by Bloom, Anna
Tears of Gold
Tears of Ink #3
Anna Bloom
For K
Your bravery inspires the words you find here
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Afterword
RUIN - JUNE 2019
Acknowledgments
To love is to give
To give is to fight
To fight is to believe
One
Elijah’s gaze is unblinking as he stares out the windscreen. In front of us, the looming facade of Bowsley Hall winks under a late October sun. I don’t think Elijah can see the brickwork, the sweeping stone stairs, or the ivy creeping around the building like a sumptuous dressing gown on a once glorious but now fading film star. He’s staring at nothing, while I stare at him, my hand tightly grasping his.
We’ve sat here, unmoving, for forty minutes.
Pulling in a deep breath, I break the silence. “We don’t have to go in. We can find a hotel, a B&B even.”
He doesn’t turn, still staring, still silent.
Two days ago, we were here together, and I ran. Ran like I always do. He ran after me, without stopping to say goodbye. Now Peter, his older brother, is dead, cruelly snatched from his life while on a country road.
A heavy aching weight presses on my chest and I rub at the space between my ribcage. Elijah, his attention grabbed by my movement, finally pulls his blues from the windscreen. “We need to go in.” As his gaze lands on my face, it’s full of deep and dark emotion.
“Okay. So let’s go.” I unclip my seatbelt, not that I know why I’ve still got the damn thing on. It’s not like we’ve moved anywhere.
His face when he stares at me is tight, repressed. This is the Elijah his family brings out. Stiff and formal. I’m the balance to that. I’m the muse to his soul. “We can survive this, can’t we, Faith?”
My fingers lift to his face, skimming the bruises and cuts I indirectly put there with my own stupidity. “We can. We can beat anything.” Leaning forward, I tentatively plant my lips against his own cut ones. When I pull back, he’s still watching me. “But this isn’t about us. It’s about Peter and your family.”
He catches my fingers, squeezing them bone-crushingly tight. “Faith.” I hate the way he says my name like it’s a broken dream, and I hate even more the shadowing bruises on his beautiful face. My stomach turns and squeezes, but I keep my expression neutral and watch him. “Once we step in there, we’re giving ourselves up. With Peter gone, everything will be weighted on my shoulders. We should be celebrating the rest of our lives.”
I shake my head to stop him. “We’ve got forever to celebrate being together. This, right now, is about your family and your brother.”
With a snap decision, I pull my hand free from his and slide the ring he gave me only yesterday from my finger. It’s ironic that the one item of jewellery I never planned to remove is the first one to come off. “No.” His hand clenches around mine. “Don’t you dare.” The blues, so distracted since Jennings came to break the tragic news, flare with a flash of icy determination. “That stays on.”
Sighing, I shake my head. “I’m not your mother’s biggest fan, Eli, but I don’t want to cause her pain when she’s already going through enough.”
His head shakes slowly from side to side. “No, Faith. The rings stay on. It’s our promise to one another. The moment that ring slipped on I considered you my wife.” He pauses and my heart beats wildly in my chest, my breath catching in my throat. “Don’t ever take it off.”
I can’t argue with that. “I won’t.” It’s wrong on a million levels, but a slow smile curves my mouth and I can’t repress it. “Wife?”
His own lips twitch until he winces and a bead of blood springs to the surface. I gently sweep it away. “I like that name on you.”
“So do I.” Stupid and crazy as it is. Insane and unbelievable. “I really do.”
The depths of his eyes flash. “Let’s do this.”
“Whatever comes.”
He nods, swift and precise. “Whatever comes.”
He steps out the car, his shoulders stiff. Beneath his clothes his body is hurt, broken. I need to get him looked at really, he could have broken ribs and who knows what going on inside. Even knowing Aiden has been arrested on charges of abuse doesn’t relieve the pain of knowing Elijah got hurt.
It’s all on me.
Everything about me is twisted and dark.
But I don’t want to be that woman anymore. I don’t want to be her, the woman in ink, with skeletons and devils dancing in her wardrobe, harbouring secrets of the past. Yesterday, I took a step towards throwing off the shadows. Now, as we step up the stone stairs together, our hands tightly clenched, I know that I can’t go back. I can’t run again. I made a promise to Elijah and the words of that promise shine along with the discreet diamonds on my finger.
I can only run forwards. Face things head on. No matter who comes. My Dad. Aiden. The sins of the past. The future is the only place I can fight them. Brighton is no longer my home. Eli is.
Jennings opens the door and bows to us both. Eli doesn’t let go of my hand to greet him, instead his fingers squeeze mine tight. I’ve never thought before that Eli must have a key, I mean this is his home—was his home. Yet, Jennings always opens the door. I file the question away for another time.
Eli hesitates, and I hate it. I want to give him what strength I have. I want to remove the pain scorching through his heart, but I can’t. His brother is dead.
