Since You've Been Gone

by Anouska Knight

  “I can’t see me going to Hollywood anytime soon.” I laughed. “If it actually exists. Ooh, I could build a plane! Out of cake, and Jesse would help me. Ciaran, do customs check for food at Hollywood airport?”

  “I think they might notice if you arrived in a cake.”

  “Oh. Well, Hollywood...will just have to come...to meee!” A clatter of wood and the floor jumped up at me hard enough to throw the laugh from my mouth. It was still funny, until warm wet slobbers brought on a wave of nausea. Someone was helping me up. I didn’t know you had arms, Dave!

  My stomach lurched as I jarred back onto my feet.

  “I think you’ve hit a wall” came that gentle nearly Scottish voice. Was that a wall? “Do I have your permission to take you to bed?”

  Another jolt and the nausea was building.

  “I don’t want to go to bed. I want to talk about hot tubs and...and your lay-dees who love you, Ciaran Argyll!” Giggles met with creaking floorboards and Dave ran up the stairs in front of me.

  “Do you see this newel post? That is supposed to be...an owl!” Small sniggers grew into a great whooping laugh. “An owl! But it looks like a peanut!” The creaking continued.

  “Lead the way, Dave,” said Ciaran as he moved us along.

  The soft embrace of something delightful gave me a cushion of softness to wriggle my shoulder blades into. Oh, this was comfy! Like really comfy! I swatted at the hair on my face.

  A soft stroke I didn’t think was me, and my hair wasn’t annoying me.

  “Good night, Holly,” I heard him say as sleep pulled at me.

  “No, wait! I want to talk about your girlfriend. The girl on your back. You must have loved that one,” I murmured, trying to fight the heaviness in my head. “Was she the only girl you ever loved, Mr Bond?” I could still giggle but my eyes weren’t opening for anyone.

  The door creaked, and I could smell Dave close by.

  Then a whisper, quietly slipping away.

  “Only girl who ever loved me back.”

  chapter 18

  Gnats drifted on the same warm summer breeze that saw colourful paper lanterns swaying on their strings. Lily of the valley filled jam jars at each table, but sweet peas had won out in the battle to fragrance the evening air.

  Mum was fussing somewhere, probably in the marquee with most of the guests, still trying to come to terms with a wedding in a war zone. It was a good job the weather had been so kind, or she’d be nibbling vol-au-vents indoors, with seventy friends and family all trying to keep the stench of turps from their nostrils.

  The sweet peas preferred it up there by the cottage, their perfume dying away the closer we moved to the water. The air was different down here, cooler, less giving to the advances of delicate blooms.

  “I love you, Mrs Jefferson.” His eyes sparkled like the waters, the stars only catching on them a little here and there while the moon tried its best to cast everything into ethereal shades of blue.

  “I love you, too, Mr Jefferson. Now shut up and kiss me.”

  Hands spanning the breadth of my back pulled me closer, and the taste of him invaded my mouth as he pressed himself in. He was tasting me, too, his tongue delicately greeting mine. My lips closed in around him to hold him there. I loved the way Charlie kissed me, gentle and urgent, building until kissing alone wasn’t enough.

  I could feel the contours of his back through wheat-coloured cotton, the added warmth of his forearms where sleeves had been rolled back to elbows. His twill sandy waistcoat had set him aside from the rest of the forest boys in their shirts to match and casual braces, but I wished he’d left it up there with them.

  Hard brown buttons made fiddly work for my eager fingers, trying to hurry without ruining the threads.

  Oops. A worthy casualty.

  Charlie’s shoulders were cavernous over me as I finally discovered him inside his waistcoat. I pulled his shirt up, out of my way, to run impatient hands over the ripple of his stomach before reacquainting them with the expanse of his chest. I wanted to feel his skin against mine, but the dress would only hitch to the waist and we didn’t have any more time to waste, not before someone noticed us gone.

