Love at First Hate

by JL Merrow

  He should switch on the computer and make a start on it. He would. Just a little more rest before he faced the storm.

  Bran jumped badly at the sound of the back door opening and closing, the movement sending fire through his rib cage even as terror danced along his spine. Someone’s in the house.

  “Bran? Are you home?” Bea’s voice.

  Foolish relief making him queasy, Bran opened his mouth but couldn’t manage to get out a word before she poked her head around the door.

  “There you are. How are you feeling?”

  A hastily drawn breath caught in his throat, and he barely managed to stifle the reflexive cough in time. “Fine.”

  “You don’t look well.” She strode into the room and stretched out a hand as if to feel his forehead, but drew it back without touching him. Perhaps his skin looked damp. Certainly he felt unpleasantly clammy. “Have you been home long?”

  Bran darted his eyes to the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. It was past six. He must have been asleep. The idea was embarrassing, but not so much as the alternative: that he’d spent all those hours staring into an empty grate.

  He just wished he felt in the slightest degree rested. For God’s sake, things were supposed to be getting back to normal now he was at home. But he’d felt better in hospital, with all the noise and the clatter and the determinedly cheery nurses jollying him into eating bland, institutional meals. “A few hours.”

  “Do you want something to eat?”

  He should, shouldn’t he? But the thought of what she was likely to offer him, some premade meal thawed in the microwave, appealed not in the least. “Some toast, maybe.”

  “Well, come on, then. You’re supposed to keep mobile.” Her voice was terse. Was she angry with him?

  Bran frowned but heaved himself painfully out of the chair and followed her into the kitchen, where she began opening and closing cupboards with unnecessary clatter. “Do you have to be so loud?” he snapped.

  Bea turned to give him a searching look. “Your head still aches.”

  It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t bother with an answer.

  “I’m making you some soup. You can’t just live on toast.” She opened a tin and dumped the contents into a pan, then switched on the gas. “Here. Come and stir this.”

  It was some kind of beef broth, with chunks of overcooked carrot and potato and spots of grease floating on the top. The sight turned his stomach even as the smell made it rumble. Bran suddenly wished Jory were still living with them. He’d have cooked something decent, using fresh ingredients.

  Jory had visited him in hospital twice—the first time, Bran had assumed, to make sure he didn’t look too terrifyingly battered for Gawen to face, as Jory had brought the boy the very next day. Bran had braced himself for a torrent of questions and requests to see his bruises, but Gawen had been unusually subdued. Bran still wasn’t sure what that was all about. Fiercely glad his unknown assailant hadn’t left marks on his face—surely the hardest thing for concerned relatives to deal with—he’d assured them both he was fine, and would be out of bed in no time.

  And he had been, hadn’t he? He was home now, and everything was back to normal.

  Something hissed and spat, and Bran jerked his hand away, the wooden spoon splattering the stove top with thick droplets. His sharp intake of breath sent splinters of pain through his chest.

  Bea darted to turn down the flame, and the bubbles in the soup pan subsided. “Bran?” she said sharply. “You just let it boil over?”

  “I . . . I’m not hungry.” Hot and uncomfortable, he dropped the spoon on the counter and fled for his study.

  Bea appeared five minutes later with a bowl of soup, a couple of slices of moderately burnt toast, and a tight-lipped expression.

  Bran couldn’t meet her eye. “Thank you,” he said, and was careful to eat it all.

  Bran felt worse, rather than better, the next day. On top of everything else, he seemed to be coming down with a cold, and it’d made his night even more of a misery. He’d woken up repeatedly, his ribs aching, feeling as though he were suffocating. It was almost a relief to drag his weary body out of bed.

  It was a Monday, so Roscarrock House was closed to visitors, thank God. Bran wasn’t sure he could have borne strangers invading his home today.

