Runaway Wife (37 page)

“This is not a gift I can accept,” he told her gently. “This painting is more than just a work of art, it’s the link between you and your father that has kept you united all these years. It’s the one thing you wouldn’t part with, not for your husband, not for me or for money, and it’s the image that he never let go of. I could never take this, Rose. It belongs to you and John, and that’s where it must stay. Besides,” he said as he reached into his pocket, “there is something I want to show you.”

Frasier took a square of folded paper out of his inner jacket pocket and handed it to her. Her hands trembled as she carefully unfolded it. Rose gasped as she realized what she was looking at. It was the copy of the sketch of
Dearest Rose
. The very same one Frasier had shown her on that first day, the day they had met.

“You see?” Frasier said. “You don’t need to give me your painting. I’ve been carrying you next to my heart for all these years.”

Rose looked away, uncertain what to say or even think. The hope that Frasier might feel even a little of what she felt for him was so excruciatingly fragile that now, at this critical moment, she almost wanted to turn away from knowing.

“But . . . but I wanted to say thank you,” Rose said, “and I can’t think of how else to do it. I’ve planned to give it to you for a very long time.”

“I know,” Frasier replied, reaching out to cup her face in the palm of his hand. “But I am certain that in your heart you don’t want to part with it. And you don’t have to. Just to see it with my own eyes is enough. And to know you is more than enough.”

Rose leant her cheek into his touch, unable to look him in the eye as she felt him examining her, terrified.

“Rose . . .” Frasier said, struggling to form the words that he himself was unsure of, “. . . I don’t understand the way I’m feeling right now. I thought I had everything sorted out and settled in my life. I thought that I knew where I was going, what I was doing, and that I’d put a single hour with a woman I barely knew but could never forget behind me at long last.” Frasier moved his hand just a little, lifting Rose’s chin so she couldn’t help but look at him, and the expression she saw in his face made her catch her breath. “But since I’ve met you again, all that’s turned on its head and I’m back in your house, sitting at your kitchen table, looking at you and believing that, as incredible as it seems, for the first time in my life I’ve fallen in love. And it’s true. I can’t hide from it anymore, Rose. I love you. I loved you then, I love you now. I think I always have.”

Rose couldn’t speak, so she simply nodded, her whole body trembling.

“I’m sorry,” Frasier said. “This is the last thing you need now. Me declaring my heart to you when you have so much to face, with your husband, your father. I just had to speak out, Rose, because it’s so damn obvious to everyone in the world except you. Even Cecily noticed it. I was doing such a damn terrible job of pretending otherwise, and much as I don’t want to hurt her, I’m too tired to pretend any longer.” Reluctantly Frasier took his hand away from her face, smiling ruefully. “Please don’t feel that you have to do anything to reciprocate.”

“Reciprocate?” Rose said, reaching out to touch his arm with the tips of her fingers. “You idiot, how can you possibly not know that I feel just exactly the same? That I’ve hoped and longed just to be in the same room as you for years and years, and now I just can’t believe that it’s true. I feel the same
way, Frasier, of course I do. I always have, I have always loved you too.”

There was a moment, the briefest moment, of separation between them and then Frasier reached out, picked up her hand in his own, and drew her close to him.

Softly, slowly and with infinite care, he kissed her, so lightly that the embrace was barely there, and yet Rose felt it with every particle of her body, years of repressed longing surging through her like a tidal wave. There was no uncertainty here, no fear. This was nothing like the reckless experimental kissing she had tried with Ted. All Rose felt now was the overwhelming sense that finally she was where she belonged. For so long she had thought herself in love with a fairy-tale prince, a perfect creation of her starved imagination, but now, now she knew that the love she felt for Frasier was real, because finally she knew the real man behind her dreams, and he was more wonderful in reality than she could ever have dreamt of.

“I feel like you might break in my hands, you are so delicate,” Frasier whispered, breathless with love for her.

“I’m not so delicate that you can’t kiss me again,” Rose whispered, leaning into his embrace, this time their kisses a little bolder, a little more insistent. Then Frasier withdrew.

“There’s no need to hurry this,” he said. “Not after we’ve waited so long.”

