Starlight Over Bluebell Castle

by Sarah Bennett

  ‘I buried them out in the woods,’ she confessed with an unrepentant grin.

  ‘You always did have an evil streak.’ Slinging a free arm around Will’s shoulders, he turned them back towards the house. ‘Come on, lets break the news to the rest of the family, and wet the baby’s head.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to do that until it’s actually born, which won’t be until next summer,’ Will pointed out. ‘Besides which, your sister has made me promise to go dry until then.’

  ‘I just want you to share in as many of the delights of this pregnancy as possible, my love.’ Iggy cackled.

  Tristan laughed, then gave Will a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. ‘Evil streak, what did I tell you?’

  The unexpected arrival of his sister, and the good news she and Will brought with them did wonders to lift Tristan’s bad mood. Sulking about his own romantic misfortunes seemed churlish in the face of their radiant happiness. And for all of Iggy’s grumpiness, he could tell she was delighted with the prospect of expanding the family she and Will were building together. The only awkward moment was when their great aunt queried over when they’d be getting married.

  ‘We’re not,’ Iggy said, taking Will’s hand as they sat together on one of the sofas in the family room. ‘Don’t give me that look, either, Morgana. What if we get married and our first child is a girl? I know there’s a lot of what-ifs between here and there, but if neither Arthur nor Tristan have an heir, then I won’t put my children in the same position I faced because of some stupid, archaic law.’

  ‘You’d let the title die out, then? After four hundred years of an unbroken line? Preposterous!’ Morgana sniffed.

  ‘Umm, I think everyone is getting ahead of themselves, here. I can’t speak for Tristan’s plans for the future, but when the time is right, Lucie and I intend to start a family.’ Arthur intervened. ‘Whether Iggy and Will choose to marry or not, is a matter for them and no one else.’

  ‘Hear, hear.’ Tristan well remembered the hurt and confusion it had caused all three of them when their father had tried to explain why Arthur would be his heir and not Iggy when she’d been the first one of them born. It made no odds to Tristan either way as he’d been the runt of their little litter, but it had affected Iggy deeply – more deeply than even he’d realised until now.

  Leaving her place beside Will, Iggy knelt beside their great-aunt’s chair. ‘Please, Morgana, I don’t want to fall out with you.’

  ‘Oh, child.’ Leaning forward, Morgana cupped her cheek. ‘You always did like to forge your own path. I’ve only ever wanted what’s best for this family, and I suppose I’m just old and set in my ways. Whatever misgivings I might have about your choice, you’ll hear no more about them, and I look forward to meeting my first great-great niece or nephew.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Iggy wasn’t the only one feeling a little teary, and Tristan couldn’t even blame it on his hormones. God, he was blessed to have such an amazing family. Heart full, he glanced across the room to where Jess had been sitting a moment ago, but her seat was empty.

  Making his way out into the great hall, he saw her heading up the stairs. ‘Jess?’

  She stopped, and turned, but remained where she was about halfway up. ‘I was just going to check on Isaac. If I’d known your sister had such personal news to share, I would’ve made myself scarce earlier. I didn’t mean to intrude.’

  ‘No one thought you were intruding, not for one minute.’ He walked to the foot of the staircase, wanting to go to her, to apologise for his bad mood and to find a way of bridging the gap he’d created between them.

  She shrugged. ‘Well, anyway, I need to start sorting things out ready for Monday. The forecast for next week looks so changeable, I’m going to have to pack for all four seasons.’

  The reminder of where she was going next week, and who’d she be spending time with stung, but Tristan refused to give in to another bout of the sulks over it. It was past time he pulled himself together. ‘I’m sure you’ll have a great time, and the boys must be excited about seeing their dad.’

  ‘They are. As for having a great time, I’m not holding out much hope.’

  ‘But I thought …’ Tristan cut himself off, what he thought was neither here nor there. It was Jess’s personal business.

  She wasn’t going to let him off that easily, though. Climbing down until she was just a few steps above him, Jess stared down at him. ‘You thought what?’ Her voice was soft.

