Love at First Hate

by JL Merrow

  “So I’m told. Although there are no signs of any arrests being imminent.”

  “Yeah, I don’t expect they had a lot to go on. Hey, did they ask you if you had any enemies, like on the telly when someone gets murdered? It always gets me, that does. Like, who has enemies in this day and age?”

  “Apparently, I do.” Bran’s temper flared. “It must be nice to breeze through life with everyone always thinking well of you.”

  Inexplicably, Sam flushed and looked away. “Yeah. Must be.” He fell silent, his face still turned to the window.

  What on earth? Bran felt wrong-footed. It was almost as though he’d been the one at fault here, rather than Sam with his careless prying.

  The silence grew heavy, its weight pressing on Bran’s injured chest. “Do you have family?” he blurted out after what seemed like an age.

  “What?” Sam’s head snapped back from the window. “Oh, yeah, three sisters. All older than me. They’re all married with kids now. And there’s my mum, obviously. Dad died when I was little. Heart attack. I don’t really remember him. Uh, you?”

  Bran blinked under the barrage of information, belatedly registering the question at the end. But surely Sam knew about Bran’s family from Jory? Bran found himself answering nonetheless. “Jory and Gawen you know about. And Kirsty, of course. I have a twin sister, Bea. That’s it.” Apart from a vast tribe of distant cousins he was quite happy to meet only at weddings and funerals.

  “How old were you when you lost your parents?”

  “Twenty-six.” Sam looked at him expectantly, so Bran felt compelled to continue. “My mother was ill for many years. My father’s death was . . . sudden.”

  “Is that ‘sudden’ as a euphemism?”

  Bran’s eyes flashed to the rearview mirror, and met those of the taxi driver for a brief, gut-churning moment before she looked back to the road.

  “Shit—sorry,” Sam was saying. “Forget I asked. None of my business.”

  No. It wasn’t. But to refuse to answer now would only confirm Sam’s suspicions. “He was walking on the clifftops behind Roscarrock House. He fell.”

  “Behind your house? That’s got to be rough. Uh, sorry.”

  Rough? Yes, that was one way of describing it.

  Fifteen Years Ago

  The crash above Bran’s head was painfully, terrifyingly loud. Far louder than his father’s shotgun, or even the seaward cannon. Not that they’d been fired for years now, not since he and Bea had still been children. The flash came simultaneously, shockingly bright, lighting up the room even through the thick curtains. The power had been out for several minutes and seemed likely to continue so, leaving the house wrapped in darkness so absolute it seemed unreal. As if a blanket had been thrown over his head and he was slowly smothering, trapped in its folds.

  School had been a long time ago, though. He didn’t jump at shadows anymore, and darkness was just the absence of light, not the prelude to a hateful prank. The storm must be directly overhead. Bran entertained a sudden, vicious hope that lightning might strike and put them all out of their misery.

  No. Out of Father’s misery.

  It’d been four months since Mother died. Father had been . . . Frankly, Bran wasn’t sure deranged wasn’t the right word. He almost wished he could call in a doctor—but since Father would never consent to see one, the question was moot, quite aside from all considerations of what it would likely do to the Roscarrock family reputation and hence its fortunes. Even though Father now took no part in the family property business, leaving it to Bran.

  With all the tumult of nature going on above, it was hard to settle with a book, as presumably Bea had done somewhere in the house. Probably she was in her room—she had an ample supply of candles there, and a window seat to read on. Bran found himself wandering the empty halls, the flickering of his candle keeping his pace measured, with a curious sense of having been thrown back in time. How odd it must have been to live in a world of candlelight, as his ancestors had done for centuries in this very house.

  Back then, of course, the place would have been bustling with servants even at this time of night. Not silent and still, as if Bran were the only one left alive.

  He only went into the study because he saw through the open door that there was a fire lit, and he was curious. Once his father’s exclusive preserve, the study had, over the last six months or so, become Bran’s domain, and it seemed strange now to find someone else had taken possession. Moreover, the air had been thick and oppressive all day, and although it had cooled markedly now the storm had hit, it hardly merited lighting a fire.