“Have you changed your mind?” Rose asked him anxiously, always prepared for the worst.

“No, no . . . God, Rose, not at all. There’s nothing I’d like more than to take you to bed right now. But you, you’ve been through so much, and me, I’ve waited almost eight years to have this moment, this lifetime with you. I don’t want to rush it. Everything has to be just right before we are truly together.
There are people who deserve our honorable treatment: Cecily, your father, Maddie. And, most important, you. You are like a flower, a rose, too easily crushed, and I won’t let either one of us putting a foot wrong in a rush to be together endanger you or what we might have here.” He smiled, drawing her into his arms and holding her tight, kissing her hair. “It’s too wonderful, too miraculous, to be able to love you at last and for you to love me back, for me to let any little detail spoil it. So I’m going to kiss you once more, dearest Rose, and then we will say good night, and if I sleep tonight, which is unlikely, it will be knowing that I’ve fallen in love with the woman I’ve always been in love with, and in the morning I can start making everything right so that we can be together for the rest of our lives.”

“Really? Do you really mean it? Richard will make it difficult, you know. He will still want to hurt me, punish me for leaving him.”

“He can try,” Frasier said, “but with me at your side he won’t have a chance. And besides, you are much stronger than you realize, Rose. Look at all you’ve conquered so far just to be here. I would say that makes you positively formidable.”

Frasier climbed to his feet and took Rose’s hand to help her up.

“Good night, Rose,” he said, escorting her up the first flight of stairs.

“I feel happy,” Rose said, her brow wrinkling as she took the first step up to her room. “I always worry when I feel happy, something always goes wrong.”

“Not this time,” Frasier said. “I swear it to you. Good night, my love.”

“Good night, Frasier,” Rose said.

When, at last, she slipped under her covers, feeling the
cool sheets against her skin and knowing that Frasier was only one floor beneath, and Maddie was sleeping peacefully at her side, Rose did indeed feel happy. Happier than she could ever remember feeling before in her entire adult life, because for the first time, at last, she had a future she could truly look forward to.

“Y
ou are humming, Mum,” Maddie said as Rose did her best to brush her hair into some sort of style before breakfast. “Why are you humming?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said happily, thinking of the last few seconds when the tips of her fingers had touched Frasier’s on the banister last night. “It’s a beautiful morning, we’ve moving up to Storm Cottage, you are a wonderful daughter. I feel happy, I suppose.”

“Me too,” Maddie said thoughtfully. “I feel happy too, although I
will
miss Jenny’s cooking.”

“Come on, then,” Rose said, holding her hand out to Maddie. “Let’s go and get one last Jenny special breakfast.”

Rose and Maddie were chattering happily away to each other as they walked into the dining room to find Frasier already sitting at a table. Seated opposite, much to Rose’s surprise and dismay, was Ted. Instantly Rose’s quiet contentment transformed into repressed anxiety. What was Ted doing here? What did he want and, more important, what was he planning to say and to whom?

Keep calm, Rose told herself. This, after all, is where Ted’s mum lives. He’s got every right to be here and probably it’s got nothing at all to do with you.

Both men looked up when they saw Rose and Maddie, smiles breaking across their faces.

“Rose,” Frasier said simply, keeping his promise to keep their attachment a secret until all obstacles had been resolved, not that he needed to say a word: it was in his eyes and as clear as day. It was rather thrilling, Rose thought, like being in an Austen novel, two secret lovers exchanging nothing more than longing looks and the occasional touch. However, Ted sitting right across the table from Frasier did rather put a dampener on the thrill. Rose could sense that he had come with a purpose, and that it had something very much to do with her. It would be all right, Rose told herself. Ted was her friend, he wouldn’t set out to hurt her.

“Hi, Rose,” Ted said, half getting out of his chair as she approached. She would have sat at another table but Maddie went straight over and sat next to Frasier. “I’m glad I caught you before you left the B and B to move in with your dad.”

“Oh?” Rose said, doing her best to appear unconcerned about why that might be.

“Did your girlfriend kill you?” Maddie interrupted Ted, talking to Frasier with genuine curiosity.

