Now that she was here actually making the break she felt lighter than she could ever remember being, even with her future so uncertain.
Alex ran through her plan, such as it was.
Ben’s dad had told her that arrangements had already been made to take the boat to Bideford for repair. While it was in Tom’s friend’s boatshed being tended to, she’d get the advertisements posted. She wouldn’t see theDagalienagain and that was OK.
Now the moment had come, it wasn’t as hard as she’d imagined. She was turning a page, wondering what the first words of her next chapter would say.
One thing was for sure; she’d have to repair the straps on the ripped tarpaulin this instant before she headed back to the bookshop. The boat would end up filled with rain at this rate.
As she reached for the heavy plastic sheeting, trying to haul it over the open deck, she said her last farewell, thinking of Magnús waiting for her and wanting to get back as soon as possible. That was when she caught a glimpse of the huddled figure through the steamed porthole in the cockpit door.
‘Who’s there?’ she yelped.
Was someone sheltering from the storm? Were they hurt? Or homeless? Should she shout for help? What the hell was going on?
The cockpit door opened slowly and a pale, pinched face peered out. Alex lost her footing, staggering backwards onto the pebbles, unable to believe what she was seeing.
‘Eve?’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Fallen Mistletoe
Alex had been right about the clean-up already being underway up at the Big House, but Minty was nowhere to be seen.
‘She’s still in bed?’ Leonid quizzed Izaak as they dragged the huge mistletoe boughs into the ballroom.
‘I knocked on her bedroom door; she told me she wasn’t to be disturbed.’
Leonid shrugged. ‘That is not like her at all.’
‘So where am I putting these?’ Izaak asked, lifting his two spheres of mistletoe. They’d found them scattered all across the lawns this morning, blown from the estate’s oaks.
‘They’re festive, yes?’ said Leonid. ‘Minty will want them to be saved, for decoration.’
Izaak agreed she probably would. ‘You know it’s for kissing under?’ he asked his husband as they hung the boughs off the rusty sconces along the ballroom walls.
Izaak held one over his head and Leonid obliged him with a slow kiss to the side of his smiling mouth.
‘It’s supposed to be good luck if you hang it over your bed on your wedding night,’ Izaak told him. ‘I know we’re not newlyweds now, but should I keep one for us?’
Leonid looked at the white berries on their fragile bracts, tangled like a green chandelier. ‘You know they are poisonous?’
Izaak looked at the berries. ‘You’re sure?’
‘And they’re parasitic. They love a dying tree most of all. They thrive while it slowly decays.’
‘That’s not romantic at all,’ said Izaak.
‘Let’s have one anyway,’ Leonid told him. ‘Here, this one is good. Hang it over our bed.’ This time Leonid held aloft the ball of greenery, pulling his husband closer.
Their kiss was interrupted by the sound of Jowan stirring on the put-up bed by the fireplace at the deepest end of the room. The Christmas tree near his feet sparkled brightly in contrast to the dull look in his tired eyes.
Aldous lifted his head lazily from the covers and immediately decided he deserved a longer lie-in after the rough night they’d had.
‘Jowan? We thought you’d left already,’ Izaak said, stepping apart from his husband.
Jowan was on his feet, glancing around the room, piecing together his memories of the night before. ‘Where’s Minty?’
