Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
F redrick
When I first bought this place, the garden was stripped and barren. I promised myself I’d do something with it in my mother’s memory. I haven’t even been past the garden gates.
It was traumatizing to be the one who found her hanging from the tree in the garden. After that day, I was sent off to boarding school. My mother’s name never left my father’s mouth again.
Was there therapy back then? Child psychologists? I’m not that old, but I assume such things were around.
But not available to a young boy who stood under his mother as her body swayed, her blank eyes staring up accusingly toward the massive, cold home she could no longer live in .
How I wanted those eyes to look down at me.
To give me that wink she did when my father was going on about something, some rant about the price of shipping, to tell me how silly all this was, the house, the money, the name.
She didn’t fit into our lives. And she couldn’t force herself to not laugh too loud at the stuffy parties, always having one drink too many.
So, my father took away the alcohol till she had nothing left to rely on. And now, I spend my life brewing the amber liquor that comforted her. And, knowing how it got ahold of her, I rarely drink other than the tastings required to confirm what I already know.
It’s the best in Scotland.
My father trapped her in the stone walls of our French estate, and she threw herself into gardening.
Her calming garden.
But the plants and flowers weren’t enough to get her through.
When your family has money and a name to uphold, your troubled mother suddenly has an undiagnosed, underlying heart defect and dies in her sleep.
And as for you?
Apparently, you’ve shown “great talent” in the languages and now, out from under your mother’s wing, want to commit your (ten-year-old) self to education.
Fucked up ?
Yes. Even at ten, I knew this was not a healthy family dynamic, though I knew nothing different.
Marriage, a wife, and children to carry on our name we so brutally kept clean; I want it all. Like I told her at Harrods, I want the smiling family in the magazine ads.
Thus, an arranged marriage to a beautiful, brilliant, strong woman who happens to love the taste of my whiskey, one who will make the perfect mafia wife and adoring mother, suits me perfectly.
Attachment, love…I’m afraid my capacity for those frivolous things died on that tree.
I think Freya’s aware of that fact.
I was stunned when she kept the ring on her finger.
I’ve never been a giddy little kid on Christmas morning, but I think the way I feel right now, staring at the ring on her perfect finger as we lounge here in bed, has to come close to the feeling of seeing that Father Christmas loaded with your tree with gifts.
Ma chérie, my fiancée.
The most precious gift she’s given me for Christmas was letting me touch her in a place where she is most vulnerable. I’ve never had someone trust me that deeply with their body. It was an intense moment, and I knew it was the perfect time to give her the ring.
I had it made months ago.
Now, lying here, our breathing slowing, her wearing the ring I’ve envisioned on her so many times, I feel as if it’s the right time to ask her about her past pain. I grab her hand, intertwining our fingers as we stare at the ring.
“It’s beautiful,” she says. “Thank you.”
“It looks like you.” We lie quietly, and finally, I say, “You don’t have to tell me. But what happened?”
“There was a teacher at our school on the island,” she starts. “The only male teacher we’d ever had. He was handsome. I had a schoolgirl crush, and in the way a fourteen-year-old girl does, I flirted with him. After class, I hung around his desk, rolling up my skirt and wearing lipstick. Just innocent stuff to get his attention.”
She stops a moment and gives a hard swallow. I place my hand over hers, feeling her warmth and the coolness of the new ring. “You don’t have to finish.”
“I want to.” She brushes a tear away. “You shared with me, and I’d like to share with you.”
“Thank you.” I lift her hand to my lips, kissing it once before setting it back down.
She takes a shuddering breath and gives me a tight smile in her bravery. “Anyway, one day, he started to react to my attention. First,” she looks away, “he would just reach down during class, discreetly snapping my bra strap through my shirt.” A flush rises in her cheeks. “Sometimes…the other girls saw. They turned on me, calling me—ugly names. It was horrible. Humiliating.”
I want to kill him. And if I ever cross paths with this man, I will. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She keeps going: “Then…things progressed. He had me stay after school. He told me to come sit on his lap. But nothing sexual.” She shakes her head, shiny hair gliding over her shoulders. “Just sitting .
“A few weeks later, he started to slide his hand down the front of my shirt, cupping my breast. He said…he said he liked—ugh, this is so gross…”
“You don’t have to say it.”
“It’s okay. I’ve never told anyone. It’s just hard. But it’s a relief too.” She gazes up, looking for strength. “He said he liked the feel of mine because they were so small, still growing.”
My stomach turns. I want to throw up and commit murder all at once. How dare he do that to her? And how many others has he gone on to abuse?
I swallow down my anger, focusing on her. “Did he do anything else? Touch you anywhere else?”
She gives a choked laugh. “That’s as far as it went. Still, I knew things had already gone too far. I didn’t know how to go back. I felt icky, yucky, ashamed. I thought if the women of the island were to find out, they’d blame me. The lipstick, the short skirt…” She sniffs. “Now, I know better. They would have driven him off the island with pitchforks.”
“Were you able to tell anyone? Callum?”
“Gah, no! I was terrified to tell my brother. I knew he’d do something crazy. I didn’t want him ending up in prison.”
“Have you carried this weight with you, alone, all these years?”
“Yeah. And the worst part? I thought it would be over when I moved off the island, but it never was. Every boyfriend I had…” Her voice trails off. Suddenly, her eyes shoot up, locking on mine. “You are the first, the on ly, man who understood.” With that, she throws her arms around my neck, melting against me. “Thank you.”
Our naked bodies press together as I hold her tight. “I’ll never, ever let anything happen to you. Ever.”
If another man were even to make her slightly uncomfortable in his presence…
We sleep in one another’s arms. In the morning, dressed in festive clothing, with our arms wrapped around one another’s waists, we stare up at our perfect tree. I hear a bell tinkling and, following the sound, I glance over to find Joyeux running into the room, looking dapper in his red bow tie. He brushes against my ankles.
I scoop him up; he wiggles toward Freya, his new love. Unable to blame him for falling under her spell, I hand him over. She takes him, cooing at the cat. “Aren’t you just a handsome little man? Have you seen our tree?” Looking back at the tree, she leans her head on my shoulder. “We make a good team. Don’t we?”
“We do.”
Overhearing as she walks by, MAWR-vein pats Joyeux, her allergies no longer an issue. “You certainly do make a pair,” she says, surprising us both when she adds, “You’ve found your better half, sir. Don’t let this one get away.”
Freya beams at Morven’s approval.
It’s a perfect moment.
The thought brings back my fears that I’m not capable of giving her everything she needs.
The thing she needs most .
I don’t know how to love someone. It’s been so long, and even then, there was only one person. She was ripped away from me. I don’t know if I can risk opening myself up again.
If I can love her the way she deserves.
I’ll not deprive precious Freya of anything. If I am not capable of giving her everything she needs…
I will do the right thing.
Which is always the thing that seems impossible.
I will let her go.