Chapter Eighteen Mercy #3
“It’s not about the weeds, Mercy.” Her gaze was locked on the seemingly lifeless plants growing up out of the ground, seeing something in those inconspicuous branches that I was incapable of.
“That’s part of it, of course. The time and attention you give the roses are what makes them so beautiful in the end.
Knowing when to prune them back, when to let them grow.
” She folded her hands in front of her. Her features didn’t look as severe today—maybe because I was used to her now.
But she did look old. And frail. I thought about what Grant’s sister had said, how she was mourning a future for her family, the one she’d always wanted.
“There’s a history to growing roses. Blooms that my mother and grandmother tended still grow in my garden.
They’ve graced the Hastings tables for generations.
We have visible proof that persistence—and effort, no matter how small—yields glorious results as long as you don’t give up too soon. ”
“What do you want from me?”
The words were out before I could stop them, bursting through a sliver of my old self that wouldn’t stay quiet. She went still, glancing down at me with a sharp glint in her eye.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m exhausted. If you’re trying to Yoda me through cryptic gardening metaphors, I’d rather have you speak plainly.”
After a thick beat of silence, she asked, “What’s Yoda?”
It started to rain. Light, misty rain, the kind she was probably used to in London. I tipped my face up, let it cool my heated skin.
“Little green guy who hates basic grammar. He’s a couple inches shorter than you are. Don’t worry, you’d terrify him too.” When she gave me an incredulous look, I rolled my eyes. “Star Wars. Movie character.”
“For God’s sake,” she muttered. “Are you quite well?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
It was raining. The Queen of England had convinced me to start growing roses. And Grant had some secret benevolent side that he’d been keeping under wraps after I’d spent years convincing myself he was anything but. And now, apparently, he was mine.
No, I wasn’t anywhere in the ballpark of well.
Lady Hastings drew herself to her full height and looked down her nose at me, an ability they likely had straight from the womb. “Why do you think we came here, Mercy?”
“For his birthday. And to see how we were together.”
“I came to test your mettle, dear,” she said unflinchingly. “Ten minutes in a room with you, and I knew something was wrong. You’ve been quiet. Restrained. Unsure.” Her gaze was piercing. “Three words I wager have never been used to describe you.”
“No, but hasn’t that made me easier to deal with?”
She did the same slow blink, eye-roll thing that Grant pulled off so well.
“It depends on your definition of easy.” Her gaze flickered up to the rain, which started coming down harder.
She shielded her face with one hand. “He’s turning himself into knots right now pretending he’s not worried sick about you.
Pretending he knows how to handle what’s going on.
No matter how you might disagree with my methods, I want my grandson to be happy.
I respect the fact that you’re healing, but it’s not just about you.
It’s about him too. I heard Rose talking to her mother as they came up the stairs. ”
My brow twitched. “About what?”
“That you thought about leaving. Staying elsewhere while you heal.”
My stomach plummeted. “Lady Hastings, I—”
“I don’t need to know your rationale. While I have come to respect you, he is my concern. If he’s not one of your priorities, for God’s sake, be honest with him. He deserves that.”
She was gone before I could pluck a response from the surge of staticky noise in my head.
I waited for the anger. For the righteous indignation to swell up and eclipse everything else.
But it never came. The rain doused the flames before they could spread.
I was trembling, not from cold and not from fear, but from the sheer size of what I was facing. Had refused to face until now. I’d been so focused on putting one foot in front of the other that I had never truly looked up.
Stretched out in front of me was an immense road, multiple forks leading in multiple directions, and it never occurred to me that there was a decision to be made.
Could I do this . . . with him? Ostensibly, I’d taken vows. Even simple ones, spoken in front of a stern-faced judge, were promises. Having and holding and all the rest of it.
In sickness. Health. Riches and poverty. Till death.
Promises meant something. Meant enough to me and Grant that we’d inked our names on a legal document.
I was here, and that meant something too.
But he was upholding the vows. Living them out.
That part was still new to me. Confusing and alarming in a way that could hardly be defined.
Terrifying to a degree that didn’t make sense.
A choice. A direction to be selected.
Even when I closed my eyes, those deceivingly ugly, thorn-filled branches grew out of the ground along the side of the path. According to her, I could make them into something beautiful.
Time. Effort. Pruning. Attention. Wouldn’t I have to do that no matter which direction I went?
I couldn’t face the Hastingses like this.
Couldn’t force my brain into submission.
Couldn’t figure out how to feel like myself, because I didn’t know what that looked like.
I couldn’t face him. The one who seemed to want more from me than I was capable of giving. Who was there. Always there. Always watching. Always surprising me.
Even though the rain was relentless now, coming down in thick sheets, soaking into my skin and hair and clothes, I strode into the yard. The grass was cool under my feet. The dirt was, too, when I sank to my knees and started pushing the mulch and soil away from the base of the roses.
I didn’t know what I was doing. Give them space to breathe, wasn’t that what she said?
That was what I’d asked for, from Grant. But now I wasn’t so sure it was wise. I couldn’t go backward, not to anyplace familiar. But moving forward seemed just as hard. Just as scary.
I moved to the next plant. And the next. My fingers were caked with dirt, my dress molded to my body. I swiped my forearm over my face when the rain became too heavy to see. The sound of someone approaching made my hands move even faster.
It was him. I knew it. Every part of my body braced for the impact.
“Mercy.”
My heart twisted painfully at the sound of my name coming from his mouth.
“You don’t call me that. You never call me that.”
I clawed at the dirt, my vision blurry. From the rain, right? It was rain. The pressure in my chest was unbearable, my breath ragged in my throat while the enormity of the past few weeks slammed into me.
“Mercy,” he said again, hands gripping mine until I had no choice but to look up. Rain dripped off his face, his chiseled features harsh and beautiful as he crouched beside me. “Stop.”
I ripped my hands from his grasp.
“Let me go,” I said harshly. There it was.
The anger. The heat. The frustration finally spilling over into something impolite and messy and loud.
“We can’t keep lying to them. You have a family and they love you.
They love me.” My voice cracked. “I don’t know who the fuck you really are and your sister’s telling me things that don’t make sense and I’m embarrassed and I don’t know why they’re talking about classrooms and buying you a bag for a teacher and apparently we have sex everywhere and I don’t want to hurt anyone.
” My voice trembled. His eyes softened, a tortured bend appearing in his brow.
If he gave me a safe place to land, I had a terrible feeling that I’d break apart. “Grant, we cannot keep doing this.”
What if there was nothing he could say? What if there wasn’t a neatly given explanation for why this was so hard and why I was confused and when I’d feel like myself again?
I pushed to my feet, and before he could answer, I was rushing toward the greenhouse for a reprieve, a break, something.
Through the beating sound of the rain, I heard a growled “Fuck.”
I ran, succumbing to a devilish impulse to see whether he’d come after me. In my thundering heart, wild and skittish and desperate for a confrontation, I knew he would.
And I was right.