Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When I go downstairs the next morning, Sian is already up and at the kitchen sink, washing last night’s glasses.
‘Hey!’ I say in greeting.
‘ Bore da ,’ she replies, which means ‘good morning’ in Welsh.
‘ Hel? ,’ I respond in turn.
‘Ooh, you sounded proper Welsh then.’
I smile and grab a tea towel.
‘You were very sneaky last night,’ she says teasingly as I begin to dry up. ‘Everyone wondered where you disappeared off to.’
‘Sorry. I popped inside to use the loo and just crashed. I was so tired.’
‘Hmm.’
She can’t be on to me already …
‘Have you got any plans for today?’ she asks, and I feel as though I might have dodged a bullet.
‘No.’
‘It’s Bethan’s birthday.’
‘Is it?’
‘I know, she kept it very quiet. But Harri’s working and she’s at a loose end, so I wondered about doing a pampering afternoon for her.’
‘That sounds fun.’
‘Oh, and I’m baking her a carrot cake,’ she adds. ‘It’s her favourite.’
‘I heard! What can I do?’
‘You can come with me to the shop to get some supplies if you like?’
‘Sure.’
Ash texts me at eleven thirty: You invited me over last night.
I did , I reply, smiling.
My text messages must have got through at last.
There’s no reception at the cabin.
I gathered.
Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about being seen with me?
No, it means you can carry on as normal with your friends, but you’ve got to pretend I’m just your gardener.
He doesn’t reply.
I text him again. Are you angry?
His answer comes after a few seconds. That’s too strong a word.
Upset?
A little.
I bite my lip, staring at my phone. I’m sorry.
It’s OK. I get it.
Bethan, Sian and I spend the afternoon sitting on the sofas, wearing face masks, eating carrot cake and watching Glee , Bethan’s favourite TV show from when she was a teenager.
Sian keeps pausing the TV to add to a playlist she’s making of the original versions of the songs. It’s the sort of thing I used to do with Stella, and my happiness is a touch bittersweet. But I do feel optimistic for these new friendships.
Ash texts me at five thirty when we’ve just cracked open a bottle of Prosecco. Celyn’s invited me for a beer. I hope that’s OK?
Of course it is , I reply, unsettled by the strength of the thrill that has just rocketed through me.
Harri knocks on the back door soon afterwards, freshly showered after a day at work. The pots in the greenhouses wouldn’t make it through the weekend if they weren’t tended to, but only one of us is needed for the Saturday–Sunday shift.
‘Are we boys allowed to join you now?’ he shouts over Sian’s finished playlist, squeezing his girlfriend’s shoulders from behind.
‘I suppose we can allow it,’ Bethan replies genially, patting his hand as Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ fades to an end.
The sound of a distant motorbike makes my ears prick up. Ash wasted no time getting on his way.
Evan appears at the back door. ‘Is this where the party’s at?’ he asks.
‘I think it’s outside,’ I respond, getting up from the sofa and smiling at him.
‘I wondered if you might be up for another day trip with me tomorrow?’ he asks, leaning his hip against the counter as I get myself a glass of water.
‘Ooh, is this a date?’ Sian cheekily calls over from the sofa.
‘No!’ I respond, a little more vehemently than I meant to. ‘Never mix business with pleasure,’ I add playfully to lighten the tone of my rebuttal, picking up a tea towel from the counter and flicking Evan on the hip with it.
‘Ow!’ he says, laughing as he bats me away.
The others get up and join us in the kitchen.
‘Where were you thinking about going?’ I ask Evan, trying to sound nonchalant as I hop up onto the counter beside him.
‘There’s a waterfall not too far from here. I thought maybe we could take a picnic.’
‘That sounds very date-like,’ Sian chips in as she tops up her glass with Prosecco.
‘Keep out of it, you,’ Evan replies.
Harri and Bethan laugh at him as they sort themselves out for drinks.
‘What are you guys up to tomorrow?’ I ask edgily.
‘I’m working,’ Harri replies, but Bethan shrugs and says brightly, ‘No plans.’
‘Sian?’
‘Oh, we don’t want to get in the middle of anything,’ she responds to me.
My God, she is such a stirrer!
‘Would you shut up?’ I say fondly. ‘We’re just friends.’ I look at Evan. ‘Aren’t we?’