Peter is dead.
A pang of regret spears my chest for the man I didn’t really know until too late. Nothing like his younger brother, I’d only discovered just this week that Peter was far cooler than I’d ever given him credit for.
“Your mother is in the conservatory,” Jennings tells Eli. “Can I bring you both some tea?”
Eli shakes his head. “No thank you.” Finally, he seems to snap out of the frozen clutches he’s been in since Jennings turned up and told us the awful news.
“Dinner shall be served at eight, in the dining room as per usual.”
Something about his words must reach Elijah under his fuddled state. “Dinner?”
“Yes, your grandmother has requested everything continue as usual.”
A low hiss escapes Eli’s lips. “Of course.” He turns, pulling me after him down the long hallway. “Mother!”
“Eli,” I whisper trying to pull on his hand. “Eli, calm down. What’s the matter?”
His face when he turns is a furious mask, with his eyes burning and his lips crimped into a tight line. “This is how it is, Faith. We shall continue as though nothing has happened. It was the same when my father left, and now Peter is dead and it’s the usual Fairclough crap. Everything must continue. Nothing should change.”
He stops and turns to me, his hands lifting my shoulders. “It
stops now, Faith. Our lives are going to change forever, and I know you don’t understand that yet, but I do. Hell, if I’m going to not try my hardest to make things better.”
I lift my hand and cup his poor purple cheek. “So let's make things better. But, respect your mother. Find out the facts first. We have forever to make things right. Don’t start a war now; this isn’t the day.”
Leaning closer, he skips his lips lightly across mine. “And now you’re the calm one?” He smiles as much as his wounds will allow.
“As your wife it is my duty.”
He takes the pain and grins. A leak of blood springs from his bottom lip which makes me wince. “I’ll tell you all about your wifely duty, but not right now.” I don’t know how but he manages to wink one of his swollen eyes.
“Eli!”
He’s calmer when we turn back and begin to walk through the long and grand hallways of the stately home.
We both hesitate in unison at the door to the conservatory. We had our first kiss in there, under the sprinklers, impulsive and forbidden. Now the air seems stuffy and the flowers are fading as Autumn steals them away. I flick my gaze to Eli. He’s pale, a pulse beating fast beneath the skin of his throat.
“Come.” I step over the threshold leading him along by our clasped hands. “Jennifer?” I call tentatively. I’m guessing she’s not expecting to find me still hanging around. She probably hoped that when I ran the other night, I ran away for good. But I’m still here and it’s time for her to accept it.
We find her sitting at a round wrought iron table near the waterfall. Her back is ramrod straight, her eyes focused on something seemingly not in the conservatory. She doesn’t turn. She’s frozen like she has been carved from ice.
“Mother?” The echoing crack in Eli’s voice near on kills me.
She turns at last. Her gaze lands on his face, although if I’m expecting a reaction to the damage she finds there, I don’t get one. Her gaze slowly falls onto me.
Our hands are tightly wound, and even though I want to run from her penetrative stare, I don’t.
That’s got to be something.
“Peter’s gone,” she says.
He nods. It’s a minuscule movement.
“I don’t know what he was thinking really. He knows what these roads are like after rain.”
“I don’t know. You know Peter.” Eli stumbles when he realises his tenses are confused. “He had a mind of his own.”
Jennifer snaps out of her daze. “What are we going to do, Elijah? Everyone will find out about him now.”
Eli almost drops my hand but then he snatches it back up, tighter than before. I hold my wince in as he drags me forwards over the stone path, closer to Jennifer. “What on earth are you talking about, Mother?” There’s a calm undercurrent, but I know it’s more dangerous than if he were shouting.
“Peter. He always makes things so complicated.”
“Mother!” The roar from Elijah’s chest could shatter the glass roof above us.
Her eyes lift to his with bewilderment and then a lone tear slips down her cheek, swiftly followed by another and then another. Then her shoulders shake, lifting up and down as her wall of countenance falls brick by brick.
His grasp on my finger loosens and he steps closer to her while I remain in place. His legs buckle and he falls to his knees, almost soundless despite the fact it must hurt, and he pulls her into his arms.
The sound of their sobbing echoes through the air and I back away, unwilling to encroach on their moment of bitter intimacy. I may be about to become his wife, but she has always been his mother, despite her flaws. Unable to watch the shattered mother and son, I back away and make my way through the conservatory, through the lush dark green foliage that seems utterly out of place on a day such as today; full of death and despair.
I easily remember my way around the place despite the labyrinth of corridors and maze-like features of the mansion. The door with ‘Kitchen’ tacked onto it with an enamel plate is as easy to find as falling into my own kitchen at home—although with slightly more steps involved.
