The Angels' Share (14 page)

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ He was motionless, his hand still on the door knob, and I half expected him to ask for the soap as Marco had done years before. ‘I asked if I could come in and you said “Yes, OK”.’ Connor bowed his head and looked to the side but didn’t leave the small, steam-filled bathroom.

I clamped my hands around the hillocks of my wet, bubble-covered breasts, concealing them easily in my palms, but my sopping hair dumped all over my face and I could barely breathe let alone speak. I risked exposure again to clear my face and, as if his eyes had thoughts of their own, Connor snatched an ill-timed glance at my body.

‘I didn’t mean to –’

‘Can you pass me a towel?’ I made no attempt now to conceal my nakedness. In fact, I
wanted
Connor to see me. That he hadn’t made a move on me, or even hinted that he found me attractive since my return to the island as an available woman, cut deeper than I wanted to admit. I could let him off his teenage shyness and clumsy attempts at compliments as we chased each other and tumbled around Creg-ny-Varn as kids. I could even allow for temporary shock following my unexpected return, and of course there was the possibility that Connor was involved with someone else. But even if that was the case, he could have still offered a token advance or ambiguous comment to let me know what might have been. Or perhaps I was too dumb to see it.

‘Thanks.’ I took the towel from his outstretched arm and stood up, making no attempt to wrap it around my body. Water flowed from my elbows and drizzled down my back and buttocks as I stood in the bath with the soft towel pressed to my face. When wet, my hair was longer by an inch or so and I could feel the damp tendrils reaching down to my nipples, which had risen from the draught and Connor’s presence. I wondered: if I hadn’t been thinking of Marco when Connor burst in, would I be feeling like this? I answered immediately, almost audibly. Yes.

‘Connor, look at me.’ My body shuddered, as if I had absorbed the spirit of someone determined, sexy and unconcerned with respectability. There was no going back. ‘Connor?’ What did he want me to do, physically turn his head in my direction? I noticed how his chest deepened and his fists balled at his side, as if he was fighting something unfathomable. ‘I want you to look at me.’

Very briefly, although the moment seemed like a lifetime, Connor allowed himself a glance at my nakedness. His jaw tightened, his pupils dilated and there was that swallow again, as if he was forcing his feelings back down inside. Several slow blinks marked his sweeping appraisal and his gaze left my body where it had begun – just below my navel, where the tiniest of curves dropped away to the small, dark triangle that I knew would be glossy from the bath.

‘Is that it? Can’t you bear to look at me any longer?’ Disappointment drenched me as quickly as the water spiralled down the waste pipe. I tossed the towel on the floor, my body studded with water droplets. ‘Do you think I’m beautiful?’ I felt as if I was asking for a Christmas present or demanding a piece of jewellery for my birthday. What was wrong with the man? I was standing naked and wet in his bathroom, begging him to look at me, and all he could do was maintain a steady gaze at the toilet seat.

‘Ailey, don’t. You’re shocked and distressed.’ Again, as if he’d done a quick deal with the devil, Connor stole a look at me. As his eyes drew level with my breasts, I noticed the slight parting of his lips and the way he had to wipe his fingers over his top lips to rid himself of the perspiration that collected there. ‘I’ve always thought that you’re beautiful. Even when I believed you were lost for ever.’ He paused, refuelling with a deep breath. ‘If I look at you, properly, and then lose you again…’ He couldn’t find the words and so to end the sentence he left the bathroom, telling me not to take long because the food was nearly ready to eat. I towelled myself dry, pulled Connor’s robe off a hook and wrapped my body in it. It seemed like the only way to get close to him. I trod the creaky stairs like a skulking cat and padded into the kitchen where he was serving roasted vegetables and salmon.

‘Feel better now?’ He spoke brightly, as if nothing had happened, and I nodded, stealing a bursting cherry tomato.

‘Ouch!’

‘What did you expect? It’s come from the oven.’

What I actually expected obviously hadn’t entered Connor’s thoughts and so I pulled a mask over my mind and began the process of denial – something I had become expert at over the years. Don’t like it? Then pretend it didn’t happen. Simple as that.

‘You’re good to me,’ I said, wishing that he would be.

We ate with trays balanced on our knees and our conversation was spiked with apprehension, despite my efforts to obliterate the moment in the bathroom. I actually felt relief when Connor brought up the subject of my earlier shock at Creg-ny-Varn.

