by Erica James
At last they pulled apart, both breathing hard and gazing deep into each other’s eyes. Without another word exchanged, Romily switched off the lamp on her desk and led Red from the room to go upstairs.
Chapter Seventy-Five
Island House, Melstead St Mary
December 1962
Isabella
‘I don’t believe for one minute that story Romily gave us about her and Red being just friends. The sexual tension between them last night during dinner was akin to watching bacon sizzling in a pan!’
Max smiled. ‘What a way with words you have, my darling. Does it bother you that they might be lovers?’
Wearing the shirt Max had worn yesterday, Isabella turned away from the window where she had been watching yet more snow fall from the leaden sky. ‘Heavens no!’ she said. ‘I think it would be wonderful for Romily to have a man in her life after all this time on her own.’
‘What about you, do you like having a man in your life?’
Isabella thought how much Max had come to mean to her. How he filled her heart in a way no man ever had before. People often spoke of finding a partner who was the missing piece they had never even realised was missing from their lives, but only now did she know how true that was.
‘You’ll know,’ Elijah had once said to her when she’d been in her early teens and had asked him how she would know that she was in love with somebody. ‘You’ll just know with all your heart that you’ve found the right person.’
She went back to the bed where Max was lying on his side looking at her. ‘I rather think I do,’ she said, slipping under the warm bedclothes to join him.
He contemplated her for a few seconds, then rolled over to lean on top of her. ‘I hope it’s this particular man you enjoy having around,’ he said.
She placed her hands either side of his bristly unshaven face and kissed him. ‘Do you really?’
‘How can you ask that after everything I told you on the train yesterday?’
‘Well,’ she said, teasingly, ‘put yourself in my shoes. Why should I believe I’m any different to all the many women you’ve had in your life before me? Including,’ she said with extra emphasis, ‘my aunt.’
He frowned and suddenly looked serious. ‘You will keep your promise never to say anything about that, won’t you? I only told you because I meant it when I said I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us.’
When he’d admitted to her that he had been somewhat economical with the truth in his explanation as to how well he knew Evelyn, she had greeted his confession with relief. She had been utterly convinced he was about to ruin everything by saying he was married. Compared to that, a brief affair with her aunt all those years ago didn’t bother her in the slightest. ‘Ancient history,’ she had assured Max. ‘I couldn’t care a fig about it.’ Perhaps it was her reaction – her fear that she was going to lose Max – that made her realise just how strongly she felt for him.
However, knowing what she now knew did make her review her opinion of her aunt. Evelyn had never struck her as the spontaneous sort to throw herself into a passionate fling. Certainly not when she was already seeing another man: Kit.
‘Of course I won’t say anything,’ she said to Max. ‘I’d hate to cause Evelyn any embarrassment. Or Kit. Although there are plainly going to be some awkward moments ahead for us, aren’t there?’
‘We’ll ride them out,’ he said firmly. ‘My first hurdle is to convince Evelyn that I’m not the dirty dog she imagines me still to be. She didn’t exactly sound full of the milk of human kindness towards me when I spoke to her on the telephone. But that wasn’t really what I was referring to. What about the other thing I told you?’
‘You mean your job?’
‘No, the other and far more important thing. Are you sure that’s not a problem? Have you given it any more thought? I would understand if it’s—’
She kissed him again. ‘Shh . . . not another word. I’ve given it all the thought I need to.’
‘But it’s important. You’re so much younger than me and—’
She silenced him with another kiss. ‘Stop looking for problems where there aren’t any. It’s Christmas Day and I don’t want anything to spoil it.’
Then, on impulse, she said: ‘And to prove to you that I don’t care about any of the stuff you’re worried about, there’s something I want you to do for me.’
‘Name it.’
They dressed in as many layers as they could put on, and in which they could still move. And with no sign of Romily up and about, or her guest, Isabella opened the back door and let them out.
They had only been trudging through the falling snow for a short distance when the bitterly cold air found its way to her chest. She started to cough.
‘Is this such a good idea?’ asked Max.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she assured him. She loved it that he was always so concerned for her. Never would she forget him turning up that day during the smog, when she was stuck in bed feeling so ill.
He took hold of her gloved hand in his. ‘But where are we going?’ he asked.
‘Somewhere that means a lot to me.’
Following the footpath that was so deep with powdery snow it was coming over the tops of the wellington boots they had found by the back door, and which they’d borrowed, they eventually emerged into a clearing. Ahead of them was St Mary’s. It was too early for the Christmas morning service yet and Isabella wondered if it would be cancelled in view of the weather.
She led Max around the church, and when they had reached their destination, she bent down and with a gloved hand, swept away the pillow thickness of snow that covered her father’s gravestone. She did the same for her mother’s next to it.
‘My parents, Elijah and Allegra Hartley,’ she said, looking up at Max. ‘I’ve never brought anyone here before. I promised myself that only the man I truly believed in would be worthy of making this visit with me.’
