The Love Letter

by Fiona Walker

  Still caught between fury and fascination, she followed his gaze across the sheer stone sides and imagined how dangerous it must have been navigating them in total darkness.

  ‘It made me feel alive, that huge adrenalin rush; it was one of the only things that really moved me. Inevitably I fell off a few times, and one day I smashed up my leg and ribs so badly, I was laid up in bed over a month. Dad was livid, as you can imagine. I might have died here if the local hunt hadn’t found me, and of course he ranted and raged about me ending up in a wheelchair like him. That’s when I started writing, stuck in that bed with my leg in plaster. Then Dad bought me a laptop for my seventeenth birthday and I didn’t look back. After that, I came here to put Ptolemy in dire straits.’ He packed his laptop into a courier’s bag.

  Legs didn’t trust herself to speak. Anger kept bubbling up inside her like boiling caramel then dying back just as fast, knowing that she was hearing a story that had probably never been shared. Counting back, she realised that she’d still been at university when the first Ptolemy Finch book came out, a pretentious undergraduate who recited Eliot down the phone to Francis while Jago was already a published author.

  ‘This is Byrne land,’ he was saying. ‘The family used to make their money from stone until the quarry was closed in the seventies. After that, the farm had to pay its way and it was always a struggle, especially once Dad, me and the horses arrived. Nan’s husband Mal is a generous man, and he never complained once, but it’s amazing to be able to put something back. They’ve got it just how they like it now; even Nan agrees that the front lawn can’t take another ornamental Greek urn, which is an anagnorisis I thought I’d never see.’

  So the footballers’wives perfection and garish potted petunias weren’t to his taste, she realised. His wife certainly seemed to love them though, she thought wretchedly. The caramel was boiling over again, spilling into the cooking flames in a cloud of black smoke.

  ‘Does Zina know you’re Gordon Lapis?’ She struggled to keep her voice level.

  To her astonishment, he didn’t seem to find anything odd in the question, shaking his head: ‘Just Dad. He’s known from the start; I had to explain who Conrad was and why he calls me Gordon when he comes here, plus all the letters that come addressed to Mr Lapis. He covers for me when I need him to, but we both find it’s easier to forget about Ptolemy Finch while we’re here. Coolbaragh’s about the horses, not little winged soothsayers. None of the rest of the family knows. They think I’m some sort of internet entrepreneur.’

  ‘A paragon of virtual,’ Legs hissed, eyeing up the distance between Jago and the quarry edge and wondering how hard she’d have work to drag him there after she’d hit him over the head with his laptop.

  The caramel anger was pouring in hot black rivers like lava now, she thought about poor, heavily pregnant Zina, totally unaware that she was married to the man behind a mega-selling global franchise. How could she not know? It was like Picasso’s wife believing his paint-stained fingers were down to a busy day mixing Dulux in B&Q.

  ‘I must go.’ She stood up quickly, realising she was going to make a huge, wailing, violent, tattooed spectacle of herself if she stayed a moment longer. Fumbling in her haste to cover the evidence, she knotted the polo neck high around her shoulders, taking care to keep her hair underneath so her neck was totally covered.

  ‘That car doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.’ He stood up too.

  ‘I’m sure I can get it out.’ She fished in her pockets and pulled out the little box, thrusting it at him before she could change her mind. ‘I remember you telling me rings are like a part of your heart you give away. This is for you because I lost yours, and it was never really mine to keep. I hope it works out with Kizzy and Conrad and Zina and the baby everything.’ Saying it out loud hurt like a body blow.

  Not giving him time to answer, she hurried back to her car, stumbling and tripping and almost pitching into the quarry in her haste to get away and to keep the tears stemmed until she was out of sight.

  But Byrne was right. The car was stuck fast and no amount of furious revving could make the wheels gain traction. She simply created a dust cloud. In despair, she grabbed her phone, but she had nobody to call for help and no signal.

  Eventually, he rode up through the dusty heat haze like a Wild West pony express, despatch bag slung across his back. ‘I’ll give you a lift back to the farm. We’ll come up with dad’s truck and pull it out later.’

  She clambered out of the driver’s door, still clutching her phone. ‘I can’t ride a horse!’

