Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“T here’s someone here to see you. She says it’s important.” Betsy announced, as she skipped into the back office where I was having my lunch.
It had been a very busy Monday morning surgery, and this was my first break since I’d started the clinic several hours ago. My attention was still drawn to the unopened letter that I’d been turning over and over in my fingers for the last five minutes. The stamp had been franked in Bristol and the university crest graced the top corner of the envelope. I couldn’t escape the knotty, sick feeling in my stomach.
I waved my sandwich at Betsy. “If it’s an emergency, Giles is about somewhere.”
“It’s not, but she says she has to speak to you. It’s urgent.”
“What’s it about?”
“She didn’t say, but was very insistent that she sees you.”
“All right, give me five minutes and then show her into consulting room one.”
Betsy gave me a little salute and backed out of the room. I glanced at the envelope again. Taking a fortifying and exaggerated deep breath, I ripped it open and quickly read the letter, typed neatly on headed paper, my sandwich now forgotten in its wrapper.
As I skimmed the words, key phrases jumped out:
…vacancy in the equine hospital and research team…
…your academic record speaks for itself…
…always a valued member of the department…
…by mutual agreement Professor Pierce has stepped down from his post…
…left the university with immediate effect…
I stopped and read this part again. And once more for luck. Jonathan had left. Gone from Bristol. I let this sink in for a moment. I wondered what he’d done this time. Had he got his comeuppance, finally?
Oh, I bloody well hope so.
The letter ended with an invitation to interview for the job of heading up the research group – Jonathan’s vacated position. Obviously this wasn’t a cast-iron offer, just the chance to throw my hat in the ring, but they had asked me specifically to apply so the chances were good. Stuffing the letter back into the envelope and tucking it safely in the pocket of my jeans, I headed down the corridor, almost running straight into Clara outside the consulting room.
“Clara? Come through.” I gestured ahead of me and closed the door behind us.
“Hannah, thanks for seeing me. I hope I haven’t disturbed you?”
“No, not at all. Is everything ok? You don’t have any pets, do you?” I asked, looking around for a cat carrier or a dog.
“I have a cat, Spencer.” Her eyes glazed over with a look of devotion and she smiled. “He’s a bit grumpy but I love him. He’s actually very fond of Henry though, the disloyal little git.”
“Right. Is he ok? Have you brought him? Do you need me to take a look at something?”
I was a little agitated, probably being overly curt, as my mind ran away at a million miles an hour, the letter burning a hole in my back pocket. I was desperate to read it again to make sure it was real.
“Oh, no! I’m not here about Spencer. He’s fit and healthy, but thanks.”
Clara blushed a little and her eyes darted away.
“Ok, so what is it I can do for you?” I said, aiming for contrite. I liked Clara a lot, and I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable.
“Umm, yes, the thing…” Her voice trailed away and she twisted her fingers together, looking around the room. When she finally glanced at me, I raised my eyebrows and waited for her to continue.
“Oh yeah, right, so, um, here’s the thing…” She gesticulated with her hands, as if I should know what this “thing” was. Her brows creased and I sensed that she was thinking pretty hard, caught in some sort of inner turmoil.
“The thing?” I prompted, when she hadn’t spoken for a few moments.
“Oh, yeah. Teddy. Teddy is the thing.”
“He is?”
Teddy had been conspicuously quiet and absent since last Saturday despite several of my attempts to reach out to him over the week, and I’d managed not to think about him for the last ten minutes or so, but there he was again, larger than life, at the front of my mind. My confusion about how things had ended after the village fayre started up again, an ache opening in my chest like a wound. But I had a way out now. I had another option, an escape route from all the awkwardness I had inadvertently caused. A chance to start over if things with Teddy had really gone as pear-shaped as I was beginning to believe they had.
“Yes, and Henry,” Clara carried on.
“So, twin things?”
I was still no clearer about what was going on.
Clara smiled and blew out a long breath. “I’m just going to get right to it.”
“If you would, I have an unappealing and slightly soggy tuna sandwich waiting for me to finish eating before my next appointment.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!”
“It’s ok, Clara. What’s going on between Ted and Henry? Is everything ok?” I gentled my voice, smiling genuinely.
“Yeah, no. Actually, no. And only you can fix it, so I’ve come here to ask for your help.” She wrung her hands together. “To, um, well, you know, fix it?”
“Do you want a seat?”
I gestured to the examination table and propped my bottom against the edge. She smiled and clambered up next to me, so we were shoulder to shoulder, looking at the blank wall of the room rather than at each other.
“Teddy thinks you’re in love with Henry,” Clara blurted out suddenly, swinging her stiletto-clad feet rhythmically backwards and forwards.
“What?! You know that’s not true, right? And Henry, please tell me he knows that’s not true?”
Christ! I was mortified. Where the hell had this come from?
Clara turned a little to face me.
“I know – we both know. Don’t worry. We’ve seen how you look at Ted.” She gave me a knowing smile, then continued, “But we can’t seem to get that through to him. He’s adamant about it. They argued the other night and he said some stuff about being compared to Henry all his life, and he was sick of never measuring up. That he didn’t want to see him anymore and Henry is distraught and now they’re not speaking. In fact, Teddy won’t speak to anyone and has gone completely off the rails.”
“What can I do? Ted’s not exactly speaking to me either.” He hadn’t returned a single one of my calls or messages.
“He isn’t?” Clara seemed surprised.
