Words scrambled around her mind, but sentences didn’t form.
“Bloody hell,” she said.
“Mom!” Isaac giggled.
“Bloody and hell,” James agreed. “Both accurately describe
fatherhood at eighteen.”
Eighteen.
If she’d been a mother at
eighteen, Sebastian would be her child’s father, a child who wouldn’t be Isaac.
She and Sebastian would have stayed together. She might never have gone to
college. She certainly wouldn’t have spent five years in London working as a
publicist for a textile company. And she would never have met David. Or would
they have met anyhow, and it would have been too late? So much of life was
chance, wasn’t it? Stopping to ask directions and falling in love, picking a
landscaper out of a phone book and finding someone to share your pain. But
parenthood at eighteen? No wonder James had retired at forty-five. He must have
burned out on life.
“I thought you said no spouses?” she croaked.
“I did. Marriage isn’t for me; I’m a serial monogamist. My
son’s mother was my first great love, but she moved on to the captain of the
football team with some haste.”
“Mom, what does mon-ogy-amist mean?”
“That you’re loyal and faithful to the woman you love,” James
replied without missing a beat. Tilly shivered, a deep head-to-toe shiver.
“Isaac,” James continued. “Rowena has some potato sacks in her shed. Go find
one. We’re going to bag us a snake.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
“Tilly? See if Rowena has anything I can use as a snake hook. A
long-handled grabber would be ideal. A yard broom will do if you can’t find
anything else. An adder!” James cracked his knuckles and moved forward.
Transfixed, Tilly watched, seeing the child inside the man. Had this boy, who
was so thrilled by nature, been as carefree as Isaac until grief and fear had
capsized his world?
“James,” Tilly said slowly. “You might want to look at where
you’re standing.”
“Shit. I’m on the garden. I’m on the garden!” His hands shot to
his hair. “Tilly?”
“Yes?”
“Help?”
* * *
James loomed out of the heat haze with an empty hessian
sack slung over his shoulder like a slimmed-down, out-of-season Santa Claus.
Isaac skipped to catch up, every step a bounce of joy. Their chatter filtered
through the chirps and tweets coming from The Chase, but neither James nor Isaac
acknowledged her; they were lost in boy pleasure.
Could it have been any more obvious that James was a father?
How had she failed to notice? How had he failed to mention it? Once again, he
had blindsided her with revelation. Or was that betrayal? If he could keep his
fatherhood from her, what else was he hiding? He had confessed so much, yet held
back more. What kind of a man revealed his secret fears, but never once bragged
about his son? Was James cavalier with his parenthood, which was reason enough
to dislike him, or did he not trust her enough?
Hate, James had used the word
hate
in the context of his relationship with his son, and yet Isaac lit up around
James. How could that be?
Tilly walked toward them, trying not to run. Should she be
worried? Had James committed some heinous act against his son? Or was he
incapable of sustaining a close relationship? And why did that last thought hurt
so much more than the others?
Her shoulder blade started to throb again. Truth was, she
didn’t know what to think. She nipped at a stalk of seeded grass and pulled
upward, catching the seeds in her palm. Then she tossed them toward the
white-hot sky and followed their progress as they twirled back down. James had
told her fighting OCD meant one step forward, ten back. But that was how she
felt right now, about their friendship. Although this was more than a few steps
backward. This was a ruddy huge leap in the opposite direction.
* * *
“Did you have lots of copperheads on the farm?” Isaac
asked James.
“Yeah.” James gave a laugh and tried to push away the riot of
memories. He shook back his hair but couldn’t dislodge the swarming images of
his father cussing him. “I used to organize copperhead hunts to freak out my
dad.”
“Whoa. Excellent. Would’ve freaked out my dad, too. He hated
snakes and bugs and pretty much the whole outdoors.”
“That doesn’t seem to be a problem for you.”
“Nah. I get my love of nature from Mom,” Isaac said.