  ‘I’m not leaving you here in this heat.’ He reached out a hand. ‘Use the car as a mounting block and hop up in front of me here.’

  ‘Absolutely not!’

  ‘You’ll be quite safe,’ he assured her. ‘You just gave me a sapphire ring. The least I can do to thank you is make a cup of tea before you head off again.’

  ‘Did you say a sapphire?’ she gulped.

  ‘It’s … totally unexpected, and very generous of you,’ he said carefully, not wanting to offend her.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Legs wrenched open the car door again and rootled through the glove compartment.

  There, still wedged between an ice scraper and several audio-books, was the little box from the jewellers in Portlaoise containing the gold signet she’d bought that morning, engraved with an initial because they’d had no rings bearing the Kelly family crest. How she’d agonised over whether it should be JB,JL or even GL, finally asking for a P monogram in elaborate Celtic lettering. Now that she had just exercised every molecule of self-control to hand it over in her noble gesture of closure instead of hurling it at him, she found she’d presented him with her old blue-eyed engagement ring by mistake.

  She straightened up and held out the monogrammed signet ring shakily, pulling an apologetic face. ‘Can we swap? That sapphire belonged to Francis’s mother.’

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the velvet ring box, weighing it in his hand as though contemplating whether to hurl it into the quarry. ‘Rather mean of him not to fork out on a new one. When’s the big day?’ He lobbed it at her, forcing her to drop the signet to catch it.

  ‘There won’t be one.’ She stashed it back in the glove compartment then turned back, stooping to retrieve the dropped signet. ‘I could never marry Francis.’

  Straightening up, Legs saw that Byrne was staring down at her open-mouthed, dark eyes like two oilwells aflame.

  ‘I was totally right to leave him when I did,’ she sighed. ‘I just did it in completely the wrong way, running straight to Conrad.’ She turned the dusty gold ring in her fingertips. ‘I always wondered if I’d made the right decision, but it was only when I got a second chance that I finally realised I’d mistaken guilt for regret. I couldn’t get engaged to Francis a second time, real or fake. I just don’t love him any more.’ Without realising what she was doing, she had slotted the signet onto her ring finger. Lowering her hands out of Byrne’s line of vision, she tried to ease it off, but it stayed glued to her sweaty finger. She tugged harder. It stayed put. She hauled and groaned. It had stuck fast.

  Byrne’s horse was stamping an impatient hoof, and he played on the reins to soothe it as he watched her curiously. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Fine!’ She thrust her hands behind her back and looked up to find she was almost blinded by the fire in his eyes.

  Suddenly smiling, Byrne jumped off and put his hands around her waist. For a disorienting moment she thought he was going to kiss her and had no idea whether she should kiss him back or sock him one. But instead he man-handled her onto the horse’s saddle as deftly as a Highlander slinging a dead stag over his pommel. Feet flailing, she scrabbled astride just in time to find him swinging back into the plate behind her and picking up the reins.

  As they moved off, Legs let out a terrified squeal and clung on for dear life. ‘Stop this! I want to get off!’

  ‘Have you ridden before?’

  ‘Only the donkeys on
Fargoe beach when I was little.’

  ‘You’re doing great,’ he laughed, kicking his horse into a steady canter along the escarpment. ‘You’re a natural.’

  Despite her protests, the next two minutes were amongst the most exciting and addictive Legs could remember as the wind threw back her hair and the sheer speed made her laugh with amazement. Held firmly in place by Byrne’s arms to either side, she had no choice but to enjoy the ride.

  When they slowed to a walk, she was clinging onto the horse’s mane too tightly to stop him reaching up to draw her hair to one side, revealing the nape of her neck.

  ‘Gráim thú.’ He read the new tattoo there, visible through its clear dressing, the skin around it still red and tender.

  Legs’ face burned with utter mortification. She hung her head, appalled to have embarrassed him – and herself – so much. ‘It means nothing,’ she muttered, desperately trying to salvage some pride. ‘I thought it would be cool to have something Gaelic tattooed, and it was either that or Eejit.’ When he said nothing, she raced on, ‘I hear tá grá agam duit is all the rage, but I couldn’t take the pain. As love letters go, silent Ps are by far the best. Ow!’ She howled as the horse stumbled and her head rocked back against the tender flesh.