“Not yet,” Frasier said, glancing at Rose and smiling. “Perhaps later. Almost certainly later.”

“I hope not,” Maddie said. “I quite like you.”

“I was hoping for a quick word,” Ted said, as Rose sat down reluctantly next to him, instantly drawing Frasier’s interest away from his bacon. “In private, please?”

“And what have you got to talk to Rose about in private, young man?” Jenny asked him mistrustfully as she appeared with a pot of fresh tea.

“Well, if I told you it wouldn’t be private, would it?” Ted told her, winking at Maddie, who giggled. “Have you got
a minute, Rose? Maybe we could have a quick chat in the annex.”

“In the annex?” Jenny exclaimed, irritated. “In the annex? You know what you are, Ted? You are no better than you should be.”

“Yeah, right, Mum. Still got no idea what you mean by that,” Ted said, clearly keen to say whatever it was he had come here to say. “Rose? If you don’t mind?”

“Um, OK . . . well, just for a minute,” Rose said, smiling weakly at a concerned-looking Frasier, whose brow furrowed as he watched Rose disappear with Ted.

“Mum’s always going off with Ted,” Rose heard Maddie say as Ted followed her out of the room, indulging in her habit of saying things just for the dramatic sake of it. “It’s like they’ve got a secret or something.”

•  •  •

“Ted, look . . .” Rose began as soon as they were alone, eager to get this sorted and to return to Frasier. “It’s fine. You don’t have to say anything.”

“I do,” Ted insisted. “I have to say I’m sorry.” Rose waited for him to say more, but he faltered, gazing up at the battered fringed lampshade for inspiration.

“OK, great. Never mind, let’s forget about it,” Rose said, but before she could turn back, Ted was talking again.

“I’m sorry that I walked in the other direction the other day and pretended that I hadn’t seen you when I obviously had. And I’m sorry that I haven’t got in touch since the other night. You must think I’m a right dick.”

“It’s OK,” Rose repeated, edging towards the door. “You don’t have to be sorry, you don’t have to explain. I get it. We got a bit carried away—I got a bit carried away—let’s just forget about it and move on, right?”

Ted stared at her aghast. “That’s not what I’m trying to say at all.”

“What?” Rose asked him, looking longingly at the exit, which Ted was blocking. “Pardon?”

“You’ve got to me,” Ted said simply. “That’s why I never got in touch, after . . . the last time. I was trying to get my head round it. And to be honest, it’s taken me this long to pluck up the courage to tell you.”

“Oh,” Rose said, reluctant to hurt someone who’d been so kind to her. “Oh, Ted. I’m so sorry . . .”

“Please don’t tell me you don’t feel it too,” he said unhappily. “I know you did, because it would be impossible for me to feel something so strongly that was only one-sided, I know it would.”

“For a moment I did,” Rose said as carefully as she could. “I thought I might feel something for you too. And I do really
care
about you, but the truth is I
don’t
feel the same way. I just don’t.”

“I know,” Ted went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “I know what you’re going to say: you’re older than me, still married, and you’ve got a kid to think about. But if you do think about it, Rose—I mean really think about it—those are just excuses. You’re going to live with your old man, so you’ll have a permanent base near me. Just right for us to get to know each other, with no pressure whatsoever.” Ted spread his hand flat in the air to emphasize his point. “And you won’t be married forever. I can help you start divorce proceedings, even take care of your ex if he annoys you.”

“Ted,” Rose tried again, wrought with guilt and regret. Never, not once, had she thought that perhaps the first ever moment of spontaneity in her life would come to this, that she’d somehow end up hurting Ted. “We can’t, I don’t want to, you see. Because I—”

Before Rose could utter another syllable, Ted had grabbed her by the arms and was attempting to kiss her. Panicking, and suddenly very afraid, Rose twisted her head away and tried her best to wriggle out of his grasp, overwhelmed in that moment by her need to get away from him, away from any man intent on forcing himself on her.

“No,” she cried. “No, no, no!”

Just at that moment, Jenny and Frasier walked into the room.

“So you think it could be like a studio, like an artist’s, perhaps for traveling painters . . . ?” Rose was dimly aware of Jenny saying just as she and Frasier came into full view.