Chapter 44
44
Olivia was in absolute turmoil. She’d never told Seth about her engagement to Howard and now was certainly not the time. He was furious enough that she’d kept the discovery of Annie’s body from him. This was the man she loved and he already had cause to be disappointed with her. But worse than that was the knowledge that this other misguided version of her – who was all set to marry the duplicitous Ernest Dunn – had both the men she’d truly loved in her lifetime available to her, and she couldn’t honestly say who she wanted the other Miss Davenport to be with. It was an impossible situation.
She had wrongly assumed, when Seth had first mentioned the deaths of the Fairchild boys, that he was talking about all three of them, but clearly he’d just meant Clarence and Louis. And it was at her insistence that they didn’t talk of them because their loss had simply been too painful. But to find that Howard had also survived the war… What a mess.
The tears she spilled that night were silent. She didn’t want Seth to know how much this news had affected her. Some part of her was overwhelmingly happy; Howard was alive and there was a Fairchild family somewhere in the universe whose losses, although unbearable, could have been so much worse. In his world, one of Cynthia’s boys had returned and perhaps Benji might even be allowed to pursue the life he wanted.
But the wall, yet again, was preventing her from being with someone she cared deeply about. This time, however, the man in question barely knew she existed. This Howard had not spent a large part of his youth with her; she’d not stood up to him and shown him what a force of nature she was. He would not feel the same about her as she did about him.
And so she cried herself to sleep, lamenting the two men she loved, neither of whom she could ever have.
* * *
In the morning, her thoughts were more ordered. Seth had calmed down and asked her to trust him. He knew that it was his duty to make sure that Ernest Dunn paid for his crime and her priority was Tanner because, if she was honest with herself, he was the only man who could ever be truly hers.
She found the gardener in the disused stable block in the west wing. One of the maids had told Olivia that she’d seen him heading there. As she swung the wide wooden door open, he was leaning over a butler sink that the hospital had installed, with his shirt undone, trying to wash his remaining hand and stump together.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she gushed. ‘I didn’t know you were?—’
‘No problem, miss. I dropped a pot of creosote.’
Her first instinct was to rush over and help but he was coping admirably. The soap was inside the toe of a stocking and tied to the tap so he didn’t have to chase it around the sink.
Aware that she should have stepped back out the room and allowed him to complete his ablutions unobserved, she was instead fascinated by his injury and opened her mouth without engaging her brain.
‘Does it still hurt? Sorry, that is absolutely none of my business.’
He shrugged. ‘I’d rather people asked than speculated. Yes, it hurts, and as ridiculous as it sounds, sometimes I forget it isn’t there. And then I get days when I feel as though someone is crushing my hand, even though it dunt exist, and I can barely focus on anything.’
‘May I see?’ she asked, wondering how he would respond to this request.
‘If you like.’ He shrugged off his shirt, revealing his white cotton vest, and she noticed how the undulations of his muscles were visible through the fabric, before focusing on his damaged arm.
He slowly turned to her, as her heart began thumping wildly. It was an intimate moment, and one they should not be having. If anyone were to walk in on them now, with him in such a state of undress, he would be fired on the spot, and this time there would be no reprieve.
She stepped through a beam of light that fell from one of the high windows behind her, as dust motes drifted down to the uneven cobblestone floor. He was in the shadows and it was there she joined him, closer now, to see the arm. Apart from the stump itself, there was scarring on his shoulder, indicative of the shell fragments flying at him from the left, and her overriding emotion in that moment was compassion. Without stopping to think what she was doing, her hand reached out to touch the wound, but she hesitated, expecting him to pull away or snap at her. Instead, he twisted his head to the left to enable him to see what she was doing, but otherwise remained motionless. She let her fingers delicately trace a line down his forearm to the brutal, bumpy full stop to the limb.
‘It’s not pretty.’ He broke the silence. ‘Put my hand up to shield my face.’
‘I’ve seen far worse. I helped at the convalescent hospital. Not in a medical capacity, but I read to the patients and helped write letters to family… that sort of thing.’
She lifted her face and met his good eye, fully aware her behaviour was verging on unacceptable. All the things she knew about him came rushing at her in that moment. Things that had shaped him and that he had done long before the cleaving and replication of their world. Things that Seth had told her about.
Here stood the man who had hand-reared a baby bird as a boy and cried when a neighbourhood cat had killed it as a fledgling. Who’d picked wildflowers for his mother every year on her birthday and carried this tradition on, even when he was in the trenches of France, by pressing poppies, cornflowers and lily of the valley in his pocket notebook and enclosing them in the letters he sent home. Who’d fallen in love for the first time with a pretty, blue-eyed girl from his village and behaved honourably towards her, even when she had pushed for more. Who’d befriended the youngest of the Fairchild sons and looked out for him, encouraged his sketching and allowed the child to help with his planting. And even though he was bitter about many things, he still had the capacity to love, a sense of humour and an obvious determination to overcome his injuries and adapt. He had spirit and, underlining everything, she knew he was a good man. Why had she continued to separate the two men in her head? They were one and the same.
