Chapter 26
Ruby
When Mortimer Beaufort leaves, he takes every scrap of atmosphere with him.
James comes back outside, white as chalk and with a look in his eyes that makes me panic. But when we ask him what’s wrong, all he’ll do is wave dismissively, pick up his plate from the buffet table, and start eating.
The party breaks up soon after that. I’m so busy worrying about James that I don’t even flinch when Ember gets into Wren’s car. He at least has the decency to hesitate and glance uncertainly at me, but I just shake my head and shrug my shoulders.
At least this way, I get the chance to speak to James in peace—his behavior is unnerving me more with every passing minute.
We’ve been on the road back to Gormsey in silence for a good hour, Percy at the wheel, when I slide over the back seat toward James and take his hand.
“Speak to me,” I whisper.
James had been looking out of the window, but at this he turns to me. The next moment, he takes my face in his hands and kisses me.
His lips pull away from mine, but he keeps hold of my face. When I open my eyes, I can see that his are still shut.
“James…”
His hands are shaking.
“I’m so sorry,” he croaks. “I…I’m so sorry.”
“What?” I ask insistently, grabbing his wrist. In this instant, I want to hold him as close to me as I possibly can. “James, you’re scaring me.”
His breathing is irregular. What meeting his dad has done to him is killing me.
“What happened?” I whisper, stroking his wrist with my thumb.
James lets me for a few seconds, then leans back in his seat. He rubs his hands over his face.
“Dad’s…” He seems to be hunting for the right words. “Dad’s won.”
The blurry streetlights are slipping evenly past us, but it feels as though time has stood still. “What?”
“I’m going back to Beaufort’s on Monday.” He clears his throat. “And I’m moving back home tonight.”
“No,” I blurt out. “No, James.” I want to reach for his hand, but he pulls it away. My heart plummets. “It doesn’t matter what he said,” I insist. “We’ll find a way.”
“There’s too much at stake. It’s too risky.”
I shake my head.
“Ruby…”
“No! Whatever he threatened you with—it’s not worth you giving up your future over.”
He looks at me for a long time, not saying anything. Then he sighs. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
“What’s he blackmailing you with?” I ask, barely audibly.
James shakes his head, but I’m not letting him off that easily. “We promised not to have secrets anymore.”
“Ruby…”
“You promised!”
“He’ll destroy your whole family,” he says in the end. “Not just Oxford, but everything you care about.”
I feel like I can’t breathe.
“You’ve all done so much for me,” he continues. “I can’t let that happen.”
“We…” My voice fails, and I have to cough. “We’ll find a way. He won’t get away with this.”
“Ruby, listen to me—”
“No, I’m not having it! I’m not letting you throw your plans away, James. Our plans.”
“It’s not your decision,” James replies, almost unbearably gentle. He raises his hand and strokes his knuckles over my cheek.
I flinch back from him, my brow furrowed.
“How can you keep on, keep on letting him do this to you?” I ask in disbelief.
James presses his lips firmly together.
“Don’t you dare go silent on me now,” I snap. “We’re a team. You can’t just…you can’t just leave.”
He exhales audibly. “This time with you—this time with your family—has been the best I could ever have dreamed of. It was the only thing that kept me going. You have to believe that,” he insists. “But I…I have no choice.”
“You always have a choice!” I say firmly. “I can’t let you sacrifice your future for me.”
The sad smile that flits over his face at that moment takes my breath away. At this moment, I know that I have no chance of convincing him.
He’s decided.
My eyes start to sting, and I have to blink as everything goes blurry. “What did he threaten you with?” I whisper.
“I hope,” he begins, his voice scratchy, “I hope you’ll accept my decision and that you won’t hate me for it.”
I shake my head. His words have hit me right in the heart. I want to scream or break something—just to shake off this feeling of powerlessness that’s filling my whole body. But I just keep sitting there, looking at James.
A tear works its way free from the corner of my eye and runs down my cheek. James catches it with his thumb. “I could never hate you, James.”
He pulls me to his side and buries his face in my hair.
By the time we arrive in Gormsey, an hour and a half later, I feel physically and emotionally exhausted.
James and I spent the rest of the drive arm in arm, not speaking.
I tried to keep calm by telling myself over and over again that I’m not losing James over this, but it’s hard to believe that when I see the empty look in his eyes.
