For me, it had been more. Lots more.
It wasn’t just his hands on my body, or the patient way he’d undressed me. It was the way he’d listened, the way he’d understood. Even just the way he’d kissed my hair and soothed me.
I wanted that. Even if I couldn’t have it with Edward, I knew it had to be out there somewhere. And I intended to find it.
Maybe Ellie was right about one thing. It was time to stop running away – and start running towards something.
Edward got to his feet and held out a hand to pull me up. “Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for, Saskia Ryan.”
“So do I.” I took his hand, letting the sensation of his skin against mine ripple over me, one last time. “And I hope everything goes well here. With the memoirs, I mean.”
“Me too,” Edward said. “Speaking of…have you talked to your grandfather yet this morning?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think he’s surfaced yet.” The last time I’d seen him, he’d been slamming his way into his study. Given the row he’d had with Isabelle, I rather imagined he might have spent the night in there, and had no plans for coming out until tempers had cooled all round.
Edward glanced down at his watch, his palm sliding away from mine. I felt colder for the lack of contact. “What time’s your taxi coming?”
“Four o’clock,” I said, for the umpteenth time that morning.
“Then we’d better get you on your way. Let’s go find your adoring family, so we can get on with the tearful farewells,” he said, and I laughed out loud as I followed him up to the house.
It was almost a relief to settle into my seat on the nearly empty train – the first of three taking me home to Perth.
Home. Strange to think of someplace other than Rosewood as that.
I supposed I’d have to get used to it. If I’d learned nothing else that weekend, it had to be that – whatever Nathaniel thought – there wasn’t a place for me at Rosewood right now. Maybe one day I’d be welcomed back there again, but it wasn’t yet. Not with Ellie so angry, and everybody up in arms about the memoirs.
The memoirs, of course, made me think of Edward, which didn’t help matters either. But I’d only known him four days, and Ellie my whole life, so as much as I might want to go back and see him again, maybe make a better go of things than the awkwardness in the attic, she had to come first.
But I still needed to talk to Duncan. Call things off once and for all. I hadn’t been lying to Edward; I was ready for something more now. Something better.
I’d moved on from Greg, and Rosewood, and everything that had happened over the past two years. At twenty-six, I was finally ready to be a grown-up, and find my real life, at last.
The tears caught me by surprise, and I fumbled in my bag for a tissue – finding instead a book, shoved in the outside pocket of my handbag. A book I definitely hadn’t put there. I tugged it out, sniffing, and stared at the cover while I continued to feel for a tissue.
Biding Time. By Nathaniel Drury.
Of course it was. Who had slipped it in there? My bag had been left in the hall while I said my goodbyes, so anyone could have. But I could only think of two who would – Nathaniel or Edward. And Nathaniel still hadn’t surfaced to face his hangover like a man by the time I left.
I flipped through the pages, looking for a note, an explanation, anything. When nothing fell out from between the pages, I opened it at the first page and started to read.
It was then I noticed the pencil notes.
Every page was annotated in sharp, hard pencil lines. Even if I hadn’t recognised the handwriting from the table plan, I’d have known the notes were Edward’s in a heartbeat. Each questioned the reality or truth behind a fictional event in the book, and I could hear his wry humour in every one.
Biding Time was famously supposed to be the story of how Nathaniel met Isabelle, how they married, moved to Rosewood, and started their lives together. Nathaniel always claimed there was more fiction than truth in it, and Isabelle always declined to comment. Edward, however, had apparently tackled the text as the biographer that he was, looking for the real story behind the book.
Nathaniel would approve, I decided.
With the green and pleasant countryside whistling by outside the window, I turned my attention back to Biding Time, and tried to lose myself in the story. But Edward’s notes kept jumping out, distracting me. I’d read the book often enough to be familiar with the text; Edward’s notes, however, added a whole new dimension to the story.
Mostly they were factual, but every now and then one would offer more insight into Edward himself than the book. I found myself looking out for those nuggets, savouring them, considering them, and matching them up with what I already knew about him.
For instance, what did it mean when he wrote Love at first sight?! in the margin of the scene where Charles meets Bella for the first time? Was that incredulity, disbelief? Or amazement?
Did Edward believe in love at first sight? I might never get to ask him, now.
I could call him from Perth, I supposed, but what would be the point? I’d be hundreds of miles away, and he’d be tied to the one place I couldn’t go – Rosewood.
Better to make a clean break, I decided, fumbling for another tissue. The second train had rattled over the border now, anyway. I was back in Scotland. A whole other country.
I’d run away again, just like Ellie told me to.
Instead of a tissue, my fingers hit my phone this time, and I pulled it out, half hoping there might be a message, an explanation from Edward for the book. Anything to give me a connection back to Rosewood.
I blinked at the screen. Twelve missed calls. Eight voicemails. Twenty-four text messages.
As I stared, it began to ring again. And with my heart in my mouth, I answered.
“Kia?” Edward’s voice sounded too far away, the family nickname too familiar on his tongue. Just for a moment, I let myself believe that he was calling because he missed me, because he regretted how we left things, because he wanted to see me again… But only for a moment.
“Kia, I’m so sorry, sweetheart. You’ve got to come home. Now. It’s Nathaniel.”
Chapter Seven
The day of my father’s funeral was the day I began writing my first book – a new story for a changed world.
From the notebooks of Nathaniel Drury
This time, when I arrived at the station, Edward was waiting for me, despite the ungodly hour, his arms folded tight across his chest as he leaned against the window of WHSmith. The Caledonian Sleeper had whisked me back from Scotland without me ever reaching Perth, and deposited me back in Chester before seven a.m. But I couldn’t shake the thought that, for all I’d rushed straight back, shivering the whole way on the sleeper train, it was still the next day. Nathaniel had been dead since yesterday, and I was only just getting there.
Nathaniel had been dead. Was dead. Wouldn’t ever be alive again. How could that be a truth? How could I have not been there for his last moments?
And I’d spent my last minutes with him hiding in the shadows, watching him argue with Isabelle, because I’d been too ashamed of what I’d been doing in the attic with Edward. I’d missed my chance to have one last talk, one last hug, one last second with him.
Nothing about this day was right, least of all the empty feeling inside me that threatened to consume every part of me.
I lugged my case down the last few stairs before Edward spotted me and lurched forward to assist, in that way of his. Too long being Nathaniel’s assistant, I supposed. Even if that was never all he was. Even if he’d never be that again.
It was crazy to think that less than a week ago he was taking this same suitcase up the stairs to the Yellow Room. That so much could change in so little time.
“Hi.” He took the handle from me and set the suitcase straight on the concourse. He lifted one hand, as if he were about to touch me, brush my hair out of my eyes, something. Anything. I held my breath, b
ut he stopped, busying himself with figuring out the pull-along handle on the case instead. “Was the journey okay?”
“Fine,” I lied. Four hours up to Glasgow, two hours stuck in the station waiting for the train back home after his call, then eight hideous hours back again on the misleadingly named Caledonian Sleeper. “Thanks for coming to get me.” My voice was dry and cracked after the long train ride, after crying all night, after not sleeping and not speaking to anyone. Edward didn’t comment on it, although he must have noticed. Edward, I’d decided after reading his notes, noticed everything. Especially the things we wished he wouldn’t.
Just ten hours since he called me. Less than a day since my grandfather died. Less than an hour before I had to face my entire family, again.
And only two days since I almost slept with the guy wheeling my suitcase out of the station. But if he wasn’t going to mention it, neither was I.
I had heavier things on my mind.
Edward loaded my suitcase into the boot and held the passenger door open for me, when I just stood staring at it. “Are you sure you’re okay?”