Chapter Thirty-Six
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I stir around dawn and shortly afterwards, Ash does too. We lie side by side in bed, both wide awake, neither of us speaking.
Then, without warning, he flings his side of the cover back and slides out of bed, feet first. As he leaves the room, I notice that he’s wearing a dark grey T-shirt and black boxer shorts.
He uses the bathroom and heads into the kitchen. I hear him filling the kettle.
Fuck, this is so weird.
I remind myself that I am still attracted to him. And I like the way he smells, even if it’s different. It’s just soap. They’re just muscles. It’s just hair.
I remember what Ash said to me when I was trying to make sense of his interchangeable accents. I thought he was like two different people and he corrected me: Not two people. One. This is me, Ellie. You met me. You know me.
This Ash might act, look and smell different, but he’s still Ash. I’ve simply got to get to know this new version of him.
I sit up, just as he comes back into the room with two mugs of tea.
‘Thank you,’ I say, accepting one.
He eyes his side of the bed, seeming to hesitate.
‘Let me hold that for you,’ I offer, reaching forward to take his mug.
I’m not sure he felt comfortable coming back to bed.
He lets me take his mug and returns to stretch out beside me, propping up his pillow.
We sit there in silence, sipping our tea.
‘If you have a hot shower, why did you swim in the river?’ I ask, puzzled.
‘I think it’s kind of obvious I needed to cool off,’ he replies gruffly.
I throw him a smile. ‘Where do you do your washing?’
‘Sometimes in the river. Sometimes at a laundrette.’ He glances at me to gauge my reaction.
‘It’s like we’ve gone back in time,’ I reply with amusement.
‘This life is not for everyone.’
‘It’s your dream, though, right? To be a hermit in the woods? Off-grid?’
‘And your worst nightmare.’
‘Not at all. What makes you say that?’ I ask with a frown.
‘Come on,’ he mutters.
‘All I need is a hot tub.’
‘Ellie, please be serious.’
‘I am. I’ve become kind of reclusive myself, you know.’
He turns his face towards me, his expression dubious.
‘I’m not on social media, I don’t watch the news, my best friends are audiobooks – I only recently replaced my Nokia with an iPhone so I could listen to books and music on my drive to work. I like my colleagues, but we hardly ever socialise outside of work.’
I’d love to know what’s going through his mind, but he averts his gaze and finishes his tea, climbing back out of bed.
‘I’ll go throw on some logs to heat the shower.’
‘Shall I make us breakfast?’ I call after him.
He pokes his head back around the door frame. ‘How about a walk first?’
‘Okay.’
‘Are those the only other shoes you have with you?’ he asks a few minutes later when I join him.
He’s standing just outside the front door, wearing his big black boots.
‘I thought I was spending a week in an upmarket seaside town. I wanted to look nice.’
He eyes my high-heeled ankle boots circumspectly. ‘You’re going to get them muddy,’ he warns.
I shrug. ‘Mud comes off. At least they’re not white,’ I say, thinking ruefully of my trainers, which are still too wet to wear.
My Renault ZOE is parked behind his shed, and now I can see that there’s a dirt track beyond it.
‘So your car and bike are in the shed. Anything else?’
‘Only a few things in boxes that I didn’t want to throw out.’
‘What, like family heirlooms?’
He shakes his head as we walk in the direction of the track.
‘I didn’t keep anything for myself.’
‘Nothing for your children?’
‘My mother can pass on what she likes. If I have kids,’ he adds tonelessly.
‘Do you want them?’
‘Maybe. One day. But I couldn’t raise a family out here. It’s too isolated.’
‘Nah, it’s just a bit too small. You’d have to build an extension.’
He throws me a wry look.
‘Did you fell all those trees?’ I nod towards the clearing we’re walking alongside.
He snorts out a laugh. I’m taking it as a solid no.
‘How else did you get the wood for the cabin?’
‘I own a sawmill, Ellie. How do you think?’
‘Oh.’ My face heats up as I giggle.
I may have just made myself look stupid, but the sound of his amusement gives me such a rush.
A thought occurs to me. ‘So people do know where you are.’
‘How do you figure that?’
‘You must’ve had the wood delivered …’
‘No, I brought it myself.’
‘Ah. Sneaky.’
He snorts again.
The air feels so fresh. It smells of rainfall, wet grass and damp earth. My favourite kinds of smells.
‘Man, those birds are loud,’ I say, looking up at the treetops. ‘What are they?’
‘Starlings.’ He pauses. ‘Have you ever seen a murmuration?’
‘A what?’
‘I’ll show you later.’
