Chapter 6
Chapter six
Juliet
Juliet drained her glass of wine as Lucy stared at her slackly and then abruptly she rose from the table. “I need to walk the dogs,” she said, even though she’d just given them a walk, and she left the kitchen without waiting for a response.
In the hall she called for the dogs and they came nervously, wagging their stubby tails, unsure of this sudden change in routine.
She grabbed her coat and the dogs’ leads and headed out into the night. She needed to get out of the house, away from her own awful admission and Lucy’s stunned stare, even if just for a few minutes.
It was past seven, the sky the color of a bruise, a hint of rain in the air.
The wind was starting to stir up as it did most autumn nights, and fallen leaves swirled about Juliet’s boots as she walked around the house to the muddy lane in the back that cut through the sheep fields.
No one would be out on this rutted track at twilight, and she wanted to be alone.
She had a sudden, shaming desire to burst into tears, which infuriated her. She never cried. Anger was far better than tears, and she clung to it as she strode into the darkness, the dogs at her heels. She’d rather be angry at Lucy than miserable about her own loneliness.
She should have expected Lucy to get to her a little. She hadn’t seen her sister properly in so long, she’d forgotten how the simple fact of Lucy’s existence could hurt, reminding her of why Fiona had needed a second daughter in the first place.
The sky was darkening, and Juliet could barely see the rutted lane in front of her.
She heard a gate in the distance banging against a post, a disconsolate sound.
The dogs pressed close to her sides; they didn’t like being out in the dark, and they quivered nervously, sensing the disquiet of her mood.
Overcome by sudden remorse, Juliet dropped to her knees and stroked their heads, murmuring soothing nonsense as they pressed even closer to her.
She shut her eyes, taking comfort from the warmth of their bodies, their obvious need of her.
It surprised her, this feeling of loneliness coming back to ride her so hard now. Ironic, really, that it had taken someone coming to live with her to make her realize how alone she really was. She’d been on her own for so long she’d thought she’d become used to it.
The sound of footsteps had her tensing, and she looked up from her dogs to see a man coming down the lane, a sheepdog trotting by his heels.
Peter Lanford with his border collie, Jake.
She recognized him even though it was dark; there was something unique about his slow, steady gait, the untidy shock of brown hair under a well-worn flat cap, and the dog trotting faithfully beside him.
He came closer, squinting in the darkness.
“Juliet? That you?”
Juliet straightened slowly, hating that her emotions were still so close to the surface, making her feel as if she’d lost a layer of skin. “Hello, Peter.”
Even in the darkness she could see Peter’s smile, a shy thing, but no less genuine. He whistled to Milly and Molly and patted their heads; Jake sniffed them with disinterest before sitting obediently.
“Has your sister arrived?” he asked, and Juliet just kept herself from reminding yet another person that Lucy was only her half-sister.
“Yes, last week.” She didn’t think she’d actually told Peter that Lucy was coming, but news traveled quickly around Hartley-by-the-Sea. Tell one person something and you might as well have told the whole village.
“How’s she settling in, then?”
“Fine.” In her mind’s eye Juliet saw Lucy’s stunned expression as she’d stalked out of the kitchen; she’d looked as if Juliet had slapped her. “She’s good.”
“And how about you? Not always easy, sharing a house.”
Peter gave her a lopsided smile that hinted at too much understanding.
He was a man of few words, but Juliet had always appreciated his plain speaking, his steady, stolid approach to village issues at the parish council meetings.
They’d worked together on drafting a proposal for a new playground at the beach, and Peter had confronted the Westmorland Council on giving the village more litter bins.
Small but important things, and they’d shown him to be both trustworthy and dedicated.
That did not, however, make her want to confide even an iota of what she was feeling now.
“I’m used to sharing a house,” she said, and was glad to hear how unconcerned she sounded. “I run a bed-and-breakfast, after all.”
“Different, that,” Peter remarked, and Juliet suppressed a stab of irritation at how he cut to the heart of things with so few words. Sheep farmers weren’t supposed to be so emotionally attuned, were they?
“I’m not sure it is,” she replied. “Lucy’s just like my other guests, except she’s staying longer and she doesn’t pay.”
Too late Juliet heard the bitterness in those words, the way they fell into the silence like stones. She turned away to needlessly untangle the dogs’ leads.
To her shock she felt Peter’s hand on her shoulder, a heavy weight that had her whole body tensing even as she registered its warmth and solidity.
“Bound to be hard at first. You’re like me, used to being alone.”
God, she was far too used to being alone. She was tired of it, desperately so, yet she didn’t want puppyish Lucy being the person that ended her isolation.
Juliet stared down at the leads looped through her fingers; the wind blew her hair into her eyes and Peter still had his hand on her shoulder. She had the opposing desires to both shrug it off and keep it there.
“You’re not really alone, Peter,” she said when she trusted her voice to sound normal.
“You live with your father.” William Lanford had run the farm before Peter, and although he was elderly now, his health clearly starting to fail, Juliet still saw him out sometimes, with Jake trotting by his side.
After an endless moment Peter removed his hand. “That’s different too,” he said, and Juliet chose not to ask what he meant.
“I should get back. It’s late, and Lucy . . .” Somehow she wasn’t able to finish that sentence. Lucy thinks I hate her? Feels sorry for me? Will still be there, even I half wish she wasn’t?
Peter tipped his flat cap at her, a gesture that seemed rather ridiculously gentlemanly, almost from a different age. Juliet nodded back and then wordlessly she turned around and headed back to Tarn House.
The house was quiet and dark when she let herself in, and she saw their meal had been cleared away, the dishwasher turned on, the wine bottle corked, the glasses drying upside down in the drainer.
When she opened the fridge, she saw that Lucy had left her half-finished plate of pasta on a shelf, neatly covered in plastic wrap, and somehow this small gesture caused a lump to form in her throat, so it hurt to swallow.
She settled the dogs in their beds even though it wasn’t much past eight o’clock, locked up, and went upstairs, pausing for a moment in the hallway. She could see light spilling out from under Lucy’s door, but she couldn’t hear anything except the relentless wind.
Juliet hesitated, staring at that door, and then pressing her lips together in a firm line, she turned and went to her bedroom.