Elaine, the Bowsley cook, is at the table. Jennings is next to her, his arm around her shoulders as they heave up and down. She glances up, her eyes red and swollen. This is what grief looks like to me, not the icy rigidness Jennifer maintained by the waterfall.
“Oh, Faith.” Elaine’s greeting is stuttered and swollen.
“Elaine.” I rush to the table and squeeze her motherly figure into my arms.
“Oh, Faith,” she says again. “This is awful. It’s just awful.”
“I know it is.” I plant a kiss on the top of her head and realise with surprising clarity that this is the only woman I think I’ve ever felt remotely close to, other than Abi and Tabs. There is something innately comforting and secure about her, like a mothership who can hold you safe through stormy waters. I look up and smile softly at Jennings. He’s not crying, although I wouldn’t expect him to. The Bowsley butler is the epitome of professional at all times, even here in the safe haven of the large kitchen.
“Can I make you guys a cup of tea?” I learnt this back in the summer when Al died. If you have nothing else to say, it’s best to offer tea.
Jesus. I can’t believe Peter is dead.
My head can’t even comprehend that. I was shopping with him just the other day. He helped me find a dress for Elijah’s birthday dinner. We had lunch. Had fun. And now… he’s gone? How?
God, Elijah’s birthday. I bet that’s one he isn’t going to want to remember in a hurry. He got beaten to within an inch of his life by my perverted and sleazy almost once half-brother, found out I’d slept with my best friend, and then his brother died the following day.
That’s a birthday to forget.
My heart hammers so loud in my chest it thuds in my ears like I’ve run too far or taken the stairs too quickly.
Peter is dead.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I say to no one in particular. “Where is Connie?” Now, I’m not exactly in a rush to see Eli’s evil grandmother, but why the hell wasn’t she sitting with her only daughter and supporting her?
Maybe she was grieving in her own way privately?
Jennings looks up at me, his hand still circling Elaine’s back with calming reassurance. “She was in Jennifer’s office sorting through paperwork.”
Say what?
“What on earth for? That can wait, surely?”
Jennings' gaze meets mine steadily. “It’s not my place to question what or why.”
I would imagine he’s very grateful it’s not his place to question what or why. “Is Tabitha on her way back?”
I knew Tabitha was back in London this morning. It was her who tracked down Eli to the Tate Modern where I found him stood with my fixed glass heart. Where I asked him to marry me and promised to never run again.
I swallow hard.
“Miss Fairclough arrived an hour ago I believe, along with Mr Duncan.” Who the hell is Mr Duncan? It takes a split moment for me to realise he’s talking about Lewis. Why is he being so formal?
I stare at him for a moment and he meets my questioning gaze, his face calm as always. He’s the epitome of professional butler. He blinks and I spot the turmoil in the depths of his eyes. I give him a small nod and turn for the kettle.
The very least I can do is make tea.
Peter is dead.
I can make a half-decent cup of tea.
Once I’ve got Elaine sorted with sweet tea and some biscuits to dunk, I make up a tray and go in search of Tabitha. My arms are close to breaking once I’ve been to her room and found it empty and then walked the corridors again trying to locate her.
She’s in the library sitting in the very chair Peter sat in the other night at Elijah’s disastrous birthday dinner. Lewis is sat turned towards the dying fire that looks like it needs a bit of oomphing or whatever it is you do to a fire that’s burning into orange ash.
“Hey.” I step closer and Tab
s raises her gaze to me. She’s crying less than Elaine, but more than Jennifer which I’d say pegs her in the normal range of emotions. Not that I can talk, I have the emotional depth of a robot. “You okay, little sis?”
I kiss her hair and loop my arms around her slender shoulders in a squeezing hug.
“I’m glad you’re here. What the hell happened to your face?” She smiles, but it’s only small and it creates tears at the corner of her eyes.
“Of course I am. Eli is with your mum, and let's not talk about my face.” Tabs' own face freezes at the mention of her mum, but then her attention is caught by my ring finger, glimmering with small but dazzling diamonds.
“He finally asked you?”
“I asked him, actually.” I give her a moment to stare at the ring as she turns my hand to see it better. Her eyes flicker towards Lewis but then drop back to my new jewellery.
“Does this mean you are staying?”
“Looks like it.” The excitement of getting engaged has faded with the earth-shattering Fairclough news. “I want to take it off so I don’t upset your mum, but Eli won’t let me.”
It’s blinging exceptionally bright. The diamonds could have been of slightly less high quality and then it wouldn’t be so obvious.
Tabitha shakes her head. “No, you need to come in and own your place. Otherwise it will just be the same shit over and over again. Peter isn’t here now,” her voice wobbles, “and he’s always supported Eli, so you guys need to fight for what you want.”
It’s funny that when I met Eli, I never knew he and Peter had a bond as deep as they did. When we met, Peter was cold and aloof, and actually a bit of an arse. So I guess when I think about it, not all that different to Eli.
