He shakes his head, his eyes bright with tears.
‘Is anyone hurt?’
‘Everyone’s fine,’ he assures me. ‘It’s okay, I’ll sort it out.’
‘Ash. I need you to tell me what’s wrong. I can’t trust you if you keep things from me.’
He sits down on the edge of the bed, looking utterly traumatised as he meets my eyes. I sink down beside him.
‘He’s threatening to sell the land. The cottages and sawmill.’
‘Oh, Ash,’ I murmur, a wave of nausea sweeping through me.
‘Owain and Gwen have lived at number one for thirty years. We’ve supported our workers for over a century, provided jobs and housing for generations. The sawmill and workshop are a family business, the sort of family business I would have given anything to be a part of. It’s what I’m most proud of and he wants to throw it all away.’
He’s on the verge of breaking down.
‘Does he need the money?’
‘Things are tight, but we could make other cutbacks, or he could parcel off a different piece of land. He’s doing it to get to me. He says he’ll put this place on the market too.’
‘Why would he want to hurt you so much? He’s your father!’
The look on his face is tearing me apart.
He lets out the saddest of laughs. ‘He claimed to be doing it for my benefit. He said he has to do something to make me see sense.’
‘See sense about what?’
‘You. Beca.’ His voice has become a monotone.
‘What about Beca?’ I can hardly stand to ask.
‘He said if I give you up and marry her, he’ll sign over the sawmill and cottages to me now. Along with this place.’
There’s a vice around my throat, tightening, suffocating.
‘I won’t do it,’ Ash says vehemently. ‘I won’t give you up. But though it kills me to say it,’ and now his eyes are bright with agony, ‘I think you should look for another job.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Europe is burning. Wildfires are tearing through France, Spain and Portugal, and smoke from the latter can be seen in Lisbon and smelled hundreds of miles away in Madrid.
At Berkeley Hall our lawn is crisp and brown and the fields are yellow. I arrived in paradise in May, but now, in August, there’s an end-of-the-world feel about the place.
Our garden beds are hanging on, though, and some of our plants are thriving. While everyone else has to deal with hosepipe bans, we draw water from the lake and irrigate at dawn, trying to be mindful of visitors who aren’t so lucky.
I’ve applied for three new jobs and I’ve interviewed for two. I tried to keep them to a one-hour driving distance, but when I saw that the National Trust had an assistant head gardener position going at Hidcote Manor Garden in Gloucestershire, in the North Cotswolds, I couldn’t resist giving it a shot.
Ash has retreated into himself, so wracked with guilt over his father’s threats that he’s driven himself sick with worry. I’ve been carrying a horrible sense of dread in my stomach, too, my heart pounding at the thought of running into Peter Berkeley again.
An estate agent came to view the cottages a few days agoand word has spread amongst my colleagues. Every time I walk into a room, people stop talking.
And while I’ve been quaking in my boots, Beca has been Ash’s pillar of strength. Yesterday I arrived at the cabin to see a car parked in the woods and when I approached the front door, I could hear Ash laughing.
He stopped when I knocked, of course, and Beca left immediately, looking uncomfortable, but I could see how much lighter he seemed, the way the heaviness had lifted from him, if only for a short while.
It’s hard to console each other when we’re both consumed with the dark cloud looming over us. We haven’t had sex in three days, and the last time we did, I could tell Ash had other things on his mind. We can no longer lose ourselves in each other. We’re too caught up in the outside world.