  Whether it had been Father or Bea, they weren’t there now. Again, that seemed odd—why light a fire, and then leave it to burn down unheeded? Still, the light was cheery in this gloomy night, and Bran drew nearer.

  As he did so, he noticed an envelope askew on the mantelpiece, secured at one corner by the antique cannonball Father had used as a paperweight for as long as Bran could remember. The handwritten name on the front wasn’t obscured.

  Branok Roscarrock

  The envelope was addressed to him. Him alone.

  Bran stared at it a moment, then stowed his candlestick on the mantelpiece, seized the envelope, and tore it open. The letter inside was handwritten too, in Father’s spiky script, and it took Bran a moment in the dim, shadowy light to take in what he was reading.

  Oh God. It was an apology.

  For their mother’s death.

  Bran had wondered about it, in the leaden times since she’d died. Her death had come so suddenly, after so many years of inexorable yet gradual decline. Had it really been entirely . . . natural?

  “These things happen,” the doctor had said, not quite meeting Bran’s eye. “Just comfort yourself with the knowledge she’s no longer in pain.” When Bran had voiced his suspicions, Father had flown into a temper and demanded to know how he dared accuse Dr. Gibson, an old family friend, of failing in his duty. Had yelled at him to stop sullying his mother’s memory with unfounded accusations.

  Bran had been silent after that. Because after all was said and done, the most he suspected the doctor of was well-meant collusion—and he hadn’t known anything had been untoward about Mother’s death, had he?

  But now he did. It was all down on the page before him, in the strident blue ink from Father’s fountain pen. He’d found her suffering unendurable, and had put an end to it at last. He didn’t say how he’d done it, only that he had, and that Dr. Gibson was not to be blamed. Father regretted—there was a smudge here, and a word scratched out completely before he’d gone on with strong, confident strokes—that he hadn’t allowed her children the chance to say goodbye to her.

  Bran stared at the words until they swam on the page. The chance to say goodbye. Mother would have insisted on that, wouldn’t she? If she’d been able to. Which meant . . . Bran blinked until he could once more read the final lines:

  I leave the family and its fortunes in your hands, Bran. I trust you will not disappoint me.

  Your father,

  Kenver John Roscarrock

  Coming without warning, Bea’s voice at his shoulder made him startle and crush the letter in unsteady hands. “Oh, there you are. Where’s Father?”

  Bran swallowed. “Gone.”

  Bea’s forehead creased, the firelight throwing strange shadows over her face. “Gone? Gone where?”

  Another crash of thunder, and a flash of lightning lit her features, pale as death.

  “I don’t . . .” Bran crumpled the letter once more convulsively in his fist. “He just left this note. Saying sorry. Oh God. I think he’s gone to . . .” He couldn’t say it.

  But this was Bea, so he didn’t have to say it. She knew. She always knew. “We should check the garage,” she snapped at him. “What are you just standing there for? Come on.”

  Bran couldn’t move. She meant to save Father. She didn’t know . . .

  “Come on,” she repeated, and grabbed his arm, pulling him fr
om the room.

  The motion cleared his head—and suddenly he was appalled at himself. “Oh God. Yes. The cars.” He ran with her through the house to the kitchen, the candle guttering but miraculously, not quite snuffed—until she flung open the back door to a squall of wind and rain that battered their faces and dowsed their lights, leaving them in darkness.

  Bea swore. “Hold on.”

  She let go of him, leaving him adrift in an inky sea. Lightning struck once more, showing him the way across the kitchen garden to the old stables where the cars were housed. Bran didn’t wait. He sprang out through the door, into sheeting rain and a wind that took his breath away. His flat-soled shoes slipped and slid on the uneven paving slabs that formed the path around the tiny garden. Mother’s garden; it was weed-ridden and unkempt now in his mind’s eye but invisible else, the lightning having ruined his night vision. They should have paved the whole lot over the minute she was in the ground. Christ, what he wouldn’t give for a light.