I smile to myself. With every moment we spend together, he’s starting to feel a bit more familiar.
We return to the cabin after a while because my blisters are beginning to burn. Ash says he thinks he has a box of plasters in his garage, so I hover by the door while he looks through a plastic container at the back. His bike is parked up at the front and I feel a pang of longing as I stare at it.
‘I’m guessing you got rid of my bike gear.’
He glances over at me, mid-rummaging. ‘Why, you feel like going for a ride?’
I look at him hopefully. ‘I’d love to.’
He shakes his head, finally locating what he’s looking for. ‘I only kept what I needed,’ he says as he makes his way back out of the garage and hands me a box.
‘Thanks.’
I sit on a log outside the cabin and pull off my boots and socks, applying plasters to my rubbed-raw skin. I have two blisters now and they really bloody hurt.
‘Is there a shoe shop anywhere nearby?’ I call through the door.
Ash walks over and leans against the door frame, a mug of coffee in his hands. He’s wearing black jeans and a blue checked flannel shirt over a white T-shirt.
Yep, definitely still attracted to him.
‘Not in Knighton. Why? You thinking of getting some walking shoes?’
‘I could do with something to wear for the week.’ I left my outdoor boots at home, assuming trainers would be fine for beachside strolls.
‘You might find some in Kington, but I’m not sure any will be open today.’ It’s Sunday.
‘Kington? Knighton? That’s confusing.’
‘Knighton is the nearest town, but Kington is bigger. It’s across the English border, about twenty minutes away. You could always order some to come next-day delivery.’
‘You get mail delivered here?’ I ask with surprise.
‘No. I have a post office box in Kington. I’ll give you the address.’
He disappears inside.
I get up and look at the few metres between where I’m standing and the door. Could I make a jump for it? Save me putting my boots back on?
I take one giant stride, trying to land on my tiptoes, and then another, just as he reappears at the door. I crash straight into the hard wall that is his chest.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asks with amusement, steadying me with his hands.
‘Trying not to get my feet dirty,’ I mumble, my face flushing as I meet his eyes.
He looks down. ‘Yeah, that did not work.’
I glance at his right hand – his grip feels different to his left – and see that he’s holding an iPhone.
‘You have an iPhone ?’
‘Why are you shocked?’ he asks, his hands fixing me in place as he takes a step backwards, putting distance between us again.
‘I thought you were a hermit in the woods.’
‘Hermits like music too, you know. At least, this one does.’
‘Does anyone have your number?’ I ask as I follow him inside, brushing off my feet and subsequently cringing at the state of my hands.
‘I’m on a WhatsApp group with some amateur astronomers.’
‘No one else?’ I ask as I wash my hands at the sink.
‘Who are you thinking of?’
‘Beca?’ I glance over my shoulder at him.
He instantly looks weary. ‘She’s got my post office box address in Kington. We’ve exchanged birthday and Christmas cards, but we haven’t spoken in nearly a year.’
‘Why not?’ I ask nervously.
He sighs and nods at the butterfly chairs.
I notice a second mug of steaming coffee on the table and pick it up with a thanks before taking a seat, facing him.
He releases another long, heavy breath and meets my eyes. ‘She tried really, really hard to convince me not to sell,’ he confides.
‘But you did anyway.’
‘Yep.’
‘And she wasn’t happy?’
‘No.’
‘I contacted her on Instagram,’ I admit.
‘Did you?’ He’s taken aback.
‘Late Friday night. I haven’t checked to see if she’s replied.’
‘If she has, she wouldn’t be able to tell you much – only my postal address. I don’t pick up my mail very often.’
I stare down at my coffee. ‘I saw her that day, the day I left. I came up to the cabin to say goodbye and you were in each other’s arms on the sofa.’
I lift my eyes to see him cocking his head to one side with confusion.
‘We weren’t doing anything wrong. I was upset. She was comforting me.’
‘I know. I heard. She told you to let me go, pointed out I didn’t want that life and you should respect my decision.’
‘All of which was true. Doesn’t mean I listened to her. I came down to the cottage to try to talk to you. I couldn’t believe you’d already gone.’
‘I couldn’t stay,’ I reply dully.
He shakes his head and looks away, his jaw muscles tense.
‘Sometimes I wonder how things might’ve panned out if you’d come to Berkeley Hall six months earlier,’ he says.
‘Before you and Beca got together?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I probably still would have struggled with your friendship,’ I admit.
‘How?’
‘You suspected she had feelings for you when you were interrailing – you told me about it on the beach. I would have been on edge every time you put her first, knowing that she wanted you and that one day you might realise you wanted her too.’