This was the man she’d fallen in love with.
She briefly studied his mouth before returning her gaze to his eye. The rumbling sound of an automobile outside suggested that Sir Hugo had returned from somewhere. There was an exchange of voices and then they faded, highlighting the tense silence within. The only movement was the slow rise and fall of both their chests, as she managed to keep her breathing steady, despite the frantic somersaulting of her insides.
The stillness between them in this moment was more arousing than any touch. It gave her the time to focus on what she was feeling, contemplate every nerve ending across her skin, revel in every heightened sensation within. He felt all of this, too, she knew, because his stare remained penetrating, deep, uncomfortable.
Of all the things she’d done with Seth through the wall, with all the things he’d made her feel, she’d never kissed him and, suddenly, the possibility of physical contact became the most important thing in the world to her. Lifting herself up on to her toes, she leaned forward and tipped up her chin. It was what he wanted too, wasn’t it?
But his rough hand went for her shoulder, pushing her gently but firmly away.
‘Oh no you don’t.’ He stepped back from her, shaking his head. ‘I won’t let you do this to me a second time. Swanning around the grounds, just like before, saying I said things when I dint, watching my every move and following me about. I see you, at the windows.’ She was embarrassed that she’d been caught spying. ‘As if the likes of you and the likes of me have anything in common. You’re a picture-book fairy, floating about in a make-believe world, where you really think if you wave a stupid wand, you can magically give everyone a happy ending. The real world ain’t like that.’ He snorted. ‘Because there’s only one way this ends, miss, and that’s with me moved on from this job again.’
‘ I was thirteen years old, Tanner. Will you not let that go? I’m twenty-one now and perfectly aware of who I am, what I want, and the consequences of any actions I undertake.’
‘And you fancied a bit of the gardener, did you? The poor chap missing an arm, with the scarred face, who’s indebted to you for helping him get his old job back? He’ll be grateful of any attention. Have some fun with him and let him deflower you in the stables.’
But Olivia was angry now.
‘This little plant was deflowered a long time ago.’ It wasn’t meant to shock him but it did. ‘And if that’s really how you feel then I’m sorry for you. You’ve learned nothing since we first met. You’re afraid to be honest with yourself. I know you like me, I can feel it. And I like you. I’ve had disappointments and heartbreak in my life and they’ve just made me even more determined to grab the wonderful things and pull them close when they come along. You, on the other hand, are afraid of reaching out for anything in case it’s snatched away. As though my love for you is some kind of trap – luring you forward only to turn about and bite your?—’
‘Hand off?’ he volunteered.
She’d inadvertently said the word ‘love’ but he didn’t seem to notice. His eyebrow rose a fraction.
‘You, young lady, are still living in the fantasy world of your childhood, where princes and paupers run off into the sunset. Where there are no obstacles to Cinderella marrying a prince, and falling in love solves everything.’ He snatched his shirt up and tried to put it back on but he was rushing and the task was not easy with only one fully functioning arm. The faster he tried to dress, the more of a muddle he got into.
‘Let me?’ She moved to help but he shrugged her away.
‘You’re mad. I don’t want any part of this. How can you talk of loving me when you don’t even know me?’ Ah, so he had heard, then.
‘I know you better than you think. I know about the blackbird you hand-reared when you were seven years old, the wildflowers you gave to your mother every year, even when you were in France, how you were always kind to Master Benji…’
His face went from embarrassed and angry to, quite frankly, astonished.
‘You frighten me, if I’m totally honest, miss. And I’m not sure you’re quite the full ticket. Always were one for ridiculous flights of fancy, and the extraordinary sense of entitlement that comes with money. If you want something, you assume you can just take it. Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m not interested.’
But Olivia was on solid ground. ‘How can you deny it when you’ve been watching me as much as I’ve been watching you? You happily removed your shirt and let me touch you, because you know as well as I do that there is something electric floating about in the air between us, and it terrifies and excites us both. Believing yourself not worthy is another matter, but you look me in the eye and tell me that you feel nothing for me and I’ll back off,’ she challenged, hands on hips and head tipped to the side in expectation.
‘I don’t want no part of this. If you talk such stupid nonsense again, I’ll hand in my notice. You see if I don’t.’
And she saw Tanner’s jaw clench before he stormed from the stables, his unbuttoned shirt flapping about his body as he left.