  ‘That you and Steve might be thinking about reconciling,’ he admitted. ‘That perhaps that was the reason you haven’t said anything to me about … you know.’

  ‘Oh, Tristan.’ She took one more step down until they stood eye to eye. ‘Steve and I aren’t getting back together, no matter how much our families might try and throw us together. Next week is a stupid ploy by our mothers to do exactly that, but it isn’t what either of us want.’

  Guilt sliced him like a razor. He’d been pouting around the place feeling sorry for himself while she’d been dealing with all this on her own. ‘I’m sorry they’re giving you a hard time.’ He took a deep breath, then ploughed on. ‘And I’m sorry that I put you on the spot the way I did. It was stupid and selfish of me, and I wish you would just forget all about it.’ Jess tugged at her lower lip with her teeth, eyes looking anywhere else other than at his and he cursed himself for embarrassing her once more. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Go and get your packing sorted out. If I can do anything for you – walk down and collect Elijah, or whatever, you only have to ask.’

  He turned to walk away, knowing he had to do what he’d asked of her and forget about it, too.

  ‘Tristan.’ She sounded further away, and when he glanced over his shoulder it was to see she was almost at the top of the stairs. She took another step away from him, as though she regretted calling out, before reaching out to grip the bannister. Time stretched to an almost unbearable tension as they stared at each other, neither one seeming able to move. ‘There is one thing you can do for me,’ she said, at last.

  He returned to his spot at the foot of the stairs. ‘Name it.’

  ‘Wait for me.’

  Before his stunned brain could form a response, she spun on her heel and fled up the rest of the stairs to disappear around the corner. He took three steps after her, before pulling himself up short. He’d almost blown it once – twice if you included the way he’d handled things all those years ago. Wait. That’s what he’d promised her, and that’s what she’d asked.

  Fair enough, he could do that.

  Chapter 11

  Jess checked her watch. They’d been at Centre Parcs for six hours and thirty-seven minutes, and it was as awful as she’d anticipated it would be – and more so. From the moment she’d pulled up outside the lodge and her door had been yanked from her grasp by her mother, it had been an endless litany of comments such as, ‘Isn’t this lovely, all of us together again?’ and ‘Steve was just saying how much he’d missed you all.’ Wendy Wilson had all the subtly of a brick, and Isla wasn’t much better.

  She’d tried appealing to her dad when he’d taken her keys and said he’d move the car out to one of the perimeter car parks as soon as it was unpacked. ‘Please,’ she’d begged, following along the little path. ‘Tell her she needs to stop this.’

  ‘I’m sorry, flower,’ her dad, said, giving her a hug. ‘You know how she is. She’s never been very good at facing reality if it doesn’t suit her.’

  They’d both fallen silent, then, remembering how she’d failed to recognise the seriousness of Marcus’s addiction, choosing to believe him when he told her he was fine, turning a blind eye to the money that went missing from her purse, until it had been too late. ‘She’s going to have to get used to it,’ Jess said, when they finally broke their embrace. ‘And fast.’

  Her father touched her cheek. ‘All right, love. I’ll speak to her.’

  By the time she went back inside, Wendy and Isla had been through the case she’d brought
with the boys’ things in it and were stripping the boys down to change them into their swimming things, and Jess hadn’t had much choice other than to go along with their plan to take the boys to the huge glass dome housing an array of swimming pools, and water slides for the bigger children. The dome amplified the noise of dozens of other family groups chatting, laughing and in some cases, arguing. Everywhere children shrieked and splashed and screamed until Jess’s head pounded and she felt a bit like screaming herself.

  When they’d finally worn the boys out, they’d trooped back to the lodge for the next enforced bit of family jollity – a barbeque. Steve had managed to escape to his room to study, and Jess had taken her time over unpacking the boys’ things as they napped for an hour, the pair of them exhausted from too much excitement. Finally, running out of excuses, Jess had returned to the main living area to find hers and Steve’s dads out on the patio having a beer while Wendy and Isla prepped the meat and salads in the kitchen. ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  ‘You can tell that husband of yours to get his nose out a book, for a start,’ Isla said, pointing the bread knife she’d been using to cut up a crusty loaf.