James had forgotten how he loved kid-conversation. Why had he
walked away from fatherhood? Laziness, he supposed. Or possibly guilt over
whether his unreasonable demands for perfection had contributed to his son’s
adolescent breakdown. Whatever the cause, nothing could alter the truth that he
had failed Daniel as a parent. He had never intended to mention the disastrous
fact of his fatherhood to Tilly. Ever. Must have been the excitement of finding
the adder. What a beauty, and interpreted by his warped brain—that sought
meaning in everything—as a good omen, one that had lowered his guard.
James had never believed in sharing. Sharing was not good;
sharing just tore you apart. The shock on Tilly’s face had pretty much confirmed
why he kept his personal life private. Now she knew the whole truth: that he had
no family left to call his own. How long before she figured out he was to blame?
And how would such a devoted mother, daughter and wife respond to that?
James sighed. “And what do you get from your dad?”
“Love of math.”
“He was a math professor?”
“Nope. Economics. He wrote a book about
globalll-izzz-ation
that was
so
famous
it was on the
New York Times
bestseller list. We
still get money from it, money Mom uses for my education.” Isaac gave a proud
nod. “She says Daddy would have liked that.”
Isaac skipped on ahead but James stopped. Silverberg.
David
Silverberg?
“I don’t suppose your father was David Silverberg?” James
said.
“Yup.” Isaac looked around like a startled jackrabbit. “You’ve
heard of him?”
What were the chances, eh? What were the fucking chances. “I’ve
read his book.” Not only read it, but bought twelve copies for Christmas gifts.
He felt he owed David some royalties.
“You and every other businessperson in North America,” Tilly
said, striding toward them, looking pissed as hell.
Daniel, David… Panic tightened across his chest. Thank God he
didn’t believe in tarot, because if he did, he’d be holding a deck of death
cards. That was it. The end of any hope he’d ever, ever had with Tilly. Talk
about cruel cosmic jokes. Wasn’t it bad enough that he had to deal with the
pretty-boy ex-lover who represented everything James wasn’t: dad-of-the-year and
a man so stable other people trusted him with their money? Now James had to
contend with ghosts, too?
“Where’s the adder?” Tilly said.
“We relocated it.” Isaac swaggered up to her. “Down near the
stream. We thought that was best, didn’t we, James?” Tilly wrapped her arms
around her child—a little too tightly, given Isaac’s resistance. The glance she
threw at James was definitely a warning to back off. See? Sharing was bad. No
way would he tell her about David.
“Hey, James.” Isaac bobbed free. “Rowena’s taking me badger
watching tomorrow while Mom and Sebastian have their hot night out. I get to
stay up really late. Wanna come?”
“Hot night?” Tilly said. “What are you talking about?”
“Ro says you and Sebastian have always had the hots for each
other. She says you like each other so much you might have a sleepover.”
“Isaac!” Tilly blushed. “Sebastian and I aren’t… We don’t—”
“Thank you, Isaac,” James said.
Slow down,
James, slow down everything, then walk away.
“I’d love to come badger
watching. But if you’ll both excuse me—” he turned toward the Hall “—I have a
migraine coming.”
Chapter 17
“KBO, keep buggering on.” Rowena sat cross-legged on
the floor, wearing a blue camisole that barely covered her breasts and what had
to be the ugliest pajama pants James had ever seen. They were covered in tartan
Scottie dogs. A bottle of single malt and two cut glass tumblers sat next to her
on the threadbare Oriental rug. So much for sneaking out into the night.
James leaned against the archway at the entrance of the great
hall. “Keep buggering on—is that English for ‘suck it up’?”
“More like British war mentality. Sir Winston Churchill used to
say it. He also said, ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’ Wise man, for
a politician.”
