Chapter 12
Twelve
Beneath the sagging roof tiles, Chase Lodge had once been beautiful, Christina could tell.
Not grand, but important, and built for fun – a hunting lodge.
Rather like her marriage; both needed bringing back to life, the neglect and decay stripping away.
The house would be their salvation – restore the lodge, restore the marriage.
God, she hoped she could restore her marriage, after all the horrible things they said to each other two years ago.
The terrible row had begun, as many marital rows do, with a moment of domestic disharmony.
Christina had just poured herself a cup of tea after baking bread for the family, when she heard a crash and whipped around.
The beautiful blue mixing bowl her mother had given her and Hamish as a wedding present had crashed onto the flagstones.
‘Christ, Hamish!’
‘Frightfully sorry, darling.’ He stood in the kitchen, all six foot two of aristocratic awkwardness, leather satchel slung across his body, staring at the fragments of blue pottery scattered across the floor tiles.
‘I caught it with my satchel. I was reaching for the . . . well, I thought it was the bread bin.’
She grabbed the kitchen roll, her hands shaking with the particular rage that comes from loving someone who could navigate the Tudor court but couldn’t find the bread bin in his own kitchen. ‘Nine bloody years, and you still dinnae ken where anything is.’
‘Mea culpa.’ He crouched, gathering shards with those long fingers that could flip expertly through medieval manuscripts but took half an hour to load a dishwasher.
‘English, Hamish. For God’s sake, speak English.’
‘My fault. I said my fault.’ He looked up, wearing that wounded expression he got when she snapped at him, like a whipped hound. ‘Though technically it’s Latin, not—’
‘I know it’s bloody Latin!’ The words came out sharper than she meant. ‘That’s the point. You and your Latin and your metaphors and your . . .’ she gestured at him, at his cashmere jumper and his polished shoes. ‘Everything.’
He rose, clutching the broken pieces to his chest. ‘It was an accident.’
‘Aye, well. That seems to be your specialty, doesn’t it?’ The bitterness leaked out before she could stop it. ‘Accidents. Mistakes. Things that just happen to the great Hamish Pemberton.’
His jaw tightened. ‘What precisely are we discussing now? Because I rather think we’ve moved beyond the bowl.’
‘Have we?’ she slammed her mug down. ‘Maybe we should discuss why you’re in such a rush to leave on this lecture tour. Two weeks away from the wife who trapped you by falling pregnant. That must be a relief.’
‘Trapped me?’ His voice went cold. ‘That’s a rather Tudor interpretation of events, wouldn’t you say?’
‘There you go again! I don’t know what that means!’
‘It means you’re rewriting history to suit your own narrative. The Tudors were masters at it.’ He set the pottery shards on the counter with exaggerated care. ‘I married you because I love you.’
‘You married me because your mother told you to.’ The words hung there, ugly and true. ‘Even though the person she really wanted you to marry was Lady Penelope.’
Hamish looked stunned. ‘Oh yes. Don’t try and deny it. I heard you and Flora talking! Your mother found out I was pregnant and marched you down that aisle like you were some recusant Catholic heading for the block.’
‘Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur—’
‘ENGLISH!’
‘From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks!’ He was shouting now, properly shouting, which he never did.
‘And what your heart is full of, apparently, is poison. Do you really think I ever wanted to marry anyone but you? Good God, Christina, Penelope was about as exciting as a parliamentary roll from 1472. Beautiful, yes. Appropriate, absolutely. And utterly, completely wrong for me.’
‘You dated her for two years.’
‘I dated her because it was expected. Because Ma orchestrated it like she was arranging an alliance.’
‘Right. So, you married a Glaswegian scrubber to piss off your mother.’
He gave a loud tut. ‘Why are you ashamed of your roots? It’s ridiculous.
I don’t care where you came from, but it’s all you seem to think about.
You change your accent when you’re around my mother.
You barely even mention your own mother.
You never talk about your father. Why not? Are you ashamed of him?’
‘I don’t want to talk about him. He’s ancient history.’
‘I like ancient history.’
Her fists balled and she pummelled them into her sides. ‘And that’s the problem right there! Everything is history to you. Nothing is about us, our future, your family. Do you know how hard I try to fit in?’
‘Then stop trying. You sound like a snobby social climber.’
‘I am not a social climber!’
‘Stop it.’ His voice cracked. ‘Just stop.’
But she couldn’t. Years of insecurity came pouring out. ‘You regret it. Marrying beneath you. Your mother probably reminds you every Christmas.’