‘We are,’ he agrees with a smile.
But his eyes aren’t sparkling as much as usual.
‘Are you having another one?’ Sian asks me, holding up the bottle.
The rumble of Ash’s motorbike out the back door makes it hard for me to concentrate on holding my glass still while she pours fizz into it.
‘Well, wouldn’t you know,’ she says significantly, looking past me out the window. ‘It’s the Honourable Ashton Berkeley.’
Harri chuckles at Sian’s tone. I’m not sure if she was being sarcastic, and I don’t like the thought of her taking the piss out of Ash. I feel quite protective as I glance over my shoulder to see him climbing off his motorbike, but then I realise that Sian is out the door and halfway across the lawn.
‘ Hel? , Ash,’ I hear her call warmly and his face breaks into a broad grin at the sight of her.
I hop down from the counter and walk outside in time to hear her say, as Ash climbs over the lavender border with his long legs, ‘I think you might need a kutch , from what I’ve been hearing.’
‘What’s a kutch ?’ I ask Bethan as she joins me.
Sian freezes theatrically and turns around to look at me. ‘You don’t know what a kutch is?’ she asks. ‘ C. W. T. C. H ,’ she spells out.
‘As if that explains it,’ I reply with a laugh.
I meet Ash’s eyes momentarily and quickly look away.
‘It’s a hug,’ Evan says.
‘Oh, it’s so much more than a hug,’ Sian corrects him. ‘It’s like a proper emotional snuggle, isn’t it? There’s no word for it in English. Come here, Ash,’ she says sympathetically, opening her arms.
He has to stoop right down to embrace her. I watch as he closes his eyes, and it feels kind of personal and intimate, the way she’s holding him right now. I experience a funny little twinge of envy.
They break away. ‘Anytime you need a cwtch , you let me know,’ Sian says to me. ‘Or ask Evan, he’ll give you one,’ she teases.
This time I blush.
Ash steps forward to greet Bethan, Harri and Evan, finally turning to me with a small smile.
‘Hello,’ he says.
‘Hi.’ I feel so shy all of a sudden.
Thankfully Celyn comes out of his cottage and calls out to him. Ash strides off and they meet in the middle with a brief but warm hug.
Shit, I actually am kind of peeved that these people get to hug him and I can’t.
Jac and Dylan emerge from their cottage next door. ‘Urgh, can you change the music?’ Jac moans.
The Supremes’ ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ is playing now. Stella used to love the Kim Wilde version.
‘Be quiet, you! It’s Bethan’s birthday, she can play what she wants,’ Catrin, Celyn’s girlfriend, chides from behind them.
The boys grin and pick up their chairs, relocating them to behind our cottage. We make a rough circle on the lawn and they crack open a couple of brightly coloured beer cans.
Ash sits down two chairs away from me, beside Celyn on my right. Evan is on my left.
‘How have you been?’ I hear Celyn ask Ash as the others start talking amongst themselves.
‘I’m okay,’ he replies, taking a sip of his pale ale.
‘I heard on the grapevine what happened.’
What has he heard? Sian has obviously got wind of it too, if she wanted to give him that long cuddle.
‘I don’t even know what to say,’ Ash replies.
I’m pretending to listen to a conversation between Catrin and Sian, but I can’t concentrate.
‘She’ll come back,’ Celyn says gruffly.
Ash kicks his foot at the grass. ‘I don’t think so,’ he replies.
‘No, she will. You guys are made for each other.’
Ash’s eyes lock with mine and I experience a full-body jolt. We both look down. I feel edgy and nervous and yes, okay, I’ll admit it, sick with jealousy.
Suddenly this whole thing seems insane. There’s no way Beca left him because of me. It makes no sense. There must be more to it than that.
I force myself to turn to Evan. ‘So you’re thinking about heading to a waterfall tomorrow?’ I ask sunnily.
‘Yeah, do you fancy it?’
‘Sure,’ I reply, just as I realise that Ash and Celyn have fallen silent.
‘It’s about forty minutes away,’ Evan adds.
‘Where are you going?’ Ash asks directly, his eyes moving between us. He sounds casually interested.
‘Don’t ask me to pronounce it,’ Evan replies, pulling out his phone. I lean over his shoulder and catch sight of the words Pistyll Rhaeadr before he turns the display towards Ash.