‘I’m a bit confused about what happened. Explain again.’ Fortunately, he was smiling and I’m not sure he knew it but the descending sun set a glint in his pale-grey eyes that gave him the look of a man intent on whipping up mischief.

‘It was simply awful. To see what that despicable Kinrade has done to my father’s library. If the wretched gardener hadn’t come snooping and caught me, I’d have gone in and resurrected the room.’

I replayed the words privately in my head, just to make sure I hadn’t really said:
As punishment, I shackled the gardener to the wall and worked him to a frenzy with my mouth before leaving him dangling, spent, satisfied.
No part of me could admit to Connor that my pulse had quickened at the sight of the library’s unusual contents. I hadn’t got a clue what most of it was for but my immediate thought was:
I’d like to learn.

‘To be honest, I wasn’t even aware that Kinrade had hired a gardener. I don’t tend to have much to do with the running of the house. All my time is taken up with the distillery.’

‘The man’s everywhere at once,’ I said, meaning Dominic. ‘I can’t seem to find out anything useful about Ethan Kinrade and if I’m to make a case against him, to get back my home, then Lewis needs something concrete to work from.’

‘Lewis?’

‘My advocate.’

‘Which firm?’

I shrugged, realising that I didn’t even know Lewis’s surname. I’d got more knowledge about his body and the sexual preferences of his wife than I had of his professional qualifications. Suddenly, my stupidity tugged me back to the root of my emotions. There was no getting away from the rush that swelled inside and, really, it was appropriate that Connor help me sift through my feelings. I was doubtful about his willingness to become involved with me so, much as I hated to admit that this bothered me, I didn’t see that I had anything to lose by confessing.

‘I’ve been having fantasies, Connor.’ I was completely changing the subject and to punctuate this, I put my knife and fork together and slid my plate onto a side table. A sudden gust of wind, heralding the onset of another bout of westerly low pressure, buffeted the side of the house, rattling the small-paned window. The fire flared within the stove as the current disturbed the draw.

‘That’s normal.’ Connor mirrored my action, his appetite obviously sated by my confession.

‘You know what you were saying about my diary? Well, I believe you’re right. And now that it’s lost, I’m choosing reality rather than fantasy.’ I fiddled with Connor’s gown. It smelled of sleep and cologne I didn’t recognise. ‘Something’s happening to me.’

‘I asked at the ferry company, by the way, and no one’s handed in your journal.’

I wanted to tell him that I already knew that; that somehow, as long as my thoughts were roaming free in the universe, my desires would continue to materialise, as indeed they were. It was a kind of karmic accident, in which need and probability had combined in the most unlikely of ways on the most unsuspecting of people.

‘I
have
to get it back. The last year of my life is in that diary. It’s a part of me.’

‘I understand,’ Connor said. For a moment, he sounded fatherly. ‘I’ll do what I can but first, it sounds like you have a more immediate problem in the form of Ethan Kinrade and his over-protective gardener. Have you thought of just confronting the man, stating your intentions?’

‘What, and give him time to defend himself?’ I realised that I sounded naïve and I’d never felt so lost or helpless but I knew for certain that laying my cards on the table in front of Kinrade would be the hardest thing I’d ever done. ‘I should probably just go back to Spain and forget about it.’

‘Forget about Creg-ny-Varn? You know that’s not possible. And besides, that would mean forgetting about us.’ Connor’s eyes paled in the light of the fattening sun as it spread on the horizon like a deflating beach ball. He stood and snapped the curtains across the small window, the unusual light causing him to squint. ‘As kids,’ he added in case I thought he was referring to our present situation.

I sighed. ‘God knows, I’ve tried.’ Again, I caused Connor to become motionless. I knew that he thought I was trying to forget us – now or then – but I didn’t make any attempt to put him right. As self-preservation, I needed him to believe that I didn’t feel anything for him – and how could I, anyway, in such a short time? It had been fourteen years, and my longing for him back then had simply been the need for a pillow fight or for someone to help me lug my homemade go-cart back up the driveway. I’d encountered him only twice since my return. Hardly cause for infatuation; barely time to recognise each other.

‘Then why come home?’

