by Karen Swan
‘Oh, you don’t know the first thing about what I’ve been through,’ he snapped.
She recoiled from the fury in his voice. ‘What I was going to say was that no matter what you have been through – awful though it was – this is not about you now. Not this bit. It’s about Linus.’ She saw the surprise in his eyes at her words, and she suddenly understood that every single thing that had been said to him since he had emerged from the coma had been about him. His accident, his trauma, his loss, his coma, his recovery, his family . . . He had no concept of what it meant to put someone else first. His entire existence since waking up had revolved solely around himself.
‘Yes, he’s your son – but only biologically, at the moment, and you need to recognize and respect that distinction. He doesn’t know you yet. You frighten him. You’ve taken him away from his mother after you threatened her, you’ve told him the only family he’s ever known isn’t his proper family – and then you just expect him to see you as the Great I Am?’ She threw her arms up in the air. ‘It doesn’t work like that. You need to show the understanding and compassion and emotional intelligence, because you are the adult and he is the child. That’s what being a parent is – putting the child’s needs before your own. And let me tell you something: right now, you are failing at that. You’re failing big time. My God, you couldn’t even bother to be here when he arrived yesterday.’
His eyes flashed, pain and anger a constant swirling torrent. ‘You don’t understand. I felt . . . overwhelmed.’
‘You did? Try being ten and going through this.’ She shook her head, staring at him coldly. ‘You hurt your little boy over and over yesterday. And now you’ve started today on the same footing.’
‘I was doing something nice!’
‘That wasn’t nice! You keep stepping over his boundaries and pushing too hard.’ She stepped forward herself. ‘But I won’t let you, do you understand? You will not go anywhere with him without me, not unless Linus himself explicitly tells me he is happy with it.’
‘You don’t get to speak to me like that! I’m his –!’ Emil stopped himself, Bell’s words of what he was and what he wasn’t still hanging in the air. He stared at her with a frustration that was beginning to feel palpable. ‘You’re not his mother.’
‘No, I’m not. But I’m the next best thing, and I’m her representative here. Every decision you make has to be in his best interests, and if it’s not, then it’s not happening. I’m not here as decoration! There’s a point to me being here – where he goes, I go. And if you try to sneak off without me again, or ask him to keep secrets, I’ll take him straight back to his mother.’ She heard the courage waver in her own voice – she knew she didn’t have the right to make that call and worsen things for Hanna.
He picked up on her hesitation. He had an instinct for weakness, it seemed. ‘You want me to take it to the courts? That wouldn’t be in Hanna’s best interests.’
The threat was cold, like a trickle of ice down her spine and she knew he must make a formidable enemy. Hot, angry tears pressed at her throat as they squared off against one another, but she refused to look away. She would not be bullied by this man. His wealth, power and contacts couldn’t affect her. Unlike Hanna, she didn’t need anything from him. Bell drew herself up to her full, unimpressive height. ‘I only care about Linus’s best interests, and if you were any father at all, so would you—’
A sudden sound made them both start, a rumbling roll of thunder that made the antique white tureens on a demi-lune table begin to vibrate.
‘What’s that?’ she whispered.
‘Oh great,’ Emil said, turning away, his hands on his hips as the roar grew. He looked back at her, then past her. ‘Did she even bother to call this time?’
‘No, sir,’ replied Måns, who Bell now saw was standing in the doorway.
‘Did who call? What’s going on?’ Bell said, almost having to shout. For that was no thunder, she realized now.
Emil didn’t bother to reply. He just walked over to the long, tall windows and stood staring into the garden. The tops of the trees were being flattened by the considerable downdraft of a large blue helicopter, petals scattering across the lawn, the gardener who had met them down by the jetty yesterday standing with one foot resting on a spade, all the thunder now on his face as his months of hard work were undone in mere moments.
They all watched as the helicopter hovered slowly downwards, landing in a clear spot of lawn, free of trees and beds.