  He choked down some toast and coffee—Bea had already gone to work by the time he’d risen—then trudged to his desk and switched on his computer. His email inbox was so ridiculously full he didn’t know where to start. For God’s sake, it had been less than a week. Could nothing function without his input? Redevelopment work on the old cannery site had come to a standstill, the contractor claiming vital equipment had been stolen. How the hell had that even happened? Some of those machines weighed twenty tonnes. He should call the police and demand to know what was being done. Make it plain he expected this blatant disregard for the laws of property to be treated as a priority.

  But that would leave them less time to spare on the matter of his . . . Bran attempted to swallow, his throat dry. Perhaps he’d leave them to it. Constable Peters had seemed competent enough. He took up his paperknife to make a start upon the stack of post Bea had left neatly on his desk.

  He was only halfway through when the telephone rang, breaking the still of Bran’s study with its cacophony and causing his hand to slip, the paperknife jabbing painfully into his palm. Bran cursed as he glanced at the number displayed. The solicitor’s office, again. He’d call them back when he was ready, damn it. Did they have to keep bothering him? He let it ring, and put down the paperknife with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. Emails first, perhaps.

  Thank God the new exhibition centre hadn’t been targeted by the thieves. If, indeed, there were any thieves and it wasn’t just some ridiculous excuse cooked up by the contractor to explain the works falling behind schedule. Bran rested his eyes on the painting of Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, that hung upon the wall opposite the fireplace. It was an excellent copy of the nineteenth-century portrait by Burnell, showing the prince as dark-haired, dark-eyed, and determined, in armour, coronet, and heraldic colours. He’d been thrust into an adult world at an early age, as had Bran—although of course Bran’s campaigns involved far less bloodshed.

  Bran could still remember first reading about the prince in a book he’d found in the library, back when he’d been a child and Jory an unruly toddler. It wasn’t, of course, the first book he’d read about knights of old, but it’d been the first book he’d found that actually explained what chivalry meant: bravery in war, courtly behaviour to ladies, and courtesy to one’s enemies. As long as they were of noble rank, of course. No one gave a damn about the peasants.

  He’d been very glad he wasn’t a peasant, for all that he lived six hundred years and more after the prince’s time. His imagination had been captivated by the stories of the sixteen-year-old general who’d won campaigns in France. The Prince of Wales who’d never lived to be King of England.

  It’d seemed so unfair that because Edward was known to history as the Black Prince, everyone assumed it meant he’d been wicked. He’d been brilliant—at least, in his early years. Perhaps not so much in his later years, but he’d been ill then, hadn’t he? Illness changed a person. Even at ten, Bran was well aware of that. It made them less than they were, and it changed everyone around them too. Father hadn’t been so . . . He’d been different, before Mother became ill.

  It wasn’t fair, he’d thought, with a child’s keen sense of justice. Why did Jory have to come and make Mother ill?

  Odd, how childish misconceptions continued to colour attitudes long after they’d been overthrown. Bran was quite aware, these days, that Jory’s birth hadn’t been the cause of Mother’s illness, and that even if it had been, it would hardly have been Jory’s fault. But still he had to watch himself for signs of lingering resentment.

  Did Bea feel the same? She had when they were children. He knew that. But now he found it so hard to tell how she felt
.

  Twenty-Seven Years Ago

  “This is Alan,” Bea said with a blush.

  Bran stepped up to accept the offered handshake, wishing it wouldn’t be terribly obvious if he wiped his palm on his trousers first. He was mesmerised by a pair of deep-brown eyes that seemed to see right inside him.

  Oh God, he was probably blushing as red as Bea. But he’d never known a man could be . . . there was no other word for it.

  Beautiful.

  If it hadn’t been for the colour of his skin, Alan could have stepped straight out of one of those TV shows where impossibly good-looking American teenagers lived impossibly glamorous lives. He was wearing faded, well-fitting jeans Bran would bet his whole year’s allowance were designer, and a crisp polo shirt with an exclusive logo. It showed off strong, well-shaped forearms and a hint of biceps with deep-mahogany skin. His tousled hair was so black it shone.