He hunkered down in the snow next to her, but didn’t say anything. The muffled quiet that enveloped them was absolute. Not a bird chirped. Not even the crows and rooks that could usually be heard cawing in the tops of the trees stirred.
Her voice hushed, Isabella said, ‘I told you before that I never knew my mother, but what I didn’t tell you was that Elijah, the man I always regarded as my father, wasn’t.’ She turned to face Max. ‘It’s never bothered me that I was illegitimate, the same as my mother; not when Elijah raised me as his own. He loved Allegra so much; he promised her when they married, and she was pregnant with another man’s child, that he would always take care of her. And me.’
‘It takes a special kind of love to do that,’ Max said softly, taking off a glove and brushing away the snowflakes that had settled on her nose and cheeks.
‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘You need to know that any man who professes to love me has a lot to live up to. I couldn’t accept someone who wasn’t prepared to love me in the way that Elijah loved my mother.’
‘He was a rare man.’
‘He was,’ she said simply.
‘Do you think he would have approved of me and the age difference between us?’
She smiled sadly. ‘I never knew him to be anything but open-minded and fair. But I’m pretty sure he would have been wary of your motives until he knew you better. He would also have known that I’m just like my mother, so I’m told, headstrong and wildly impulsive, so . . .’
‘So he would have known it would have been futile to interfere?’ Max finished for her.
‘More or less,’ she said through frozen lips, her teeth beginning to chatter.
Rising slowly to his feet, and holding out his hands, he pulled Isabella up into his arms. ‘We should go now. Before you perish from the cold.’
They walked back to Island House in sombre silence, the only sound to be heard in the still of th
e frozen morning, was the crunch of snow beneath their boots. What was he thinking? she wondered. That he couldn’t live up to the expectations she had of him?
‘Max,’ she said, when the footpath was behind them and they were walking the length of the garden at Island House, following in the footsteps they had made earlier, ‘if you feel, after what I’ve just shared with you, that this is a turning point for you, I will understand. There’ll be no hard feelings, I promise. I’d just prefer to know.’
‘You’re right,’ he said slowly, coming to a stop and staring straight ahead of him. ‘It is a turning point. And not one I can pass over lightly.’ He then swung round to stand directly in front of her.
At the intensely solemn expression on his face, Isabella’s legs turned to jelly. Just as she had feared the worst on the train yesterday, she braced herself now.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Island House, Melstead St Mary
December 1962
Red
From the bedroom window, Red watched Max and Isabella in the garden. If he didn’t know better, he’d say he was witnessing a proposal of marriage. Why else would Max be down on one knee in the snow?
The next thing he saw was Isabella clapping her hands together before dropping to her knees and flinging her arms around Max’s neck. She must have thrown herself at him with some considerable force as Max then toppled backwards, taking her with him. Smiling to himself, Red watched them roll over in the snow like a couple of crazy kids. He didn’t think he’d seen two happier people. Well, apart from him and Romily pelting each other with snowballs yesterday!
He wondered what Romily would make of the scene he was witnessing, given her reticent manner towards Max.
Unlike her manner towards him in bed last night, he thought with a grin. ‘I ought to warn you,’ she’d said, when they’d made it upstairs to her room and began undressing each other, ‘I’m a little out of practice.’
‘Me too,’ he’d said.
She’d laughed and told him he was a shocking liar.
He had felt self-conscious when he had taken his pyjama bottoms off and had to remove his prosthetic leg. It was a sensation he had not experienced before. Perhaps it was because he’d wanted the moment to be perfect, for Romily not to be disappointed in him. As they explored their bodies and found their rhythm, her every caress, her every kiss, and every look, tipped him closer to the edge of losing himself in her.
Now, this morning, and already showered and dressed, he moved away from the window. With some difficulty, he knelt beside the bed and just drank in the face of the woman he had travelled halfway around the world to be with. Everything with Romily was new and magical to him, and completely unlike how he’d felt with any woman before.
‘What have you done to me?’ he murmured. ‘And where do we go from here?’
At his softly spoken words, she stirred.
‘Hello you,’ he said as her eyes flickered open. ‘Happy Christmas.’
‘Happy Christmas to you, too,’ she said.
‘You’re beautiful when you sleep,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘You say the nicest things.’
‘I do my best.’
She stretched her hands above her head. ‘What time is it?’
‘Half-past ten.’
All trace of sleepiness was instantly gone from her face. ‘It can’t be! Not when I have so much to do.’
‘Relax. I told you, I’ll help you in the kitchen. If there’s one thing we Americans know how to cook, it’s a turkey with all the trimmings.’
She slid a hand round the back of his neck and pulled him closer to kiss his mouth. ‘Mmm . . . you smell nice. What’s the cologne you’re wearing.’
‘It’s eau de love.’
She groaned and gave him a playful shove. ‘That is the most awful line I’ve ever heard.’
He laughed. ‘It’s so bad, even the toes on my prosthetic leg are curling up with embarrassment. To make amends, would you like your Christmas present now?’
She drew her shapely eyebrows together. ‘But Red, I haven’t bought you anything.’
