Chapter 49
49
Olivia asked Cynthia if she could return to her former bedroom the following morning, knowing the older woman would be delighted to have her back in the main house. It was strange at first, sleeping in a bed where she was truly alone. The absence of sounds through the wall was unsettling, and she missed the comfort of knowing someone else was nearby. Since Seth’s return from the war, they had almost been as a married couple at night, with the companionship and intimacy that entailed. She missed him badly and could hardly believe that after eight years, he was no longer in her life, and never would be again.
After a few days, but more especially nights, of feeling sorry for herself, and several prolonged periods of contemplation in the Japanese gardens, the knowledge of Seth’s success with Miss Davenport forced Olivia’s hand. Not that she would ever know how his story ended, but she had her suspicions that if Miss Davenport had invited him to Windy Acres, he’d already successfully wormed his way into her romantic heart. His status would be no barrier to her. Love paid no attention to irrelevant details, like class. It overcame everything.
Unless you were a stubborn gardener.
‘You are a difficult man to find,’ she said, tracking him down to the orchids in the conservatory, and determined to have one final attempt to win him over – even if it meant he made good on his threat to leave.
‘Her Ladyship generally prefers me to keep out of sight if she has visitors.’ He lifted up his good arm and waved it across his face. ‘This puts them off their hors d’oeuvres.’
Olivia felt cross with Cynthia for being so insensitive, especially as she only saw the man and hardly paid any attention to his scars.
‘So, what exactly is it I can do for you, miss?’ He was determined to continue in his subservient role.
‘There was nothing specific I wanted. I was just seeing how you were getting on. Rowe tells me you have been asking about taking on greater responsibility, and that you’ve submitted an article to the Gardener’s Chronicle , and I wanted to say how pleased I was to hear you were making an effort.’
‘Forgive me, but do you know how patronising that sounds?’
‘Forgive me, but when you act like a child, there is a tendency for people to treat you like one.’ She was starting to lose her temper. Despite her resolve not to force his hand, she couldn’t help herself, and got straight to the point. ‘I honestly believe that you do like me, Mr Tanner, but for some unfathomable reason will not admit it.’
He took a step closer to her, as she stared at him and dared him to deny it. He was taller than her and she had to tip her head up as he approached. There was another excruciating silence as he looked down at her lips, but he did nothing and she spoke to ease the awkwardness.
‘You could have danced with me at the Christmas party. Did you not wonder, just for a moment, what it might feel like to hold me? I know that you were mocking me when you said I was a picture-book fairy, but I took it as the most enormous compliment. I have always believed that I can be anyone I want to be and I can fall in love with whomever I want: rich man, poor man, beggar man, gardener. And I chose you, Tanner. I will always write my own story but I cannot force you to be in it.’
Kiss me , she thought, just goddam kiss me .
He tipped his head briefly to one side but then pulled back. Her chest, which had tightened in anticipation, released and her disappointed heart slid to her shoes.
He shook his head before speaking.
‘I covet Sir Hugo’s motor car but am realistic enough to know that I will never have the means to afford one. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t something about you, but my reasons for not acting on such feelings are hardly unfathomable. You fascinate and terrify me all at once. But you’re an independently wealthy woman – the servants’ hall is full of talk about the success of your book – and I’m in the employ of your guardian and will never be a rich man. You are perfect and healthy and full of joy, and I am damaged and far too introspective for my own good. I will never understand why you pursue me when you could have any man you wanted.’
‘And yet I care not one jot for any of the attributes you are so convinced you are lacking. All I care about is how you make me feel. I have enough money for the both of us and am not embarrassed to be seen with you or worried about pitying stares – and I certainly wouldn’t tuck you away if I was serving hors d’oeuvres on the terrace. You’d be standing by my side always. I don’t want to be married to anyone else; I want to be married to you .’
There followed a moment of excruciating embarrassment for both of them as it was apparent she had practically proposed to him, before he stepped away and returned to watering the orchids, periodically narrowing his eyes as her words played back in his head.
‘Oh, have it your own way, you foolish man,’ she said, when he made no effort to respond to her declaration. ‘I shall make plans to return to Windy Acres – my parents’ house in Suffolk. If you won’t fight for me, then I don’t wish to constantly encounter a man who finds a dozen reasons to deny himself something that would make him happy. And God alone knows, you deserve some happiness in your life.’
Olivia wasn’t sure she would actually go through with this threat, but she was resorting to drastic measures to force his hand.
He stopped his task and jerked his head in her direction. ‘You’re leaving?’
She shrugged.
‘But, Miss Davenport, how do you not see that this sudden attachment to me makes no sense? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me and I just want the truth.’
His good eye locked with hers and she could see he was expecting a proper answer. She gave a resigned nod of the head, knowing that if she told him about the wall, he would think her crazy, so she frantically searched for another explanation. There wasn’t one.
In for a penny… She took a deep breath.
‘What I’m about to say will sound ridiculous but I swear on Howard’s memory that every word of it is true. And you must listen to what I have to say, without judgement or interruption, until I’ve finished.’
He shrugged and settled himself against the counter as she told him everything: from the moment her thirteen-year-old self had heard a voice through the wall, to Seth’s idea that they find each other in their own worlds. He tried to interject on a couple of occasions but she raised her hand to silence him. She wanted to get through the explanation in full before he pulled it to pieces and made her feel even more of a fool than she already did.
By the end, Tanner’s face was full of pity, not for her impossible situation, she realised, but for her state of mind.
‘This is dizzy fantasy, miss. Something you wish to be true but in’t: your parents, Howard and even me, all alive and well, whole and perfect.’
‘Believe me—’ she crossed her arms ‘—the world through the wall is not a perfect world. Ernest Dunn survived the war and, in my ignorance, I nearly married him. Not something I would ever fantasise about, I can assure you. It’s also a world where my lack of adversity has made me compliant, and it would appear my ambitions amount to editing my father’s work, rather than producing any of my own, and I was seemingly content to marry and settle into a life of domestic bliss. I prefer the stronger, more adventurous me who doesn’t give a damn about conforming. The me who stands before you now.’
He said nothing for a moment.
‘Then we go to the tower right this instant and we talk to this Seth,’ he said, challenging her to prove her nonsense tale.
‘We can’t. You’ve gone.’ She explained the tough decision that they’d come to as her heart sank and she was reminded that she would never speak to him through the wall again. The man before her was her last chance. If he rejected her, then there would never be a Seth and Olivia – not for her, at any rate.
‘Very convenient, that.’ The sarcasm dripped to the floor between them as he spoke.
‘Oh, have it your way, Tanner.’ She’d suddenly had enough. ‘Think me a child, think me deranged, think whatever you choose, and live in your closed-off world. I hope it keeps you warm at night. I shall go to Windy Acres and write fabulous stories, travel abroad and have breathtaking experiences. Maybe one day, I’ll even find someone who wants to do all these things with me. But whatever I do, I shall be happy.’
Tanner shook his head. ‘God preserve the man who takes you on,’ he said, and he scooped up his watering can and walked out on her for the second time in his life.