  Bran had never felt the urge to run his fingers through anyone’s hair before. It probably wouldn’t be as wonderful in reality as in his imagination—Alan almost certainly used mousse or gel or something to style it like that—but Bran wouldn’t mind finding out, even so. Alan was tall, stylish, and confident, like some of the upper-sixth-form boys at Bran’s school, only more so. He looked like he belonged on a yacht in . . . Bran almost thought the south of France, but maybe that was too establishment for someone so modern, so trendy.

  So unmistakeably nonwhite, his father’s voice muttered sourly in his mind.

  Bran made a rude gesture at his father. Also, of course, entirely in his mind. Father didn’t understand the modern world. He didn’t understand that things were changing, that it wasn’t all about people like us these days. Not that Father was a racist, obviously. He would never call Alan any of the offensive names Bran heard regularly thrown across the school playing fields. He tried to ignore the voice whispering in his ear that Father never used any hateful words for gay people either, but that didn’t mean anyone was left in any doubt as to how he viewed them.

  “So you’re Bea’s brother?” Alan asked, flashing white, even teeth directly in Bran’s eyeline. He towered over Bea. His accent was a disappointment, though—flat and northern beneath the overlay of public school polish.

  Bran was about to speak, but Bea broke in, her voice loud and excited. “Yes. This is Bran. Short for Branok.”

  “Another of those Cornish names, is it? Like yours.” Alan cast a clearly approving gaze over Bea’s figure that made Bran want to punch him. And then run far, far away, although he was much too old to cry, for God’s sake.

  How old was Alan, anyway? Older than their fifteen years, that was for certain. Was he even still at school?

  “You’re here on holiday?” Bran forced himself to ask politely.

  “Oh, didn’t Bea tell you? I’m spending the summer here with friends. Working on my surfing.” He smiled again. “Please don’t come and watch me. I must look like a right prat to a local like you, falling in the water every five minutes.”

  Suddenly Bran wasn’t annoyed at him anymore. “I’m sure you’ll pick it up in the end.”

  “Alan’s studying politics at Oxford,” Bea said as proudly as if she’d coached him for the entrance exams herself.

  “Reading, not studying,” Alan corrected her. “And it’s PPE—philosophy, politics, and economics.”

  Bea knew that, surely? “It must be fascinating, learning all about power,” she said, smiling back at Alan.

  “It is. You should consider it when you’re applying for a place—unless you’ve already made your choices? I’m sure you’d have a good chance of getting in.”

  “You really think so?”

  Why was she being like this? Letting him patronise her, as if she were just some silly little girl?

  Alan turned to Bran. “And what about you? You look more like a scientist. Or mathematician, maybe?”

  “Maybe,” Bran conceded. He did like science, but it wasn’t where the money was, was it? Everyone said so. “Not engineering?” he asked, just because it was the sort of thing his teachers were always telling him to think about. He’d already discounted it himself, but he found he wanted to hear what Alan would say.

  Alan stared at him for a moment, his head cocked. Bran hoped he wasn’t blushing under the scrutiny. “No. Too hands-on for you.”

  Bea laughed. “That’s exactly what Bran always says.”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I can read minds,” Alan said, then offered her his arm like an old-fashioned gentleman. “And I just heard you thinking you’re dying for an ice cream. Shall we?”

  Bran watched them go—his sister and the tall, sophisticated stranger—and had never felt so alone.

  Present Day

  Jory came to visit in the evening. He walked into Bran’s study wearing the concerned expression that hadn’t seemed to leave his face since the . . . incident.

  The first thing he said was, “Are you sure you should be out of hospital? Shouldn’t you at least be taking it easy in bed?”

  “I’m fine,” Bran snapped, then regretted it. It’d made his head throb more fiercely, and worse, he was fighting the urge to cough. Knowing it would hurt like hell if he gave in, Bran took shallow breaths in the hopes it would subside, and gripped the smooth, leather arms of his chair by the fire.