Mortimer Beaufort has taken a part of him away from me today, and I hate him for that, more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my entire life.
I fight against tears as I watch James fetch his bags from our living room and say goodbye to my parents, who keep looking anxiously from me to him because they think we’ve argued.
It’s only when Ember, who got home not long after us, whispers to them that James’s father turned up at the party, that Mum gives him a hug.
“You’ll always be welcome here,” she says.
James shuts his eyes for a moment. “Thanks,” he croaks. Then he shakes Dad’s hand and walks toward the front door.
I go out with him, through our front garden to his car. Because it was still here, Percy drove back alone in the Rolls once he’d dropped us off. James opens the boot and puts his stuff inside.
Then he turns to me. “OK.” He clears his throat.
“OK,” I whisper.
James bites his bottom lip and looks at me. “I’ll text you in the morning.”
I’m scared I’ll start crying if I say anything else, so I just nod.
He leans in and gives me a gentle kiss. As he goes to pull away again, I grip his forearms and pull him closer to me.
He makes a surprised sound against my lips but doesn’t break off the kiss.
Instead, he buries his hand in my hair and kisses me just as desperately as I’m kissing him.
When we finally move apart, we’re both breathing hard and fast. James lifts his hand and carefully strokes the hair off my face. “I love you,” he says, his voice raw, then he turns, opens the car door, and gets in.
Motionless, I watch as he drives away and finally disappears around the corner. My heart aches. For him, for me. For us.
“Ruby?” Ember’s hesitant voice gets through to me.
I turn toward her. She’s standing indecisively in the garden gateway.
“Is everything OK?” she asks.
I open my mouth to reply, but the only sound that comes out is a sob that surprises me as much as it does Ember. Her eyes open wide in alarm as she comes to give me a hug.
“Oh, Ruby,” she says, stroking my back as I let the tears flow.
James
I’m not speeding, but it feels like the houses of Gormsey move past me way too fast. And yet it also feels like I’ve been in this car for a lifetime when it can’t be more than five minutes since I drove away from the Bells’ house.
It’s in your hands, James, my father’s voice rings in my head. It’s in your hands.
If it’s in my hands, why doesn’t it feel as though I have any choice? Why is the world whirling so fast? Why is there this pressure growing in my ribs?
My sight is blurring. I wipe my eyes with my sleeve, but it doesn’t help. I slow down and pull over at the side of the road. Then I switch off the engine and lean my head against the steering wheel.
Dad’s voice is getting louder and louder in my head, until I can’t stand it and feel an urge to press my hands to my ears. All this is making me so angry. I hate losing control like this. I hate that Dad has forced me to leave Ruby and her family.
Blind with rage, I pound the steering wheel.
I can’t go on. I just can’t go on like this.
Again and again, I pound it with my fist until I have no strength left and let my head sink back against the rest. I shut my eyes and take a few deep breaths, and after a while the world stops spinning so fast. My eyes aren’t blurry anymore, although they still sting.
I look down the road ahead of me and think about what will happen next if I drive back to Dad’s. How it will feel.
I start the engine again. My body is on autopilot as I steer, and before I know what I’m doing, I’ve turned left. This route is part of my flesh and blood now—I could probably do it blindfolded.
I park right behind Wren’s car, get out, and walk up the short path to the Fitzgeralds’ front door. Without thinking, I press the round doorbell.
A minute passes and nothing happens, then Wren opens the door. His eyes widen slightly at the sight of me. Then he frowns.
“Are you here to give me hell about Ember?” he asks.
The words stick in my throat as I take in what he just said. “Why the hell would I want to give you hell about Ember?”
“Ember is the girl I was telling you about. I…I thought Ruby must have sent you. She saw us together today.”
I have no idea how to answer that. The questions are piling up in my mind. Wren and Ember? How must Ruby have reacted when she found out?
The thought of Ruby is like a painful stab that reminds me why I’m here.
“No, I’m not here about Ember.”
Wren nods slowly. “Is it your dad?”
Now it’s my turn to nod. “He’s expecting me home, but I can’t right now.”
“Want to talk about it?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head. “No, but I can’t go home yet either.”
Even as I finish the sentence, Wren steps aside. “Come in.”
I walk into the house and follow him up to his room.
Every time I come up here, it gets a bit less weird. Wren’s house was like a home away from home to me—I wonder if this place will start to feel like that.