“No. After you turned up after the village fayre, he pretty much kicked me out and has been ignoring me ever since. I can see why now.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. We were chatting and, well, um, likely about to kiss or something, when you burst in on us,” I said uncomfortably.
“Ah, righto. Sorry about that.” Clara’s foot swinging ramped up in speed and irregularity. “We need to come up with a plan to get you two face to face, so you can tell him you love him.”
I began to cough. “Love him?”
“Yes! It’s so bloody obvious that you two are madly in love with each other.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said in a strangled voice. “He’s only after a good time anyway. You know what he’s like.”
Clara let out a long breath.
“You and I both know that he’s really not the playboy he wants everyone to think he is. Henry told me that he’s barely had any girlfriends his whole life, and that he actually doesn’t like parties. Can you believe that?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
Clara nodded. Her large blue eyes were bright and shrewd as she gazed at me. “Don’t you love him?”
A soft fluttering had started in my chest, a feeling so alien and unknown and uncomfortable that it was more like nausea than anything else I could put my finger on.
“Because he most definitely loves you. He admitted as much to Henry the other night. Which is why he’s so hurt by all this, even if it’s all just in his own stupid mind,” she continued, gesticulating in large circles pretty close to my head.
My internal organs seemed to plummet and then rise, like being in an aeroplane during turbulence. It was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying, a feeling of imminent death.
“I, um…”
“You don’t have to tell me anything – it’s ok. But I could really do with your help to patch things up between Henry and Ted. It’s totally floored Henry and I can’t bear to see him so upset.”
“Will Teddy listen to me though?”
“I think you’re the only one he will listen to, Hannah.”
“But he won’t answer my calls or messages. How on earth can I get him to talk to me?”
“I honestly don’t know, but you’re our only hope.” Clara hopped down off the table and reached into her bag, handing me her business card. “My number’s on there. Call me if you think of anything.”
“The thing is, Clara, I might not be staying around here.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. “I see.”
“I’ve been offered the chance to return to my research career in Bristol. I’m due to go for an interview in the next few weeks. So maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“Oh,” she said again. Fixing her face into the shakiest smile I’d ever seen, she reached over to pick up her handbag. “Well, that’s great news. I’m sure the interview is just a formality and you’ll sail through it.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, while I’m here, I thought you might like this. It’s a gift.” Digging in her enormous bag, Clara pulled out and handed me a rather tatty paperback with a faded picture of a buff shirtless man in a kilt on the front.
“A romance novel?”
“Yes!” Her face lit up like a firework. “But not any old romance book. It’s got this really hot highlander in it. Give it a try.”
“Right.” I was struck dumb for a moment. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do I need this?”
She grinned. “Fraser is a Scottish name, right?”
“Right,” I said again, staring intently at the book in my hands and trying to work out where on earth she was going with this.
“So, read it and see if it helps clear anything up for you regarding Teddy.”
“Teddy?”
“Yes.” She winked and pointed some finger guns at me, so that I totally forgot why I was perplexed, instead smiling broadly, a laugh bubbling up in my throat. There was something endearingly odd and wonderful about her.
“Have I done a weird thing?” She looked doubtful for a moment and reached over to take the book from my grasp, but I pulled it out of her reach.
“No.”
“Ok, phew. Well. Good. Excellent. I’ll just go then.”
As she turned to leave, I opened the first page and began to read.
He was taller than any man she’d ever seen, broad across the shoulders, dark-haired and charismatic. He drew the eye of every lady in the great hall, and as his laughter lit up his ruggedly handsome face, people flocked to him like flickering moths to a flame. Even at this distance, his presence filled the room like a teacup overflowing the brim, sweeping her along and swirling her ever closer to him.
I didn’t read any more because the letters were swimming on the page and merging into each other and my head suddenly erupted with thoughts of Teddy. Everything Teddy and I had experienced together, how is presence filled my senses to the brim, nauseatingly so. And despite my best intentions, a fluttery, flouncy buzz was growing and growing behind my ribs, coupled with a new sick and desperate longing to see him, to talk to him again. To kiss him.
Well, shit.
Clara had opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. She gave me one last saddened look. “Nice to see you again. Good luck with everything.”
“Wait.”
She paused, hands falling back to her sides. “If it’ll change your mind about helping us, Henry can lend Teddy a kilt?—”
“No! No, that’s ok.” Alarmed as to how much Clara was about to tell me about Henry’s kilt fetishes, I quickly interjected. “No. Clara. I think I may have a plan.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“What about Bristol?”
“Maybe I won’t even get the job.” I paused as the cogs of my brain turned, gathering speed. “Or maybe I can do both?” The thought of leaving was becoming like a solid weight of sick in my belly. “But I’m going to need you and Henry to do some things for me. Are you in?”
A luminous mischievousness played in Clara’s eyes, and she sidled over to me like a funny cartoon villain, ringing her hands. “I love a good plan. What are we going to do?”
“First, I’m going to need you to get Ted out of his house for a few hours tonight, and then I’m going to need a notepad or something.”
“How about sticky notes?” Clara said, producing several blocks of different sized pads of yellow and pink sticky notes from her handbag.
“You came prepared?”
“You never know when you’ll need sticky notes,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“Right.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
As I began to tell her what I had in mind, her eyes grew wide. She clapped and squealed and bounced on one leg, and I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that my plan was a bit mad bonkers, and would either work, or alienate me from Teddy forever.
So, absolutely no pressure whatsoever then.