‘Who is that?’ she asked Måns, stepping towards him.
‘That will be Mrs Stenbock,’ Måns said, just as the door slid back and the lithe, dark-haired woman she’d seen before jumped out, wearing white trousers and a coral linen knit camisole. She was promptly followed by two very tall, lanky teenagers in jeans and headphones. ‘. . . And Master Frederik and Miss Sophia.’
‘Your sister?’ she asked, feeling a burst of panic as she went to the window too and watched them begin to walk slowly up the grass.
‘I shall go to greet them, sir,’ Måns said sombrely, slipping from the room.
‘You never mentioned anyone was coming.’
He glanced across. ‘I didn’t know. I guess she thought it would be nice for Linus to meet his cousins.’
‘Shit,’ she hissed, remembering again her just-out-of-bed look as the unexpected visitors began ascending the terrace steps; a few seconds more and they’d be through the garden doors and standing in the hall . . . Without another word, she ran down the corridor as fast as she could, knowing that whatever righteous indignation she had struck at Emil’s presumptions was now wholly undermined by the flashing of her butt cheeks. She took the stairs two at a time again, and was almost halfway up when she heard the woman’s strident tones.
‘Emil, are my eyes deceiving me, or did I just see a half-naked woman streaking down your hall?’
Chapter Seventeen
‘She is the nanny.’
‘Is she any good?’
‘She’s got ideas above her station. She keeps overstepping the mark.’
‘Do you mean to say she doesn’t kowtow to you? Goodness, that’d be a first.’
‘She doesn’t understand boundaries,’ he snapped.
Nina turned away from the window with a smile. ‘Oh, is that why she was streaking down your hallway, then?’
He shot her a look. Sarcasm was his sister’s default setting. ‘Don’t be rid—’
‘Emil, relax,’ she laughed. ‘I’m messing with you. Honestly, what’s got you so wound up today?’
He didn’t reply.
She went and sat down on the wooden settle. It was more comfortable than it looked, the proportions highly considered and the wooden arms almost silky to the touch after hundreds of years of absent-minded stroking. ‘Come and sit down. I want to hear everything. How’s it gone so far?’
Emil stared at her, too many emotions rushing at once. He couldn’t pick one, couldn’t settle on it. ‘. . . I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’
He shrugged, just as Måns stepped into the room with his usual innate timing, setting down a tea tray and beginning to pour.
‘Well, did he recognize you?’
‘No.’
‘Not at all?’
He shook his head, looking away from her and out of the window again. It was a moment before he realized Måns was holding out his cup of tea. ‘Thank you.’
‘Well, we shouldn’t be surprised. He was, what, three?’
‘Two years and four months.’
‘. . . Right,’ she said slowly. ‘So that’s only to be expected, then. Especially given Hanna didn’t see fit to keep you in his life, with hospital visits or photographs –’
‘She was trying to protect him.’
She arched an eyebrow, one of her finest features. They brought something fierce and elegant to her face, like sleeping panthers – silky and muscular. ‘Oh. We’re on her side now, are we?’
He si
ghed and Nina looked at him through narrowed eyes, scrutinizing him with that X-ray vision she’d had since childhood. ‘Just for the record, little brother, I’m on yours, okay?’ She winked again and sat back. ‘So how’s he been since getting here then? He must love it, surely?’
‘He’s quiet. He only speaks to answer a question. And he barely looks at me.’
‘Well, you are pretty tough to look at . . . Oh dear God, that was a joke!’ she sighed, peering at him over her cup. He could tell she was determined to tease, jolly and poke him out of his bad mood. She, and she alone, had had that ability since they were little; but he was in no mood for jokes right now.
‘It’s all her fault.’
‘Whose? Hanna’s? Oh, you mean the nanny’s?’
‘She’s deliberately getting in the way. I get no time alone with him. How can I be expected to . . . f-ford a relationship –’
‘Forge.’
He frowned. ‘What?’