With its leaded window three stories high, empty stone
fireplace the size of a carport, and oil still lifes of dead game birds, the
room that had once hosted Queen Elizabeth I was definitely a suit of armor short
of a Scooby-Doo soundstage. And yet each time James stepped down into the great
hall, as he did now, the room reached out and welcomed him, despite the plethora
of lamps. The artificial light was overly cheerful, but the squishy floral sofas
and sagging armchairs said, “Come sink in us,” and the sound system, ten years
out of date but still impressive, begged to be switched on and cranked to full
volume. There was a hint of raucous parties and sedate social gatherings long
gone, but no personal detail beyond two photographs—one of a smiling baby Isaac,
the other of Tilly as a radiant bride. James swallowed shame and glanced away.
How could he look at that picture now and not see the man whose absence filled
the silver frame? How could he not have realized Tilly’s husband, a brilliant
man with the last name Silverberg, was
the
David
Silverberg? But why had she never referred to his first name? And why didn’t
Virginia have at least one photograph of her son-in-law in the house? What a
sick comedy of errors.
“You could venture forth on another nocturnal walkabout and
brood over tomorrow night’s date—” Rowena patted the floor next to her “—or get
shit-faced with me. It’s good to have options, isn’t it?”
James hesitated. He desperately, pathetically, wanted approval
from Tilly’s oldest friend, but Rowena made him wary. She was charming and
eccentric, but her flamboyant surface concealed ice and steel. She was a
werewolf in a Wonderbra. Although clearly she wasn’t wearing one tonight.
He scanned the worn carpet for dog hairs and dirt but it looked
surprisingly clean. Old but well cared for. Finally, he sat and eased his legs
into the Lotus position.
“How’s the headache?” she said.
“Be a lot worse tomorrow if I drink tonight.” He reached for
the bottle.
“Did you know—” Rowena moistened her lips “—that Sebastian and
Tilly were about to reconcile when she met David?”
“Clearly not from Tilly’s point of view.”
“Actually, yes. Tilly always bounces back to Sebastian. He’s
her foundation, her rock.”
God Almighty, when those green eyes locked on you, you felt
like prey.
“She’d invited him for the weekend,” Rowena continued, “but he
had to cancel at the last minute—some crisis at work. A decision that haunts him
still, I suspect.”
Outside, an owl hooted. James downed his whiskey in one gulp
and winced as it burned his esophagus. “Is there a point to this?”
“James, I like you. I see you as a kindred spirit, another
reformed wild child. Or not so reformed?” She flashed a smile that made him
shiver. “Tilly barely knows where she belongs these days. She needs space, she
needs time, she needs to sort through her feelings for Sebastian. She doesn’t
need—no offense—you.”
He couldn’t fault her on that one. “Are you in love with her?”
James said. The question shocked him; he had no idea why he’d asked it.
“I owe Tilly my life.” Her green eyes hardened. “Never
underestimate what I will do to protect her and Isaac.”
James refilled his glass and raised it in a toast. “In that
case, you and I have more in common than you realized.”
* * *
Perfection—unless you were a Virgo—was vastly overrated.
Sebastian was clucking over some hairline scratch on the passenger door when
Tilly swung around to unfasten her seat belt and froze midwhimper. Her back
ached so much she wanted to laugh. She should listen to her body more, read the
symptoms that shouted, “Stop!” But quitting had never been one of her talents.
If it had been, she wouldn’t have spent years drifting across Sebastian’s wake,
dragging him through the mess of on-again, off-again. And here they were once
more, on the brink of something that felt precarious even before it had
begun.
“Is your back bothering you?” With one hand resting on the roof
of his Jaguar, Sebastian reached in to help. Tilly nodded, unease squirming in
her stomach. He was too close, his aftershave too thick, and oh cripes, his head
was parallel with her boobs. Ugh, she had forgotten these tussles of sexual
attraction, the thrill of sensing your body spark pitted against the terror of
feeling you were attempting to stand in a dinghy that was pitching in a
monstrous swell.
“My back hasn’t been this bad since I was pregnant.”
Bugger it.
Was her speech filter completely defunct?
“God, Sebastian, I’m sorry. My brain, my mouth, there’s a missing link.”
