34. “Rolling in the Deep” - Adele
“Rolling in the Deep” - Adele
Sweat beads on the back of my neck, where the sun pours buckets of heat onto it. I’m dressed in a linen shift dress, but even the loose, light fabric does little to protect against the sun in all of its glory, baking us with these record-breaking temps.
Adelaide squats next to me at the perimeter of the garden bed, similarly dressed and just as drenched in sweat as I am.
She digs another hole, about twelve inches deep, with the trowel before tossing it aside and swiping a gloved hand across her brow, leaving a brown smudge in its wake.
“Are you sure we’re still in Wesbourne? Feels more like the Sahara. ”
“Go sit in the shade.” I motion toward the bench under the oak trees. “I’ll finish up here.”
She cocks an eyebrow at me. “I told you I’d help, and that’s what I’m doing.”
In my defense, when I called her to ask her advice on planting hydrangeas, I thought she’d give me a few tips over the phone, and that would be that. Instead, she told me she’d be right over and has adamantly rejected all of my subtle and not-so-subtle hints that she should take a break ever since.
I roll my eyes in amusement and cover the roots of the plant in the hole with loamy black soil.
We’re planting a new border around the Sunken Garden.
I’m determined to bring it back to its former glory.
It seemed like a good way to heal a broken heart at 2 a.m. last night, but in this heat, I’m having second thoughts.
Yesterday, after I regained my composure, Mr. Weston and I discussed the evidence that proves my sole right to the throne.
He assured me he would see to it that the right steps were taken.
Since King William was already planning to hand his crown to Henry and me in a month’s time, and Henry already signed away any right to it himself, he doesn’t foresee much delay.
The annulment papers remain untouched in their folder on my desk.
“This was a ridiculous idea,” I say.
Adelaide gives me a sharp look. “Talk to me, poppet. You are a bundle of nerves.”
“I’m fine. Just hot.” The thing with Adelaide is, you can never hide anything from her. No matter how hard I try, she always calls—
“Bullshit.”
I look at her and blow out a breath, damp tendrils of hair floating away from my face before drifting back to stick to my sweaty temples once again. “You’re too canny for your own good.”
“Dear, no one says ‘canny.’ Not even me, and I’m old.”
I shake my head and place another bush in the fresh hole she’s just dug. “You just want me to tell you you’re not old.”
She cocks a brow.
“Which you’re not,” I add.
“Good girl. Now tell me the real reason we’re planting hydrangeas in Satan’s boiler room.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. There’s no use denying it, not with her. “I’ve lost everything.”
Adelaide clucks her tongue. “I’m going to presume that’s a rhetorical statement.”
I pull the gardening gloves from my sweaty hands and drop them to the ground, fumbling for my phone and the photo I took of the painting of Philip.
Removing her own gloves, she puts on the reading glasses she wears on a chain around her neck.
She takes the phone from me, whispering “good god” as she does.
Her eyes flash up to meet mine. “Is this . . . ?”
“Queen Helena’s lover.”
“He’s a dead ringer for our darling prince. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure where to put my money.” She hands the device back and smirks. “Not that I’d ever bet against you, my dear.”
I scoff at her obnoxious lie. Adelaide will put her money on whoever she thinks has the greatest chance of success, relationships be damned.
“I pride myself on my incredible intellect, but even I’m failing to see how this means you’ve lost everything,” she says.
I sigh. “I’ve been trying to prove my sole right to the throne. But now that the proof is here, I feel . . . sad.”
“Well, I’m just an old lady, but I’m going to take a guess and say it has nothing to do with finding proof and everything to do with a deliciously attractive man—who I would most certainly fight you for if I were twenty years—.”
“Don’t say it.” I pull my gloves back on and lift another bush from its container. I break up the root ball before placing it in the hole.
“I can say whatever the hell I want, young lady. Now tell me what the problem is.”
My shrug dislodges a cascade of sweat down my back. “He filed for divorce. After finding the picture. And then kissed my sister. Oh, and I broke up with Beck. Again.”
“Crikey. I’m impressed you’re planting flowers. I’d be tearing them out right now.”
“I tend to avoid destroying things, with the exception of my future.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, which we both know is unlikely,” she says, “but weren’t you planning to distract yourself with Beck?”
I lob a clod of dirt back and forth between my hands, waiting until Adelaide has another hole ready for planting. She insisted she be the one to do the digging, saying she has the expertise needed for proper hole depth. Apparently, I can’t be trusted to estimate twelve inches.
“I tried to make it work with Beck, but Henry brings me to life in a way I didn’t even know was possible. When I’m with him, I feel like I’m waking from a hundred-year-old spell.”
