15. Chapter 14 #2
“You and I already have the ordinary,” she says, turning back to me.
“That is what I realised. You know me when I am tired. When I am sharp. When I am scared and pretending I am not. When I need something and hate needing it.” Her mouth tightens, then steadies.
“You know the version of me I usually try to keep out of sight.”
“I like that version.”
“I know.”
Those two words give me hope.
Because she believes them.
Maybe not entirely. Not yet. But enough to say it.
“I still need my own home,” she says. “My own time. My own routines. I need to be able to be by myself without it meaning something is wrong.”
“Yes.”
“I am serious.”
“I know.”
“I cannot have you thinking this means I am suddenly ready to have you in every corner of my life.”
“I do not want corners,” I say.
That startles her.
I step a little closer, slowly enough that she can move back if she wants to. She does not.
“I do not want less of you so I can fit somewhere neat,” I say. “I want more of you. There is a difference.”
Her eyes shine.
Only a little.
Enough.
“I do not know how to do this,” she says.
“Good. Neither do I.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It is honest.”
She laughs softly. “Unfortunately, that might be comforting.”
“I can work with might.”
She looks at the stall, the apples, the people moving past us with all the subtlety of a village pretending not to watch.
“I am still scared,” she says.
“So am I.”
“You?”
“I have just been claimed at a baked-apple stall in front of my sister. I am living on the edge.”
Her laugh breaks properly this time.
Then she steps closer, takes my face in both hands and kisses me.
Not a hidden kiss.
Not a hurried one in a hallway or a bedroom or a kitchen with curtains drawn.
A kiss in the middle of the harvest festival, with custard cooling behind me and half of St Claire about to pretend they did not see.
For a second, I forget my own name.
When she pulls back, her cheeks are pink, but she does not look away.
“Well,” I say, because my voice has apparently become unreliable, “the village will go into a frenzy.”
“That is fine.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” She glances at Alexandra, who is at the raffle table with both hands pressed over her mouth and absolutely no intention of being discreet. “At least people will know who you belong to.”
Heat moves through me fast enough to make coherent thought briefly impossible.
Mandy realises what she has said.
Her eyes widen.
“I mean,” she starts.
“No, no.” I pick up the ladle, mostly because I need something to hold that is not her. “I am very comfortable with the wording.”
“Do not be smug.”
“I am not smug. I am owned.”
Mandy gives me a look, but there is colour in her cheeks and no panic in her eyes.
Before I can say anything else, someone asks for two baked apples and extra custard, and the afternoon carries us with it.
Mandy goes back to help Alexandra. I stay at the stall with Ed, serving apples until the trays are nearly empty and the custard jug has been scraped clean. Every time I look across the green, I find her without meaning to.
Sometimes she is folding raffle tickets.
Sometimes she is laughing at something Alexandra says.
Sometimes she is looking back.
Not by accident.
By the time the crowd begins to thin, the light has softened over St Claire. Tables are being folded. Children are being coaxed into coats. The bunting lifts and falls in the breeze, damp at the edges, and the air smells of wet grass, sugar and smoke from the brazier near the tea tent.
I reach for a tray, but Ed takes it from me.
“I’ve got this,” he says.
“I can help clear down.”
“Hunter is sending some staff over to clear away now the meal has been served at the wedding.” He glances towards the raffle stall. “Go on.”
I look across the green.
Mandy is standing beside Alexandra, holding a cardboard box against her hip. Her hair has loosened in the wind, and one side of her coat collar has turned up. She looks like herself. Tired, sharp, soft in the places she pretends not to be.
“Thanks,” I say.
Ed only nods and starts stacking bowls.
I take off the apron, fold it badly and leave it on the table. Then I walk across the grass.
Alexandra sees me first.
Her face brightens with the sort of delight that should probably be licensed.
“I am being normal,” she says before I can speak.
“No one accused you of anything.”
Mandy looks at me. “Are you finished?”
“Ed released me.”
“How generous.”
Alexandra opens her mouth.
Mandy points at her. “No.”
Alexandra closes it again, but only just.
I hold out my hand. “Walk with me?”
Mandy looks at my hand.
The pause is small.
Then she puts her hand in mine.
Alexandra makes a sound that begins somewhere between joy and injury.
Mandy does not let go.
We walk away from the raffle table.
For the first few steps, I am aware of everything. The give of the grass beneath my boots. The warmth of her palm. The slight stiffness in her fingers before they settle properly between mine. The people noticing and pretending not to notice.
Mandy keeps her eyes ahead, chin lifted, colour high in her cheeks. She is not hiding. She is not laughing it off. She is walking beside me through the middle of St Claire with her hand in mine.
That is enough to make something inside me go quiet.
We pass the book stall, now reduced to three boxes and a pile of unsold thrillers. We pass the cake stand, where all that is left are crumbs. Luke is near the tea tent, helping stack chairs. He sees us, smiles once, then has the sense not to shout.
Mrs Higgins is sitting in her folding chair with Bernard at her feet.
She sees our joined hands.
Her smile is small and devastating.
Mandy narrows her eyes slightly. “Do not look that pleased, Mrs Higgins.”
“I am doing nothing of the sort, love.”
Bernard gives a sharp bark, then attempts to drag his lead towards a dropped napkin near the cake table.
“Leave it,” Mrs Higgins tells him. “You do not need paper.”
Bernard looks unconvinced.
Mandy laughs under her breath, and her hand tightens around mine.
She slows, then comes to a stop.
I stop beside her.
For a moment, neither of us says anything. The bunting stirs overhead and voices drift across the green from the stalls behind us.
Then Mandy turns to face me.
There is fear in her expression, but something else is stronger.
She reaches up and touches my jaw, her thumb brushing once over the edge of my beard.
“I do not want to disappear into someone else’s life,” she says quietly.
“You won’t.”
Her eyes hold mine. “I know that now.”
Those words mean so much more than any promise she could have made.
My throat tightens.
“Mandy.”
She rises onto her toes and kisses me.
In daylight.
In the middle of the harvest festival. Again. Just in case not everyone has seen us the first time round.
Not quickly. Not as a joke. Not with one eye on who might be watching.
Her mouth is warm and sure on mine, and for one heartbeat I am too stunned to move. Then my hand settles at her waist, and I kiss her back.
The noise around us blurs. The stalls, the grass, the church tower, the damp bunting. Everything narrows to her fingers against my jaw and the soft pressure of her body leaning into mine.
When she pulls back, her cheeks are pink, but she does not step away.
Behind us, Bernard makes another attempt at the napkin and succeeds in getting it stuck briefly to one paw. Mrs Higgins sighs with the weary love of a woman who has seen too much.
Mandy laughs.
Then she reaches for my hand again.
We walk back through the festival together, past sticky tables and folded bunting, past Luke’s quiet grin and Alexandra’s shining eyes, past Mrs Higgins and Bernard.
People look, but for once, we don’t care.
And for the first time since this whole thing began, I do not have to wonder whether she will pull away.
She is beside me.
And we are no longer hiding.