  A second to savour the view, then I allowed hungry lips to feel of him what my stiffened breasts were unable to, to find him where the May evening air hadn’t, and paint all that warmth in wet eager kisses. The skin was hotter here, smoother, softly defending his nipple. I took it between my teeth, and promised it my tongue, but I’d made him wait too long.

  Charlie arched away from me, to come at me on his terms. He grabbed me certainly at my waist, where light floaty fabric became heavier under the weight of pretty lace, and lifted me as if I weighed nothing. My legs instinctively rose to lock around him, to help him carry me quickly to the gently sloping bank near the water’s edge. I held myself there as he walked us, freeing his hand for it to explore as I knew it would. I trembled when he found me under my gown, knocking away already slackened wellington boots to take in the softness of me from ankle to hip. His hand rounded on me, investigating the trim of panties he hadn’t seen yet. A low guttural appreciation escaped his chest.

  So close. Just a little closer...

  “I want you, Charlie,” I whispered. “I want to feel you inside me.” My mouth was dry with desperation, to feel him plunge into me for the first time as his wife. To see if he felt the same.

  A strained gasp at my ear, the tiniest scratch of his whiskers and Charlie’s scent began to ride over his cologne.

  “I love that I excite you,” I whispered between teeth nibbling at his neck.

  “I love that you excite me, too.” And his mouth was on me again.

  Cool grassy earth made an unlikely cushion, perfectly angled for such trysts in the moonlight when Mrs Hedley was safely tucked up in bed, or wedding guests were preoccupied with music and merriment.

  So much heavy lace. I scrambled to pull it all away, to liberate my legs and offer him haven. The pale of his shirt flittered to the ground like a towel thrown in a boxing ring, but there was no surrender here, not yet. The frantic tinker of a buckle and dark trousers slumped to reveal strong thighs tinged blue by the moon. The shadows hid from me what it was I wanted the most, his thick warm length so nearly here, nearly in reach, nearly laying its kiss against my softest part.

  Charlie crawled over me, nuzzling breasts he couldn’t reach and then panties pulled aside as the first slip of a finger found its line and gently, surely, slipped inside. Charlie was testing my readiness. I knew I was ready. The hot throbbing down there was calling for him, aching to be touched. Pleading, for all that slick sensation to be satiated.

  Charlie growled into my neck, “Mrs Jefferson, do you know what you do to me?”

  I loved that it drove him wild, to slip and slide so easily over the most throbbing beacon of all, before dipping his fingers into me again.

  The air had been cool between my thighs, but I felt the warmth now, radiating from his skin, the beast still hiding in the shadows. A glancing touch, and then warmth and delectable smoothness pressed at my opening. I wriggled into it, to spread the sensation around, before he sank down hard into me.

  The torment of steady slides was relieved by the urgency of thrusts, and in the cool blue night, hot and hard and trembling, Charlie bucked and rocked me to climax. I gripped at the grass behind me as I rode out the aftershocks. He was close, too. Faster and harder he thundered until finally, my fingers hanging on desperately at the back of his neck, he exploded into rapturous release.

  * * *

  “I want to stay here,” I whispered over his panting body. “We’ve been up there all night.”

  “But it’s not enough,” he answered, familiarity in his words.

  His voice sounded strange, laboured maybe, but I was distracted by the noises of the party above us.
Melodious fronds of violins and guitar had come looking for us where we lay, recovering, trying to marry mismatching rhythms of heartbeats and breaths.

  Under his weight, I kissed the crest of his shoulder, just a few more times, before he’d get up and make us rejoin the group.

  The moon shone on his back, throwing indifferent light and shadows onto his skin.

  “Charlie?” I whispered, tracing my finger over the darkened shapes there. I strained to see better in the light, to make out the defined lines of something that couldn’t be shadow...flowing lines, rolling over one another like reeds in a current.

  “Charlie, you have someth—”

  The shapes started to pull together, to make sense. Not reeds, hair...on the wind, long sinuous tresses of a woman’s hair, tattooed into Charlie’s back.

  * * *

  A rush of saliva filled my mouth.