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t intend to.” He unclicked her
seat belt and paused to touch her arm. “How did you get those scratches?”
“Pruning. Well, James prunes. I haul away debris.” She gave her
we’re-one-big-happy-family smile and tried to pull herself from the car.
Sebastian gave a
huh,
which could have been a sigh
or a laugh—who knew—and, slipping his arm around her waist, heaved her out like
a sack of spuds.
“I thought James was the pupil.” Sebastian released her. “Did
you skip the lesson on indentured servitude?”
“Ha. Ha.” She fumbled with the rayon of her short, flippy
dress, desperately searching for pockets, or rather, a way to keep her hands
busy. Were they shaking?
Sebastian aimed his key ring at the Jaguar, and the car flashed
and beeped. Once, she would have teased him for locking a car in Bramwell Chase,
but that was before a national gang of thieves stole lead from the church roof
and the butcher was robbed at gunpoint. Tilly wanted to believe that Bramwell
Chase had remained the dozing hamlet of her childhood, where the most salacious
news was that a dog had worried the sheep, but since she was currently facing a
cookie-cutter housing development on what had once been her favorite pasture,
Tilly knew that was no longer true.
“James is a little phobic about soil, so he chops and I pick
up,” she said. Was that a betrayal of James?
“He’s phobic? About soil?”
“We’ve got it under control.” She strode toward the pub, and
Sebastian followed.
A car whooshed past and Sebastian stepped around her so that
they could walk as they had always done, with Tilly tucked safely on his
inside.
“Tilly.” This time there was no mistaking Sebastian’s sigh.
“You’re alone with a strange man all day and Rowena’s alone with him at night.
How much do you really know about James?”
Tilly shrugged.
Plenty…enough…nothing.
* * *
She stepped down into the cool stillness of the pub, and
a memory blasted. The last time she came here with Sebastian was to drop the
news that she planned to marry another man. Well, that was an auspicious
beginning to Sebastian-and-Tilly Act Two-and-three-quarters. Except this wasn’t
a date. Sebastian had made that clear.
She grabbed at an older, happier memory—Sebastian reeking of
Brut cologne and giggling as they huddled behind the inglenook where no one
could see them grope. Bugger. That just reminded her that they were picking at
the carcass of a teenage relationship.
She walked carefully across the uneven sixteenth-century
flagstones. This was a floor to pay attention to, a floor that had tripped up
many a drunk, including Sebastian the night he had learned about David. Shit.
Was she becoming obsessive? Could you contract OCD through osmosis? Tilly shook
the thought away.
Yuck, the pub stank of manufactured floral scent. And was that
classical music playing, oh, so softly in the background? What had happened to
the cigarette smog and the yeasty smell of spilt beer, the thrum of darts
spearing their target, the jukebox stuck in the sounds of the eighties? The
jukebox had been ripped out and the dartboard replaced by a garish print of a
fox that could have been a pro- or an anti-hunting statement. More disturbing
still, the toweling beer mats reeked of fabric softener.
“Bit different since the brewery chain took over, isn’t it?”
she said.
Sebastian signaled the barmaid with a discreet nod. “It’s
ruined,” he replied, and then ordered two gin and tonics without consulting
her.
Tilly nodded at a handful of villagers whose genealogy she
could trace by reading gravestones in the cemetery. They had remained loyal to
the pub, despite grousing to Rowena about the changes, but they would never
accept Sebastian. To them, he would always be a weekender, an outsider. She
should warn him that if he intended to rebuild his life, Bramwell Chase might
not be the place to start.
Thankfully, Sebastian agreed to sit in the garden. Tilly loved
the long hours of English twilight living, when blackbirds trilled and the
evening air became heavy with the perfume of nicotiana. In North Carolina summer
darkness fell instantaneously at eight-thirty. And noisily, thanks to the tree
frogs.
