Chapter 22 #2
“She changed.” His hands go still on my leg and his mind leaves the present and time-travels.
Whatever he sees lights the gold flecks in his eyes.
“She always had a lot of opinions, but eventually she lost the good sense to know when to keep them in. My father bore the brunt of it. He couldn’t do a blamed thing right in those days, far as she was concerned. ”
I bite my lip. “How did he manage? What did he do?”
He sighs. “Rubbed her feet every night, that’s what.
Said it helped her sleep.” His fingertips glide over my calves again, feeling for fragments.
“He learned to cook. Keep house. Said it made him grateful for what she’d done over the years.
I was mad at her for a time, but he only grew more attached, more tender, and I didn’t understand it. I was young.”
“And now?”
He hesitates and doesn’t look at me. “Nothing seems more natural.”
That admission washes over my doubts. I don’t know what to do with them now. “Thank you, Ansel.”
“Hm?”
“For luncheon. And the brooch.” And for the first real glimpse into who you are.
His mouth curves up at the left in a boyish smile.
I finger the brooch. He’d have sold it if he is what Gould claims, but he brought it home. “How did you even know I’d lost it?”
He touches his chest where I had the brooch pinned before. “A small tear in the lady’s shirtwaist does stand out.”
“So you what, tracked down the wagon?”
He shakes his head. “Wasn’t in the wagon.”
I feel my neck tighten. “You mean you walked our route back to Newquay? AJ! That must have been miles.”
“Just until I found it.”
“When?”
“This morning. Left before you woke.”
The house was so quiet. I stepped over the lump of him…or did I? Was it only blankets on the floor? I stare at his feet. “Take off your boots.” That limp—now I know.
He grimaces. “I’ll do no such thing. Not in the presence of a lady.”
I fold my arms, directing my worst glare at him. “Ansel James, take them off.”
He goes still at the use of both his given names, then lowers into the chair behind him and takes off his boots, one after the other.
Gaze downcast, he shoves his hair off his face, leaning onto his knees.
I sink down to the floor and lift his feet.
His ankles are raw where the bone rubbed against stiff leather all day.
His soles are raw in spots. With a sigh, I grab the jar of lanolin and prop his right foot onto my lap.
I look up at him, noticing how shadows play over the vulnerability on his face.
He is barefoot and ordinary and honest with hair-speckled feet and one toe that turns in a bit.
I smooth cream over the cracked, dry skin before the snapping fire.
He flinches when I touch his ankles, then relaxes.
He is strong. Muscular. And, for once, perfectly still.
But his eyes are not downcast now. His gaze is upon me with light from the fireplace playing across his features, his green-gold stormy eyes. A muscle jerks in his cheek as he stares at me, holding onto whatever he isn’t saying.
That evening, we both prop our injured limbs on chairs, letting the fire warm us as Cornwall’s crisp wind blows outside our stone fortress.
“Look at us. A couple of sad sacks, eh?” he says.
Love means shared moments, limping through the rough patches together…even if secrets lie between you. “AJ, what if we simply stay here, at Dunn Cottage? Just stay and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist?”
“A fine idea.”
“Hang the inheritance. Perhaps I’ll tell Sabine to keep all of it, and to act as trustee. We don’t need any—”
He thumps his feet down and swivels toward me. “We’re not giving in that easily.”
I blink at his abruptness.
“We’re right here, in the midst of your past, and you’ve only to reach out and take hold.”
I study him a moment longer, then close my eyes and breathe deeply of Dunn Cottage. I must remember—it’s the only chance I stand against any of them. The only way I’ll stand on my own two feet in this world.
Images blink and flicker, and I invite them near, trying to hold them still so I can look at them. Come on. Come back to me. A windy beach, a cliff, and a woman with long, dark hair. Yes. She smiles.
Then her face swirls into the gentle, brown-eyed countenance of a man with thick hair waving over his forehead. A neat mustache that turns up when he smiles. I shove that image aside but his face intrudes again and again. I force my eyes open. “No!” My heart’s pounding. I’m gripping the chair arms.
“What? What is it?” AJ’s face is near mine. “You don’t have to do this. We’ll go into town and search everywhere, find someone who knew you and…” He sits back in his chair.
I glance about Dunn Cottage with its low-raftered ceiling and stone walls hugging us close. Its rough-hewn shelves and large open fireplace. My grip relaxes. “Why didn’t she look for me?” Why didn’t either of them?
He blinks. “Sabine?”
“My mother. I remember her, and she’s alive somewhere. But in all the years I stayed with Lady St. Laurent, she never searched for me, never saw the notice in the Illustrated.”
“Perhaps she takes the Chronicle.”
And the man on the beach? The one who looks at me with such affection?
Eventually AJ settles one arm on the chairback behind me and rests his head atop mine. “Don’t fret over her, luv. You have me now.”
And who is that, exactly? I wish to ask. I know he won’t answer, though. The tightness begins twisting up inside. What might it feel like to stand upon solid rock?
I glance about the ancient lime-washed cottage, at the nooks and crannies and the ledges I know by instinct.
On the top shelf of the larder is the sharp knife, kept out of my reach.
I wasn’t to touch it. Above the mantel, spare tallow candles.
I recall sitting on the stones before the hearth, talking away when Mum was here, and staring silently when she was not.
I cannot recall what became of that girl. The waves of time washed the sand from under her feet and she had to find a new place to stand, many times over.
It is not until Ansel and I are soundly wrapped in separate blankets for the night, drifting off to sleep, that I remember I’ll need to ring Henry Gould again come morning. I twist and turn, desperate for some explanation that makes sense.
Yes, there must be a clear reason. Must be.
Because if this is all true, then my husband is a stranger.
Marriage means a radical acceptance of your spouse and all flaws.
I chose to marry AJ without being able to tell him about my shortcomings…
and it seems he did the same. Now, there’s precious little I can do about it.
Except to wait for the sun to come up and close myself once again into the telephone booth at the Sloop where truth will be delivered.