  Bran reached the stables sooner than he expected, and slammed painfully into the stone wall. Bruised and rattled, he fumbled his way to the door and wrenched it open against the wind.

  No fumes rolled out. One theory dead. Bran took a step forward into the stable, and then another. The relief from the battering of the wind and rain was heady even after so short an exposure, and he struggled to think. If Father had . . . Christ, if he’d, oh God, hanged himself, or used any of the ancient implements in here that could be turned to lethal purpose, there’d be a light, wouldn’t there?

  Unless he’d done it before the power cut. Bran froze, his thoughts stuttering in horror at the image of himself walking blindly forwards to stumble into his father’s corpse. He shivered as an icy trickle of water ran through his hair and down his neck.

  Thin yellow light beamed past him. “Is he in here?” Bea asked, her voice raised to carry over the storm and the heavy metal torch in her hand steady as a rock.

  “No. I don’t know.”

  She swung the beam across the stables, first high, to the rafters, and then lower down, pausing at each car until it was clear there were no occupants, and no cars missing either.

  “Then how would he . . .” Her voice trailed off and although he couldn’t see her, Bran knew she had turned to him.

  Knew, as he had known so many times as a child, that she was thinking the very same thing he was.

  The cliffs.

  “We have to look for him,” she whispered.

  Bran grabbed her arm. It was bare, wet and cold. Her thin summer dress must be soaked through already. “You can’t go out on the clifftops. It’s not safe.”

  “Of course it’s not safe! It’s not safe for either of us. But we can’t just not try.”

  No. They couldn’t.

  Rain blurred the light of Bea’s torch as they hurried out of the stable yard, to the grounds behind the house that ended in a sheer drop. Hundreds of feet straight down to jagged rocks that scythed through an unquiet sea.

  Bran and Bea had learned respect for these cliffs almost before they could walk. “Don’t go near the edge; it may crumble. Don’t assume a path that was safe yesterday will be safe today. Don’t go out in stormy weather; the winds are stronger than you think.” They’d known them so well, back in the far-off days before school and . . . other things had split them apart as if they’d never been almost one person in two bodies. They’d played on the cannon, and crept out at night to watch for smugglers’ lights. Later, when Jory had come along, sapping their mother’s strength and their father’s smiles, they’d taken him out there to threaten him with the loss of a favourite toy if he didn’t do as they said.

  Once, Bea had even followed through with it, one afternoon when Father had snapped at them to “For God’s sake take that wretched brat somewhere and let your mother have some peace.” Bran could remember Jory’s anguished cry as she’d thrown the teddy far out over the sea, and he’d rushed to the cliff edge to watch it tumble. Bran had been so terrified Jory would follow it over the edge that after he’d pulled him back he’d hit him, all his strength going into an open-handed slap that left a vivid red mark on one baby-fat cheek for hours. Jory had cried for the pain, but he’d cried for his teddy even longer, begging them to go and get him back, as if such a thing were possible. Bran had had to sneak some of Father’s expensive dark chocolate from the study drawer to shut him up.

  He felt sick, now, with the certainty Father wouldn’t be coming back either. Hundreds of yards of cliff edge bordered the Roscarrock lands alone, and the torch beam’s feeble light carried only a few feet. How could they ever hope to find him?

  Bea tugged at his arm again, urging him on although her voice was lost in the wind.

  As he wavered, another crash split the air, and a great fork of lightning crackled in the sky, so close the hairs on Bran’s neck stood on end despite being drenched. He could see Bea, her hair plastered to her head and her dress clinging to her thin body. “This is madness!” he yelled. “You’ll get yourself killed too.”

  He grabbed Bea by both arms and pulled her back, away from the cliffs. She struggled and the torch fell, but Bran didn’t give a damn anymore. He knew which way the house was and that was where they were going. They stumbled and fell in the darkness, but Bran was stronger than Bea and he didn’t care. He was damned if he was going to lose his sister as well.

  As they fell in through the kitchen door, feet thick with mud from trampling through that damned kitchen garden, the lights came back on.