A gaggle of children giggled as they raced between the tables
and trestle benches, and Tilly listened for her child. It was an instinct she
couldn’t outgrow. And with it came the sad acceptance that she would never have
another child. Despite David’s reticence, she had dreamed of a large family. But
that dream lay buried along with her husband. And now she was back before any of
it existed, in the place where she and Sebastian had pledged their love with
more engraved initials. Goodness, they had certainly stamped everything as
theirs. Had they been that confident in their future?
“Too bad,” Sebastian said. “The old tables are gone. Would’ve
been fun to find one with our initials on.”
They used to do that the whole time—pick up fragments of each
other’s thoughts. How did you move on from that closeness, that bond you had
believed could never be broken, and yet, somehow, you’d managed to discard like
an old report card from middle school?
Tilly sat at the first vacant table, scooting along the bench
so Sebastian could sit next to her. He didn’t. He settled opposite, then picked
up a cardboard beer mat and dismembered it layer by layer.
“Want to tell me why you look like a kid who smashed a cricket
ball through the kitchen window?” Tilly sniffed the posy of sweet peas in the
middle of the table.
Sebastian grinned. “I didn’t want to admit this, Tilly, but
I’ve missed you.”
“There’s another but coming.”
“Yes, there is. First, though, an apology for being such a git
last weekend.” Sebastian tugged on his signet ring. “I don’t handle emotion
well.”
That was an understatement. “Does anyone?”
He pushed aside the scraps of beer mat. “I never meant to hurt
you after David died, and I certainly don’t intend to hurt you now.” He took a
deep breath. “I want to stay in Bramwell Chase, put down roots.” Had Sebastian
ever said “I want” before? “I need,” “I’d like,” but “I want”? “I want to buy
here. A house that lends itself to children.”
“No,” she whispered. No. That was her line. “Please, anything
but that.”
“Tilly, someone has to buy Woodend. Why not me?”
Because I want to buy it, even though I
can’t afford to, and my mother doesn’t want me to, and my child will be
devastated, and my nursery will go belly-up and….
“Because. Because
you might marry again and not let me in the door. Because you might rip out the
herbaceous border and put in a swimming pool.”
Because I
love Woodend, and I always will. Because returning home is my dream, the
only one I have left. Don’t steal it from me.
“A pool? That’s not a bad idea.” He offered up his crooked
smile as reconciliation: Sebastian at his most irresistible.
“Don’t, Sebastian. This isn’t funny. If you must know, it
stinks.” And that was putting it mildly.
“What if I promised you’d always be welcome?” He reached for
her hand, but she wrenched it free.
Was perpetual hurt their new cycle? “Yuck. That’s something you
say to a vicar—‘Do drop by for tea’—not the women you had sex with in every
venue from a historic ruin to the backseat of your mother’s Mini.”
“Shh. Tilly. Not so loud.”
“Don’t shush me. You can’t do this, Sebastian. You can’t take
my home.”
“Your mother’s home, which she intends to sell.” He took her
hand again but this time flipped it over.
“Nitpicker.” She clung to her fury even as it faded. No way
would she give in and make nice, no matter how softly his thumb traced a
never-ending circle on her palm.
“Yilly, Yilly, quite contrilly.”
His thumb stopped moving and they stared at each other.
“Christ, I’d forgotten I used to call you that.”
“So had I,” mumbled Tilly.
* * *
Being with Sebastian was like ambling around a friend’s
garden and pausing to enjoy the expected. They laughed over Tilly’s screams of
pleasure that had fueled the gamekeeper’s insistence of ghostly goings-on at the
Dower House, and Sebastian relived the moment of their meeting. He told Tilly
that she had been the most beautiful, fragile-looking creature he’d ever seen,
and how appalled he had been when she’d started swearing at the gang of boys
teasing her. “The mouth on you,” he said, shaking his head.
But then he asked permission to approach her mother about
Woodend, and Tilly plummeted back into confusion. She wanted to scream at
Sebastian, tell him he couldn’t buy Woodend, but what was the point? He would
shoot her down with reality, would force her to think in black-and-white, and
she liked every shade in between.