I bit my lip so hard I thought it might burst. My hair was beginning to dry and, so it wouldn’t form wiry strands or unruly clumps, I mussed my fingers down its length. Besides, it gave me time to think. Connor watched as I tugged at a knot.

‘Does he have a wife? A lover?’ I decided upon a new tack.

‘Not that I’ve seen. We may, however, get the chance to find out.’ Connor’s expression promised information. What he showed me filled me with both intrigue and fear. He reached out to the oak mantel-piece and retrieved an envelope, passing it directly to me. I slipped out a gold-edged card and read.

‘What is he playing at? Who does he think he is?’

‘Lord of the Manor, perhaps?’

‘He’s ingratiating himself and fawning to Manx society, that’s what he’s doing. It’s nothing more than a vain attempt to secure a firmer hold on my inheritance.’ I wanted to toss the invitation onto the fire but found myself gripping it tightly, a new link to Kinrade.

‘It’s a Christmas party, Ailey. Not a plan of war. I was wondering if you’d like to be my guest but obviously if you feel that strongly about –’

‘No, wait. I’d be honoured.’ I read the words again, another step closer to the workings of Kinrade’s mind. He was going to have a party.

‘Something tells me it’s not my company you’ll be after.’

‘How right you are. Any chance to wear a silly costume.’ I ran my finger under the last line of the invite and showed Connor. ‘Did you realise it was fancy dress?’ I said with a smile. In other circumstances, it would be fun.

‘Leave it to me,’ he laughed. ‘I know exactly what we can wear.’

Connor opened a bottle of wine as the afternoon drifted into evening. I wasn’t sure if we’d eaten a late lunch or an early dinner but I didn’t care as I began to relax and the wine worked its magic on my thoughts. Despite having received the invitation several weeks ago, Connor knew little more about the party.

‘Everyone who works at the estate received an invite as well as most of the island’s elite society.’

‘I didn’t,’ I remarked sourly, then I quickly realised that my employer didn’t even know of my existence yet, having entrusted the running of the house to Dominic. That in itself seemed strange, a gardener fulfilling such a role. ‘It should be
me
hosting this party, not Kinrade.’

‘Has it ever occurred to you that it was your father’s wish to leave his estate to Ethan?’ Connor’s direct question, a plain truth that I had been avoiding since I had learned of my father’s death, sank a wedge as thick as the cottage walls between us. Whose side was he on?

Connor raised his eyebrows at my lack of response. I could see he wasn’t entirely approving of my battle. ‘I came to call for you the afternoon that you disappeared.’ He leaned forward on his forearms, the skin once again exposed by pushed-up sleeves. I could see their strength, how he had changed from the young boy that once struggled to land a fish. ‘Your father said nothing to me. He just pointed out to sea. When I turned to look, he closed the door and when I asked my father or the other villagers what had happened to you and your mother, no one would talk. Not to a young boy, anyway. I soon learned not to ask and I still don’t know the truth.’

‘My mother,’ I began, surprising myself with my clipped tone, ‘had an affair. Lots of affairs, actually.’ My mind began to gallop back to the past, a place I really didn’t want to visit. ‘My father found out and kicked her off the island.’

‘How could he do that?’

‘He shamed her in every social circle from Douglas to Peel. You know how gossip travels around here. In those days, my mother would never have survived without a constant stream of invites and functions to attend. But I was a child and knew little of what was going on. All I remember is that one day my life was turned inside-out and the people I loved most in the world were gone. And then she ended up running off to Spain with a much younger man.’

‘Is she happy?’

‘Deliriously.’ I grinned on my mother’s behalf. We had carved a life for ourselves in the sunburnt country and nestled within the community as if we had been there all our lives. As a teenager, I all but forgot the Isle of Man and its dank climate. I was too busy enjoying the thrills that accompanied being a young English girl amongst hoards of sexually hungry Spanish boys. But I couldn’t tell Connor this. ‘And I was happy too. I love my mother and know that she did the best she could at the time. That’s no reason to resent a person’s choices.’

‘You said that you
were
happy. Has that changed?’ Connor shifted uneasily, perhaps expecting me to admit to restlessness.

‘I’m not happy that I’ll never see my father again. Somehow, I always believed that one day I would return and get to know him again. Sadly, I didn’t feel able to do that until I’d made something of myself.’ I sighed, allowing my arms to rise and fall heavily. ‘I wanted to impress him and now it’s too late.’