Any individual answers were lost in the deafening cheer that went up and almost raised the roof. The standing ovation inside and out of the church, where more crowds gathered, went on and on as George walked towards his father and embraced him.
Then he walked down the aisle, shaking hands and greeting people. Everyone wanted to touch him, to thank him, to offer congratulations. He was coming closer to where she sat.
At one point, the crowd parted, and he looked at her, but someone else came between them, and George turned away.
Millie left her seat quietly and walked down the side aisle. There was no need to put him on the spot; she understood all too well. He’d done exactly what she’d asked him to do. He’d found himself, his true calling. Even if that meant she had lost him. Life was bigger than a mere love story, surely.
She didn’t want to stay and watch him treat her like the next person. That was too much. So. she walked out into the warm night and made her way to the road. Everyone seemed happy, parents swung their children up in the air, people laughed, lovers snuck behind trees, exchanging little kisses.
Suzie was talking to a young man, holding hands, but when she saw Millie, she ran over, looking even more excited than before. “He was amazing, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was—he is.” Millie hugged Suzie to avoid eye contact with the girl. Eyes revealedtoo much.
“Are you going home?” Suzie introduced her young man. “Jack is running a special late water taxi. He can dropyou off.”
What a relief.Millie didn’t want to look for Evans, who was bound to be busy with the Du Montforts tonight. There was to be a grand dinner back at the house withthe duke.
Anyway, she and the Du Montforts were on different paths now. Whatever connected them was in the past. The sooner she got used to this, the better.
She gave Suzie a quick smile. “Thanks, I’ll come on the water taxi.”
Two hours later. Blue Sage Pier.
The trouble was, lots of other people needed to get home, and the water taxi took forever. It was nearly midnight before Millie disembarked at the bottom ofher jetty.
Just then Suzie called out, “Oh, sorry I forgot to tell you, the eucalyptus trees were meant to be delivered tonight. Sorry, I hope you don’t mind, I told them they could just shove them to the back of the boardwalk, behind thecottage.”
Millie waved her goodnight and walked towards her home. Suzie had to be in love; she was very forgetful lately. But the trees were the least of Millie’s concerns tonight. Her heels clicked on the wooden platform and echoed in the quiet night. Nothing but the sound of gentle waves and her heart saying softly,George, goodbye my darling George—then the lights caught her eye.
Why were the bluelights on?
When the renovations were done, she had applied for permission to fit tiny blue fairy lights on the edge of her jetty and boardwalk to stop unwary night walkers falling into the sea. Night lights weren’t allowed outside on La Canette, but these were too faint, and blue, unlikely to cause light pollution to interfere with La Canette’s Dark Sky. Even so, she’d had to sign papers promising to only put them on when absolutelynecessary.
Tonight, they were on. They made a faint, pale-blue dotted line towards the far end behind the cottage. She couldn’t remember turning them on before she’d left earlier.
Great, they just got a new seigneur, and she was already in breach of island regulations on artificiallighting.
She followed the pinpoints of light towards the back, and sure enough, there was almost a wall of trees across theboardwalk.
Except it couldn’t be twenty trees, more like forty, and they weren’t all eucalyptus.The scent of the trees carried on the warm breeze was a sweet mix of different leaves… She quickened her pace, her heels making a firm, confident sound despite the worry she felt as she reachedthe trees.
Someone was still there.
“You might like to take your shoes off,” George said softly as he came from behind the eucalyptus.
Midnight.
The potted trees had been arranged in a square, and inside, the ground was covered in a thick layer of leaves and soft sprigs. George, his own feet bare, had his trouser legs rolled up to below his knees. His dress shirt was unbuttoned, and ithung open.
Millie’s heart flipped and danced in her chest, and her stomach knotted, then dropped to her lower belly. Her breathing was dangerously shallow, and the less said about her wobbly knees, the better.
Starlight shone on George’s hair, which looked very dishevelled as if he’d been moving things around in the middle ofthe night.
“How did you get here?” she blurted out at last. Not because it was the most important question, but because it was at the top of the heap of very important questions her heart was sending up. “Why are you here, and what happened to your tuxedo? What’s going on here—why is the floor covered in leaves, and why are you here? I thought you’d be with everyone at the dinner with the Duke of … erm, and why didn’t you even look at me in the church—did you put all these trees in a square? It smells like, I don’t know, and why are you here?” There was no more oxygen, and she stopped and waited for her lungs to supplymore air.
George reached to take her fingers and held them in his hand. “I planned this with your apprentice, Suzie. She was supposed to make you come by boat to give me time. I took the fast road with Evans. My father is having dinner with the duke, and I left them because I wanted to come here. I put the trees like this to make a private room under the stars. I didn’t look at you in the church because I wouldn’t have been able to deliver the speech otherwise, and particularly not with you wearingthisdress.”
He had come closer somehow during his speech and now put his other hand in the small of her back and pulled her gently towards him. She could see his chest through the open shirt, all golden skin and a narrow trail of soft brown hairs. She remembered his chest from their night together and her tongue came out to lick her lips. She swallowed. The pressure from his hand, hot through the fine silk, woke up a tornado inside her.