  Nausea had been traded for a very immediate need to get to the bathroom. A short spell of thudding and a changing landscape of soft carpet to threadbare rug to cold tile told me I was nearly there. Nearly there.

  The toilet seat clattered back against the cistern with an angry slap and the nastiness erupted on cue. I recognised the acrid bitterness and remembered it tasting a lot less offensive when I drank it.

  I wiped the bitter residue from my lips.

  The sink made for a good grab-rail, but the mirror didn’t do much for me. I looked like death—death in an LBD.

  Downstairs, a cough broke the stillness of the house. It hadn’t come from me.

  By the loo, I’d been at around a one on the sobriety barometer. One misplaced sound and I was now at about a five and a half.

  No. Oh, no, he was not still here? My head throbbed against my efforts to force a little clarity. I couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t be.

  With the stealth of a toddler, I tiptoed downstairs. I couldn’t remember climbing them. I could remember the sounds of a man sleeping on the sofa in the man-cave, though, but it was a worn memory.

  I followed the muffled noises of soft breathing, and found Ciaran had settled for the couch, Dave contentedly snoozing on the floor beside him.

  Traitor.

  In the light of the hallway behind me, I could see just a sliver of him. He looked softer in sleep. Gentle. On the table next to the settee, his mobile phone silently cried for attention. The green glow throbbed in the picture frame there, showing Charlie holding me like a log over his shoulder while I clung to my posy of flowers.

  Dave wasn’t the only traitor around here.

  chapter 19

  At least I hadn’t thrown up in bed.

  Under the bedclothes, something dug in my ribs as I stretched against the morning. A dreamcatcher was one thing, but a photo frame made for an unusual talisman.

  The vibration of a kitchen chair grinding across flagstones had me up onto my elbows. Before I’d even heard Mrs Hedley’s unmistakable drawl, I knew who she’d be chatting to. Downstairs. In my kitchen.

  I jumped out of bed, checking I’d found myself a pair of shorts last night, and content with my modest nightwear made a silent dash for the bathroom. Whatever humiliation was waiting for me down there, I wasn’t going to meet it with morning breath and Alice Cooper eyes.

  I never woke to voices in the house and knowing whose voices they were made the occurrence even more unsettling.

  “Holly doesn’t usually have breakfast. But I’ve tried telling her, it’s important when you’re on the go as she is all the time.” Mrs Hedley spoke in short sharp syllables. Dave was both extremely fond, and frightened to death of her. Sentiments Charlie and I had shared.

  At the door the smell of toast and boiled eggs hit me as I locked sights on the sinks. Someone had washed the wine glasses and had left them to drain there. I could see two glasses, two mugs, and had absolutely no idea how to walk into my own kitchen right now.

  Feign illness? Hide until he leaves?

  Don’t be such a baby.

  A deep breath, and then confidently, nonchalantly even, I stepped out onto the flagstones and made a beeline for the kettle.

  “Speak of the devil,” Mrs Hedley said. “I thought you’d like some eggs bringing, in case you were running short.”

  In a week Dave and I hadn’t made it through the last pile we’d had from her, most of which were still sat in the bowl next to the toaster, buzzing and glowing with its next consignment. She wasn’t here to make breakfast.

  An acknowledging look for Mrs Hedley bought me the quickest of glances at Ciaran. For someone who had probably been interrogated already, he looked more than at home sat back into his chair, casually dipping a sliver of toast into an egg.

  Nope, I couldn’t look at him before coffee any more than I could look at the several buttery rounds on standby in front of him.

  The floor was freezing as I tiptoed over it to the fridge, buying myself a few more moments of obscurity behind its open door.

  I needed coffee, fast, if I was going to be on my toes this morning, and as far as my house guest was concerned, well, I wasn’t sure there was a drink for that.

  I shuffled back to the sink, tying my hair on top of my head. I wasn’t completely convinced it had escaped unscathed last night while I touched base with the loo.

  I grabbed a new mug—inscribed with Paddle Faster, I Hear Banjos!—from the cupboard. Jesse had given it to me last Christmas. I wondered how his night had turned out.