‘No one ever held a candle up to you,’ he states gently but firmly.
My heart squeezes at his words, but the vice around it tightens. ‘You prioritised her over me time and time again.’
He frowns. ‘I was just trying—’
‘I know you wanted to repair your friendship. I know it was important to you. I understood it then and I understand it now. But it was hard for me, Ash. I felt like I was drowning and you weren’t there for me.’
Compassion clouds his eyes and he sits forward in his seat, giving me his full attention. I’m leaning back in mine, my legs crossed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says quietly. ‘I was going through so much myself.’
‘And I know you didn’t feel like I was there for you either.’
‘It was a stressful time,’ he agrees, reaching out to brush the back of his hand tenderly across the side of my knee.
I uncross my legs and place my foot on the corner of his chair.
‘I don’t know if you remember much about that day, but I’d gone to see my father,’ he says. ‘He told me a piece of family history that he had previously kept to himself,’ he adds ominously.
I’m all ears.
He reclines in his chair again. ‘My mother always said that our house had driven my grandfather into the ground. I didn’t think she meant literally. My father told me that his father committed suicide.’
I breathe in sharply.
‘He overdosed on tablets and drank himself to death. My father was twelve.’
‘Shit. I’m so sorry.’ I move my foot closer to his leg so we’re touching.
‘There’s more.’ He covers my foot with his hand. ‘His grandfather got into gambling debt and hanged himself.’
‘Oh, Ash .’
‘It was all hushed up, of course,’ he continues with a sigh. ‘A stroke might’ve taken my father out in the end, but he wasn’t healthy. He drank too much, his blood pressure was sky-high. He told me that he needed to fuck other women to relax himself.’ His tone has grown bitter, but his thumb has started making slow circles across the top of my foot. ‘Hugo was the same, but he also got his relief by being reckless.’
‘Was his death definitely an accident?’ I ask cautiously.
He nods. ‘My brother was too narcissistic to take his own life. But the point is, the pressure was too much for them. All of them. My father thought that by telling me about my grandfather and great-grandfather, it would stiffen my resolve and I’d get on and do my duty, and he was right. But not in the way he was expecting.’
His tone has softened a little. He curves his hand around the back of my ankle and lifts my foot to lay it in his lap. My insides feel jittery, but I rest my head back on my chair, watching him, waiting for him to go on.
‘I didn’t sell the house because I couldn’t handle the pressure, or because I wanted the money. I wasn’t weak or desperate like my mother and the society press made out. But even if I knew I could’ve handled the responsibility myself, why the hell would I want to pass on that legacy to my kids?’ He shakes his head and meets my eyes. ‘Somebody had to say enough was enough.’
My heart is so full of love for him right now.
‘Wow,’ I murmur, lifting my head. ‘That must have taken so much courage.’
He maintains our eye contact.
‘I wish I’d been there for you through all of that.’
‘I wish you had been too,’ he says. ‘Anyway.’ His tone changes, grows a little lighter. ‘You don’t have to worry about Beca any more. Her interest in me went along with my title.’
‘Bullshit.’
He raises an eyebrow at me.
‘You don’t just fall out of love with someone because they’re no longer a viscount,’ I say. ‘Especially when that someone is you.’
He lets out a small laugh before his expression grows serious and he tries to explain. ‘Beca grew up in a big house with a title of her own – that was the lifestyle she felt comfortable with. This sort of thing would have scared the shit out of her.’ He waves his hand at our surroundings. ‘When I needed to escape to the cabin or out on the bike, she’d get spooked. She felt as though she didn’t really know me. And honestly? She didn’t.’ He sighs. ‘I’m not saying she doesn’t still care about me, but her feelings are a hundred per cent platonic. My title, and all the responsibilities that came with it, was the part of me that Beca understood. Without it, I’m no longer someone she could see herself growing old with.’
‘Does any part of you regret it?’
‘What, selling the house?’ he asks.
‘Yes, and revoking your title.’
He shakes his head. ‘It’s a relief to know that the house is in safe hands. The National Trust will look after it and that makes me proud.’
I love hearing him talk like this. ‘What about your title?’ I ask. ‘Why did you do that, by the way? Was it something you had to do when you sold the house?’
‘No, it was a choice. I didn’t need it, didn’t want it.’
‘What if your kids do?’
‘Then I won’t have done a very good job at parenting.’
I grin at him.
His eyes crinkle.
I lean forward and touch my hand to his bristles. ‘I can’t see your smile unless you show me your teeth.’
He throws his head back and laughs. The sound makes me feel so light-headed.
‘I can shave if you like,’ he offers.
‘I’ll take you however you come,’ I reply.