“He’s your great love.”
The chasm in my chest shifts, reminding me of its presence, just in case I get too comfortable. “How do I turn it off?”
She cackles. “Turn off love? Oh honey, that would be like turning off the sun. Which I wish was a possibility at the moment,” she mutters as she scoots over to start a new hole.
“Okay, then how do I forget about him? For real this time. Not that nonsense about taking a new lover. I feel like I’m drowning on land.”
“Why do you need to forget him?” She stares at me with what looks like a quizzical expression on her face. It might just be the sunlight making her squint in spite of the giant straw hat on her head.
“Haven’t you been listening to anything I just said? He filed for divorce. He doesn’t want me. He’s currently hooking up with my sister and probably half of London as we speak.” I plop the plant down in the empty hole with more force than necessary.
Adelaide grunts as she struggles to pull a large stone from the earth. I’d offer to help her, but I value my own neck too much to imply she needs assistance.
“If you think for a second he filed for divorce because it’s what he wants and not what he thinks you want, you’re not as bright as I gave you credit for.”
I choose not to be offended by that comment. “Let’s be honest. Henry isn’t the type to settle down and stay married to one woman for the rest of his life. This annulment works as much in his favor as mine.”
She tilts her head and looks at me. “No, not just any woman. But I’d bet my villa in the Mediterranean he’d do it for you.”
“That’s not very reassuring, considering we’re currently sweating enough to fill the Mediterranean.”
“Do you really think his filing for annulment had absolutely nothing to do with your plans to do the same?”
“He doesn’t know anything about that.”
“You’re positive?”
My shoulders pull downward in tandem with my mouth. “I can’t afford to hope for an alternative.”
“Celia, I have never known you to give up so easily without a fight,” Adelaide says.
“I don’t want to fight for Henry.” I remove another bush from its pot. “It’s humiliating.”
“Sometimes the greatest battles are won through humility.”
I’m not in the mood for thought-provoking quotes or mind-numbing questions. I need a way to move forward. “He’s already rejected me twice. I don’t have it in me to try a third time.” I hold up my hand to stop her next words. “Please, please, don’t say the third time’s the charm.”
A sardonic smile plays at the edges of her mouth. “I was only going to ask if you’re afraid of the challenge or the potential outcome.”
“What makes you think I’m afraid?”
“Your body language screams it, dear.” She waves her trowel at me.
I force my shoulders to relax back into their normal position and soothe the muscles of my face into an expression that hopefully looks less like I want to murder someone. I throw in a smile for good measure.
Adelaide watches this procedure with scrutiny. “Better. But you still didn’t answer my question. Are you scared of approaching Henry or of what he’ll say if you do?”
“I know what he’ll say.”
Tossing her trowel to the ground, she turns to face me. “Celia.” She would have made a great headmistress. “Think of the most famous love stories of all time. Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Romeo and Juliet. Heathcliff and Catherine. Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara.”
“Common denominator?” I grumble. “They all ended in tragedy.”
“Wrong.” She wipes her brow with the back of her wrist. “Okay, you’re right, but the point is, none of them would have been happy with anyone else.
Even your own Helena put her life at risk to be with the man she loved because she knew she couldn’t be happy any other way.
How many people get to experience a great love?
You do. And you’re throwing it away.” She couldn’t sound more irritated if I’d told her this heat is staying for the rest of summer.
“It’s a little hard to throw away something you never had in the first place.”
She presses her lips into a tight line. “Have you actually told him how you feel? Or did you just assume he could read your mind?”
“I’m pretty sure I did.”
“Young lady, did you or did you not tell him you love him?”
Okay, I’m pretty sure I didn’t say those words, at least not this last time, but they were implied by my active participation in . . . whatever was happening that night. “More or less?” I bite my lip, knowing that answer won’t be good enough for her.
“Men need things spelled out, poppet. If you want a chance with Henry, a real chance, you need to tell him exactly how you feel. All of it. Then let him do with it what he will.” She scoops out another shovelful of dirt. “There’s that done. It’s all you, love.”
I take her place in front of the hole and bury the last of the hydrangeas. Sweat dribbles into my eyes. “I’m not sure I can give him that kind of power again.”
“The power to hurt you? But darling, that’s what makes love so magical. It’s not worth much if you can’t trust enough to risk getting hurt.”
“What if he sends me away again?”
Adelaide takes a long drink from her water bottle before responding. “Will you be any worse off than you are now?”
“I imagine I’d survive.” Although the jury is still out.
“Sometimes the best experiences in life come from the risks we take and our biggest regrets from the ones we don’t.”