‘My mother admires you.’
‘Your mother tolerated me once I had your bairn in my belly!’
‘That’s not—’ He pressed his palms against his eyes. ‘This is like arguing with Cardinal Wolsey. Round and round, no resolution, just theatrical suffering.’
‘Stay in the present!’
He clutched at his satchel strap and checked his watch. ‘I can’t do this, Tina. Not now. I’ll be late for my flight.’
‘That’s right, run away. Very heroic. Very Tudor of you.’
‘At least I’m going somewhere to speak to people who actually want to listen to me!’
‘Good for you,’ she spat. ‘You’re going to spend two weeks dissecting the dissolution of the monasteries while I stay here and play the servant to your family.’
‘Amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus!’ He spat it like a curse.
‘TRANSLATE!’
‘Love is rich with both honey and venom.’ His hand was on the door handle. ‘And right now, Christina, you’re serving up nothing but venom.’
‘At least I’m serving up something! At least I’m here, not disappearing for weeks on end leaving their wife—’
‘My wife who thinks I was coerced into marrying her, who thinks I pine for another woman, who thinks I regret the best decision I ever made!’ His voice broke. ‘Do you have any idea how that feels? To love someone who thinks you’re trapped?’
Her lips curled into a sneer; she knew the truth behind that lie, she’d heard the conversation that precipitated the proposal just days later, followed by a hasty marriage. ‘Then why did your mother have to tell you to marry me? Why did it take your mother’s intervention?’
He stared at her, and for a moment, she thought he might cry.
‘Because I was terrified. Because you’re brilliant and fierce and you challenge me and you’re not afraid to tell me I’m being an arse.
Because I knew that marrying you would be difficult and real and nothing like the comfortable dynastic merger Ma wanted. ’
The kitchen felt too small, too quiet.
‘So yes,’ he continued, voice flat now, ‘Ma pushed me. Thank God she did, because I’d have dithered while you slipped away. But I didn’t marry you because she told me to. I married you because I couldn’t imagine not marrying you.’
‘Hamish—’
‘I have to go. The car’s waiting.’
‘Don’t leave like this.’
‘Like what? With you thinking the absolute worst of me?’ He pulled open the door. Cold winter air rushed in. ‘I’ve spent years trying to prove I love you, Christina. I’m not sure what else I can do.’
‘You’re a patronizing arse!’ she shouted, desperation making her cruel. ‘You with your Latin and your fancy family and your . . . your condescension! You’re a spineless snob!’
‘And you’re a chippy social climber who’d rather change everything about themselves than accept that someone might actually love you for who you are. Clearly, I got it wrong. Perhaps I shouldn’t have listened to my mother after all.’
The door slammed.
She stood there staring at the wreckage of her mother’s bowl, listening to his footsteps crunch down the gravel drive, the car door closing, the engine starting.
She sank into a chair and finally let herself cry.
In the last two years neither of them had spoken of that row, and now walking up the overgrown path to Chase Lodge, she wondered if they ever would.
The wind whipped and Christina hunched her shoulders against the bite, stamping her boots against the cold doorstep.
She unlocked the door, and stepped inside, trying to shake off the memory of their argument.
But that just made her think instead about the distance between them last night.
She wasn’t sure which was worse: forgetting their anniversary or realising that Elspeth hadn’t.
Their daughter had spotted their crumbling marriage, and Christina feared that might explain the terrible school report.
She pushed the thought away. Earlier, when Christina dropped Elspeth back at school for a tennis lesson, her daughter had seemed cheerful, bounding out of the car with her racket in hand, already chatting to another girl before the door had even closed.
That school report didn’t have to be about her parents.
Children had off terms. Still, the idea squatted at the back of her mind like a stone in her shoe.
Hamish walked over to the hearth and knelt. ‘You know,’ he said, brushing mortar dust from his palms, ‘this could be sixteenth century. Possibly earlier. Timber-framed under all this render. Could even be Tudor. Just needs someone to peel it all back.’
He looked up at her with that mild, studied optimism she still adored. And for a moment, she felt a flicker of something warm – because he was seeing it too. This wasn’t just her fantasy.
Of course he did. His ancestors had stayed here. She drew in a steadying breath, willing herself to stay calm. ‘So, you like it?’
Hamish tilted his head, glancing at the distended ceiling. ‘It’s interesting.’
Her heart kicked. Not quite a yes, but he hadn’t completely dismissed it.
He stroked his jaw, a noncommittal gesture. ‘It’s peaceful.’