  He steadied her with his rein arm, his voice in her ear, soft and incredulous. ‘Is this a love letter?’

  She shrugged, knowing there was really no point bluffing any more. ‘Hand delivering letters is always a bad idea, isn’t it? I feel like Delia Meare. I should have stuck to internet messaging. At least you could block me.’

  He made no reply and they rode on in silence, Legs squeezing her eyes shut and grimacing, utterly ashamed of herself.

  Then he dropped a kiss on her shoulder that felt like the touch of a monarch’s sword. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’

  As the horse’s metal shoes rang out on tarmac and they closed down the last few hundred yards to home in a heady haze of scorching sunlight and dancing midges, Legs could say nothing more, the lump in her throat so huge that she was struggling to breathe. Anger was still raging in her belly, trying to burn away the shame and lost-cause love, but but she had no voice to express any of it.

  As they rode into the Coolbaragh stable yard, Brooke came wheeling out from his office beside the feed room, squinting up at them as the sun hit his face. ‘Ah, there you are, Jago! I’m glad this one found you. She was quite determined. The other one’s back here again too.’ He waved towards the second tower. ‘Pretty little redhead with a broken shoe. I sent her straight up there while Zina is having a siesta in the house. You have such a complicated life.’ He turned to wheel back into the cool shadows of his office again.

  Byrne jumped off before helping Legs dismount, gripping tightly onto her hand as she landed so that he could examine the ring. ‘P?’

  ‘It’s a silent P,’ she croaked, blushing because her noble gesture had got crammed on her own finger. Now that they were off the horse and facing one another again, she found she couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘As in Purple.’

  ‘That’s not silent.’

  ‘Sidekick, then.’

  ‘You mean psychic?’ He stepped to one side to avoid being visible from the tower, looking at her face in wonder. ‘Because I sometimes think you must be just that.’

  Feeling very wobbly from her ride, the lump lodged in her throat now the size of a wicked stepmother’s entire apple basket, she took a few stiff steps back, still unable to look at him. ‘Let me talk to Kizzy.’

  ‘Get rid of her.’ His voice had a dose of familiar ferocity in it. ‘She mustn’t see me.’

  Legs felt thick-headed and drooping with tiredness having barely slept in forty-eight hours, her reserves now being fuelled by adrenalin alone. She wasn’t sure she had the strength left to physically remove Kizzy from the farm, nor did it seem the right thing to do.

  ‘Surely I should explain about things?’ She lowered her croaky, lump-muffled voice yet further so that Brooke couldn’t possibly overhear through the open office door. ‘She hasn’t a clue that she’s at her own father’s house. His identity’s always been kept a secret from her.’

  ‘Let’s keep it that way a little bit longer,’ he whispered back, taking her hand in his, thumb tracing the engraved P on the ring. ‘I’ll have to speak with Dad first, and now’s not the time. Right this minute, the only person I want to talk to is you. She must go. Please.’

  Snatching her hand away, she knew she should tell him to get lost, shout that she knew all about life of lies and his callous womanising, and stand up for poor Kizzy who was such an unwitting pawn in all this. But then he stepped closer, a warm hand cupping her cheek as he breathed in her ear: ‘Gráim thú.’

  She leaned against him for a moment, drawing his heat, the lump in her throat inflating like an airbag. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

  Chapter 48

  Legs raced up the path to the tower, her breath like dragon’s fire in her lungs, a stitch of anxiety already tightening into her side.

  The tower was accessed by a thick oak door set in a deep arch. As soon as she stepped inside, she heard Kizzy’s voice above her head, obviously placating Conrad on a mobile phone. ‘I promise I won’t leave until I see Gordon this time. He’s definitely been staying here. The computers are still switched on … OK, I’ll look.’

  Legs glanced around the semi-circular entrance hall she now found herself in, like the inside of a stone moon, the most amazing light playing on its walls and ceiling. At her feet was a huge pond, taking up most of the floor, filled with carp and under-lit so that the reflections danced all around her. The curved walls were skirted with a continuous bench seat, topped with a thick green velvet cushion, and their straight counterpart was hung with incredible art, the sort that Poppy publicly despised and privately coveted – sensual, literal, and emotive, there were huge modern canvases depicting horses, dogs and landscapes. Legs recognised several as Stan McGillivray’s, the notorious recluse and Brit Art rebel turned realist, whose work was amongst the most coveted of any living artist. Nothing hanging on this wall made any ironic statement whatsoever, it was a collection intended to bring pure pleasure.

