Chapter Thirty-Four
Once she’d finally deciphered Gabe’s scrawl, which made her feel like one of the Bletchley Circle codebreakers, Tess was on her feet, the sheets of paper clutched to her chest, to her fast-beating heart, as she moved from table to table.
Not stopping to say hello, her eyes on the prize, and yet the prize was nowhere to be found.
She ventured onto the dancefloor, moving through the revellers who were throwing themselves about to ‘Come On Eileen’.
He had to be there. You couldn’t just write a letter like that, declare feelings that Tess didn’t even know Gabe was capable of, then run.
Tess left the humid and febrile atmosphere of the marquee to step out onto the lawn. The night, dark and lonely after the bright jollity of the celebrations, rushed to greet her as she searched in vain.
‘Have you seen a man, a tall man, in glasses?’ she asked a young woman ferrying a tray of glasses to a kitchen at the back of the ancient stone building that had been Tess’s old college.
‘Do you want to vague that up for me?’ the woman said like she wasn’t getting paid nearly enough per hour to waitress for a lot of drunk millennials and field enquiries about someone who matched the description of about fifty other men.
But the fifty other men wouldn’t be Gabe. Wouldn’t be as smart or as handsome, or as utterly maddening as Gabe.
Tess wandered through the near-empty college. The corridors dark, the rooms shut up and the doors locked. As she rounded each corner, her spirits lifted in expectation that Gabe would be waiting for her, then her spirits would sink again because he was nowhere to be found.
She ventured out into the grounds again, to crunch over gravel paths, peer round shadowy corners and try not to die of fright each time she heard something scuttling about in the undergrowth.
All this to find someone who didn’t seem to want to be found.
You couldn’t just write a letter like that then disappear.
Just what kind of cruel game was Gabe playing with her heart?
Tess now found herself in a walled garden. There was a gate and a series of steps that led back to the lawn and there … was it just a tree moving in the breeze?
A tree that was about six foot, two inches tall and wearing a shapeless tweed jacket?
A tree that was moving further and further away from her even when Tess called his name.
She kept calling his name, but he kept moving away until she shouted, really shouted as much as she could when she was also, hell must be freezing over, running.
‘Gabe! Oh my God! Stop walking so I can stop running!’
He stopped, thank God, but Tess didn’t stop running – not until she was able to launch herself at Gabe and never doubt that he’d fail to catch her, though he did rock back from the impact as they collided.
And then she was in his arms and he was in her arms and he even pressed his lips to her very sweaty forehead.
If only they could stay like that forever, frozen in time, so they didn’t have to talk. Tess had things to say, difficult things to say, and any delay was welcome, even as she knew that the longer she left it, the harder it would be to speak her truth.
She mumbled half a truth into tweed and wished she hadn’t when Gabe stepped back and let her go so he could stare down at her sternly, so he could say, ‘You were so long reading the letter. I feared the worst.’
Tess heard herself launching into a garbled account of the reading of the letter. Focusing more on the way Gabe’s handwriting looked like a spider had dipped itself in ink then had several seizures across the pages than the contents of the letter.
But where even to start on that? The shame of what she’d done, what she’d written about The Love Library, which Gabe couldn’t have seen because if he had, he’d never have written her that letter.
Declared his love. How could he love someone who’d destroyed everything that his family had held dear for over two hundred years?
It had been so nice while it lasted: the hope, having someone – Gabe – think that he was in love with her, and now Tess was going to ruin it with two words.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice flat, resigned.
He gazed down at her, his face no longer stern but impassive. Giving nothing away. Tess dreaded what he was going to say. He’d ask her why she was sorry and then she’d have to confess …
‘I’m the one who’s sorry,’ he said earnestly.
‘Honestly, I’m sorrier. I’m so sorry,’ Tess said, hugging Gabe tightly again while she was still allowed to do so. The familiar smell of him didn’t make her want to sneeze but hug him even tighter. And kiss him. Yes, definitely kiss him.
But his hands were on her shoulders to gently push her away, but only so she could see the grave expression on his face.
‘It’s not possible,’ he said, the faintest of smiles appearing then disappearing. ‘I am the sorriest.’
‘I’m not going to have an argument with you about who’s the bigger idiot.
