thawed. He was still grateful he couldn’t see her body from the front, but he was relaxed, comfortable. Happy.
He wouldn’t mind staying like this all night.
* * *
Midnight
“So the real reason you came to Blue Sage Bay,” he said, “was for a vegetarian feast?”
She drank water from the bottle, then passed it to him to wash down his final bite.
“This island is full of incredible flora.” Her voice fizzed with excitement. “It’s my dream, you know. To find a wild patch of land and create something amazing.”
“Like what?”
“I used to want ornamental gardens. But since coming to La Canette, my dream has evolved. Now I want wild herbs, edible weeds and flowers. I want a café…” She talked on. But George watched the back of her head, the waves of golden-brown hair brushing the nape of her neck. She was animated and full of excitement.
“…not like that place, Brasserie Pascale,” she said. “Not the kind of restaur
ant where you have to dress up and speak French. I want a café where people can come as they are.”
“You mean, where people eat in their underwear.”
Mention of underwear must have made her nervous again, and she looked around for the blanket.
George picked up the ends and pulled them over. His hands, holding the corners of the woven cloth, rested on her knees. It was a tighter cocoon than earlier in the evening, and it felt better.
“So Millie’s Revolution?” he teased her gently. “An empire of green foods?”
“Not an empire, no.” She laughed. “I am a little person; a big business would drown me.”
Her words made the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
She talked on about finding a small cottage, like this here, a house where she could wake up to the sound of seagulls.
Every word resonated in his head. I’m a little person. A big business would drown me. I want a small cottage.
Her words unpicked an old, private memory. Something he never talked about, to anyone, didn’t even let himself think about.
Usually.
Except tonight, almost naked, sitting here, he couldn’t block out the past any more than he could block out the sound of the wind howling outside or the waves crashing against the rocks.
She felt his rough chin rest on her shoulder as his arms pulled her closer to him. Whatever she’d been about to say fled her mind.
Minutes ticked by as water dripped from the ceiling into the various pots, and the fire burnt lower, but the man holding her in the curve of his body was still. If it wasn’t for his arms tight around her, he might be asleep. When he started talking, his voice was very quiet, his cheek moving against her neck.
“I wanted to be a fisherman when I was a boy. My grandfather was a fisherman. He ran a fish and chip shop with his wife and daughter.”
“I thought—wasn’t he—” She softened her voice. “I mean your father told me he died in the Great War.”
“No,” he said. “That was my great-grandfather Du Montfort. I was talking about my maternal grandfather. His name was George Cotentin. I am named after him.”
She started to turn around to look at him, but his arms tightened, holding her in place.
“Stay where you are,” he said. “Please.”
Millie sank back against his chest. His warmth, his scent, enveloped her as much as his arms. Her own arms rested on his thighs and knees. She resisted the urge to stroke his skin. She knew what would happen tonight; they were heading that way, but for now she let him talk.
“You see, when my great-grandfather Du Montfort was killed in Passchendaele in 1917, the line of succession went to his brother instead,” he continued, and now there was no mistaking the confidential tone. “So, our side of the family wasn’t supposed to inherit. Dad grew up expecting a normal life. He travelled around, and when he came back to La Canette, he invested his modest legacy into a fishing business. That’s how he met my grandfather Cotentin and eventually met his daughter.”
Millie wanted to ask if that was his mother, but she sensed this was a difficult conversation for George, one for the night and the fire only.
“She was seventeen, and Dad fell in love with her silver-grey eyes and dark hair, and he chased her until she agreed to marry him.
“Her father wasn’t happy because he knew the Du Montforts came from a different class and weren’t suitable for his little girl. But my dad was handsome, exciting, and he was crazy about her.” George exhaled; the breath seemed to come from the depth of a heavy heart. “You can imagine the power of young love. There was no arguing with them.”
Millie understood only too well. She’d been nineteen once and determined to marry her love despite everything.
“They rented a small cottage in the village,” George said, after a short pause. “That’s where I was born a few years later. I can still see them, my parents, young, happy lovers. Dad worked hard, and I spent my childhood barefoot on my grandfather’s boat. It was the happiest time of my life.” He paused.
“Until I was nine.” He fell silent again.
Millie waited until he was ready to continue, but she put her hands over his to communicate her support.
“My cousin, who was the seigneur at that time, died of acute leukaemia. So, the estate and title passed to his only male relative. My father.”
Millie listened as much to the words as to the raw emotion in his voice.