The sound that comes out of Ash’s mouth sounds so distinctly Welsh that my chest contracts.
‘I’ve only just realised that you’ve been talking like Ashton Berkeley!’ Celyn suddenly exclaims at Ash.
Ash’s eyes flit to mine and cut away again. He laughs lightly and takes a swig of his beer, pink tinging his cheeks.
He doesn’t dare speak with a Welsh accent in front of me, I realise. Not after the way I reacted when he switched accents so seamlessly on the night of his parents’ party. The last of my scratches from stumbling backwards into the rose bushes with shock only healed a few days ago.
I jump to my feet and head inside, grabbing my phone from where it’s charging on the countertop.
Be yourself , I text him, glancing out the window in time to see him get his phone out of his jeans pocket. He’s only sitting a few metres away, so this time when he looks towards my window, he meets my eyes through the glass. I feel jittery as I wait for his reply.
I don’t want to freak you out.
You won’t.
He meets my eyes again and it hits me how much I want to hear his voice, the voice that I remember.
I walk outside and sit back down.
‘What have you done for your birthday today then, Bethan?’ Ash asks her, and God, he sounds like him, like Ash , like himself.
I feel all skittery beneath my ribs as he and Bethan talk to each other. I can’t concentrate on a single other thing, only the sound of his voice, his slow, melodic lilt, the easy, laid-back quality that seems to come over him.
My ears are tuned into his every word, and my gaze keeps getting drawn back to his body too. I manage to prevent myself from staring too openly at his face, but I’m drinking in the casual way he’s leaning back in his deckchair, the length of his legs in those well-worn jeans, the way his chest and shoulders fill his faded green T-shirt.
I’m struck with a vision of him in his Hawaiian shirt, open at the neck, flapping wildly in the wind as he holds his hair back from his face in a tuk-tuk in Lisbon.
The sound of his voice together with the vivid memories takes me back to a time when my attraction to him was all-consuming. My eyes land on his mouth as he puts his beer can to his lips and tilts it.
Time seems to have slowed down. That Prosecco has gone straight to my head.
Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ comes pouring out of the stereo and I breathe in sharply as Ash looks straight at me.
The moment has coincided with a pause in his conversation with Bethan, but he doesn’t ask another question or turn to anyone else. While the others talk around us, he and I stare at each other. His eyes are glittering with intensity as he holds my gaze, and inside my chest, my heart has begun to beat erratically.
I need to look away, but I can’t. He needs to look away, but he doesn’t.
Goosebumps race up my neck just as he tilts his head towards the outbuildings, giving them a very subtle look over his shoulder before returning his eyes to mine.
Is he asking me to meet him there? But people will see us leaving.
I give a tiny shake of my head and lift my eyes and chin up towards the roof of the cottage.
Meet me out the front.
He smirks and puts his can back to his lips.
The sight of that small, lazy smile makes my stomach do a slow flip.
Head tingling, I get up and go back inside the cottage, walking straight through it to the front door where my keys are dangling from a coat hook. I know I’ll regret this if any of that lot finds out about us, but right now I’m past caring. I want him to myself.
Bonnie Tyler is still building to a crescendo in the back garden, so no one will hear the creak of hinges as I push open the door to the walled garden. Footsteps sound out from behind me on the path. Ash is walking over from the direction of the last cottage. He’s grinning.
‘For a minute, I thought you were suggesting we meet on the roof.’
He still sounds like his old self and I love it. I laugh and lead the way into the dark garden, pushing the door closed behind him and locking it again with the skeleton key, just to be on the safe side.
‘Did you want to say something?’ he asks.
‘Did you?’ I bat back at him. ‘You were the one who suggested we sneak off.’ He’d looked at the outbuildings first.
The wall rises up around us and the light is eerie under the glow of the stars. The air smells damp and earthy, the grass beneath the apple trees sodden with dew.
He grunts with annoyance. ‘It bugs me that he’s taking you to Pistyll Rhaeadr on a Sunday,’ he says as we duck under a low-hanging branch. ‘It’s going to be so busy. You should go on a weekday at dawn or much later in the day. He’s going to wreck it for you.’
‘Is that the only reason you’re pissed off?’
He pauses beneath a gnarly old tree and hooks his hand over a branch that stretches out past the top of his head. ‘No,’ he mutters as I go and stand in front of him. ‘ I should be showing you Wales, not him.’
