“No.”
“Probably because you haven’t been gone very long.If you’re going to walk off your frustration, it might take longer than two minutes.”
Cat laughed and looked back at the cottage.“Are we okay to leave the girls alone?”
“I don’t think they’ll burn the place down and seeing as they spent hours alone today running around the estate, I’d like to believe we could walk for fifteen minutes without disaster striking.”
They were walking together now on the winding gravel road that led away from the estate through the woods, bare in winter, toward Bakewell.
“Do you ever leave them alone in London?”she asked, burying her hands in her pockets to keep them warm.
“No.If they’re not at school, Charlotte is always with them, or me, or their mum.But it’s different here.This is a private estate, and Alec has security cameras at the gates and on different roads.And then there’s Mr.Trimble patrolling the grounds.He doesn’t miss much and he’s not to be messed with.”
“So, you’ve known Mr.Trimble a long time?”
“Since I was a boy.Mrs.Booth and Mr.Trimble were here when I was growing up.Mrs.Booth was born here on the estate and her mother and her grandmother all worked here as housekeepers.They see themselves as protectors of the house and history.For them, Langley Park is as much their home as it is the Sherbournes.”
“Did you feel that way at all, since you grew up here?”
“No.At least not like that.I lived here, but I was always aware that my father worked for the earl.We were help.Not family.”
“That sounds incredibly uncomfortable.”
“More so for me than my father as he had a job here, something important to do, which gave him value.I was just his son, and I had a hard time living in Alec Sherbourne’s shadow.Alec never treated me badly, if anything he was always very civil and friendly.But we weren’t friends, despite the fact that there was just three years between us age-wise.We went to different schools, we did different things on our school holidays, we had different paths.”
“And yet you become a renowned surgeon.I would think your family is very proud of you.”
“That’s very American of you.In my family, we don’t say things like that.No one’s proud of anyone—we just get on with it.”
Her brow creased.“But didn’t you ever want someone to be proud of you?Especially after you became a leading surgeon in your field?What you’ve done, and who you’ve become is extraordinary, Rhys.”
He shrugged.“I’ve worked hard, yes.”
“Forgive me for being nosy, but how are things between you and Alec—Is that his name?The current earl?”
“Things are fine.Quite civil.Alec is still the gentleman, generous with his friends and family, and he extends courtesies to me as if we, me and my girls, are family.Or close friends.But we’re not, and it’s fine.Being the stable master’s son gave me that hunger to succeed and focused my ambition.I wouldn’t have set the goals I did if I hadn’t been raised here in Alec’s shadow.If I hadn’t seen the things he was achieving, I might not have thought I could achieve anything like that.At the time, it didn’t cross my mind that we might have had different types of intelligence.I just saw someone who in many ways looked like me, and no, he didn’t sound like me, he was definitely posh.Educated.But in other ways he didn’t seem so different, and I thought if he can be something, why can’t I?”
“So, you compete with him.”
“Not anymore but I did, when I was a teenager and facing adulthood.By then, my father had returned to Wales, and the stables had been emptied.Alec and his father both love cars, more so than horses, and so now the stable is just a garage for all the different vehicles they collect.But even that shaped me.I thought why can’t I have two cars?A big house in the country?A family with traditions?We didn’t have many traditions when I was growing up.I suppose we had them when my mum was well but after she got sick, we just tried to keep her comfortable and happy.We didn’t want her worrying about any of us, and for the most part, I think it worked.”
Cat stopped walking to face Rhys.“She died?”
“I was fourteen when she passed.She’d been ill that whole year, getting weaker and more frail, cancer eating her alive.That’s when I began to be interested in medicine.I began to research everything I could, hoping that I could somehow help her, or find some treatment that her team had overlooked.I thought if I just learned enough, and studied enough, maybe I could save her.”
“Cancer is horrible.”
“Part of me wished she had one of those cancers that takes you quickly.That she’d be diagnosed and then just gone.Instead, she fought it for years until there was no more fighting and it just consumed her.It was awful.She was beautiful and fun and full of life… until she wasn’t.”
“But you didn’t become an oncologist.”
“No, I was too bitter, too resentful.I hated cancer.Hated how dark it all was.I wanted something where I could make an immediate difference.Oncologists make a difference, they do terribly important work, but after going through those last four years with my mom I just couldn’t face a future of the same.I couldn’t face a future of losing patients that didn’t deserve such a fate.So, surgery appealed.Being a spinal surgeon appealed.You know rather quickly if you have been successful or not.I liked that.”He grimaced.“I’m not particularly patient.I don’t want to wait years for an outcome.I need to know quickly.I need to know what the course of action should be and then I want to do it.”
“And yet I would think there’s a great deal of risk in that kind of work.And that kind of medicine.”
“I suppose there is but that doesn’t bother me.I’m not afraid of risk, probably because it’s all around us.Risk and danger.I’m comfortable with that.I’m not good at being helpless or passive.”He turned to look up toward the great country house and stood there taking it all in.“It is strange being here now.Strange to have the past and the present collide.”
“Is that how it feels?”