Again, George took a deep breath and continued. “Everything changed. Forever.” We moved from our cottage to the big house and acquired a new lifestyle and new friends.
“Mum hated it. She was—” George now spoke in a different voice, heavier, almost raw. “She was a little person. The new life dwarfed her.”
He squeezed Millie for a second as if needing comfort. “It crushed her.”
He sighed, then went on. “Not my father, though. Within a few short months, he became the man you see now. Except, he was still young, charming and reckless. He embraced the new life and embraced all that came with it. Travel, society parties, attention and, of course, women.”
George pressed his face tight into the crook of her neck, his stubbly cheek rough against her skin. His breathing was difficult, and he shifted his arms until they were wrapped around her stomach, just below her breasts.
“You asked me just now if I ever cheated,” he said into her shoulder. “The answer is, no. Never. I remember all too well my mother’s pain when village gossip brought her news of my father’s... activities. Every woman he met, flirty employee, society hostess, married, single, he couldn’t say no. The village was alive with gossip, and the national press was full of rumours about the dashing new Lord Du Montfort. Every painful detail reached my mother.
“She pretended not to mind. After all, we were aristocrats now, and infidelity was supposed to be borne with discretion and nonchalance. She smiled and pretended not to see, not to hear, but she began to wilt.”
Millie felt for that poor woman. She herself had been a victim of a cheating husband and could still remember the stab of pain. The realization that she wasn’t enough.
“My grandfather died when I was twelve,” George said. “He left what little he owned to my mother. A small house and shop. He gave it to her so she might have a refuge, somewhere to go when she left her husband.”
George’s took on a bitterness. “She never did. That was her tragedy. She loved my father. I didn’t realize how much until two years later. Easter holiday. I came home from boarding school, and for the first time, she wasn’t at the ferry to meet me. When I got home, I found her in bed. Her eyes and nose red, the pillow wet and a pile of scrunched-up tissues all around her.
“News had come that father had a flat in Jersey for one of his mistresses. I thought, so what’s new? Another mistress. Nothing different there.
“But to my mother it was different.
“Little affairs were one thing, but to set up someone in a house? To spend time there regularly? For a year? That …” George swallowed with difficulty. “That meant love.
“I sat on the side of her bed and watched tears soak into her pillow on and on and on.”
Millie wrapped her hand over his.
“I couldn’t think of a single thing to do or say. I couldn’t help. I could only watch.” George’s voice was laced with corrosive bitterness. “And then my holidays were up, and I went back to school.
“A month later, Mum was dead.”
“Oh God.” Millie sat bolt upright. “How?”
George’s voice was hollow. “The doctors said it was influenza. For Christ’s sake, how does anyone die of flu? In May? When they’re a healthy woman of thirty-five?” George asked.
Millie settled against him again. She couldn’t think of a single answer. But then he answered himself.
“They don’t. Not unl
ess they want to die.”
* * *
Snug against his chest, Millie could feel his heart beating against her shoulder blade. Thinking of him as that fourteen-year-old boy twisted her heart.
The vise-like arms prevented her from turning around to comfort him. She rubbed his wrists and forearms.
He’d been carrying this hurt all his life.
Time passed in silence. Millie couldn’t see George’s watch, but she guessed it was past two in the morning, with his face in the crook of her neck, his strong steady heartbeat against her shoulder blade. A new realization was slowly forming in her mind.
“George?” She made her voice soft and gentle. Her instincts warned her to keep quiet; she ignored them.
“What?” he whispered into her hair.
“Can you try to forgive your father?”
He froze. He didn’t move a thing, but somehow, he shrank into himself, an imperceptible pull away from her.
She should have kept her thought to herself. but she’d started; she may as well go on. “I’m sure I am speaking out of turn, but—I think your mum wouldn’t have wanted you to carry this pain for the rest of your life. To hold on to this anger.”
There was no doubt now; he had definitely pulled away from her.
She tried to explain it better. “It strikes me you are feeling unnecessary guilt.”
His arms, no longer tight under her breasts, now lay limp on his knees.
She bit her lip, courage almost deserting her, but she had to say it, because he was clearly suffering unnecessarily. “You can’t go back and rescue your mother.”
With every word, he seemed to freeze further away. What was wrong with her? When someone got themselves into a hole, they really should stop digging. She couldn’t seem to stop.
“George, if time travel were possible, then maybe. Believe me, I’ve wished and wished to take back the ten years I lost with Henry. But none of us can pull this trick. All any of us can do is—” She took a breath to steady her voice. “All we can do is go forward and accept life as it comes—”