  She was in the Wizard of Oz’s hideout, she realised.

  Above her head, Kizzy’s husky little Scottish voice was reporting to Conrad: ‘It’s OK, it’s definitely a Ptolemy Finch book, not crime. I don’t know where you got that idea from … hang on, I’ll read a bit out to you—’

  Her anger ignited, Legs stomped up the spiral staircase.

  ‘Stop it!’ She burst into the room, then reeled back in shock. ‘Jesus!’

  She’d never seen anything quite like it. With its windows covered with heavy tapestry blinds, the room was as dark as a cave. There were huge computer screens on every wall and just one enormous leather swivel chair in the middle of the polished oak floor, in which Kizzy was currently sitting like a seductive Mastermind contestant prepared to tackle anything asked of her, especially passes. Her delicate frame appeared to be swathed in little more than a few wisps of butterfly-bright twisted silk which Legs vaguely recognised from the Shh window as the ‘latest catwalk collection’, several layers of which she had undone to reveal a lacy pink bra.

  Still dressed in the dusty pedalpushers and creased tunic she’d been travelling in, new tattoo itching beneath her hair, Legs felt at a disadvantage, as though she was bursting into an artfully shot Hollywood scene looking like an extra from Albert Square market.

  Kizzy cut her call, mouth forming into a little ‘o’ of surprise.

  ‘Gordon would like you to leave now,’ Legs said, her voice high and strained, like a school prefect on her first day.

  ‘Legs!’ Kizzy dropped her phone and went bright red as she fumbled to re-knot a few of the rags. ‘This isn’t what it looks like.’

  ‘It is, Kizzy,’ Legs sighed. ‘You were reading out new Ptolemy Finch material. That’s totally against Gordon’s wishes, and Conrad knows that.�
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  Far from being the seductive panther of business espionage she’d first appeared, Kizzy was more like a kitten found hanging off the budgie cage now. If she could have run up and down the curtains with her tail bushed and a startled expression on her face, Legs thought she probably would have.

  So flustered that she’d tied her dress up like Gandhi’s dhoti, she scrabbled around for her dropped phone. ‘What are you doing here, Legs?’

  Momentarily asking herself the same question, Legs suddenly hit upon an answer. ‘I’m Gordon’s new PA,’ she announced brightly. ‘I’ve taken over from Kelly. And he would like you to leave now. He was most emphatic, and it doesn’t do to upset Gordon, as Conrad has no doubt told you. Shall I call you a taxi?’

  ‘No need, I have a hire car,’ mustering some dignity, Kizzy started out across the room with her chin held high, limping on her broken shoe heel like Sarah Berhardt making a dramatic exit, then stopped as she realised her knots were a serious handicap. ‘You can tell Gordon I’ll be back in touch as soon as I’ve discussed the situation with Conrad,’ she said as she adjusted her dress, trying very hard to maintain her professional edge. ‘I take it he doesn’t know about your new job?’

  ‘Gordon didn’t ask for references.’

  ‘Please reassure him I wasn’t reading new material. Even I know that’s Raven’s Curse.’ She pointed at the screens around them. ‘And I’ve only sped-read it.’

  Glancing around, Legs realised she was right, but she was too busy shepherding Kizzy down the stairs and through the glittering, watery hall to dwell on it. ‘I’m sure Gordon will be in touch very soon,’ she said, suddenly feeling sorry for her, and guilty for throwing her out when her secret history was right in front of her here.

  On the doorstep, Kizzy looked incredibly shocked to find herself on the receiving end of a warm hug.

  ‘Gordon won’t let his fans down,’ Legs reassured her. ‘He’s an amazing person and really lovely underneath all that cruel and hurtful selfishness,’ Pausing to regroup, she flashed an anxious smile, ‘But of course he’s so protective of his private life that he bulldozes over people emotions and …’ She stopped herself again. ‘You’ll like him a lot. You have so much in common. In fact you’ll think of him as family, I promise. I know he’s over the moon that you’re going to be a part of his life.’