‘So yes,’ he continued, voice flat now, ‘Ma pushed me. Thank God she did, because I’d have dithered while you slipped away. But I didn’t marry you because she told me to. I married you because I couldn’t imagine not marrying you.’
‘Hamish—’
‘I have to go. The car’s waiting.’
‘Don’t leave like this.’
‘Like what? With you thinking the absolute worst of me?’ He pulled open the door. Cold winter air rushed in. ‘I’ve spent years trying to prove I love you, Christina. I’m not sure what else I can do.’
‘You’re a patronizing arse!’ she shouted, desperation making her cruel. ‘You with your Latin and your fancy family and your ... yourcondescension! You’re a spineless snob!’
‘And you’re a chippy social climber who’d rather change everything about themselves than accept that someone might actually love you for who you are. Clearly, I got it wrong. Perhaps I shouldn’t have listened to my mother after all.’
The door slammed.
She stood there staring at the wreckage of her mother’s bowl, listening to his footsteps crunch down the gravel drive, the car door closing, the engine starting.
She sank into a chair and finally let herself cry.
In the last two years neither of them had spoken of that row, and now walking up the overgrown path to Chase Lodge, she wondered if they ever would.
The wind whipped and Christina hunched her shoulders against the bite, stamping her boots against the cold doorstep. She unlocked the door, and stepped inside, trying to shake off the memory of their argument. But that just made her think instead about the distance between them last night. She wasn’t sure which was worse: forgetting their anniversary or realising that Elspeth hadn’t. Their daughter had spotted their crumbling marriage, and Christina feared that might explain the terrible school report.
She pushed the thought away. Earlier, when Christina dropped Elspeth back at school for a tennis lesson, her daughter had seemed cheerful, bounding out of the car with her racket in hand, already chatting to another girl before the door had even closed.That school report didn’t have to be about her parents. Children had off terms. Still, the idea squatted at the back of her mind like a stone in her shoe.
Hamish walked over to the hearth and knelt. ‘You know,’ he said, brushing mortar dust from his palms, ‘this could be sixteenth century. Possibly earlier. Timber-framed under all this render. Could even be Tudor. Just needs someone to peel it all back.’
He looked up at her with that mild, studied optimism she still adored. And for a moment, she felt a flicker of something warm – because he was seeing it too. This wasn’t just her fantasy.
Of course he did. His ancestors had stayed here. She drew in a steadying breath, willing herself to stay calm. ‘So, you like it?’
Hamish tilted his head, glancing at the distended ceiling. ‘It’s interesting.’
Her heart kicked. Not quite a yes, but he hadn’t completely dismissed it.
He stroked his jaw, a noncommittal gesture. ‘It’s peaceful.’
That was enough. It wasn’t enthusiasm, exactly – but it wasn’t a ‘no’. Christina felt her shoulders relax just slightly. He could picture a future here. She was sure of it.
She forced a breath through her nose. ‘So, you think we should buy it.’
‘I didn’t say that’ he replied, too quickly. ‘I just mean ... if this would make you happy ...’
If. Alwaysif. As though her happiness was something abstract, a puzzle for her to solve alone. She could feel the weight of it sliding across the floor between them.
Christina moved to a window, trailing her fingers along the sill, where plaster curled back in thin, papery layers, a painful reminder of her unravelling marriage.
This house mattered. Something that could tether them. She’d brought him here because she believed that to fix them, they needed a fresh start, in the right house.
‘It’s got presence,’ Hamish said, stepping carefully around the rubble. ‘You can see it, can’t you ... the lords and their guests, stomping in with mud on their boots, hounds barking outside. This place wasn’t just shelter; it was part of the performance.’
‘It has charm, doesn’t it? The kind of house you don’t forget. The kind your family admires,’ she said.
‘Ernest has called a family meeting,’ he added, too casually.
The words flew out before she could catch them. ‘With your lot? That won’t be a meeting, it’ll be a bloody circus.’
She felt the flush rise in her cheeks. Old habits. She hadn’t meant to snip. She’d spentyearssoftening those edges – deliberately reshaping herself into someone calmer, steadier. Someone who didn’t roll her eyes or fire from the hip every time one of his relatives said or did something ridiculous.