  Bea stared at Bran, wild-eyed, and wrested herself from his grip to run through the house shouting for Father, as if they might have overlooked him earlier in the darkness.

  Nobody answered.

  Present Day

  The cessation of motion was what startled Bran out of his reverie. Although he’d been staring out the window, he’d taken in nothing of their route and hadn’t even noticed they’d arrived at the restaurant.

  He’d probably come over as appallingly rude, sitting there ignoring his companion. He hurried to get out of the taxi, which was idling in the car park, and paid the driver, only just remembering to add a tip. Get a hold of yourself, damn it.

  He turned to Sam, who was waiting to one side with a wary look in his eye once more. “I apologise for my taciturnity.” It sounded stiff and a little ridiculous in his own ears.

  Sam shook his head. “No, my bad. I shouldn’t have been so bloody nosy. I kind of forget, sometimes, it’s not the same for everyone, dealing with a death in the family. I mean, I regret never knowing my dad, but it doesn’t hurt talking about him, because I never knew him. So, I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t need to apologise again.” Bran took a deep breath. “Shall we?”

  Bran resisted the urge to usher Sam into the restaurant with a hand on the small of his back. He wasn’t Craig, and this was not a date.

  Had it been a bad idea to bring Sam here—a place he’d been to several times with Craig? But he’d been put on the spot, and hadn’t been able to think of anywhere else. At least, nowhere he wouldn’t risk running into business contacts. If the evening ended badly—and there was every chance it would—Bran would rather any unpleasantness not be witnessed by those likely to hold it over him.

  Sam was gazing all around the place. “This is really not what I was expecting.”

  Unease pricking the hairs on the back of his neck, Bran frowned. “The food is excellent, I assure you.”

  “No, I’m not complaining. It looks great. It’s just not what I’d imagined, that’s all.”

  What had he imagined? Bran found himself examining the place with fresh eyes, scoping for whatever seemed to say to Sam that Bran didn’t belong here. The restaurant was situated in a former barn attached to the Tinners Rest public house, its ceiling open to the vast pitched roof supported by ancient beams. Too rustic, perhaps? No, that was absurd. Bran was from a family of country squires, for God’s sake. Was it, then, too frivolous, with its eclectic collection of En
glish agricultural equipment supplemented with rice flails and paper fans?

  Perhaps it was the lighting, which was warm and low. Bran loathed brightly lit restaurants. They were all very well for business lunches and large groups, but when it came to an intimate evening meal, he hated feeling as though he were sitting in a goldfish bowl. He was finding it hard enough to relax as it was.

  “Mr. Roscarrock? Your usual table?” The hostess, a woman his own height, elegant in a turquoise cheongsam, smiled to greet them.

  Bran managed to smile back. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Come this way, please.”

  A gorgeously painted screen divided the restaurant on one side, shielding their corner table from view of the entrance. It was lit by numerous small, shaded lamps, none of them seeming to cast more than a candle’s worth of light. The two table settings were at right angles to one another, allowing each diner to sit with his back to a wall, something Bran had never consciously noticed until tonight.

  “I guess this answers the question of whether you come here often,” Sam said, taking his seat.

  Bran gave him a sharp glance. Sam was smiling. Was it mockery?

  No. No, he was simply far too on edge. “I prefer to support local businesses in Porthkennack when I can, but sometimes one needs a change.” Bran cringed inside at his own pomposity. It was how he might have spoken to a business associate he was lunching with and didn’t much like.

  But then, of course, he didn’t like Sam Ferreira, did he? Attraction—and he was forced to admit he was attracted to Sam—didn’t necessitate any meeting of souls.

  Sam nodded, as if to agree that the antipathy was mutual. “Yeah, I don’t feel like I’ve seen much of Cornwall since I’ve been here, so it’s good to get out of town for me too. I’ve been spending weekends helping Jory and Mal do up the cottage. And this place looks great. Lots of atmosphere, and not too formal.” He ducked his head and opened his menu. “So, are we sharing dishes, or each getting his own?”