‘It’s forge a relationship. Not ford.’
‘Oh.’ He digested the information for a moment, reprocessing the word. ‘Well, how can I if she’s always around? Of course he likes her better. He knows her.’
Nina sighed. ‘Please sit down, Emil. You’re agitated, and you know that’s no good for you.’
He sat down, despair making him obedient.
‘How are the headaches?’ she asked with a frown.
‘Better. They’ve got me on some new pills.’
‘And your sleep? Please tell me you’re managing more than three hours at a stretch?’
‘What would I want to sleep for?’
‘Emil, you were not sleeping whilst you were in a coma. It’s an entirely different thing. You need to sleep.’
He looked up at the ceiling, noticing the delicate tendrils of cut-leaf plasterwork as if for the first time. ‘I’ll sleep when I’ve got my family back. Then I can rest.’
He felt Nina watching him. It was like being stared at by a witch’s cat; there was intensity to the gaze. Weight.
‘Hmm. And how is it going with Hanna?’
‘You mean, now I know she’s got another family? How d’you think?’ Nina didn’t reply, but he saw the pity in her eyes, and he looked away quickly. ‘I was able to get my point across to her about rebuilding my relationship with my son. She understood that.’
‘Did she? And did the words “custody” or “court” come up at all, or was she just entirely obliging, acting from the goodness of her heart?’
‘Don’t be a bitch, Nina.’
She sucked in through her teeth. ‘I don’t know why you’re so determined to defend her. You didn’t have to sit by and watch on for seven years as she got on with playing happy families with another guy, whilst your favourite brother was lying comatose in a bed.’
‘No, because I was the lucky bugger lying comatose in the bed . . . And I’m your only brother, by the way.’
She winked at him again, and this time he smiled.
‘You never liked her. Even before the coma.’
‘That’s not true. I just don’t trust a woman who moves on to her boyfriend’s friends.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘That was all a very long time ago, and they were never serious.’
‘Hmm, I wonder if that’s how he saw it? What was his name again?’
‘Liam. And he was cool. He came to our wedding, for chrissakes.’
‘A lot of people went to that wedding,’ Nina groaned. ‘I was surprised not to see my old maths teacher there.’
He grinned in spite of himself. ‘Just admit it, Nina – you never liked her.’
‘I will not.’
‘Name one thing, then, that you liked about her. One thing.’
‘Oof.’ It was Nina’s turn to stare up at the ceiling, her eyes tracing the delicate whorls of plasterwork relief. She was quiet for a long time. ‘Well, she dresses well. She has good taste,’ she said finally.
‘You don’t care about taste. You said people who care about fashion are cretinous husks with no souls.’
‘When did I say that?’ she gasped.
‘After the couture shows, when Mamma took you to Paris for a dress for your eighteenth and you were stuck next to that woman at dinner who had frozen her face and kept asking for champagne for her pug.’
She threw her head back and laughed at the memory, her shoulder-length dark hair shining in the sunlight. ‘Oh yes! I did say that, didn’t I? How on earth do you remember these things?’
‘The one good thing about a traumatic brain injury – long-term memory recall. They never broadcast these things, you know. They only ever present the downsides of comas, giving them a bad rap, but things from years ago feel to me like they happened yesterday.’
Nina laughed harder, and he chuckled with her. He had to laugh or he’d cry.
‘And things that happened yesterday?’ she asked, when she’d recovered. It was a serious question, they both knew.
He shrugged. ‘Touch and go. But getting better, I think. The doc’s suggestion of keeping a journal has helped.’
‘But you haven’t remembered anything about the ac—?’
‘No.’ He cut her off quickly. ‘Nothing.’
She nodded, staring at him as she took another sip of her tea, her eyes roaming over him like a sniper’s rifle dot.
‘What? Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Nothing. It’s just always nice to see you . . . awake. Something of a novelty still.’ She smiled and gave him another wink. ‘You’ll have to indulge me, little brother.’