  God, give her strength. ‘If you want your son to do something, I suggest you go and speak to him yourself.’ When Wendy and Isla exchanged a look, Jess finally lost it. ‘Enough!’ she snapped in a tone she’d never used with her mother in all her twenty-nine years. ‘Unless you want me to wake the boys and pack them straight off back home with me, you’ll both stop this ridiculous pretence that everything is fine.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Steve poked his head out of the nearby bedroom. ‘Jess?’

  Frustrated to the point of tears, she swiped her arm across her face, getting angrier by the moment that she’d let them push her buttons like this. ‘I told you this was a bad idea, I told you what they’d be like.’

  Coming to stand beside her, Steve folded his arms and faced the women across the kitchen. ‘Jess and I have made a decision in the best interest of our family.’ When Isla opened her mouth, he held up his hand. ‘It’s not up for debate. Now, you can either accept it and choose to have an enjoyable week with your grandchildren, or I’ll be helping Jess to pack her car.’

  ‘Every couple has their ups and downs.’ Jess might have known better than to believe her mum would let it go. ‘You just need to give it time.’

  ‘No, Mum.’

  ‘No, we don’t.’ Steve agreed. ‘Come on, I’ll help you with the boys.’ He walked away towards the bedroom where she’d left them napping.

  ‘Are you really going to do this?’ Jess stared from her mother, to Isla, and back again. ‘Are you really going to make us deprive Elijah and Isaac of the chance to spend time with you, because you’re not getting your own way?’

  The glass patio door slid open behind them. ‘What’s going on?’ It was her dad, a couple of empty beer bottles laced between his fingers. ‘Wendy? I thought we talked about this …’

  Jess didn’t respond, keeping her attention glued to her mother. Her stomach churned, and she could feel herself shaking a little from the adrenaline surging in her veins. She’d never stood up to her mum before, and even knowing she was in the right, the little girl inside who’d only ever wanted to please hated it. As she watched the tears forming in her mother’s eyes it was all she could do to stand her ground and not rush over to comfort her. If she gave in to those tears now, she’d never have proper control of her life. ‘What’s it going to be, Mum?’

  ‘All right.’ Taking a tissue from her pocket, Wendy Wilson dabbed at her eyes, though there weren’t enough tears to spill over, never mind spoil her make-up. Putting on a bright smile, she turned to her husband. ‘The meat’s all prepped, so if you and Greg want to fire up the barbeque, I’ll bring it out in a moment.’ Jess watched incredulous for a moment as her mum went back to chopping a head of lettuce.

  ‘Here you go, Alan.’ Isla handed Jess’s dad three bottles of beer. ‘Take one for Steve, he’s just gone to wake the boys.’

  He accepted the bottles, glanced at Jess who couldn’t do more than shrug at the question in his eyes. It was like someone had pressed a reset button and the past few hours hadn’t occurred. ‘If everything’s all right here, I’ll give Steve a hand with the boys.’

  ‘Lovely,’ her mum said. ‘When you’ve done that, we just need to put the salads back in the fridge and we can open a bottle of wine. She glanced at her husband. ‘If you light that patio heater, we can probably all sit outside.’

  It wasn’t the most comfortable evening she’d ever spent, Jess thought, but at least her mum and Isla seemed to have got the message. They didn’t say anything when she and Steve chose seats at opposite ends of the outdoor table, choosing to focus instead on the big binder full of activities available within the park and debating which ones would be suitable for Elijah. Jess mostly kept quiet, leaving it to Steve to decide what they should do as he would be the one looking after the boys once she left in the morning. When it came to bedtime, she stayed in the kitchen to do the washing up, listening to the familiar murmur of Steve’s voice as he read a story to Elijah. She was just putting the last glass away in the cupboard when he came and joined her. Opening the fridge, he pulled out a bottle of beer. ‘There’s a bit more wine left if you want some?’

