“We both will. A lot of people will. Duncan looked so old and defeated, sitting handcuffed in the back of that ambulance. He wouldn’t look at me. Even after everything, I felt so sad for him. Which is loopy, yeah? He killed my grandfather. He tried to kill us!”
“Not at all loopy.” It was another indication of the kind of person Tom was. The lesson his grandfather taught him about grace and forgiveness might have been inadvertent, but it had sunk in.
“This place has been his entire life. And Connor is as broken as he was after the crash, which—God—wasn’t his fault. All this guilt he’s carried, for so long. I honestly don’t know whether to feel angry or sad or what.”
“Maybe it’s okay to feel both. Feel a bunch of different things, even if they contradict.”
“Connor’s the closest thing I’ve had to a brother since the… And so many of my good memories involve Duncan.”
“And you get to keep them. You don’t need to recalibrate the past. You don’t want to get to the point that the bad things cancel out the good until there are no memories left that you can bear to think about.”
“Hang on, are we talking about you or me here?”
“Why, you, of course. But yes, I’m giving advice I haven’t actually taken.”
“Good advice though.”
“And easier said than done. Like that first afternoon we had together, our first evening. It was perfect. But I can’t help looking back at our happy, carefree selves and thinking how naïve we were, given the bomb that was about to blow up under us. Which is silly, I know. I want to box up that afternoon and remember it out of context of everything else.”
“Maybe you could, somehow?”
“I definitely don’t want to cancel it out. It would be so nice to trust in life again. Trust the world. Enjoy those moments without fearing what will come next to ruin it all. Buy the damn cushion.” Sitting here beside him, feeling his thigh against hers, his arm around her, she wanted much, much more than a damn cushion, but she wasn’t about to articulate those thoughts. She had to sift through them herself first.
“Good for you.”
“I’m just not sure how to start.”
He gave her a little squeeze. “I know you’re about to go home,” he began, and once more she got a hopeful little kick in her belly, “but we can still be there for each other, even from an ocean away.”
“We can.” She would miss his hugs though. Even now, while he was actually hugging her, she felt a hollow ache at the thought of an existence without Tom’s hugs. Amazing how quickly you could get used to physical affection.
So they were choosing slow-death-by-social-media? Even after their first night together, she’d been convinced that it was, well, not love at first sight, but certainly something special. And every minute she spent with him she understood more and more where that thought had come from. Could love really be this simple—two people finding each other, being equally attracted, and figuring out the rest as they went along? Had she been overthinking it this whole time?
Love at first sight wasn’t enough to base a marriage on, like it might have been in Austen’s time, but it could be a first step to the start of something bigger. Definitely a feeling to enjoy while it lasted, and to draw out as long as possible.
All hypothetical, of course. She hadn’t allowed herself to think long term in the last year. Now, finally, she wanted to start a new chapter, maybe be open to finding someone again—butshe wanted it to be someone smart and honorable, who turned her on like she was drinking salamander brandy, and who gave out Tom-sized hugs. Was that too much to ask?
Tom kissed her hair. “I’m glad one good thing came out of it, at least.”
“Oh yes, the diamond! Holy shitballs, that was crazy. You’re set up for life!”
“Well, yes, the diamond was a definite bonus.” He took it out of his coat pocket, tossed it up and caught it, like she’d seen him do a dozen times. “All this time, I’ve been using a forty-million-pound diamond to weigh down bills I couldn’t afford to pay. I guess I should put it in the bank or wherever it is you put a stupidly valuable diamond.” He dropped it back in his pocket. “But that’s not the good thing I was referring to.” He adjusted position to face her, making the seat swing wildly, squealing. He planted his good foot on the pale flagstone floor to steady it. “Youare the best thing to come out of this, for me—meeting you.”
Her eyes burned. His sincerity almosthurt. What was that about? Because she couldn’t bring herself to hope that something could come of this? She might be sick of the holding pattern, but did she have the courage to land? When she started to trust in life again, she imagined it happening in increments, not all or nothing. She didn’t want nothing, when it came to Tom, but all wasn’t exactly an option. She absolutely didn’t want some halfway measure that would create more uncertainty in her life.
He touched the sensitive skin under her chin, and she felt breathless all over again. “And I’m not just saying that because you saved my life, on more than one occasion,” he said.
“I think we’re probably even on that count? We’d have to do a tally. A spreadsheet, even.”
He laughed. “I could kiss you.”
“You actually could?”
He leaned in for the slowest, most delicious kiss of her life. Like they had all the time in the world. Like there was no afternoon train to Bath.
“Do you think you’ll keep the estate?” she said, as they drew apart. “Or is it too soon to ask?”
He sat back, slinging an arm around her again. “Look at her,” he said, gesturing to the horseshoe-shaped back of the house with its pale-stone terrace and garden. The sun had come out, warming the stone to a shade closer to the honey of the tour flyer, and brightening the lawns to a vivid green. “It’s not often I sit back like this and actuallyseethe house. Truly see it. What a shambles. Do you know, I don’t like to be there when the tourists arrive for the Pemberley tour because you can see the disappointment on their faces. Poor doomed Miss Havisham.”