They finished their tea and returned the cups to the tray.
‘So are you ready, then?’ she asked, getting up.
‘For what?’
‘Introducing me to my long-lost nephew and your wild, half-naked nanny who doesn’t know her boundaries.’
‘It’s not funny.’
Nina pointed to her deadpan, severe expression. ‘Do you see me laughing?’
Old-fashioned games: they never failed. They could turn adults – and worse, teenagers – back into kids again. The cereal game had helped break the ice first off. As Linus and his big, cool cousins had eyed each other in wary silence, she had asked the kitchen staff for a box and proceeded to set it on the ground.
‘Pick it up with no hands,’ she had instructed, watching as the teenagers, bored and having seen it all, casually dipped and picked it up with their teeth instead. They hadn’t looked quite so cocky when she’d torn a strip off the top and asked them to do it again. Five rounds later and it was a flat disc on the floor, and they were all splitting their sides laughing.
Now, as Bell sat crouched against the shed wall, waiting to be found, she burrowed her feet into the soft earth. There was no need to bother with shoes out here; the grass was so springy and soft, it was almost like walking on fur.
She closed her eyes and waited as she heard Linus counting up to fifty in English; she was never one to miss a teaching opportunity, plus it bought her a little extra time. He could have counted to eighty in Swedish in the time it took. She dropped her head down, her arms loosely on her knees, glad of the rest. She could have killed for a coffee. They’d been playing flat-out for an hour now and she hadn’t had any breakfast yet.
‘Found you!’
Her eyes flew open as she looked up into the dark, beady eyes of Emil’s terrifying sister.
‘I thought Linus was seeking?’ she spluttered.
‘Oh. Is he?’ Nina shrugged. ‘Well, we can hide together, then. Mind if I join you?’
In those white jeans? Bell wondered as Nina sat down on the cool earth beside her. Hiding in the narrow crack between the potting shed and a rusting lawnmower had seemed like a safe bet for a few minutes’ peace, but now it felt like the most dangerous place on earth. ‘How did you find me?’
‘I saw you disappear into the bushes there. I always used to hide here too, when Emil and I played this game as kids.’
‘Oh. The mower was here back then?’
‘No. Thanks. I don’t smoke.’
‘No, neither do I. Well, not officially, anyway,’ Nina said, casting her a sideways look and a sly grin. ‘I suppose it doesn’t look good on the CV, does it? Nanny, smoker.’
‘No. Not really.’
‘D’you mind?’ Nina hesitated before lighting up, the cigarette already perched between her lips. The question was clearly rhetorical, but Bell shook her head anyway. ‘So . . .’ She exhaled a plume of grey smoke. ‘You seem to like your job.’
‘I do.’
‘How long have you been doing it for?’
‘Three years. The Mogerts are the only family I’ve worked for.’ She noticed Nina flinch at the sound of Max’s surname.
Nina’s eyes narrowed, assessing her. ‘But you’re, what – late twenties?’
‘Twenty-six. Before that, I was travelling,’ she said, anticipating the next question.
‘Ah yes. Everyone’s so . . . free-spirited and rootless these days.’
There was bite to the words, and Bell looked away. She didn’t need to explain her life history to this woman. What did she know about life choices or career paths? She was a spoiled, rich stranger who had clearly never had to work a day in her life.
‘And my brother,’ she said, taking a deep drag, holding it for a moment before exhaling with a sigh. ‘How are you finding him?’
What had he said? she wondered. ‘He’s not playing too, is he?’ she replied coolly.
Nina laughed loudly, displaying a set of perfect teeth. ‘Ha! My God, no! Ha, you’re hilarious.’ She had that rich person’s way of showing amusement by speaking her laughter, rather than actually laughing it. She took another drag, enjoying her cigarette, playing with the smoke with her lips and blowing rings; it seemed a somewhat subversive, teenage act for such an elegant woman. ‘I meant . . . is he behaving himself?’