  She shook her head, moving to switch on the kettle. ‘I have to drive in the morning, I’ll have a cup of tea. Do you want to see if the olds are ready for a hot drink?’

  ‘In a minute. There’s something I need to tell you.’

  Pausing in the act of getting a mug, she glanced over her shoulder. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I think I might have met someone.’

  Oh. Jess paused for a moment to check how she felt, and was relieved to find it didn’t bother her in the slightest. It would’ve been hypocritical of her if she had, considering what she’d blurted out to Tristan the other afternoon. But this was the first time she’d had to think about the possibility of Steve being with someone else. Setting down the mug, she turned her back to the kettle and rested against the counter. ‘Only think you might have?’

  He shrugged, cheeks colouring a little. ‘Jesus, this is seriously awkward.’

  She giggled. ‘It really is, but I’m here if you want to talk to me about it. About her.’

  Steve swigged at his bottle. ‘She’s a geologist, a research assistant. Her department’s in the same building as mine. We’ve had coffee a couple of times, that’s all.’

  ‘But you think that might not be all?’

  ‘Maybe? Is that all right with you? Even though its over between us, I didn’t want you to think I went rushing out to meet the first woman I could.’ He scrubbed at his hair the way he always did when he was feeling tired or uncomfortable. ‘We got talking one morning, and …’ he shrugged. ‘She’s nice.’

  She wondered how long it would take his geologist to learn all his little tells, those secret things only couples knew about each other. How long it might take her to learn all those things about another man, the one she’d told to wait for her even as uncertainty racked her over whether she should’ve done. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

  He cast a quick glance at her from under his lashes. ‘You don’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t want to go on a double-date with the pair of you,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But, yes, of course, it’s all right.’ She sighed. ‘I just wish the government would get on and pass that legislation they promised.’ There’d been an announcement earlier in the year that the government planned to introduce a form of no-fault divorce to make it easier for couples like them who didn’t fit into any of the archaic strictures of the current law.

  ‘It would make it clear to everyone we’re serious about this,’ Steve agreed. He took another mouthful of beer, his expression telling her he had something else on his mind. ‘What about you, Jess? Do you think you might have met someone? Elijah’s got a serious case of hero worship for this Tristan guy. You’ve known each other for a lo
ng time now …’

  ‘I don’t … we’re not … it’s not that easy.’ She couldn’t give him a straight answer, because she didn’t know herself. Yes, she told Tristan to wait for her, but she still wasn’t sure when she’d be ready to explore things with him – or if she ever would. It had been a long time since she’d been with Steve, not since before Isaac was born, and she’d got used to going without those intimacies. Her body wasn’t what it had been, not that she was embarrassed by the scars and stretch marks carrying and birthing two healthy babies had left behind, but it was one thing to be comfortable with them herself, and an entirely different one letting someone else see them. It seemed crazy at twenty-nine to be able to write herself off the market when it came to sex, but she felt like the past couple of years had settled over her like ancient tree sap oozing and trapping a fly. She hadn’t quite ossified into amber, but there was a temptation to allow it. To ignore herself and focus on giving the boys a healthy, happy life.

  ‘That’s the thing about living your best life, Jess. I don’t think it’s meant to be easy.’ Putting down his beer, Steve closed the space between them, brushed a kiss on her cheek then walked off in the direction of the boys’ bedroom. It wasn’t a romantic kiss in any way, more an acknowledgement of their past.

  And though they’d said it a hundred times before, it felt like their final goodbye.

  Chapter 12

  Jess hadn’t said much when she’d returned from dropping the children off for half-term, and even less when she went to pick them up. Though it had killed Tristan to give her space, he’d thrown himself into his work, the word ‘wait’ echoing around his head until he was sure he was muttering it to himself in his sleep. They’d had several questionnaires back from the guests who’d booked for the house party, so he’d forwarded them to Jess to deal with and focused on the final preparations for the winter festival. With Iggy feeling a bit delicate in the early stages of her pregnancy, and things slowing down with Will’s gardening business for the year, they’d decided to extend their visit home, and Tristan was taking full advantage of them.