You don’t know what I’ve done,’ Tess said sadly, taking Gabe by the hand so she could lead him to a wooden bench a few metres away so they could sit side by side.
Then, still holding his hand, she brought it up to her cheek and he did the rest, caressing her face with the back of his fingers.
‘I’ve missed you. I’ve even missed arguing with you. ’
‘I don’t want to argue with you ever again,’ Gabe said but Tess shook her head.
She managed a vague approximation of a smile. ‘A very wise woman, Jane Austen, maybe you’ve heard of her, once wrote, “is not general incivility the very essence of love?’’ ’
Gabe nodded. ‘The wisest woman.’
In the faded light of the garden, he threw her a look, a disbelieving, incredulous look. As though he couldn’t quite comprehend that they were together again and also like he’d used up all his words in the letter and didn’t have anything else to say.
Luckily, Tess had plenty of words for both of them.
‘I’m sorry … No, let me say this,’ she insisted, her fingers pressing against Gabe’s lips when he tried to protest. ‘I’m really sorry that, in the end, I was the one who sabotaged The Love Library with the piece I wrote.
I felt so guilty about it. You obviously haven’t seen it … ’
‘I have seen it,’ Gabe interrupted. ‘And … Oh, Tess …’
‘But … why … how could you write me a letter like that after you’ve read all those mean things in my piece? It’s just that I was still so angry …’
‘You had every right to be angry. I realise now that we’d both fallen foul of the miscommunication trope.
Not my favourite trope but at least it’s not as bad as the secret baby trope,’ Gabe said and it was fucking adorable to hear him talking common tropes in romantic literature.
Did he feel the same way when she was making one of her alliterative philosopher jokes?
‘Honestly, when I read your first article as the new senior writer for The Sunday Courier, all I felt was pride. They’re lucky to have you. ’
OK, that had gone a lot better than Tess could have imagined. But even so … ‘Does Ella hate me very much?’
‘She doesn’t hate you at all,’ Gabe assured her, their fingers entwined again. ‘In fact, she reckons that she owes you a gift basket. After your piece – and congratulations on the new job, by the way – and again, I’m so proud of you …’
‘Thank you. I still can’t quite believe that I’m a proper writer,’ Tess said even though she’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to do that anymore.
‘You’ve always been a proper writer,’ Gabe said sternly, then his expression softened.
‘Anyway, after your piece, the personal attaché of the ruler of a small, oil-rich principality got in touch. His oldest son was about to celebrate his seventh birthday and he’s absolutely obsessed with Winnie-the-Pooh. ’
‘No,’ Tess breathed. ‘You didn’t.’
‘We did. We even did the DBS checks, which took years off my life, and recreated One Hundred Acre Wood in the well-appointed back garden of their London residence,’ Gabe said with a slightly smug smile. ‘That’s going to pay for a new roof.’
‘A new roof is good but what about the damp in the basement?’ Tess asked because she was pleased that she hadn’t fucked everything up. But even so, she’d fucked a lot up.
‘Well, the ruler’s brother-in-law has his own oil-rich principality and a nine-year-old daughter who lives and breathes Anne of Green Gables.
I have to say that Miss Anne Shirley is genuinely one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met,’ Gabe said, which made Tess suck in an outraged breath.
‘Still that’s going to pay for a damp course, and the library lives to fight another day. ’
‘But The Love Library isn’t?’ Tess leaned into Gabe’s side and he immediately put his arm around her. ‘Even Ella has to admit that there isn’t one eligible bachelor to be had in any of your books.’
‘Well, hundreds and hundreds of impressionable women and quite a few men would beg to differ,’ Gabe said. ‘We’ve been inundated. They’re even happy to sign personal indemnity waivers.’
Tess couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘What? Is this where you’re messing with me because you are actually a tiny bit mad at me for dissing you in print?’
‘Not in the slightest. It’s the bit where we have actual merch now.’ Gabe slipped his free hand into the pocket of his shapeless tweed jacket, Tess had even missed that too, and handed her an enamel badge in the shape of a broken heart with a little slogan stamped on it.
‘ “But I can change him!’” she read out loud. ‘Oh dear. No. You can not change him.’
‘But you’ve changed me,’ Gabe said softly. ‘You’ve made me do the work and I’m all the better for it.’