  “Ciaran here was just telling me that he got so tipsy at his party he went toppling over. I told him he was lucky he didn’t knock himself senseless.” Mrs Hedley tutted, wiping the crumbs from around him. He flashed her a smile for her efforts and I swear I saw Mrs Hedley swoon a little.

  “Cora, that was the best breakfast I’ve had in weeks. Thank you.” Ciaran smiled, rising from the table.

  Cora? Did he say Cora? I never knew Mrs Hedley even had a first name. She was like Brindley’s Nook’s very own Boudica. I hid in my coffee mug, a little surprised by the love affair unfolding over egg and soldiers down at the other end of the kitchen.

  Mrs. Hedley’s eyes followed as he brought his dishes over to the sink next to me. The leaves had started settling on the ground in the garden and I concentrated on their colours, trying to keep at least one foot warm by standing it atop the other.

  Dishes clinked in the sink, another forced sip from my mug, and the unexpected touch of a hand gently at my lower back.

  “Good morning,” he said, softly.

  I mistimed the next anxious gulp and had to contract my throat to stop from spluttering. There was a smile on his lips when he walked away again.

  “So you were saying, Cora, about the benefits of a greenhouse?”

  Mrs. Hedley sat at the chair facing him, topping up his cup with a pot of tea I wasn’t sure she hadn’t brought from her house. They were about as far removed as any two people could be, yet sounded like old friends on a park bench.

  When the image of water showering down a tattooed back made a circuit around my head, it was time to take back my house. I would not keep on being some blushing little princess; I would be Boudica! And return my home to normal. With a confirmative slam of coffee cup on worktop, I turned to face the enemy square on.

  “I’m going to jump in the shower, and then I’m going to get a lift to my van. You might want to call a taxi.” There. Not too curt, not too friendly—just right.

  “You don’t need to do that. It’s taken care of,” Ciaran called over, before resuming talks of tomatoes and compost with Mrs Hedley.

  “Taken care of? How?”

  “The van’s already been moved,” he answered.

  “Moved? Moved where? I have the keys here!”

  Dave was barking in the yard outside. Ciaran checked his watch.

  The barking intensifi
ed as a pickup truck rolled up carrying a familiar burgundy van on its back.

  “Did you do this?” I asked Ciaran, already knowing the answer.

  “I’d better go say hello. I don’t think he’ll get out while Dave’s there.”

  Mrs. Hedley and I exchanged a look. She raised her eyebrows and smiled as if to suggest we were both in on the same secret—whatever it was it was news to me. I tiptoed back out into the hallway and pulled on my wellies and clumped into the yard.

  “You didn’t have to do this, you know,” I said, finding myself next to him, again.

  “That’s okay. It’s the least I can do after bed and board. Of sorts.” He turned and reminded me of the weight of those richly brown eyes. I found them exhausting in even the tiniest increments—he was probably used to that. “I didn’t think you’d be in a rush to go back there anyway.”

  I wasn’t—he was right—but not because two drunken idiots overvalued their charm.

  “Ciaran, how much do I owe you for this?”

  “It’s fine. We have an account with these guys.”

  “Ciaran, I can’t let your father’s company pay for my inability to count drinks.”

  He drew in a deep breath beside me then let it out slowly. “Holly, it’s fine.”

  I wasn’t used to hearing my name in that voice, so balanced in assertion and gentleness.

  Another puff of brown dust swept up into the air over the hedgerow. A few seconds later, another shiny black car I hadn’t seen before bobbled towards us over the track before crunching to a halt. Mrs Hedley came to stand with us, waiting to see who this was. Ciaran was less interested.

  She looked even more sullen this morning, marching without hesitation over the unevenness of the yard to where I stood, in nightshirt and wellies, possibly with a little sick in my hair.

  “What the hell happened to you last night?” she snapped over my shoulder. Ciaran stood casually behind me, Mrs Hedley firmly attached to one arm.

  How could she look this good again already? It was inhuman.

  “Good morning, Penny. This is Cora, and you know Holly.”