A shiver runs down my spine at the sound of his petulant voice.
‘Don’t you like Evan?’ I wonder if I’m pushing his buttons by asking.
‘He’s fine,’ he replies offhandedly. ‘I’m more interested in whether you like him.’
I feel the intensity of his stare, even in the darkness.
‘Yes, I do like him,’ I reply, but it feels wrong to try to deliberately wound him so I add, ‘We’re friends.’
He stares at me a moment longer. I can just see the glint of his eyes. ‘Have you ever been more?’ he asks.
‘Would it bother you if we had?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you jealous?’
‘Of course I am.’
It gives me such a thrill to hear him confess to it.
‘I was jealous when Sian gave you a cwtch ,’ I admit.
‘Were you?’ He sounds pleased.
‘Has anything ever happened between you two?’ I ask warily.
‘Sian and me? No,’ he replies firmly. ‘She’s like family. I’ve known her for years.’
I’m relieved. ‘I was worried you might have lost your virginity to her or something.’
He laughs. ‘No, I lost my virginity to Aspen Montgomery when I was sixteen.’
‘She sounds posh.’
‘She is.’
It’s a reminder, as if I need one, that while he might sound like the Ash I remember, he’s still Ashton Berkeley, son of a viscount, heir to Berkeley Hall. He’s from another world, a different class, and even if I could step into Beca’s recently vacated shoes, I wouldn’t want to.
The sudden reminder of his all-too-recent ex makes me feel a little ill.
‘So why did you agree to sneak off?’ he asks and his tone is lighter than when we first came out here, more playful. ‘Did you have something to say?’
‘No, I just hate that everyone else got to give you a hug and I couldn’t,’ I admit sulkily, trying to ignore the voice in my head telling me that he’s not for me.
‘Aw,’ he says gently. ‘Do you want one now?’
When I don’t immediately answer, he lets go of the tree and pulls me towards him. My stomach feels as though it’s full of daisies lifting their heads to the sun as his arms circle my waist. I loop mine around his neck and he gathers me close until our chests are completely flush to each other.
‘How’s this?’ he whispers as my body melts against his.
‘Mmm’ is all I manage in reply.
I really don’t want him to let me go, but after a few more seconds he releases me, leaving me bereft.
‘I always wanted to climb these trees when I was younger,’ he murmurs, looking up at the branches.
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I wasn’t allowed. Some of them are so old.’
‘What was it like to have the run of this place once the visitors had left?’ I ask as we venture further into the walled garden.
‘It used to frighten me,’ he admits. ‘I was scared of the dark.’
‘But you love space,’ I say, flummoxed.
‘It’s weird. I wasn’t scared when I was up at the cabin or out in the woods with Taran. Only here. And in the house,’ he adds, and there’s something about his tone that makes me think he’s confiding something to me that he doesn’t often talk about.
‘Why did the house scare you?’ I ask tentatively as we come to a stop.
The air is thickly perfumed by the lilac growing in the nearby central circle.
‘Have you been inside?’ he asks.
‘Only in the Great Hall, and Evan took me through the gatehouse, the day I arrived,’ I reply.
‘I’ll take you inside sometime, show you properly.’
I don’t know when he plans to do that. In the hours when it’s not open to visitors, surely his parents will be around, or any number of staff.
I feel a tickle beginning behind my nose. And then I’m off.
One sneeze.
Ash chuckles.
Two sneezes.
‘Oh my fucking God,’ he says.
Three sneezes.
I hold up my palm to fend him off.
Four sneezes.
‘Gah!’ I think I’m done.
‘Your sneezes are as cute as your sniggles,’ he says with such sweet affection that I feel as though I’ve ingested warm honey. ‘If I get you some bike gear, will you come for a ride with me?’ he asks suddenly.
‘On your motorbike?’
‘Yeah.’ Now he sounds doubtful, where he didn’t a moment ago.
‘Sure.’
He releases a small snort of amusement.
‘What’s funny?’ I ask.
‘No hesitation – you just said yes.’
I love the way he sounds right now, so fond of me.
‘When do you want to go?’ I ask.
‘Next Saturday?’
‘I think so. I’ll have to work out what to tell the others.’
‘Tell them you’re catching up with an old friend.’
He feels like so much more to me than that.