  “We need to talk about the exhibition.” Jory loomed beside the mantelpiece, making Bran’s neck hurt and his headache worse when he looked at him. “I’ve spoken to Dr. Banerjee—”

  “You’ve spoken to her? Why not Sanderson or Trenowden?” They were, after all, his fellow sponsors of the exhibition. Not that they’d shown any great inclination to take an active role, but in the circumstances, they could damn well step up. He’d been quite clear with them as to his vision. Surely they should be the ones to persuade Dr. Banerjee to withdraw her resignation and come back and curate the exhibition?

  Jory grimaced. “They said—well, Sanderson did, and Trenowden agreed—that they didn’t think it was their place to get involved with staffing. They seemed to feel you’d made it plain they weren’t going to get any say in that sort of thing. You being the major investor and all.”

  “Idiots.” Perhaps he had asserted his control over the direction of the exhibition a little too strongly, but damn it, it wasn’t all to do with money. Bran was the only one of them who actually knew the first thing about Edward of Woodstock, and it had been important they realise he wouldn’t be dictated to. He wasn’t going to let anyone turn his lifelong dream into a garish, Disney-like theme park just to maximise the profits.

  “Anyway, she’s adamant she’s not coming back. She says she doesn’t need the stress.” The disapproval now showing in Jory’s expression was hardly an improvement on the concern he’d shown earlier.

  Bran disliked feeling under attack from his little brother almost as much as he hated being an object of pity. He heartily wished he was at his desk. “She should grow a thicker skin, then.”

  He reached for his glass of water. It seemed to take an inordinate amount of effort. Having taken a sip, which did little to calm his throat, Bran rested the glass on his lap in the hopes Jory wouldn’t notice how much his hands were shaking.

  “It’s been nearly two weeks now with no curator,” Jory went on, “and if we don’t get someone in soon, the exhibition won’t be ready in time for the official opening.”

  Bran was aware of all this, damn it. “I’ll deal with it in due course.”

  Jory’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t look well enough to deal with anything right now.”

  Bran was rapidly losing patience. “Then you’ll have to curate it.”

  “What? Me?”

  “You’ve done it before. That mermaid exhibition at the museum.”

  “That was tiny. The Black Prince exhibition is orders of magnitude bigger. And I’ve got a full-time job now. Are you expecting me to do it in my spare time?”

  “Your working day finishes at three, for God’s sake.”

&nb
sp; “Three forty, actually. And that’s just lessons. Or did you think state school teachers didn’t bother with things like after-school clubs, or marking, or lesson plans?” Jory’s tone was one part righteous indignation to three parts sarcasm.

  Bran’s head was killing him. He wished Jory would just go away. “Then take a sabbatical.”

  “At this end of the school year, with no notice? Teaching doesn’t work like that. And nobody gets a sabbatical in their first year of the job.”

  “Then what do you suggest we do? Cancel the opening?” Bran’s voice had risen to match his brother’s, and the strain of it tipped him over into a miserable coughing fit. He spilled his water in his lap, and spilled it again as he tried to put the glass back on the table.

  Jory at least had the decency to look contrite as he took the glass from Bran’s shaking hand, and when he spoke again, it was softer. “Of course not. But we need to get on and find someone.”

  “I told you. In due course.” Bran’s voice was hoarse and painful. Christ, it was cold in here.

  “Why don’t you ask Jennifer Solomon to put out some feelers? She could—”

  “No. It has to be someone I can trust.” Jennifer Solomon was the last person he’d ask to find him a new curator. Bran might be wrung out and exhausted, but he’d be damned if he’d let his exhibition be thrown away on some trendy historian who’d probably want to present it all from the French point of view, for God’s sake.

  “I’m sure Jennifer would take your views into full consideration.” Jory leaned towards him, frowning. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look sweaty.”

  “I’m fine.” Damn it. He’d set off that bloody coughing again. Bran fumbled for his handkerchief, then snatched at the one Jory pressed into his hand. He held it to his mouth through racking coughs, sick with the pain in his throat and chest.

  “Bea? Bea!” Jory was shouting.