‘At the risk of distressing you with another corny line, waking up beside you this morning was your present to me.’
‘Sweet man.’
‘You didn’t think that of me when we first met. You thought I was arrogant, conceited and self-absorbed, and full of a sense of misplaced entitlement. Yes?’
‘They were your finer points,’ she said with a smile. ‘What did you think of me?’
‘That you were beautiful and smart with a short fuse when it came to men who show up late for lunch. But boy did I get a kick out of being with you that day! So what’s it to be, your present now, or later?’
‘Later, please.’
‘As you wish.’
Pushing himself to his feet, he moved to one side so Romily could get out of bed. Reaching for her apricot-coloured dressing gown, which matched her nightdress, she slipped it on and kissed him.
‘I’m so very glad you came,’ she said.
‘Not as glad as I am.’
She smiled and went over to the window. ‘I see it’s still snowing,’ she said. ‘And judging from the footprints from one end of the garden to the other, two people have been out for a walk. Presumably Isabella and Max.’
He told her what he’d earlier observed.
‘A proposal?’ she said. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Looked like it from where I was standing. I can’t think why else he’d be down on one knee.’
She tutted. ‘I need to talk to Isabella. And Max.’
‘I totally accept it’s none of my business, but they both looked over the moon.’
‘But Isabella’s so young to marry. What will happen to her career as an actress if she marries?’
He frowned. ‘Plenty of girls continue with their acting careers when they marry. It doesn’t have to put a halt on things. And Isabella strikes me as a girl who knows her own mind.’
Romily shook her head. ‘You don’t know Max as I do.’
‘No disagreement there, but we all change as we grow older. Jeez, I wouldn’t want you to hold my past against me.’
‘I believe you’ve done that to yourself,’ she said, staring out of the window.
‘You’ve lost me.’ Although she hadn’t. He knew what she meant, but was surprised at the way she’d said what she had.
She shook her head again. ‘Forget it, I shouldn’t have said anything. It was wrong of me.’ She turned to face him. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, go on, tell me what you meant. Please.’
She sighed. ‘You’ve held your past against yourself, Red, you admitted that the other night. It’s why you’ve never given the whole of you to anyone, just the bits you’re prepared to share.’
‘Well, that’s harsh, but also true, I don’t deny that. Can I ask you something?’
‘Yes.’
‘Haven’t you done the very same thing? You said last night that you weren’t as impulsive as you used to be, that it was because of something that happened some years back. Whatever it was has affected how you trust people. Am I right?’
‘You are,’ she said, at length. ‘And I’m sorry for sounding so negative; it’s Max, he’s thoroughly rattled me. I promised Elijah, Isabella’s father, that I would do all I could to take care of her. I just don’t want Isabella to be hurt. By Max, or any man for that matter.’
‘If someone had tried to stop you marrying Jack, would you have listened?’
‘Of course not. And everything you’ve said, I’ve thought myself already. I’d give anything to be able to trust Max.’
‘You need to give him the chance to prove himself.’
‘I know. But, and as if the situation isn’t complicated enough, there’s someone . . . someone nearby who once m
ade the mistake of growing too close to Max, and if he becomes a member of the family, it’s going to complicate matters horribly.’
‘Life is complicated,’ he said. He took her in his arms. ‘Look at us. How are we going to continue seeing each other when we live so far apart?’
‘That’s a very good question,’ she said with a long sigh, her head resting against his shoulder.
He kissed the top of her head and when she released herself from his arms and went to shower, he thought how committed she was to this beautiful house, and the extended family she had inherited through marrying Jack Devereux.
It seemed to Red, based on what she had shared with him, that she resided over the family like a generous-hearted matriarch. But had she sacrificed part of herself to do that? Did they, the Devereux clan, appreciate what she had done for them, he wondered? And could she ever give it up? Even partially?
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Woodend Cottage, Melstead St Mary
December 1962
Stanley
Christmas Day had got off to a terrible start for Stanley.
He’d been woken by Tucker barking and dragging himself from the warmth of his bed, he’d gone downstairs and discovered that the pipes had frozen in the night and burst. The kitchen floor was inches deep in a lake of icy cold water.
Stanley prided himself on having a practical nature, but he knew he’d be better to restrict his efforts to turning off the stopcock and baling out the kitchen, rather than attempt to mend the faulty pipe. Fortunately, the kitchen and scullery were a step down from the small sitting room, so the damage was limited to this lower level of the cottage. Odds on he wouldn’t be the only person facing a burst pipe, not when the temperature had dropped well below zero. It was anybody’s guess when a plumber would be available to fix the problem.
Now, having mopped away the last of the water and stoked up the Rayburn with coal to help dry out the place, he finally got around to making himself some breakfast.
While the kettle came to the boil on the hotplate, and too hungry to bother toasting the bread, he cut himself a thick slice and loaded it up with butter and jam. He was onto his second slice when the kettle boiled. His coffee made, he drank it while standing next to the Rayburn where Tucker was warming himself. Apart from the fireplace in the sitting room it was the only source of heat in the cottage.
